Blessed are the Expelled, for their Cup runneth over at the mouth.
Blessed are they who seek to know nothing, for they shall never be disappointed.
Blessed are they who who shun enlightenment, for they shall escape illumination.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for comforting words, for the supply is endless.
Blessed are they who supply easy answers, for they shall have royalties.
Blessed are the innumerate, for they shall be uncountable.
Blessed are those who, without you, dwell in darkness, for it will go away.
Blessed are the slow, for they shall never see it coming.

A few days ago we reported on a major new paper dealing with the results of a twenty year laboratory experiment in evolution. During the course of 30,000 generations of E.coli bacteria, a new and significant trait evolved, the ability to use the citrate found in the culture medium as a food source.

Comments are beginning to roll in. Car Zimmer has a rather complete description of the experiment. Pharyngula has a lengthy commentary, which is cross posted at Panda’s Thumb.

But the most amusing comment comes from Michael Behe, whose Book, The Edge of Evolution argues that traits requiring two or more coordinated mutations are beyond the power of Darwinian evolution. Behe reposts his blog at Uncommon Descent, wisely hiding behind the pseudonym “Patrick.”

Continue Reading »

From Science News via Dispatches From the Culture War, we have this news.

Science News has a report on a very cool experiment done by Dr. Richard Lenski at Michigan State (Lenski is also with the Digital Evolution Lab at MSU, along with Rob Pennock and Wes Elsberry, but this is an experiment with real bacteria, not artificial organisms). This is a really cleverly designed test of how a mutation that does not confer a survival advantage can later be coopted by a second mutation that can be selected for.

Lenski’s team watched 12 colonies of identical E. coli bacteria evolve under carefully controlled lab conditions for 20 years, which equates to more than 40,000 generations of bacteria. After every 500 generations, the researchers froze samples of bacteria. Those bacteria could later be thawed out to “replay” the evolutionary clock from that point in time.
After about 31,500 generations, one colony of bacteria evolved the novel ability to use a nutrient that E. coli normally can’t absorb from its environment. Thawed-out samples from after the 20,000-generation mark were much more likely to re-evolve this trait than earlier samples, which suggests that an unnoticed mutation that occurred around the 20,000th generation enabled the microbes to later evolve the nutrient-absorption ability through a second mutation, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Check out the links.

Upon my return from a couple days away from the computer I found I’d been summarily expelled from the inner sanctum of the “big tent”.

Here are a couple of ground rules that weren’t spelled out to me about being allowed inside the big tent:

1) Thou shalt not question the Discovery Institute, its purposes, intents, or methods.

2) Thou shalt not question that belief in Darwin’s theory on the Origin of Species made the holocaust possible.

In other words, you don’t have to believe in God but you’d better believe in the Discovery Institute and not wander off-message.

Discussion at Panda’s Thumb.

From Reuters, Via ERV, We receive news that the Turkish creationist writer has been convicted of “creating an illegal organization for personal gain.”

Oktar [aka Harun Yahya] had been tried with 17 other defendants in an Istanbul court. The verdict and sentence came after a previous trial that began in 2000 after Oktar, along with 50 members of his foundation, was arrested in 1999.

In that court case, Oktar had been charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. The charges were dropped but another court picked them up resulting in the latest case.
…
Oktar, born in 1956, is the driving force behind a richly funded movement based in Turkey that champions creationism, the belief that God literally created the world in six days as told in the Bible and the Koran.

This is becoming a problem. Dave Scot, a Friend of Bill Dembski, continues to post rational arguments. We fear that his mental health has become permanently balanced, and we continue to fear for his survival at Uncommon Descent. (Click link for discussion, if you dare.)

There are people who believe that because Darwin provided a theoretical basis that humans and animals have a common ancestor it becomes a rationale for treating humans more like animals. Thus we get things like Nazi Germany and the holocaust.

I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.

Another equally valid way of looking at it is that common ancestry becomes a rationale for treating animals more like humans. Thus we get things like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

It’s all a matter of how you choose to look at it. It’s really more a reflection on your own soul which way you choose to see it.

Good people do good things. Evil people do evil things. Knowledge (like Darwinian evolution and the recipe for dynamite) is inanimate and can be employed by good people for good things and evil people for evil things.

Flunked, Not Expelled: Expelled Enjoined

There was a hearing in the Yoko Ono copyright infringement case this past week, and Premise Media has been enjoined against further distribution of “Expelled” until the case is settled next hearing on May 19th.

That means that theaters that already have a copy may continue to show it, but no further prints may be sent out to other theaters, and no CD or DVD versions may be distributed, either.

More…

By BILL KACZOR

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Hotly debated evolution bills that critics said would inject religious doctrine into public schools in the guise of science died a quiet death Friday on the final day of the legislative session.
…
A House bill (HB 1483) would have gone farther, not just allowing such challenges but requiring that schools teach “critical analysis” of evolution.

The Senate version was based on model legislation advocated by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that supports research on intelligent design. That theory holds that some features of the universe and living things can be explained by an “intelligent cause.”

Link

House and Senate bills must be reconciled before adjournment.

By Steve Patterson, The Times-Union

TALLAHASSEE – A proposal to let schoolteachers criticize the scientific basis of evolution may die in the Legislature because dueling plans haven’t been reconciled into a single bill.

…

Others questioned whether the House effort was sabotaged.

“I’d say someone in the House, in the name of trying to push this bill, is actually trying to kill it,” said John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based organization that developed a model evolution-debate law that was the basis for Florida’s legislation.

“If nothing passes, I think there will be a lot of explaining to do,” he said.

 Source

ERV seems to have been delisted by Google. Folks at Panda’s Thumb seem to think this has happened before.

Update: 4/28/2008. The ERV Blog has been removed by Google/ WTF?

Generally this happens because someone has hacked the site and inserted links to porn and such. Stay tuned.

ERV was following the Yoko Ono copyright suit. Here’s a link that has the full text.