Hugh Ross on Evolution

Sandwalk points us to a two minute video of Hugh Ross in which he tries to educate an audience on evolution and fails miserably. He clearly knows nothing about either evolution or the fossil record. This is embarrassing.



For one thing, he states that most mutations are harmful. Mutations are only harmful if they disrupt the genome in such a way that reduced fitness is conferred on the organism. Many mutations are fitness neutral. Mutations do not drive a species to extinction, changing environments drive a species to extinction. That is basic evolutionary ecology. This is worse than William Dembski's math.

He talks about the fossil record by asking where you see the evidence for transitional forms and then focuses only on whales and horses. That is ridiculous. There are transitional forms all over the fossil record at every major level. If this is really the biology coming out of RTB then Todd Wood is correct, they absolutely cannot be trusted for anything.

The comments on Sandwalk's page are priceless. One in particular: “So why didn't God make more dinosaurs and unicorns and dodo birds? Or maybe he just doesn't love them as much as he loves horses and whales. He sure seems to love roaches and bedbugs, too.”

Amazing.

Armageddon Halted...For Now

According to Wired, the attempts to drill into Lake Vostok, the lake that is buried under 2.2 miles of ice in Antarctica has halted for now because of bad weather. Wired provides a nifty graphic of what is being attempted.




Liat Clark writes:

The team — headed up by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg — had to call off work just 29 meters [95-foot] short of the end goal because the Antarctic winter is fast closing in. News that they plan to fill the 3,749-meter [12,300-foot] borehole with kerosene to prevent it from freezing will further trouble groups who fear continued research will contaminate the lake.

Yup, God only knows what drilling into that would release.

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NPR on the State of Science Education

NPR has, on its blog, a post lamenting the recent findings that many high school biology teachers are not adhering to the established curriculum of teaching evolution. In a post titled “Speaking in Defense of Science,” Marcelo Gleiser writes:

Now, many will say that they are not anti-science per se, just against the science that clashes with their religious beliefs. So, antibiotics are fine, but the theory of evolution is not. If only they'd take the time to learn about how antibiotics work and about how over-prescribing can result in germ mutations that render some antibiotics ineffective. It's is a real-time illustration of the theory of evolution at work.

It is one of so many examples of how evolution works in our lives. I just finished up a CFSI post that delves into the evidence from pseudogenes and ERVs that is dang near impossible to explain using an ID or YEC framework. If we live in a God-created universe that works on principles established by Him billions of years ago and that behaves in an orderly, knowable fashion, then what we know is that science is real.

Human Fossil Record, Part 3

My next BioLogos installment is up, here. It deals with the initial discovery of Australopithecus and the nature of palaeospecies. Comments are, of course, welcome.


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Great Article Title!

There is a report on Fox News about the rise of homeschooling. The title? “Educating Our Children: The Evolution of Home Schooling.” I laughed long and hard when I read that. The first paragraph reads:

Anne Gebhardt’s kids are learning about geography -- in her dining room in Bedford, Texas. It’s not your typical schoolhouse, but it’s one that Gebhardt says is serving her six children well. "We can teach our religious values to our children freely,” says Gebhardt. “We can teach anything that we want."

Yes, we can teach that a flood once covered the entire earth, even though there is not a scrap of evidence for it. We can teach that the earth was created six thousand years ago, even though there is not a scrap of evidence for it. See, we can teach anything we want!

I sympathize, though. We homeschool our children because of the terrible quality of the public schools and the astronomical prices of the private schools but we make dang sure what they do get from the home school curriculum is a good education in the arts, humanities, language and civics in the process. Having said that, my wife and I are currently debating what to do about the advanced part of the science section because it covers, you guessed it! Creationism. I have told my wife that I will not challenge our ten and eight year olds but I will provide an alternate perspective if asked. I do not want them to have to choose at this age and I don't want to turn them away from God because of my detestation of recent earth creationism.
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“Bible Study Fellowship” And The Problem of Modern Protestant Evangelical Christianity

I went to Bible Study Fellowship (BSF ) last night, as I do every Monday night so I can participate in an organized Bible study. I have been doing this for six years now and we have gone through Acts, Matthew, Romans, John, The Life of Moses, Genesis and now, Isaiah. The notes that come with the questions that one takes home and answers are somewhat insightful and bring in some aspects of history and culture along with good, sound theology. The questions, on the other hand, are often one-dimensional, asking the participant to simply regurgitate the verses verbatim or provide short answers to the questions without deviating from the text. In some instances, the questions can lead to new insights and can be thought-provoking. Very often, however, they are not.

In some ways, BSF follows the model of the “inductive Bible study” that was so popular in the eighties and nineties and which was the bread and butter of groups like InterVarsity, Campus Crusade and Navigators. This constructs the Bible study such that one reads the text and only the text to glean from it scriptural and spiritual insights. Probably, if one used that method in concert with other kinds of study, it would provide a fruitful avenue of spiritual growth.

But that is the problem.

Most protestant evangelical Christians that I know do not do that. They rely on the inductive study alone for spiritual growth, eschewing any commentaries by those that have studied the text in its original language and who have paid attention to word usage, cultural norms, literature type and the range of possible textual interpretations based on those variables. This can, and often does, result in a flat view of scripture that is lacking in symbolic richness and depth. Worse, it can lead to a skewed interpretation of scripture that derives only from the flat text.

One of the by-products of this practice is the tendency toward distrusting and rejecting any possible scientific conclusions that do not appear to comport with the face-value reading of the text. Enter young earth creationism, a reading of scripture that, two hundred years ago, would have seemed very strange to the average Christian.

Twice, my BSF leader used the term “evolutionist” when he really meant “atheist.” During discussion, another man, who is well-meaning, pleasant and very intelligent, referred to the “evolution religion” as though it were fact. I am quite convinced neither one of them would be able to spot evolution on a map but it sure sounds good to take a swipe at those mean, evil atheists.

Coming away from BSF last night, I had two main thoughts:

• That, for all of its energy and exuberance, the modern protestant fundamentalist evangelical mindset can be very draining and wearing in its simplicity and one-dimensionality.
• If the leaders of BSF ever found this blog, they wouldn't even pay my bus fare out of there.
  

I know that I have painted a large brush stroke here and part of this is just disillusionment and frustration talking. I know that there is much good and right in this mindset. But, as Mark Noll found, there is also much that is wrong.
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A Fable For Our Time

Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Tribune News Service serves up a fable inspired by the recent finding that many high school biology teachers are loathe to teach evolution in the classroom. He writes:

Once upon a time, there lived a stupid giant. The giant had not always been stupid.

Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say the giant had once revered intelligence, reason and the byproducts thereof.

Indeed, the giant was renowned for an ingenuity and standard of living that made it the envy of the world.

But much of the world did more than envy the giant.

Much of the world admired and respected it.

Its basic decency, along with its strength and intelligence, set it apart.

There came a time, however, when, though the giant retained its strength and arguably even its decency , it lost its intelligence.

No one can say exactly how and when the loss occurred.

There was no great blast of thunder and lightning to herald it, no sudden instant when the giant's intelligence plummeted dramatically from the instant before.

No, stupidity crept over the giant with the stealth of twilight, a product less of one abrupt moment than of a thousand moments of complacency , of resting on laurels, of allowing curiosity to be teased and bullied out of bright children, of dumbing down textbooks so kids could get better grades with less work, of using "elite" like a curse word.

And, of behaving as if knowing things, and being able to extrapolate from and otherwise make critical use of, the things one knows, was a betrayal of some fundamental human authenticity -some need to keep it real.

Stupidity stole over the giant until it could no longer tell science from faith, or conven tional wisdom from actual wisdom and in any event, valued ideological purity above them all.

Stupidity snaked over the giant until science teachers shrank from teaching sci ence, history books con tained history that wasn't history , late-night comics got easy laughs from people on the street who could not say when the War of 1812 was fought, political leaders told outright lies with blithe smiles and no fear of being caught, and you would not have been surprised to hear that someone had fixed mathematics, so that 2+2 could now equal 17, thus preserving the all-important self-esteem of secondgrade kids.

Some regarded the giant's stupidity as a danger.

They reasoned that when one is so big that one's merest movement or slightest utterance affects the entire world, it's a good idea if those movements and utterances are animated by something more than autonomic function.

Others saw the giant's stupidity as an opportunity .

They learned eagerly until they surpassed the giant's intellect.

They grew until they rivaled the giant's size and strength.

They did not attempt to match the giant's decency .

They considered decency a hindrance.

And the giant?
It sat on its haunches in the mud as the world changed about it and new giants rose and shook their fists.

The giant did not notice.

It was watching "The Jersey Shore" on MTV..

I am reminded of the great line in the movie Ladyhawke, where the evil cardinal, when told of the seemingly insignificant escape of a thief he had jailed, remarked: “Great storms announce themselves with a single breeze...”

After all, it is not like they just quit teaching biology overnight...

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Scientists To Pierce Frozen Lake

Russian Scientists are set to pierce a lake in Antarctica that has been sealed for over fifteen million years. RedOrbit reports:

Alexei Turkeyev, head of the Russian polar Vostok Station, told Reuters by satellite phone that scientists have “only a bit left to go.” His team has been drilling for weeks in a race to reach the lake -- buried 12,000 feet beneath the polar ice cap -- before the end of the brief Antarctic summer.

With the quickly returning onset of winter, scientists will be forced to leave on the last flight out on February 6. “It's minus 40 (Fahrenheit) outside,” said Turkeyev. “But whatever, we're working. We're feeling good. There's only 5 meters left until we get to the lake so it'll all be very soon.”

Scientists are hoping the lake will reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved may have evolved [sic] in the times before the ice age. The lake could also offer scientists a glimpse of what conditions exist for life in similar extremes on Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds of Instpundit, who writes:“Admit it, it sounds just like a thousand horror-movie setups.”

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New Information on Coppedge Suit

The lawyer for David Coppedge is considering refiling the suit in light of a new court decision. In a storyby Beige Luciano-Adams in the Pasadena Star:

[Coppedge]... filed suit with the Los Angeles Superior in April of last year, claiming he was demoted at JPL for propagating his beliefs at work, citing protection under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

A JPL spokeswoman said Coppedge's "suit is without merit."

But while the original lawsuit rested on claims of discrimination under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, Coppedge's legal team is now considering a new tactics - including taking a page from the Supreme Court's Jan. 19 in NASA v. Nelson.

Two weeks ago the high court ruled against JPL employees who sought to terminate background checks at the facility. The employees claimed those checks violated their civil rights.

"David was terminated and the NASA v. Nelson decision came down
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... which changes the case in material ways," said Coppedge's attorney, Bill Becker.

Becker said he would seek to amend the complaint within the next two weeks to include a wrongful termination claim - adding that a First Amendment claim might also be on the table.

Here is the WaPo story on the NASA vs. Nelson ruling, which involved whether or not the federal government had the right to conduct background checks for prospective employees even if they were subcontractors. But Eugene Volokh writes:

"The real question is who is making the decision - that was clear in (NASA v. Nelson), but not so clear here. Just because a research center is federally funded is not enough to make it a government actor," Volokh said of JPL, which is managed by the California Institute of Technology for NASA.

Read the whole thing.

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Should You Be So Curious...

The Ark Encounter Will Open On...

I should point out that this is actually the first day of spring and the builders have not said exactly when in Spring, 2014 it will open. So the clock may be off by a bit.
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Local Good News: Gray Fossil Site

One of the local stations, WATE has picked up an AP story that the state of Tennessee is set to buy land next to the Gray fossil site, near Johnson City, Tennessee. The author writes:

The state is set to buy a tract of land next to the Gray Fossil site.

The Johnson City Press reports the parcel in Gray contains just over 14 acres.

Site museum director Jeanne Zavada has been discussing the purchase since 2006 with the family who owns it.

Zavada says the Tennessee Board of Regents negotiated with the family, and the state will pay the appraised value of the property. It was recently appraised at $178,000.

The Regents are involved because East Tennessee State University operates the site where the current digs and the museum are located.

The fossil site now includes less than five acres.

Here is the website for the museum. My family and I visited the site a year or so ago and had a great time. They have a nice museum and active excavations of Miocene sediments on the grounds.

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The Meaning of “Naturalism”

In the BioLogos Blog, Ard Louis addresses the differences between “methodological naturalism” and “philosophical naturalism” in the first of three parts here. It focuses more on how BioLogos should respond to criticisms about its take on science and scripture but is instructive for general purposes. In it, he cuts deep into the idea that we can use the science of the natural world to “prove” the existence of God:

Despite warnings from great thinkers such as Pascal, Newman and Barth⁴, the idea that an unbiased observer should be able to use science to find unambiguous evidence for God’s existence is remarkably resilient among Christians. Furthermore, many attempts at natural theology rely heavily on value-laden metaphors that come from popularizations of science. This cuts both ways. On the one hand Archdeacon Paley saw the hand of God in the intricate watch-like “contrivances of nature”, while on the other hand Richard Dawkins sees a pitiless and indifferent “blind watchmaker” in what he believes are the wasteful and purposeless processes of evolution. Although their conclusions couldn’t be more different, both are engaging in a natural theology based on similar rationalistic assumptions.

