vestigial proof

How ludicrously they dangled up there — two little wires suspending them beneath the spine, about midway between ribs and tail. Grayish-white, cylindrical; small batons frozen in midair.

Leg bones. In a whale.

I remember gaping at the overhead skeleton as my fourth grade class filed through the Smithsonian. I wondered if whales even knew they had those bones. Could they feel them? I marveled at the vastness of time, the relentless march that expelled fish onto land and drew them back again as mammals.

It almost seemed too incredible — but there they were, leg remnants in a whale, plain as day. Two hundred million years could do anything. (They could even draw a whale out of a deer the size of a fox!)

evolutionary psychology — it’s all in your mind

It’s everywhere these days. Whether the topic is economics or romance, politics or sports, articles often refer to studies that explain why we do what we do from an evolutionary perspective.

Since survival of the fittest shaped our minds as well as our bodies, the research strategy is to determine how any (and every!) behavior contributed to gene propagation. According to the Center for Evolutionary Psychology (CEP), such findings prove evolution’s importance:

[C]onsideration of how humans evolved can inform various subfields of neuroscience and psychology. The very idea that humans evolved has come under legal siege in the U.S. during the last several years. It is important to continue to demonstrate that humans no less than other species show significant evidence of being the organized product of natural selection —- and in subtle, unexpected ways not easily explained by blank-slate learning or “intelligent design”. (source)

Sadly, despite so hefty a claim of importance, evolutionary psychology makes presumptions that lead to hasty conclusions, neglecting to investigate fully the reasons for our behavior.

woe is me, cries the creationist

“Woe, woe is me,” cries the creationst! “O, vexed the life that spurns reason!”

Once upon a time I let creationist questions get the better of me. Ever since my life has been hardship and suffering.

I can’t maintain a career because employers keep letting me go. They don’t believe entropy makes heat disperse throughout the whole patty, so it isn’t necessary to flip the burgers. Imagine how much labor could be saved!

My marriage is in shambles. My wife keeps threatening to leave unless I give her reasons for everything. Reasons, schmeasons. “Because I said so” is good enough for the kids, why isn’t it good enough for her?

darwinism in need of revision

On 7 Dec 05 I wrote a lengthy comment that built up to this conclusion:

Still, if I’m confident of anything, it’s that Darwinism is in for a fall. Too many scientists are peeling at its frayed edges. A counterbalance to the entrenched politicization of evolution is the fact that scientists make names for themselves not by confirming established beliefs, by rocking the boat — and the easiest way to rock Darwinism is to stop propping it up. What will replace it is hard to say. Certainly it’ll still be materialistic — science will never accept ID, much less creationism. Perhaps it’ll be something along the lines of Noam Chomsky, the linguist who got away with arguing that the human brain is hard-wired for language. Maybe physicists will join up with biochemists to link string theory to DNA (just kidding). Whichever way it goes, Darwinism’s lack of evidence is catching up to it, bringing us to the verge of a huge paradigm shift.

On 26 Jun 07, a senior Smithsonian scientist and Santa Fe Institute researcher, writing in the New York Times, agreed with me:

New York Times: Darwin still rules, but some biologists dream of a paradigm shift

Take special note of this line: “These questions about mechanism were not even being asked under the modern synthesis.”

No wonder schools don’t invite students to question Darwinism — not even the scientific community questions it! Instead, Darwinism has been treated as a sacred cow requiring protection. Darwin himself would have been appalled at the lack of scrutiny, the entrenched sense of conclusiveness and lethargy with which his theory recently has been regarded.

The funny thing about questions, though, is that they can’t be repressed forever — and sure enough, the holes in Darwinism that Intelligent Design theorists, creationists and other independent thinkers have been pointing out are slowly being acknowledged.

What will fill those holes is up for grabs. The worldwide scientific community, wary of stuffing God in the gaps, will surely do all it can to patch them with tried-and-true materialistic processes.

But a distaste for alternate origin theories (creationism, ID) doesn’t mean Darwinism’s weaknesses should be denied. Those who champion the scientific method should know better.

For a list of questions about Darwinism, read the full New York Times article. An additional list of questions (with discussion) is available here.

how long can questions be repressed?

How long can questions be repressed?

