Why you shouldn’t blame Republicans for energy crisis

June 12th, 2008 Desty Nova

Republicans didn’t kill offshore wind.
Republicans didn’t kill nuclear power.
Republicans didn’t kill oil shale.
Republicans didn’t kill offshore oil drilling.
Republicans didn’t kill geothermal.
Republicans didn’t kill hydro.
Republicans aren’t trying to kill wind power.
Republicans aren’t trying to kill solar power.

One rule commonly used to solve the problem of meetings going nowhere is: “don’t block a solution unless you have a better one that replaces it.” Maybe Congress should start thinking along these lines.

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Louisiana House Passes Academic Freedom Bill on Evolution

June 12th, 2008 midwifetoad

Discovery Institute

Baton Rouge — By a vote of 94-3, Louisiana’s House of Representatives today passed an academic freedom bill that would protect teachers and school districts who wish to promote critical thinking and objective discussion about evolution and other scientific topics.

There was no vocal opposition, and the floor speech by Rep. Frank Hoffman made clear that the bill was about science, not religion.

Good luck guys. It worked for you in Dover.
Read the rest of this entry »

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The Behetitudes

June 11th, 2008 midwifetoad

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.

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Behe Evolves

June 11th, 2008 midwifetoad

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.”

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“The whole story needs to be presented” — and other creationist lies

June 6th, 2008 Bones

On another website a creationist posted the following:

Students should be allowed to discuss and debate evolution in the classroom. That’s hardly possible when only one side is given. Besides, we’re not even talking about ID or Creationism here. We’re just talking about teaching evolutionary theory in a scientific manner. The whole story needs to be presented.

Only one side?

And which side is that? And which side is being omitted? This complaint really boils down to — the side that is taught is science, and the side that is omitted is religious belief. And not just any religious belief, but a fundamentalist belief in the inerrancy of the bible. That is the “side” that they want taught.

Read the rest of this entry »

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More Evidence for Evolution (a never-ending series)

June 3rd, 2008 Bones

Lizards Show Proof of Adaptive Change

AMHERST, Mass. — In 1971, five pairs of Italian wall lizards were transplanted by biologists from their home island of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, to the neighboring but subtly different island of Pod Mrcaru, where none lived, as an experiment in evolution.

How, if at all, would these creatures change?

…

“It’s good evidence that not only can evolution happen rapidly, but animals can evolve new structures as well (in a short time span),” he said.

The interesting thing about this study is that the lizards developed new structures, a part of their gut called a ‘cecal valve’ (which separates the chambers) and they remained genetically identical to the parent population released three decades previously.

Hmmmmm. Unless the intelligent designer was working overtime on a tiny island off the west coast of Croatia these past few decades, we seem to have some very interesting insights into one or more of the mechanisms behind evolution.

And that’s one of the strengths of science. We keep learning new things!

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Evolution As Experimental Science

June 3rd, 2008 midwifetoad

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.

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Has Dave Scot Been Expelled?

May 25th, 2008 midwifetoad

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.

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Closing the gap…

May 23rd, 2008 Black Ops

WELL, CLOSING ONE of them anyway. From the Telegraph, a missing link of sorts is located:

The origin of today’s amphibians is controversial because of a lack of intermediate forms to show which ancient creatures evolved into frogs and salamanders.

Now a Texan fossil, Gerobatrachus hottoni (”Hotton’s elder frog”) from around 300 million years ago, proves the previously disputed fact that some modern amphibians, frogs and salamanders evolved from one group of ancient primitive amphibians called temnospondyls, some of which were up to 1.5 metres long.

More.

Just a matter of time before creationists point out that two new gaps are now opened up, on either side of G. hottoni, but there you go.

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Get Well Soon…

May 16th, 2008 Central Archivist

It has come to our attention that Jim Robinson, the founder of Free Republic, has been hospitalized and has undergone extensive surgery.  We here at Darwin Central wish him a full and speedy recovery and hope for the best for him in the future.

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