Free Republic

Note; Had to remove words to get under 300. See article. People are taught that the fossil record furnishes proof of evolution. But, where are there fossils of half-evolved dinosaurs or other creatures? The fossil record contains fossils of only complete and fully-formed species. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species. Evolutionists claim that the genetic and biological similarities between species is evidence of common ancestry. However, that is only one interpretation of the evidence. Neither position can be scientifically proved. Although Darwin was partially correct by showing that natural selection occurs in nature, the problem is that natural selection...

Moscow, October 6, Interfax – The existence of God has been proved by scientific methods, Academician Anatoly Akimov, director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics, has stated. ‘There is God, and we can see the manifestations of His will. This is the opinion of many scientists; they not only believe in the Creator but rely on certain knowledge’, he said in an interview published by the Moskovsky komsomolets daily on Friday. The scientist noted that in the past centuries very many physicists believed in God. Moreover, until Isaac Newton, there was no separation between science and religion; science...

A just-unearthed cave formed more than 1 million years ago could yield new insight into the geological history of the American West, according to scientists, who called the discovery a major find. Four amateur cave explorers uncovered the vast caverns, stretching more than 1,000 feet into a remote mountainside, in August. Visitors to the cave, dubbed Ursa Minor, described seeing millions of crystals that shimmered like diamonds lodged in its walls. Translucent mineral curtains hung from the ceiling, and a lake possibly 20 feet deep filled one of the cave's five known rooms. Passages leading into darkness suggested there was...

Note: This article may seem pedantic, but it is aimed at those who are not “insiders” on the history of the Middle East.I keep hearing the phrase, “It’s their land,” regarding Palestinian claims to Israel. Terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad publicly assert that their aims are to reclaim every inch of Israel as part of a proposed Palestinian homeland. Unfortunately, these ownership claims are echoed by “activist” groups like the International Solidarity Movement and the Palestine Solidarity Movement, both with throngs of naïve followers on U.S. and European college campuses. The followers are too eager to take these...

Most published scientific research papers are wrong, according to a new analysis. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to...

When I was a boy, my parents used to enjoy a comedian named Ronnie Graham. One of his jokes was, "The other day a cat came up to me and said, 'How do I get to Carnegie Hall?' and I said 'Practice, man, practice.' This other cat came up to me and said, 'Meow.' He was a real cat." We talk a lot in our movement about spiritual practices. I am a Religious Science Practitioner; the root word of Practitioner is practice. But why do we practice? Ernest Holmes said that a central concept of our movement is "Perfect God,...

A bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference in a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Jeremy Stribling said that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams. The trio submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13 in Orlando, Florida. To their surprise, one of the papers -...

Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, D.C. He is a specialist on strategic issues and energy policy with a PhD in strategic studies from Johns Hopkins University. A former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, his writings have appeared in Commentary, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Review of International Affairs, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Luft addressed the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia on October 27, 2004. Introduction In both World War Two and the Cold War, the side best deploying scientific...

Feb. 3 — An Iraqi dam under construction on the Tigris River threatens to submerge the remains of the spiritual capital of the ancient Assyrian empire in an act archaeologists liken to flooding the Vatican.Much of the city of Ashur, which thrived for more than 1,000 years until the Babylonians razed it in 614 B.C., could vanish under a lake to be created by the Makhoul dam, U.S. and European archaeologists said.More than 60 outlying historical sites are also threatened.Ashur, or Assur, was of such importance that it lent its name to the Assyrian civilization itself."Losing it would be...

Papers have been flapping with new headlines about the latest in a long line of alleged dinosaur ancestors of birds. This one is claimed to be a sensational dinosaur with feathers on its hind legs, thus four ‘wings’.1 This was named Microraptor gui—the name is derived from words meaning ‘little plunderer of Gu’ after the paleontologist Gu Zhiwei. Like so many of the alleged feathered dinosaurs, it comes from Liaoning province of northeastern China. It was about 3 feet (1 meter) long from its head to the tip of its long tail, but its body was only about the size...

‘Scientific American’ shines spotlight on S.C. dig By DOUG NYETelevision Editor Posted on Tue, Jul. 20, 2004 About 12,000 years ago, the first people to journey to the American continents did so by crossing the Bering land bridge from Asia. At least, that’s what archaeologists have long believed. But tonight’s edition of “Scientific American Frontiers” examines five archaeological sites that could prove that humans walked this land much earlier. Among the digs spotlighted is USC’s Topper excavation site in Allendale County, supervised by archaeologist Albert C. Goodyear, director of the Allendale Paleo-Indian Expedition of the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and...

Al-Zahrawi Hospital Mosul, Iraq Thanks from Iraq I am a final-year resident in pathology at Al-Zahrawi Teaching Hospital in Mosul, Iraq. I read your article in The Scientist1 (sent to me electronically by one of your subscribers). I thought it was very kind of you to rally your readers and the scientific community all around the world to help us, your colleagues in Iraq! We have indeed suffered and for a long time, not only from the UN sanctions, but also (and arguably more) from the underinvestment in education and scientific research by the murderous regime of Saddam et al....

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Rep. C. L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID) has proposed a bill that would require scientific proof that land should be restricted before the Endangered Species Act can be applied to public land. This bill, called the Scientifically Identifying the Need for Critical Habitat (SINCH) Act, or H.R. 2602, would let the secretary of Interior decide whether the habitat that holds these limited species is threatened or endangered. Under the Endangered Species Act, a critical habitat includes any area where an endangered species lives as well as any territory that it decides to migrate to in order to...