A while. Maybe even a long while.

But not forever:

BBC News: Let us test Darwin, teacher says

Science teaching materials deemed “not appropriate” by the government should be allowed in class, Education Secretary Alan Johnson has been urged.

Chemistry teacher at Liverpool’s Blue Coat School, Nick Cowan, says the packs promoting intelligent design are useful in debating Darwinist evolution.

mind extant

Where will I be when I die?

In college I took a philosophy class that explored the relationship between mind and body. I've read numerous books on cognitive studies. I'm writing a novel that delves into the mystery of brain (physical clump of flesh) versus mind (abstract thought processes).

In all of that, I can’t shake the notion that there is, after all, a ghost in the machine. Consciousness is too fluid, too regular to believe otherwise.

collapsing ages 3

Slowly, surely, prehistoric ages collapse into one another. Yet another study suggests some animals lived across more ages than previously believed:

CNN: Study: Plants helped ants evolve

Ants evolved far earlier than previously believed, as far back as 140 million to 168 million years ago — and they have plants to thank for their diversity, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

A team at Harvard University who used a genetic clock to reconstruct the history of ants found the ant family first arose more than 40 million years earlier than previously thought, but did not diversify into different genera and species until flowering plants came onto the scene.

ender’s showdown

World-renowned science fiction author Orson Scott Card is an evolutionist. No surprise there.

But he's no Darwinist.

In fact, Card takes Darwinists to task in a recent (January 2006) essay that exposes their lack of scientific objectivity, and appeals for an open dialogue:

Orson Scott Card: Creation and evolution in the schools

The Darwinist answer was immediate. Unfortunately, it was also illogical, personal, and unscientific. The main points are:

1. Intelligent Design is just Creation Science in a new suit (name-calling).

2. Don't listen to these guys, they're not real scientists (credentialism).

darwinists recruit churches

Poor Darwinists. Having trouble convincing people evolution is true, they’re now asking churches for help.

Imagine that. After all their talk about keeping scientific thought and religious belief separate, Darwinists want to tap into faith to nail evolution home. Kinda suggests evolution’s been a matter of belief all along, doesn’t it?:

readings on dover

Some interesting responses to the Dover decision on Intelligent Design:

Center for Science and Culture: Judge Jones follows ACLU, ignores contrary facts

Judge Jones picked up on this assurance and at the end of his opinion stated: “… the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.” This is like a judge assuring us that it is “utterly false” that Judaism is inconsistent with eating pork. “After all,” a judge might say, “A distinguished rabbi testified that true Judaism no longer emphasizes dietary laws, but focuses on the ethical duties we owe to one another.” Alarm bells should go off when a judge believes that he can resolve hotly contested issues about what someone’s religion does or does not permit.

empty fanfare

A few months ago, Apple issued a one-week arsenal of new product releases: new iPods, a new PowerMac, a new iMac, and new PowerBooks. That same week Microsoft responded with a media blitz of TV commercials and internet ads inviting users to “rediscover Office 2003″ — a software package already three years old.

Apparently, when you lack substance, a solid blast of fanfare will suffice.

That principle hasn’t escaped evolutionists, who are hoping to hammer home the Dover decision by inviting us to rediscover Darwin:

law professor rebukes dover judge

University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog: The Dover Intelligent Design Decision, Part I: Of Motive, Effect, and History

If fundamentalism still means what it meant in the early twentieth century, however — accepting the Bible as literal truth — the champions of intelligent design are not fundamentalists. They uniformly disclaim reliance on the Book and focus only on where the biological evidence leads. The court’s response – “well, that’s what they say, but we know what they mean�? – is uncivil, an illustration of the dismissive and contemptuous treatment that characterizes much contemporary discourse. Once we know who you are, we need not listen. We’ve heard it all already.

fair decision, foul judge

The decision may be a fair call. The thinking behind it is not:

judges take an open approach

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

… thus reads the sticker placed in biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia. A federal district court ordered the sticker removed because it endorsed religious beliefs, but the first inklings from a federal appeals court panel suggest that this decision might be overturned:

insults 101 canceled

Bravo to University of Kansas for maintaining academic standards, rather than jumping on the mock-a-creationist bandwagon: