news aggregator
Ohio House Bill 597 dead, for now
The authors of House Bill 597, the anti-common core science distorting bill introduced in the Ohio legislature, is dead for now. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (via NCSE), the bill won’t be debated or voted on this term. However, according to the bill’s author, Republican State Representative Andy Thompson, the issue will be revived in the next term of the Legislature. I’ll note that the Bill’s co-author, Republican Speaker Pro Tem Max Huffman, will...
Richard B. Hoppe
Categories: Pro-Science News
Phylogenomic Fallacies
This is the fourth in a series of articles for the general public focused on understanding how species are related and how genomic data is used in research. Today, we talk about some common fallacies in phylogenomics. Where do humans fit on the evolutionary tree of life? This is an important topic in evolutionary biology. A lot of people believe humans are the most important and highly-evolved organisms, but in reality, all modern species are...
Emily Thompson
Categories: Pro-Science News
Libellula pulchella forensis
Libellula pulchella – eight twelve-spotted skimmer, Elmer’s Two-Mile Creek, Boulder, Colorado. See here for eight-spotted skimmer, L. forensis....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Ark Encounter threatens to sue state
Update, 12/11/2014, 12:30-ish MST: A Lexington Herald-Leader editorial has a [f]ew questions for Answers in Genesis, not least, Why does God need so much taxpayer help? Really, has God been so lame spreading the good news that AIG must “counter the myths floating around about the Bible-upholding Ark Encounter,” on a digital video board in New York’s Times Square? Does God need to be defended with the demagogic language AIG and its founder Ken Ham...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
High-power laser hints at origin of RNA
The Hebrew Bible says that God made humans from dust,* but maybe it was a slurry of clay and water. That is a tentative conclusion you might draw from an experiment that used a (very) high-powered laser beam to zap a suspension of clay in an aqueous solution of formamide, a very simple organic compound. The result has been reported in the press, but there is a somewhat more-precise article in Science magazine. (You may...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Meditation on The Mind's Eye
I am a physicist, with a specialty in optics, so I was especially interested in The Mind’s Eye, by Oliver Sacks (not to mention the less well known The Island of the Colorblind). The Mind’s Eye is a fascinating book about the visual system, many of the things that can go wrong with it, and what we learn from them. It is also the book in which Dr. Sacks reveals that he suffers from prosopagnosia,...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Political Scientist Asks, "Should Dogs Be Citizens?"
The mainstream media sure do love anti-human exceptionalism.
Wesley J. Smith
http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism
Categories: Anti-Science News
More Serious Problems with Representation in the Brain: Remembering the Battle of Hastings
A conceptual morass besets neuroscience.
Michael Egnor
Categories: Anti-Science News
What About the Actual Data We Have Been Acquiring About Exoplanets?
"Earthlike exoplanets" are a favorite subject of science and popular media reporting.
Daniel Bakken
Categories: Anti-Science News
Biological Information, a Mile and a Half Beneath the Ocean Floor
Scientists sent a drill to the lowest depths under the sea ever reached, and found a surprise: living organisms.
Evolution News & Views
Categories: Anti-Science News
Understanding Memories: Lovely Metaphors Belong in Songs, Not Science
I'm reminded of a phrase from one of my favorite songwriters, Paul Simon, in "The Boxer": "I've squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles."
Michael Egnor
Categories: Anti-Science News
In Bioethics, Infanticide Is Now "Debatable"
The late Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote this of bioethicists.
Wesley J. Smith
http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism
Categories: Anti-Science News
My Top Five Science and Faith Christmas Gifts for 2015
Here are five resources on science and faith you might want to include in your gift-giving this month.
John G. West
http://www.discovery.org/p/18
Categories: Anti-Science News
Newly Discovered Convergent Genetic Evolution Between Bird and Human Vocalization Poses a Severe Challenge to Common Ancestry
Everyone is familiar with the striking ability of certain birds (such as parrots) to vocalize speech, much as humans do.
Casey Luskin
http://www.discovery.org/p/188
Categories: Anti-Science News
Thinking Differently About Biology
Sentences that convey different ideas may have similar structures, but when we write a sentence we start with the idea, not the sentence structure.
Ann Gauger
http://www.biologicinstitute.org/people
Categories: Anti-Science News
Your Computer Doesn't Like You
Intelligence, as denoted in "artificial intelligence," corresponds roughly to what Aristotle meant by intellect and will.
Michael Egnor
Categories: Anti-Science News
New Study Reveals DNA Organization in the Nucleus; Plus Highly Recommended Video
We knew the nucleus had to be organized into compartments with particular chromosomes taking up particular regions.
Ann Gauger
http://www.biologicinstitute.org/people
Categories: Anti-Science News
Massive Genetic Study Confirms Birds Arose in "Big Bang"-Type of "Explosion"
It's long been known that the Cambrian explosion isn't the only explosion of organisms in the fossil record.
Casey Luskin
http://www.discovery.org/p/188
Categories: Anti-Science News
See It: Today at 5 PM Pacific, Stephen Meyer Meets the Platonic Ideal of an Interviewer
That would be Eric Metaxas, who combines illumination with much amusement.
Evolution News & Views
Categories: Anti-Science News
"Unintelligent Design," You Say? An Automotive Parable
The past five months, I've been trying to change the head gasket on a 2001 Chrysler PT.
Rob Sheldon
Categories: Anti-Science News