He argues, as I have argued, that it is an improper use of science to construct an apologetic position for the existence of God. Ultimately, such an argument can only rise to the level of “personal incredulity” that such a finely tuned universe can be the product of chance. The point is that we can, from a scientific perspective, never know whether or not God exists. This position is deeply uncomfortable for your average Christian who, intuitively, want to be able to hang their hat on something tangible to bolster their faith in an invisible God. It is this perspective that has largely fueled the Intelligent Design movement which, because of the limitations of this model has run up against a brick wall called ‘lack of testable hypotheses.’

Put simply, just because my hypothesis is wrong, it doesn't make yours correct. If there is no test for yours, we go back to the drawing board.

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“High school biology teachers reluctant to endorse evolution in class”

So reads the headline from PhysOrg. The story, out of Penn State University, reads in part:

"Considerable research suggests that supporters of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself are losing battles in America's classrooms," write Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, professors of political science at Penn State, in today's (Jan. 28) issue of Science.

The researchers examined data from the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers, a representative sample of 926 public high school biology instructors. They found only about 28 percent of those teachers consistently implement National Research Council recommendations calling for introduction of evidence that evolution occurred, and craft lesson plans with evolution as a unifying theme linking disparate topics in biology.

I think that a lot of teachers are running scared because of the shift in political climate in the country and the increasing prevalence of “academic freedom” legislation that has been passed. It is easier to not make waves then to risk the ire of a parent that doesn't agree with the teaching of evolution. The principle problem is, however worse:

[Authors] Berkman and Plutzer conclude that “the cautious 60 percent fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments.” As a result, “they may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists.”

This allows students to graduate from high school without the necessary biological science understanding without being challenged until they get to college. As a result, the overall level of scientific knowledge of the discipline declines every year.

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The Firing of David Coppedge from NASA

Evolution News and Views has an update on the suit filed by David Coppedge, the worker at the Cassini spacecraft project at Caltech. Casey Luskin writes:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) just dumped a lot of fuel on the fire of David Coppedge's discrimination lawsuit by firing him on Monday. Coppedge's lawsuit against JPL alleges discrimination because he was prevented from talking about intelligent design (ID).

This could potentially expose JPL to a claim of wrongful termination and increase the merits of Coppedge's claim that JPL retaliated against him. According to Coppedge's attorney William Becker, JPL claims the firing resulted from downsizing in the face of budget issues, but Coppedge is the most senior member of the team that oversees the computers on NASA and JPL's Cassini Mission to Saturn. Coppedge doesn't seem at all like the first person who would normally be forced to leave in such a situation, but obviously, JPL has other considerations.

This certainly makes it look bad for JPL and Caltech in terms of how they treated Coppedge for seemingly exercising his First Amendment rights. Luskin contines:

Those other considerations began in 2009 when the administration found out that Coppedge had occasionally had friendly discussions about ID with fellow employees. Coppedge was not pushy in these conversations; if a colleague wasn't interested, Coppedge dropped the matter. Nonetheless, one administrator yelled at Coppedge and ordered him to stop "pushing religion," which led to Coppedge filing a claim of harassment.

We will have to wait for more information from the trial, itself before more can be said. This may, in fact, be an incidence of discrimination. That would be sad, not just for David Coppedge, but for those of us who think that scientists ought to behave better.

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More Evidence For A Gradual Shift to Bipedalism

Discovery News has a story on work that is being done on early hominid locomotion. Jennifer Viegas writes:

Early human ancestors stopped swinging in trees and started walking on the ground sometime between 4.2 and 3.5 million years ago, according to a new study.

This key moment, when our ancestors became anatomically and behaviorally less ape-like, coincides with increased cooling, more defined seasonality, and a grassland growth spurt. All transformed former forest habitats into more varied ones, forcing our very early relatives to change their ways.

"With the trees being farther apart, it became energetically advantageous for hominids to cross the gaps bipedally," said Gabriele Macho, lead author of the study that was published in the latest issue of Folia Primatologica.

This follows on the heels (sorry) of the recent studies on Ardipithecus, where it was found that this hominid had a skeletal pattern that was adapted not just for the trees but for bipedal walking as well. How long was this pattern maintained? Viegas continues:

The scientists observed that the Australopithecus anamensis wrist bones exhibited pressure loads associated with modern arboreal animals. The analyzed Australopithecus afarensis bones conversely showed stress loads comparable to those of more terrestrial species, including modern humans.

The researchers concluded that the important shift in early hominid lifestyle happened around the time when A. afarensis first emerged.

A. anamensis is the form that followed, at least chronologically, Ardipithecus ramidus. Whether or not there is a direct ancestor/descendant relationship there, it is clear that the transitional elements in Ardipithecus were continued in the hominid line and that A. anamensis maintained a similar adaptation to the environment. The true changes in bipedalism and adaptation came with A. afarensis. This is yet another piece of the puzzle at this critical point in our history.

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Richard Hoppe Takes Casey Luskin to the Woodshed

Richard Hoppe, over at Panda's Thumb, fisks Casey Luskin for his comments on the new article on the evolutionary pathway on the antifreeze gene in fish. Luskin's original post is here and Hoppe's is here. Luskin needs to get away from ham-fisted terms like “Darwinian activists” to be taken seriously.

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Anderson Cooper 360 Tackles Noah's Ark

Anderson Cooper conducted an interview with Ken Ham and Barry Lynn about the new amusement park that is being built in Kentucky centred around Noah's Ark. The transcript is here and the story begins about a third of the way in. Here is an excerpt:

BARRY LYNN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE: Well, it's really a ministry. It honestly is.

Its purpose primarily is to try -- on the Web site of Answers in Genesis, it says this -- to convince the world, including those of us in America, that there is a literal truth to the Bible. And that includes the literal truth of the story of a worldwide flood and Noah's Ark.

So, it would be very -- I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who looks at this project and doesn't see this as a ministry. And that's precisely what's wrong with the government of Kentucky, the state, helping to subsidize it.

COOPER: Mr. Ham, are you trying to convert people here?

HAM: You know, first of all, it's not Answers in Genesis that owns the Ark Encounter. The Ark Encounter is a profit organization. Answers in Genesis is just a member. You need to understand that.

And, secondly, the -- the government of Kentucky is not subsidizing the Ark Encounter. They have an economic incentive program available for anyone. In fact, they can't have viewpoint discrimination, as Barry Lynn would like to have.

