Free Republic

Have I been banned?

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance." Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot...

Abstract: ID (‘intelligent design’) is not science, but a form of creationism; both are very different from the simple theological proposition that a divine Creator is responsible for the natural patterns and processes of the Universe. Its current version maintains that a ‘Designer’ must intervene miraculously to accomplish certain natural scientific events. The verdict in the 2005 case Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover School District, et al. (in Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.) was a landmark of American jurisprudence that prohibited the teaching of ID as science, identified it as religiously based, and forbade long-refuted ‘criticisms of evolution’ from introduction into public...

Since there is so much right-wing blog assertion that Obama has socialist friends, associates, philosophies, and attitudes, I thought I’d take a look at the evidence and claims.

A Fort Wayne man says he has finally nudged the United Methodist Church “into the 21st century” on the subject of evolution. Al Kuelling, 67, a retired engineer trained in physics, wrote two of three proposals on evolution adopted as church policy at the denomination’s 2008 quadrennial national conference this summer in Fort Worth, Texas. The votes capped a yearslong quest by Kuelling to have the church explicitly recognize evolution as a legitimate foundation of science and acknowledge that it is not at odds with theology. But the endeavor at times has put Kuelling at odds with his pastor and...

Evolution in its earliest days was derided by some for what they believed was a lack of observable evidence. However, a major piece of supporting evidence for evolution has come from computer analysis of cellular compounds. By examining minute details in organisms’ genomes, we have observed how traits were transferred to descendants and how other traits arose at different points in the evolutionary ladder.

Recent changes in hearing-related genes may have influenced language development First, stroll up the ear canal. This is a fantasy, so no waxy buildup blocks the way. At the end of the fleshy tunnel, squeeze around the huge, circular membrane better known as the eardrum. Gingerly sidestep the precariously balanced, oddly shaped middle ear bones and proceed into the inner ear. Up ahead, rising like skyscrapers from a flat landscape, looms a cluster of stereocilia. These slender, interconnected projections sit atop the basic sensory elements of hearing — the inner ear hair cells. Bundles of gently waving stereocilia serve as...

Creation Museum, Petersburg, Kentucky, by A.M. Kinney Associates. At a time when museums are accused of turning themselves into theme parks, along comes a bizarre new institution that makes Walt Disney World seem like the Albertina. This is not surprising, since the displays of cartoonish dinosaurs and humanoids at the Creation Museum—devised to supplant Darwin’s theory of evolution with a Bible-based fantasia of the world’s origins—were dreamed up by a former Universal Studios designer, Patrick Marsh. I use the term “institution” in both the museological and the psychiatric sense, because this only-in-America loony bin is no more a museum than...

Whatever happened to parents and churches taking the responsibility for teaching their young about the values that their faith promotes? What about the "concerned" asking themselves if they are the kind of role models and mentors whom youth can relate to as having the highest values inclined in human nature? Have the "concerned" decided that it would be better if public schools teach the "values" that they should be teaching?

Evolution may provide us with the most abundant phenotypes (observable genetic characteristics) rather than the fittest, according to a new theory published on July 18 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology. That is, natural selection may be optimal for choosing the most fit organism of the moment, but evolutionary biologists question if the process leads to the optimal organisms in the long run. Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, led by Drs. Matthew Cowperthwaite and Lauren Ancel Meyers, propose a new theory: life may not always be optimal.

It has been established beyond all reasonable doubt that the Moon is not what it appears; that it is not just another satellite orbiting a planet, Earth, but an entity which has thrown the minds of some of the greatest thinkers and scientific brains into a quandary and bewilderment unprecedented in the history of astronomy. Why haven't you heard about this? Another government cover-up? How could Moon mysteries have anything to do with government secrecy, and moreover could it relate to the suppression of the space programme?

Richard Dawkins is that rare specimen, a public intellectual, a knight of the mind who goes into battle against the ignorance and foolhardiness of the populace. Unlike the French, who worship their public intellectuals, giving them pet names such as les intellos, and airing them regularly on serious television and in print, the British like to shove academics into a musty corner, or laugh at them. This was not always the case: the Victorians, with their public lectures and royal societies, gloried in debate and celebrated the thrills of fresh knowledge. The nearest we get to this now is celebrating...