A Worthy Cause

Here is a family who has a son who has been diagnosed with Neurocutaneous Melanosis. Please Donate to them, even if it is only a dollar or two. Here is the link:

http://www.freewebs.com/windowshopping/howyoucanhelp.htm

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You may learn about this child, his family, and his condition at this address:
http://www.carepages.com/carepages/brettjackson/patient

(It requires you to register, but it is free and safe).

Discovering Our Origins

Here are two really awesome articles about our origins:

Protocells and the Origin of Life

The Big Bang Machine

Review of Your Inner Fish

As promised, I have written a short review of Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish". Click here to view it.

A Response to Darren

Recently I had an ID enthusiast comment on my blog. I am going to post his comment and my response. I am doing so in a post because my web links were "cut off". And by the by, I just want to say that I think this guy is intelligent and civil, and I intend to keep the conversation that way. I don't want to be the arrogant "more scientific than thou" type, I simply want to present the truth. And by the way, I think I need to clarify two things:
1) A theory is not a guess. It is a well tested natural explanation.
2) The fact of Evolution has no bearing on the issue of whether or not human life is 'sacred'. I think all human beings should be treated with dignity.

His Comment:

Should we teach flat earth 'theory' along with round earth theory too?

There is no such thing as a round earth theory. We can scientifically and mathematically prove that the Earth is oblate. Teaching creationism in public schools is immoral, illegal, and irresponsible. Intelligent Design Theory is not a religion. Teaching Genesis would be, however, ID theory is an alternative with its own scientific backing, and therefore belongs in the classroom.

It is irresponsible because we cannot teach future doctors and scientists such an unuseful and unscientific idea.

I would personally much rather have a doctor who believed in the sanctity of life than one who felt that survival of the fittest was a good alternative.

You would be wasting these children's time teaching them creationism when we could teach them the unifying idea of biology: Evolution.

Nobody is suggesting that we don't teach them evolution. It is also a viable theory and belongs in the classroom. I personally believe in a Creator, but that would not stop me discussing evolution. In fact I believed evolution unquestioningly for over 90% of my life. I still believe in micro-evolution [See next section]

This is something that actually has application: Estimating the odds of viri and bacterium evolving immunity to an antibiotic

Here I have to draw your attention to the difference between Micro-Evolution and Macro-Evolution. Micro-Evolution is where changes in genetic information causes change(s) in the animals characteristics. These characteristics can include things such as resistance to antibiotics and the colours of moths' wings. Micro-Evolution is proven fact. Macro-Evolution is still a theory, because we have not witnessed it happening, nor do we have sufficient evidence to prove that it ever has happened. If we had, there would be very few creationists, because we are not all ignorant.

My Response:

Hi Darren,

If ID is to be taught in classrooms, they need to first win over a substantial percentage of biological scientists. This is the way all ideas, including evolution, have made their way into classrooms.They can do this by:

1) Demonstrating that their theory has more explanatory power than Evolution.

2) Generating falsifiable scientific predictions and subsequently verifying them.In both cases, they have failed. The predictions which ID makes have been falsified. For example, the contention that irreducibly complex systems cannot evolve:

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/AcidTest.html

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/the_politically_10.html

Jonathan Wells even made a prediction based on ID that has now been falsified:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/yah_boo_jonathan_wells.php

On the other hand, Darwin's predictions have been beautifully confirmed. Here is just one example: Charles Darwin predicted that since we are anatomically most similar to the great apes of Africa, it was most likely that we evolved in Africa*, and therefore intermediate fossils (between a small brained knuckle walking ape and homo sapiens) would be found in Africa. Sure enough, this prediction has been proven true.Here are some of the skulls which have been found:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/images/fossil_hominin_cranial_capacity_lg_v1-2.png

* The simplest explanation is that the common ancestor of chimps, gorillas, and humans lived in Africa, and that some humans wondered off, rather than the common ancestor living somewhere else and the gorillas and chimps migrating to Africa. Feel free to drop by the blog again sometime, you are obviously intelligent and capable of civil discussion, which I always encourage here.

the Virus and the Origin of Life

Via Science Daily:

"Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team's method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first."

You know, I once voiced the opinion that viruses might have existed with very simple cells. I even went so far as to call them the "missing link" between self replicating molecules and life. It appears that we will know very soon whether I was right or wrong!

If you do not know, one of the current hypotheses is that viri originate as extremely mutated cells (according to one of my science teachers). I find that implausible for various reasons, and I think this idea will prove better.

McCain's Running Mate is a Creationist

Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for Vice President, made the following statement about the evolution/creation controversey:

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject -- creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."

Should we teach flat earth 'theory' along with round earth theory too? I have refrained from posting about my political opinions up unto this point, but I now feel the urge to say that this woman does not belong in office. Teaching creationism in public schools is immoral, illegal, and irresponsible. It is immoral because creationism is not true and rests on major fallacies in thought and science. It is illegal because it violates separation of church and state. And it is irresponsible because we cannot teach future doctors and scientists such an unuseful and unscientific idea. You would be wasting these children's time teaching them creationism when we could teach them the unifying idea of biology: Evolution. This is something that actually has application: Estimating the odds of viri and bacterium evolving immunity to an antibiotic (or combination of antibiotics). What will the future scientists of America do with the "theory" of creationism? Look at the amount of sin going on to determine if God will create a new infectious disease?

Updates, Updates...

I have been updating my website, Godriddance. Here are the two main things which have been updated:

1. The Ultimate Boeing 747. I discuss Richard Dawkins' central argument about why god is very improbable, and the objections to this argument.

2. Consciousness. I found that my original essay about consciousness was unclear, so I replaced it with a far more concise paper that I had originally written for a Psychology class.


I have also read and reviewed Antony Flew's book "There is a God". I have submitted it to Internet Infidels, so it may be published within about a week. If it is not, I will post it to my website anyway.

I am in the process of reading Neil Shubin's book "Your Inner Fish". Expect a review within two weeks.