And because of the economic incentive program, we, like anyone else, if we fulfill the criteria of that -- and there are five criteria -- it doesn't involve the state endorsing any particular religion or anything like that.

In fact, the Ark Encounter is not a religion. It is a theme park. It is centered around biblical history. And -- and the state is not going to have viewpoint discrimination just because it's a theme park centered around biblical history.

LYNN: No, no, but, see, that is fundamentally wrong.

The truth of the matter is that this park, whether it's partially private or partially for-profit, it is promoting the one thing that the other groups getting subsidies don't promote, and that is a specific religious viewpoint.

Aside from the legal issues, I was horrified just a few weeks ago when the governor, Steve Beshear, of Kentucky stands up there with folks from this Ark park and basically gives his blessing to what -- let's just call them unorthodox ideas from Answers in Genesis.

As much as I disagree with Barry Lynn most of the time, he has a point here. This is a particular point of view that is being expressed and Lynn is correct that it entails at least tacit support for an initiative that is purely religiously based, whether or not Ken Ham wishes to acknowledge this. This makes Ham's response somewhat naïve. The Koran carries within it history as well, but no one would construe an amusement park based on the Koran as being anything other than Muslim-based.

As far as the legal end of things is concerned, if Ham is correct that they really have met all five of the criteria, then there is little that can stand in the way of the incentive program.

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New CFSI Post Is Up

My newest CFSI post is up and can be read here. One more post on the background before I tackle the theological issues involved. Still thinking about those.

Comment is Back!

The comment that I posted to O'Leary's site is back. Wonder what happened? I checked several times this morning and could not find it. I take back all of the things I said. Maybe there is hope after all.

Its Gone!!

Denyse O'Leary has come through with Flying Colors!!! The comment that I left last night on O'Leary's atheism post is GONE! In its place are eight comments that, to one degree or another, agree with what she wrote. Absolutely amazing. How can anyone call themselves a journalist with integrity when they remove comments that don't agree with what they write? My comment contained no name-calling, no hateful references, and no ad hominem attacks and yet, as far as the readers of UD know, it was never there. Disgraceful.

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Comment on Uncommon Descent

O'Leary has a post with the particularly snotty title “Darwinism best career choice for aspiring influential atheists?” , which is a comment on another post that was put out called The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists. Seven of them are evolution supporters or evolutionary biologists, something she finds significant. She writes:

“And, by the way, when Evolution Sunday rolls around in 2011, all Christian Darwinists should pause to reflect on how much their faith owes to these people. (I mention this because I am knee-deep in these blessed dimes of Darwin, for some project I am stuck with.)”

I responded:

Why on earth would my faith owe these people anything? My faith in Jesus and my acceptance of evolutionary biology doesn’t hinge on whether or not these people are atheists. These people were atheists long before they supported evolution. And evolution has been around a lot longer than they have.

We will see how long the comment stays up or if she responds to it. I know it is not strictly a DI page, but, then again, there have never been open comments here before.

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Feedback!

I am reminded of that fantastic section of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's live version of Aquatarkus where Greg Lake channels feedback through his bass into the speakers (at the 19:02 mark). As Panda's Thumb notes, it seems that the Discovery Institute, after years of negative press about the fact that they don't allow feedback on their hit pieces, are testing the waters. I am not optimistic. A year back, I found a piece by Cornelius Hunter to be incorrect in places. How was I able to voice this? I had to write the PR guy and lawyer Casey Luskin, who then relayed the message to Dr. Hunter, who then wrote me a very arrogant and condescending message. After debating whether or not to answer it and fearing I would write something that I would later regret, I just walked away. Let's see what Wesley Elsbury writes:

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow William Dembski’s weblog, “Uncommon Descent”, has comments enabled, but the moderation there is generally so ham-fisted that only a few voices of dissent have lasted more than a week or two. The various inconsistencies of moderation and proclivity to stifle dissent have their own thread at “After the Bar Closes”., and discussion of content at UD has occupied three long-running threads ([1], [2], and [3]).

For a reminder of one particularly bad exchange, a read of Pharyngula's account is instructive. We shall see what we shall see.

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Martin Gaskell and the University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky just settled out of court a discrimination suit brought by Martin Gaskell who felt that he was denied a position because he was a Christian. Here is the story from Inside Higher Ed and here is the essay that got Dr. Gaskell into trouble. Two things come to mind when I read the story and the essay: first, the University of Kentucky acted shamefully in many ways during the whole episode and, second, if I had been relevant professors at the University, I would have been a bit nervous too.

First, the University:

But Gaskell says it was Kentucky’s biology department that sank his candidacy for the observatory directorship. Upon discovering his lecture notes online, several members of the search committee expressed curiosity, though not necessarily alarm. “Clearly this man is complex and likely fascinating to talk to -- but possibly evangelical,” wrote one committee member in an e-mail. “If we hire him, we should expect similar content to be posted on or directly linked from the department website.” Another, noting that he was aware of Gaskell’s religious disposition, responded, “Personally, I believe in freedom of religion, and have no problem with Martin as long as he does not use the classroom or official university sites as a pulpit.”

Gaskell says that the biology department, whose members had no astrophysical experience or training were allowed to influence the decision to hire him. Understandably, this was upsetting. There was, additionally, clearly some future projecting going on:

“[A non-committee member] suggested, in particular, that we might one day wake up to a [Lexington] Herald-Leader headline citing ‘UK hires creationist as Observatory Director,’” wrote one member of the search committee in an e-mail. “Such a headline would probably not be a fair representation of Martin’s personal views, which are not simple, but the headline could appear nonetheless.”

You cannot hire or not hire somebody based on something that may or may not happen that has little bearing on their position. One might just as easily say that they have a problem with hiring someone for a biology position because they go to church. God only knows what that church might teach some Sunday.

Second, Martin Gaskell. After setting up the various divisions within the church with regard to the teaching of evolution and the age of the earth, he uncorks this:

It is true that there are significant scientific problems in evolutionary theory (a good thing or else many biologists and geologists would be out of a job) and that these problems are bigger than is usually made out in introductory geology/biology courses, but the real problem with humanistic evolution is in the unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations. It is the latter that “creationists” should really be attacking (many books do, in fact, attack these unwarranted assumptions and extrapolations).

What exactly are these “significant problems?” He does not say (nor, I will warrant, would he be able to). The first thing that comes to my mind when I read something like this is “Discovery Institute party line” and red flags go up. Here is a man who complains that biologists who have no expertise in astrophysics are having an influence on his hiring and yet appears to feel perfectly free to denigrate a science of which he knows nothing. Further, the statement isn't just wrong, it is pejorative, implying that biologists are pulling the wool over people's eyes when they teach it or practice it. That is uncalled for and unprofessional. He continues:

A discussion of the current controversies over evolutionary theory and how Christians view these controversies, is beyond the scope of this handout, but the now extensive literature discussing and reviewing books such as those of Phillip E. Johnson (“Darwin on Trial”) and of biochemist Michael J. Behe (“Darwin's Black Box”) will give you some of the flavor of the diversity of opinion of Christian biologists (and geologists).

