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Professional paleontologists from around the world are concerned about the misrepresentation of science at the newly opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The Creation Museum has been marketed to the public as a “reasoned, logical defence” for young-earth creationism by Ken Ham, the President and CEO of Answers in Genesis, which runs the Creation Museum. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a world-wide scientific and educational organization concerned with vertebrate paleontology, contends that the museum presents visitors with a view of earth history that has been scientifically disproven for over a century...

I looked for an existing FR thread on this one and didn't find one. There were a couple of threads from a year or so ago describing the original find but nothing on the more recent news. Researchers in 2005 broke a tyrannosaur bone in half to get it on a small helicopter which was all they had available and found soft tissue inside the bone including what looked like raw meet, blood vessels, and blood. More recently, collagen and proteins from this bone have been sequenced and turnout to be altogether similar to those of chickens. The tyrannosaur apparently...

Pro-Darwin Biology Professor Laments Academia's "Intolerance" and Supports Teaching Intelligent Design Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow...

There are plenty of things in this life that we accept as true. Sometimes we grow out of them as we grow up, as in the case of Father Christmas, the tooth fairy and a decent postal service. As we become more aware of the world around us, then some previously accepted truths are discarded. Yet some are not and we go through life believing the same old stuff mainly because nothing else has come along to teach us otherwise. This is fine as long as there's some semblance of truth in what we're believing, but there are some things...

Madonna and Bon Jovi are no match for Hawaiian flies when it comes to karaoke hits at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln. In a popular exhibit activity, visitors attempt to mimic the unique courtship calls of different species of Hawaiian Drosophila, a group of 800 different flies that may have evolved from a single species. Fly karaoke is part of "Explore Evolution," a permanent exhibit currently at Nebraska and five other museums in the Midwest and Southwest...that explores evolutionary concepts in new ways. Such an activity is a far cry from the traditional way science museums have...

For 15 years Doug Cowan has taught the scientific evidence for and against Darwinism to biology students at Curtis High, a large public school several miles southwest of Tacoma, Wash. Over that time, the popular teacher and athletic coach has drawn periodic criticisms from community activists and local media. But he has faced no lawsuits and never worried over losing his job. Students in Cowan's classes praise his balanced presentation. And parents rarely, if ever, raise objections. "I haven't heard a thing," he told WORLD. "Parents think it's really neat that I'm allowing kids to weigh the evidence from both...

By John Lofton I do not like green eggs. But, I love Ken Ham, I do. I do not like green eggs here or there. But, I love Ken Ham anywhere! I do not like green eggs in a box, with a fox, In a house, with a mouse. Green eggs make me sick just to see 'em. But, I love Ken Ham and his (His) museum! I love Ken Ham – president of the Answers In Genesis ministry – because he's a Christian with a brain and he has the guts to defend the faith. I also love him...

24 Observations on the Intelligent Design versus Macro Evolution debate I kicked off quite a firestorm with my recent post on Marketing Darwin. The blogger Orac picked it up, shredded it to pieces, which led to dozens of comments at my blog and his. Smelling fresh blood, Professor PZ Meyers takes me to task, and more comments ensue. Basically, I get trashed really badly. Thank goodness I am secure in my old age! :) I find it all interesting. Many of the commenters raise some really good points, and I agree with some of them. Many though seem to deliberately...

Mr Lundbergh is absolutely accurate in his critique of the false pseudo-scientific religion of Darwinism. The hysterical/irrational reaction of its adherents is similar in many ways to the reaction to Pope Benedict's brilliant Regensburg lecture. Such people do not like to have their certainties questioned. For anyone with an open mind, neither historical evidence nor scientific experimentation lend any credibility to this "theory". It remains just that, a preposterous theory, not a matter of fact. It's very much a case of ideology masquerading as science, a crutch for closed minds, an ideology for the deluded. There's nothing concrete or tangible...

The study also found that these similarities were absent from fruit fly and nematode genomes, contradicting the widely held belief that organisms become more complex through evolution. The findings suggest that the ancestral animal genome was quite complex, and fly and worm genomes lost some of that intricacy as they evolved. It’s surprising to find such a “high level of genomic complexity in a supposedly primitive animal such as the sea anemone,” Koonin told The Scientist. It implies that the ancestral animal “was already extremely highly complex, at least in terms of its genomic organization and regulatory and signal transduction...

