science | Ain't Complicated

Darwinian Contempt

The More They Know Darwin, The Less They Want Darwin-Only Indoctrination

According to an international poll released by the British Council, the majority of Americans — 60% — support teaching alternatives to evolution in the science classroom. The percentage is the same for Britons, despite the fact that both countries have been inundated with pro-Darwin media coverage in this super-mega Darwin Year.

Of course, the British media reporting this are chagrined. Britain is the birthplace of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, and the official-sounding British Council, the UK group behind the “Darwin Now” campaign that commissioned the Ipsos MORI poll, have spent precious resources educating the world about Darwin. Now some believe the poll shows that efforts by Darwinist organizations aren’t working.

Head of the British Council’s Darwin Now program Fern Elsdon-Baker said, “Overall these results may reflect the need for a more sophisticated approach to teaching and communicating how science works as a process.”

[…]

The correlation appears again when we consider which countries have more knowledge of Darwin’s theory. The highest numbers of those in support of alternative theories in the classroom correspond to the highest numbers of those familiar with Charles Darwin — 60% in Britain, 65% in Mexico, 61% in China, 66% in Russia, and 60% in the U.S. It appears that the more people know about Darwin’s theory, the more they want to see alternatives in science class.

That’s interesting.

Apparently, the majority of people haven’t evolved enough to accept their monkey’s uncle. Or maybe it’s the possibility that their monkey is their uncle that unhinges their support.

Are we guilty of being unwilling to engage in a willing suspension of disbelief? Perhaps.

Now we await a similar nuclear winter global warming climate change poll. (Or did that already happen and I’ve forgotten?)

That’s No Fowl on That Perch!

The missing link is broken, folks!

A few days ago we saw Ida fall from her overhyped status as an ancestor of humans. Now some scientists are claiming that Archaeopteryx should lose its status as an ancestor of modern birds. Calling Archaeopteryx an “icon of evolution,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) borrows a term from Jonathan Wells while reporting that “[t]he feathered creature called archaeopteryx, easily the world’s most famous fossil remains, had been considered the first bird since Charles Darwin’s day. When researchers put its celebrity bones under the microscope recently, though, they discovered that this icon of evolution might not have been a bird at all.”

According to the new research, inferences about growth rates made from studies of Archaeopteryx’s ancient fossilized bones show it developed much more slowly than modern birds. While the WSJ is reporting these doubts about Archaeopteryx’s ancestral status as if they were something new, those who follow the intelligent design movement know that such skepticism has been around for quite some time.

[…]

But old theories die hard, Ruben said, especially when it comes to some of the most distinctive and romanticized animal species in world history.

“Frankly, there’s a lot of museum politics involved in this, a lot of careers committed to a particular point of view even if new scientific evidence raises questions,” Ruben said. In some museum displays, he said, the birds-descended-from-dinosaurs evolutionary theory has been portrayed as a largely accepted fact, with an asterisk pointing out in small type that “some scientists disagree.”

“Our work at OSU used to be pretty much the only asterisk they were talking about,” Ruben said. “But now there are more asterisks all the time. That’s part of the process of science.”

With a hat tip to The Berean Call, I suggest you read the full article: Evolution News & Views: The Demise of Another Evolutionary Link: Archaeopteryx Falls From Its Perch.

Of Graphene and Bottled Water

I was winding down my computer stuff for the day when I saw two interesting headlines. Here are the introductions to the stories, under my modified headlines:

New Wonder Material, One Atom Thick

Imagine a carbon sheet that’s only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That’s graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It’s creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

“It is the thinnest known material in the universe, and the strongest ever measured,” Andre Geim , a physicist at the University of Manchester, England , wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

“A few grams could cover a football field,” said Rod Ruoff , a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin , in an e-mail. A gram is about 1/30th of an ounce.

Like diamond, graphene is pure carbon. It forms a six-sided mesh of atoms that, through an electron microscope, looks like a honeycomb or piece of chicken wire. Despite its strength, it’s as flexible as plastic wrap and can be bent, folded or rolled up like a scroll.

Skip the Bottled Water

Consumers know less about the water they pay dearly for in bottles than what they can drink almost for free from the tap because the two are regulated differently, congressional investigators and nonprofit researchers say in new reports.

[…]

The researchers urged Americans to make bottled water “a distant second choice” to filtered tap water because there isn’t enough information about bottled water. The working group recommends purifying tap water with a commercial filter, however.

Now I must get to bed. I volunteered to take my Dad and my aunt to the Portland (Oregon) airport early tomorrow morning. To pull that off, I need to get up at three. 😯

Eeeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo

How do you spell all those words?! 😯

Whatever. This story is more important:

Children: I’ll Take That One

There is a horrifying slippery slope here. Where do we draw the line? Again, these babies did not have a debilitating lifelong malady. All they had was a chance of developing an illness. What’s next? Poor eyesight or hearing? How about food allergies?

Better yet, why stop at abnormalities? How about insisting they be taller than average, or have superior abilities? While you’re at it, why not also select the eye color and hair color? Don’t just fertilize eleven eggs. Fertilize a hundred, choose the single best one, and destroy the rest.

[…]

We are in an era where science enables us to do wonderful things, but also terrible things. Our public policy must protect life, especially the lives of innocent, unborn children.

And we must never deceive ourselves that we do children a favor by ending their lives as they begin.

PS: If you like to read bumper stickers, check out this one. 🙂

No More Parakeets

This parakeet was just too scrawny.

Too Scrawny:

Little Pluto, formerly the solar system’s smallest planet, has been stripped of its status by the International Astronomical Union, reducing the number of planets to eight.

The new guidelines — introduced in Prague on Thursday after a week of debate by the 2,500 astronomers at the organization’s conference — define what is a planet and what is not. Pluto didn’t make the cut.

Pluto has been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930. Pluto is now considered a “dwarf planet,” and the eight others — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are now called “classical planets.”

Among other implications, Thursday’s new definition means students will have to find a new way of remembering how the planets are arranged in order from the sun.

The old mnemonic device of “Mark’s Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Ninety Parakeets” helped them recall that the order was Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

As a former teacher, I offer this alternative:

Mark’s Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Ninety (dwarf) Parakeets

That way students will only have to drop dwarf when the definition changes again.

Plus it reminds them of the good old days.

Plus it drives home the point that Pluto is still classed as a planet, albeit a dwarf.

You’re welcome.