Why has he mentioned no books by mainstream biologists, such as Kenneth Miller or Francis Collins? They are both Christians and well-respected in the field of biology. The only flavor you will get with the list Gaskell provides is “Intelligent Design”.

So, was the University of Kentucky right in denying him the appointment? likely not. It is not clear that his views on biology would have made the slightest difference in the performance of his duties as an astronomer. It is also true that he should have known that if he hung a big sign around his neck reading “Discovery Institute” that problems would arise.

While most scientists have taken to ignoring the young earth creation groups such as the ICR and AiG, the Discovery Institute is viewed as a real threat because of the thin veneer of “science” that it promotes as well as the their suspect practices (See Steve Matheson's open letter to Stephen Meyer of the DI) involving their portrayal of scientists and their promotion of debatable legislation damaging to the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. It is not surprising that the biologists reacted the way they did.

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Roger Morris at Faith Interface

Roger Morris has a good summation of why the Young Earth Creation position is logically, theologically and philosophically unsound. It is a very good read and you should stop by. It is here.

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Quote of the Day

An individual who Twittered that she wished that Sarah Palin would get shot now seems to want privacy from the post. As a commenter to the story by William Jacobson of Legal Insurrections wrote:

“Twitter seems to be very effective, in a raw Darwinian sort of way, at identifying the true morons, doesn’t it?”

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Reasons to Believe and the Credibility Gap

Todd Wood has wrapped up his long series on the problems with Fuz Rana's interpretation of the human/chimp DNA differences and his responses to Dennis Venema's writings. He closes with some sobering thought:

To be honest, I do not believe that RTB will pay any attention whatsoever to this series of posts. Given Rana's insulting response to Venema's critique, I expect that they'll treat this as yet another "ad hominem attack." I've mostly written this series for third parties that might be confused about the Venema/Rana exchange. As far as I'm concerned, RTB's credibility is completely shot (read my analysis of their handling of the Neandertal genome for more evidence of errors and exaggerations on the part of Ross, Rana, and Samples: parts one, two, three). I would recommend that no one accept any of RTB's arguments without fact-checking their claims first. I do not know whether these problems are due to lazy scholarship, ignorance, intentional deception, or ideological blinders. What I do know is that you cannot trust Reasons to Believe.

This is very disappointing but, having read enough of Steve Matheson's writings, not entirely surprising. Once upon a time I had much respect for Hugh Ross and the work he did to try to convince the evangelical community that there could be a fulfilling theological construct that incorporated an old creation. He came to the University of Tennessee in the early 1990s and gave a series of compelling, cogent lectures on the astrophysical evidence. Even then, though, I had misgivings about what his (and his organization's) treatment of the biological data would be like. Now, it seems that my misgivings were well-founded and we have our answer.

Albert Mohler Takes on BioLogos

Over At Albert Mohler's blog, he has a post titled: “No Buzzing Little Fly — Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is So Important”. His is a response to Darrel Falk's end of the year BioLogos message, which can be found here. He quotes Falk as writing:

Dr. Mohler, giant as he is in fundamentalist/evangelical circles, represents a view that takes on the entire scientific enterprise. To this day, I have not been able to identify a single person who holds a science faculty position in any Biology, Geology or Physics Department at any secular research university in the world who would agree with Dr. Mohler’s view of creation. Not one, out of what I imagine are tens of thousands, including many who are strongly committed to living the Christian life in the context of fully orthodox Christian theology... Scientific knowledge is not deeply flawed and we cannot allow ourselves to be led down this pathway any longer.

To this, Mohler responds:

That is nothing less than a manifesto for scientism. Science, as a form of knowledge, is here granted a status that can only be described as infallible. The dangers of this proposal are only intensified when we recognize that “scientific knowledge” is not even a stable intellectual construct. Nevertheless, these words do reveal why BioLogos pushes its agenda with such intensity.

This is a very simplistic view of science and its goals and if Dr. Mohler thought long and hard about it, I believe he would agree. Airplanes work because of scientific knowledge. Cars work because of scientific knowledge. We know that there are eight planets in the solar system (and one plutoid) because of scientific knowledge. Science has been responsible for almost everything that we know of the natural universe. As They Might Be Giants would say: “Science is Real!”

To say that the scientific enterprise is infallible just because someone else says that it isn't a fundamentally flawed endeavor is nonsense. (Aside: when you quote someone, it is customary to include the link to the piece from which you are quoting. Dr. Mohler did not afford Dr. Falk this courtesy.)

Science is not truth. But it does give us a window into the mind of God through the study of his creation. The scientific enterprise is the best way that we have of understanding the universe around us in a physical sense. Such an endeavor does not amount to “scientism” and when Reverend Mohler suggests otherwise, it makes one wonder if he does not truly understand what science is about.

Mohler continues:

The entire intellectual enterprise of evolution is based on naturalistic assumptions, and I do not share those presuppositions. Indeed, the entire enterprise of Christianity is based on supernaturalistic, rather than merely naturalistic, assumptions. There is absolutely no reason that a Christian theologian should accept the uniformitarian assumptions of evolution. In fact, given a plain reading of Scripture, there is every reason that Christians should reject a uniformitarian presupposition. The Bible itself offers a very different understanding of natural phenomena, with explanations that should be compelling to believers.

The enterprise of evolution is based on scientific observation of God's creation. There are no naturalistic assumptions made about evolution that are not made about all of the rest of God's creation. Are naturalistic assumptions present in a weather forecast? Those are derived from scientific models. Part of the reason that they work is because of these self, same uniformitarian assumptions to which Reverend Mohler is so adamantly opposed.

The “different” understanding of natural phenomena that Reverend Mohler offers reflects a flat reading of scripture, without symbolic imagery, or grandeur. It offers, consequently, a non-existent, fantasy creation, a world that never was and exists only in the minds of young-earth creation supporters and theologians like Reverend Mohler. When this theological construct encounters the real world, it either crumbles or retreats into its shell by arguing that only spiritual truth is real truth. This simply isn't so. Spiritual truth is God's truth but so is physical truth. The evidence that our universe is very old will not go away and, unless the vast majority of science is completely and utterly mistaken, it will never reveal a world such as that envisioned by the young earth model.

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Todd Wood Continues Taking Apart Fuz Rana

In the most gentle and Christlike fashion, Todd Wood is trashing Fuz Rana's interpretation of the ape and human genome similarities. Todd is up to part seven now, which can be found here. He writes:

In his latest post, Rana asserts the following about the argument for common ancestry from pseudogenes:

When evolutionary biologists present this argument, they make a number of assumptions, all of which appear to have questionable validity based on recent research results. For the pseudogene evidence to have potency: (1) pseudogenes must lack function; (2) their origin must be due to rare, random events; and (3) their juxtaposition to other genes must be arbitrary.

Everything he wrote there is utterly false. None of those conditions are required to argue for common ancestry from pseudogene similarity. Not one.

As Glenn Reynolds would say: OUCH! I would encourage you to read the whole debate. I am not qualified to comment at more than a superficially cogent level but I might try to say a few things. I haven't seen Steve Matheson wade in yet, but he may yet. If he does, expect fireworks. He has no love for RTB.

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Praise for Todd Wood

Larry Moran over at Sandwalk has been following the debate between Fuz Rana over at RTB and Dennis Venema, at BioLogos, about the human/chimpanzee genomic similarities. I have been meaning to comment on the debate but have gotten involved in my own posts and haven't had the time. Anyway, this came to the attention of Todd Wood, down at Bryan College, who has been running his own set of posts on the debate. Moran has this to say:

Fortunately for us, Todd Wood of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, USA is on the case. Todd belongs to a young-Earth creation study group [BSG] but don't let that fool you. He's doing a pretty good job of sorting out the facts in the case.

This might seem somewhat backhanded but if you read what Wood has to say, he is obviously struggling with the lack of integrity on the part of RTB. It is nice to see a young earth creationist try to deal with the data honestly. Most of the time the lack of integrity exhibited by young earth creationists is maddening, distasteful and disheartening. Hats off to Todd Wood.

The Evolution of Modern Clothing

A University of Florida study has determined that modern humans first developed clothing around 170,000 years ago and that this enabled them to migrate out of Africa. Danielle Torrent writes:

Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and migration patterns. His latest five-year study used DNA sequencing to calculate when clothing lice first began to diverge genetically from human head lice.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study is available online and appears in this month’s print edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

“We wanted to find another method for pinpointing when humans might have first started wearing clothing,” Reed said. “Because they are so well adapted to clothing, we know that body lice or clothing lice almost certainly didn’t exist until clothing came about in humans.”

The data shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 70,000 years before migrating into colder climates and higher latitudes, which began about 100,000 years ago. This date would be virtually impossible to determine using archaeological data because early clothing would not survive in archaeological sites.

Oh? Okay, lets parse this. Modern humans invented clothing so they could move into colder climates. News flash: hominids were knocking on the gates of Europe 1.8 million years ago. This we know from the Caucasus site of Dmanisi. Furthermore, there are Chinese Homo erectus sites that date to between 250 and 550 thousand years ago. These locales were not temperate. The site of Zhoukoudian is near Beijing, which can experience temperatures as low a -4 degrees Fahrenheit. It is with this hominid that we see the first control of fire. The story continues:

“The new result from this lice study is an unexpectedly early date for clothing, much older than the earliest solid archaeological evidence, but it makes sense,” said Ian Gilligan, lecturer in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at The Australian National University. “It means modern humans probably started wearing clothes on a regular basis to keep warm when they were first exposed to Ice Age conditions.”

Again, the hominids in China lived during the East Asian equivalent of the Mindel glaciation, during which it would have been colder than it is now.The story continues:

The study also shows humans started wearing clothes well after they lost body hair, which genetic skin-coloration research pinpoints at about 1 million years ago, meaning humans spent a considerable amount of time without body hair and without clothing, Reed said.

Not sure I buy this either. You can't survive in those locales during glacial periods without one or the other. You can't pick fire up and move it around with you. During the mid- to late Pleistocene, you had hominids in southern Europe, northern China, the Caucasus and other places. During the Würm glaciation, the tundra line was at Vienna.

I would like to see a follow-up story.

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Oh, Those Godless Evolutionists!

Denyse O'Leary wrote an extremely vapid piece on Darrel Falk which I thought about commenting on before I thought better of it. Instead, since we evolutionists are obviously all Godless atheists, I leave you with Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers singing "Atheists Don't Have No Songs."



I will be serious again tomorrow, I promise.

BioLogos Post

The third BioLogos post, on the origins of bipedality and Ardipithecus, is up. Darrel actually changed the title a bit from “Bipedality—the Hallmark of Humanity” to just “Bipedality” to prevent a potential critical backlash. That is understandable.

As Darrel correctly pointed out, the hallmark of humanity is entrance into the Kingdom of God. It is important when reading the post that you keep this in your mind. That it looks like God took His time with us does not change that in any way. We are creations of God and His chosen creation. Let me know what you think.

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Handaxes Ahoy!

It seems that at least some of our Homo erectus/Archaic Homo sapiens ancestors took to the high seas. A story circulating around the news (I found a copy on HufPo) indicates that, on the island of Crete, stone tools dating to between 130 and 700 ky have been found. According to the story:

Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles). That would upset the current view that human ancestors migrated to Europe from Africa by land alone.

"The results of the survey not only provide evidence of sea voyages in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we were aware of so far, but also change our understanding of early hominids' cognitive abilities," the ministry statement said.

If Homo erectus could harness fire, it is quite likely that they could figure out what makes things float and how to stabilize such a craft. Having said that, forty miles is a fair distance, especially since you can't see from here to there, even on a clear day. This is also the first evidence of any pre-modern technology of any kind on Crete.
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Sorry for the light posting

I just finished my third BioLogos article and it should be up soon. I will try to catch up to current events today or tomorrow.





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Steve Martin Sails into the Sunset

Steve Martin, the writer of Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution is turning out the lights on his blog. He writes:

This isn’t my first blogging hiatus. Almost exactly 2 years ago, I posted that I was taking a break. And one of the points I made then, is even truer today:
Although the science-faith discussion will always be of great interest and of some importance to me, I can’t say that it is a huge priority in my life right now; it is probably not even the most important aspect for my current faith journey.

While this statement was true 2 years ago, and is true again, for a very short, tense time this fall it became a huge personal priority as I thought my views on evolution would get me into the same hot water as Doug and Terry. Fortunately, the incident was resolved quickly and satisfactorily as the problem was primarily one of perception and misunderstanding. Today, I am excited, humbled, and feeling so fortunate to help lead a local community that is passionate about furthering God’s kingdom in a multicultural, multifaith, thoroughly secular city filled with people who desperately need to hear the gospel.

