Signs of the Times

US Prez hopeful Perry is not useful to ID?

 Says political theorist John West here:

Earlier this summer, Perry's education commissioner recommended for use supplementary science curricula that fail to offer any critical analysis of Darwinian claims, contrary to the state's own science standards. At the same time, Perry's education commissioner allowed his staff to spike the one proposed curriculum that did try to follow the Texas science standards.

Presumably, he thinks everyone who supports him is dumb as a post.

Why many of our neighbours think what they do, and why they shouldn’t

In “The Interstitials” (New Republic, August 17, 2011), Michael Kimmage reviews Robert Vanderlan’s Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art and Ideas inside Henry Luce’s Media Empire, an account of Henry Luce’s Time, Life, and Fortune empire:

Intellectuals Incorporated is a bracing contribution to American intellectual history. It is full of well-drawn biographical portraits, and through them Vanderlan analyzes a dynamic whereby intellectuals transform and are transformed by the world around them.

Human evolution: Before ape man there was the wild child

In "Peter the Wild Boy" (History Today Volume 60 Issue 4 2010), Roger Moorhouse recalls for us the "wild child" myth of the early days of modern science: "If we could just get hold of a genuinely wild child, raised in the woods by animals, we will learn about human nature." In 1725, a 12-year-old boy was found in the woods, naked, mute, and quadruped (at the time) - later baptised as "Peter," What to make of him? Absent Darwin, they couldn't decide that he was a human-ape hybrid, but other theories abounded.

Missing: "God of the gaps" Reward offered - for losing him again

Anyone who studies design in nature will have heard it a million times, usually from theistic Darwinists: "Identifying design in life forms is risky to faith because once we find out how it really happened, your faith will be diminished. Protect your faith by assuming that God played no direct role." Yes, but what ifthere is no gap? Who, except the theistic Darwinists, said there was? It's their scam, and boy have they milked it.

It's not time that ends in the multiverse, it's meaning

Here, New Scientist's Amanda Gefter explains, "Time need not end in the multiverse" (11 August 2011):

GAMBLERS already had enough to think about without factoring the end of time into their calculations. But a year after a group of cosmologists argued that they should, another team says time need not end after all.

Exoplanets better as collectibles than homes for life?

From "Darkest Known Exoplanet: Alien World Is Blacker Than Coal" (ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2011) we learn:

Astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet -- a distant, Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any planet or moon in our solar system.

Superstition surprisingly high in those with scientific background

In “Will science banish superstition for ever?: Which makes people more superstitious: fervent scientism or fervent religious belief? The answer may surprise you,” we learn, among other things:

In Britain, during National Science Week (2003), University of Hertfordshire psychologist Richard Wiseman and associates surveyed 2068 people on superstitious behaviour. They found, among other things, that

“The current levels of superstitious behaviour and beliefs in the UK are surprisingly high, even among those with a scientific background. Touching wood is the most popular UK superstition, followed by crossing fingers, avoiding ladders, not smashing mirrors, carrying a lucky charm and having superstitious beliefs about the number 13.”

Twenty-five percent of the people who claimed a background in science were very or somewhat superstitious. (Mercatornet, August 10, 2011) More.

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New book: John Lennox asks, If I believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, am I denying the authority of Scripture?

ID-friendly Oxford math prof JohnLennox has a new book out, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science . Can’t imagine which seven days. Blurb:

What did the writer of Genesis mean by 'the first day'? Is it a literal week or a series of time periods? If I believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, am I denying the authority of Scripture? In response to the continuing controversy over the interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis, John Lennox proposes a succinct method of reading and interpreting the first chapters of Genesis without discounting either science or Scripture.

“No Dinosaurs in Heaven” film purports to tell the Trooth about the intelligent design community

 

NO DINOSAURS IN HEAVEN is a film essay that examines the hijacking of science education by religious fundamentalists, threatening the separation of church and state and dangerously undermining scientific literacy. The documentary weaves together two strands: an examination of the problem posed by creationists who earn science education degrees only to advocate anti-scientific beliefs in the classroom;

Geologist-artist’s 1998 work presages later changes in view of dinosaurs?

 In "Alternative Evolution" of Dinosaurs Foresaw Contemporary Paleo Finds” (Scientific American August 10, 2011), Brian Switek surveys the great changes that have taken place in how dinosaurs are viewed, many of which may have been foreseen by Dougal Dixon, who thought he was writing a fantasy about how dinosaurs would have evolved, had they survived. Except that they happened way back then.