Dear Editor, Reading Kowlessar Misir's letter captioned "Science and Religion are mutually exclusive: belief is a matter of faith!" (07.06.30) is a tortuous journey. Throughout the letter, one senses the difficulty in conceptualizing the big picture, and also a desperate search for meaning. An indication of Misir's dilemma is the fact that, in the tight space of a single page, he asked 21 questions rather than exercise diligence in rationalizing their answers. The reason for this, sadly, is found in the very last line of his effort as he quotes Miller on Darwin, denying the existence of a soul. Could...

Major reviews of The Edge of Evolution have begun to appear. Because the conclusion of the book is so controversial, it’s no surprise that responses by some Darwinists so far have been pretty emotional and defensive...

Darwinism at AEI By: Tom Bethell American Spectator July 1, 2007 Early in May, the American Enterprise Institute held a debate about Darwinism, a faith embedded in many debates, whether scientific, religious or political. The recent irruption of atheism can be traced to the Darwinian creed, for the well publicized testimonials of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens all have recourse to Darwinism at various points. It purports to explain how we got here without any need for God or gods. Darwinism is best seen as 19th century philosophy—materialism—dressed up as science, and directed against a theological argument for...

Thirty-six years into the war on cancer, scientists have not only failed to come up with a cure, but most of the newer drugs suffer from the same problems as those available in the pre-war days: serious toxicity, limited effectiveness and eventual resistance. This is no surprise to University of California, Berkeley, genetics researcher Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology. According to his novel yet controversial "chromosomal" theory of cancer, which is receiving increased attention among cancer researchers, each cancer is unique, and there is no magic bullet. "The mutation theory of cancer says that a limited number...

In the United States the old but bitter debate between evolution and creationism is heating up again. Three of the Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution and a high-tech creation museum recently opened in Kentucky. Much of the debate has been fuelled by a book claiming the Grand Canyon, one of America's most well-known landmarks, was carved by Noah's flood rather than erosion. Every national park has at least one gift shop - usually more - selling t-shirts, snow domes, mugs, postcards and books. At the Grand Canyon you will find books on the canyon's history, the canyon's...

In addition to original Darwinism, today there are two other versions of evolutionary theory: punctuated equilibrium and neo-Darwinism, a revamped version of the original Darwinism. No matter the variant though, evolution serves as the creation myth for the theological and philosophical worldview of Evolutionary Humanism (Naturalism). “Evolution is a religion,” declared evolutionary Humanist Michael Ruse. “This was true of evolution in the beginning and it is true still today…One of the most popular books of the era was ‘Religion Without Revelation,’ by Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley…As always evolution was doing everything expected of religion and more.” (National Post,...

Tiny, jumping bits of DNA are looking less like genomic junk and more like significant players in mammalian evolution, according to a new analysis...

How were the oceans, puppies and human beings formed? Was it through evolution, creationism or something in between? It's a heavy topic that's generated debate for years. That discourse landed in Chesterfield School Board members' laps recently when they set about adopting new science textbooks for middle and high schools. At issue was the concept of intelligent design, and why none of the proposed textbooks offered an alternative to evolution for how the universe came to be. Intelligent design proponents urged the School Board to include that theory in the school system's science curriculum so students can consider differing viewpoints...

Why I believe in Creation Posted: December 17, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern I was stunned the other day when I asked evolution-believing listeners to my nationally syndicated radio show to call in and tell me why they believed. "Just give me one reason why you accept the theory," I said. "Just give me the strongest argument. You don't have to give me mountains of evidence. Just tell me why I should accept it." Not one evolutionist called in. Meanwhile, the phone banks lit up with dozens of evolution skeptics. Go figure. For more than 40 years, evolution has been taught...

Two recent news articles are discussing the death of the junk-DNA icon of Neo-Darwinism. Wired Magazine has an article pejoratively titled "One Scientist's Junk Is a Creationist's Treasure" that emphasizes the positive point that intelligent design has made successful predictions on the question of "junk-DNA." The article reports: [A] surprising group is embracing the results: intelligent-design advocates. Since the early '70s, many scientists have believed that a large amount of many organisms' DNA is useless junk. But recently, genome researchers are finding that these "noncoding" genome regions are responsible for important biological functions. The Wired Magazine article then quotes Discovery...