So, this hiatus is likely to be permanent. The existing content will still be available, but is unlikely to be updated. For those that want to continue to interact with me on issues of science and faith, feel free to contact me by email at steven.dale.martin at gmail dot com. (And if you haven’t done so already, please peruse / read the Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution Ebook as that may contain some initial food-for-thought). However, my suggestion for those who want to continue the dialogue (if you don’t know about these resources already), is to follow either the Biologos blog Science and the Sacred or RJS’s Musings on Science and Theology. Both of these communities have great ongoing conversations. (Note: To actually view and/or participate in comments on Musings on Science and Theology, you will need to do so on Jesus Creed where each post is cross-posted).

We will miss you Steve.

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New Tooth in Israel

A research team from Tel Aviv University is touting a new find as being from anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The story, from the AP has this to say:

A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said Monday they found teeth about 400,000 years old. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half that old.

Archaeologist Avi Gopher said Monday further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he says, "this changes the whole picture of evolution."

The story is a bit confused since Neandertals are considered Homo sapiens as well, just not modern ones. It is ordinarily not very easy to distinguish between Neandertal teeth and modern teeth, except for size and that is not always a good indicator. Ordinarily, you have to have more diagnostic areas of the skeleton. Given that the earliest moderns we now have come from the site of Herto, dated to 160 ky, it is not likely that the tooth is modern. If it were, it would mean that there is a modern populaton running around during a time when the transition from Homo erectus/ergaster to archaic Homo sapiens (Neandertals and their kin) was occurring everywhere else. It would also mean that the Levantine populations that followed them 300k years later were more archaic than those represented by the tooth. That would be a tad peculiar.

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Sorry for the light posting. I am working on the next series of BioLogos posts. I will get back in the saddle soon.

New Post at CFSI

My new post is up at Center for Faith and Science International. It briefly covers the evolutionary evidence of the transition from dinosaurs to birds and the evidence of marsupial radiation. Next, I will touch on the evidence from genetics.

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BioLogos Post

My second BioLogos post is up. It starts the series of posts on the human fossil record. There will wind up being six or seven posts in the series.

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William Dembski Posts "Prepared Remarks" for Debate with Christopher Hitchens

William Dembski has posted the remarks he gave during his debate on whether or not God is good with Christopher Hitchens. It is here. He begins:

Although I could rehearse standard arguments for God’s existence, I want in this debate to take a different tack. Christopher Hitchens disbelieves in God’s existence. Why? Lack of evidence and evils perpetrated in the name of religion, he says. Yet his book God Is Not Great reveals a more basic reason. Hitchens, as a scientific reductionist, believes science has given us new knowledge that destroys religious faith. What is this new knowledge? According to Hitchens, it is Darwinian evolution.

You may ask what a chapter on evolution is doing in a book defending atheism. At the end of that chapter, Hitchens explains: “We no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious.” Let this sink in. Religion, according to Hitchens, renders biological origins mysterious. But now that Darwin has come and shown how natural selection explains biological origins, all is clear. Fellow atheist Richard Dawkins puts it more memorably: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

The problem is that Dembski then falls directly into Hitchens' trap. Ultimately, Intelligent Design rests on a "God of the Gaps" understanding of science. Defenders of ID have never been able to satisfactorily evade this charge. This is what drives the Signature in the Cell argument and the various arguments involving irreducible complexity: we don't understand how it could have happened given our understanding of evolutionary theory, therefore, evolution cannot explain it and it must have been created de novo by God. Hitchens' argument is a reverse of this: we CAN explain everything by science, therefore, God does not exist. Dembski attempts to rebut Hitchens' points one at a time but by doing so, gives credence and legitimacy to an argument that, from a scientific perspective, is wanting logically.

For the rest of the post, he makes unwarranted assumptions, misrepresents palaeontologists and badly characterizes evolution. For example, he writes:

It’s no coincidence that Richard Dawkins, the world’s best known atheist, is also an evolutionary biologist. Atheists, like everyone else, need a creation story.

How does he know this is not a coincidence. Is it a coincidence that Denis Lamoreux and I are evolutionary creationists? If not, why not? This is yet another persistent myth that all that accept evolution are atheists. I am quite sure that, like Dawkins and Coyne, some are but it does not follow that one will be if they accept evolution. That is facile.

After three evidence rebuttals, he remarks:

I know what you’re all thinking. Since the evidence for evolution is so underwhelming and since Hitchens has hitched his wagon to evolution, shouldn’t he now be ready to abandon evolution and reconsider theism? Yet this is precisely what he will not do. His atheism demands a materialistic form of evolution, and there’s only one going theory of it, namely Darwinism. The alternative, which places us here as the result of design, is for him unthinkable.

Dembski thinks that, since he has successfully rebutted three arguments for evolution, out of the thousands of arguments that one could make, that the evidence is “underwhelming.” This is reminiscent of creationist tactics, where one supposed problem for evolution overturns the whole applecart. Memo to William Dembski: it just ain't so.

But it is worse than that. Of his three “rebuttals,” he gets at least two of them wrong. First, he claims that “junk DNA” isn't junk, but is very useful. He then cites a forthcoming book by Jonathan Wells, also of the DI in support of this position. Steve Matheson, over at Quintessence of Dust, has a very good series on junk DNA, which starts here. About this he writes:

My assertion in these next 3 posts on "junk DNA" is this in a nutshell: the writing of the DI and RTB on the subject of "junk DNA" is a melange of half-truths, non sequiturs, quote-mined proof texts and outright fabrications that adds up to one of the clearest examples of folk science that I can imagine.

The second rebuttal he gets wrong deals with a direct quote from palaeontologist Peter Ward, where Ward appears to show that the Cambrian Explosion was largely inexplicable in evolutionary terms. This is a favorite canard of the Discovery Institute. Dembski even states that he is not taking Ward's statement out of context. Unfortunately, as Jason, over at Evolutionblog shows in devestating fashion, that is exactly what he does. Worse, Dembski has used this particular quote by Ward before and, since Jason's post is five years old, we see that Dembski has not bothered to revise his statements.

It is one thing to play into someone's hand when arguing with them. It is another to do so and then proceed to get major facts and positions wrong. Hitchens' position that God is not good is a theological question, not a scientific one and Dembski handles himself well on it but the damage has been done. Until he is willing to honestly address the data, the second half of his remarks will ring hollow.

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Slightly Off-Topic: The State of Science Education

I had a good belly laugh this morning reading this story on Watts Up With That? It seems that someone had a good bit of fun at the Cancun climate summit that is currently going on by circulating a petition to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide. Here is the video:

The amazing thing about this, and the Penn and Teller video that Anthony Watts also posts is that NO ONE ASKED what dihydrogen monoxide was. They just happily signed the petition. No scientific curiosity was expressed whatsoever. To them, this isn't a scientific issue, it is a political cause. Amazing.

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Joseph Gerth: Trouble Ahead for Ark Park

Joseph Gerth, writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, suggests that there may be trouble ahead for Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear due to his support for the Noah's Ark theme park. About Beshear, he writes:

He seems to be courting a segment of the population that is not likely to back a Democrat — especially this Democrat. Remember, it was Beshear, who as attorney general in 1981, wrote that the Ten Commandments had to come down in Kentucky classrooms.

The liberals and moderates who carried him to office in 2007 don't seem too thrilled about the whole thing.

Lexington-based blogger Joe Sonka has dubbed Beshear a “Flintstone Truther,” because of his support for the project and the fact that in the classic 1960s-era cartoon, Fred and Wilma and Barney and Betty lived alongside tame dinosaurs.

And on the “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, the host poked fun at Beshear and deadpanned that she wondered where they are going to put thousands of species of termites on a wooden ark.

Beshear is trying to paint his support for the project as a job-creation issue — saying that it would generate $250 million for the state's economy.

Beshear's spokeswoman said it would bring “a boatload of jobs” to the state, while one Capitol wag joked that Beshear had promised to bring more jobs to the state “come hell or high water.”

This story is getting a good deal of airplay and most people are generally unsympathetic. This kind of thing is business-as-usual for Ken Ham, who has nothing to lose by this. For Beshear, this Ark may turn out to be a spruce goose.

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Louisiana Adopts Science Textbooks

After months of deliberation, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has adopted new science textbooks for the public schools. Mike Hasten of the Shreveport Times writes:

Pastors from several churches argued on both sides of the issue.

University Presbyterian Pastor Patricia Snyder of Baton Rouge said she didn’t want to attend the meeting but she had to speak out against “attempts to make the Bible a science textbook.” She urged BESE to approve the textbooks supported by two review panels “so the state can move forward.”

Jesse Burgoyne, pastor of the Accountability Church in Watson, urged the board not to order the books, agreeing with John Yeats of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

Yeats said a delay would give publishers time to incorporate provisions of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows for the introduction of alternatives to evolution.

It is encouraging that the BESE elected not to consider the LSEA, an act that should be repealed in any event.

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Small People, Big Bird

The BBC is reporting on a fossil discovery on the island of Flores, the last known home of Homo floresiensis. The size of the bird: 1.8 meters tall. Emma Brennand writes:

The bones, thought to be belong to a single stork, are between 20,000 to 50,000 years old, having been found in sediments dating to that age.

The giant bird is the latest extreme-sized species to be discovered once living on the island, which was home to dwarf elephants, giant rats and out-sized lizards, as well as humans of small stature.

"I noticed the giant stork bones for the first time in Jakarta, as they stood out from the rest of the smaller bird bones. Finding large birds of prey is common on islands, but I wasn't expecting to find a giant marabou stork," Dr Meijer told the BBC.

She also writes that it might have been able to prey on the hominins, but there is no evidence that it did. What the heck is in the water out there?

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Quote of the Day

Conan O'Brien brought up the Ark theme park in his monologue on December 6. Here is what he had to say:

"Developers in Kentucky plan on opening a creationist theme park. Yeah. When asked what the creationist theme park would look like, developers said it's still evolving."

Hat tip to the Kentucky Democrat.

Keith Miller Article on the Cambrian Explosion

BioLogos has an article on the Cambrian Explosion by Keith Miller, a geologist at Kansas State University. This is an article that should be read by all supporters of DI, especially those that argue that evolution cannot explain the “explosion.” Among the things Miller writes is this:

The earliest diverse fossil invertebrate communities of the Cambrian are represented by the Chengjiang, in China. These deposits are dated at 525-520 million years. The famous Burgess Shale is considerably younger, dating at about 505 million years, and the end of the Cambrian Period is set at 490 million years. The Cambrian Period thus lasted for 52 million years. To put this in perspective, the time elapsed since the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous has been 65 million years. The Cambrian was a very long period of time.

This is the point driven home by Prothero in his excellent book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. The gross oversimplification that evolution cannot explain these lifeforms is often based on an incorrect understanding of the length of the Cambrian and what came before it just after the end of the Cryogenian. This is the basis behind the Discovery Institute film Darwin's Dilemma. The BioLogos piece is the first of a series so stop back to see where it is going.

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Noah's Ark: The Construction Phase

Skip, over at Panda's Thumb, has a humorous post about the new theme park in Kentucky being built around the theme of Noah's Ark. He writes:

I’ve created a new web site, arkencounterwatch.com, to track the progress and construction of Answers in Genesis’s latest assault on common sense and good taste, the Ark Encounter theme park. I’ll aggregate news stories, blog posts, and other coverage on one site where visitors can survey reactions from the media, the public, and other sources.

Anyone coming across information related to Ark Encounter can forward it to me for posting, skip (AT) penguinsites (DOT) com.

He also has a challenge on his site that I am quite sure Ken Ham will not rise to—build his own ark and test the model given in Genesis.

I have always had another challenge in the back of my mind: get a large pool of some kind and, over the course of forty days, fill it with one part water and three parts mud, shake it up really well, let it settle out for a year in the outdoors and see what you have. I can guaran-dang-tee you won't have shale, granite, anthracite, chert, flint, quartzite or any of the other rocks that take intense pressure or heat to form. To my knowledge, no one has tested that either.

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Arsenic and Bad Press

Well, the fallout from the NASA arsenic paper continues, revealing just how self-correcting the scientific process really is. David Dobbs of Wired has a follow-up post. He writes:

UC Davis’s Jonathan Eisen, who knows his extremophile bacteria and and his evo-sci quite well, tweeted that he “was gonna write about bad science & arsenic but no need – Rosie Redfield has all you need.” Evolutionary biologist John Hawks thought the Science paper clearly lacked the necessary controls to draw its conclusions. And Alex Bradley concluded that “this study lacks any real evidence for arsenate-based DNA; unfortunately these exciting claims are very very shaky.”

If the paper is as weak as these critiques hold, NASA appears to have been not just overzealous but reckless — and Science not only went along for the ride, cheering wildly, but put all the gas in the car.

For a technical response to the paper, Rosie Redfield's blog post is getting much airplay. She is pretty harsh in her judgment. I know next to nothing about microbiology, so don't have the expertise to evaluate it. It should be interesting to see how this plays out, though.