October 10th, 2008 Central Archivist
In the realm of natural pharmacopeia, German researchers claim St. John’s Wort is as effective as Prozac in treating depression. This news must be a real downer for Eli Lilly…
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October 3rd, 2008 Central Archivist
Once more, we at Darwin Central bring you a weekly wrap-up of the not-so-monumental science news of the week.
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September 29th, 2008 RWA
Some never do, do they? The latest of these is the seemingly unstoppable “Sarah Palin is a YEC” assertion, which we debunked a couple of weeks ago. But now, it’s back, and both the LA Times (in a story which Mark Hemingway accurately describes as being a “heaping pile of factual carnage” ) and the reprehensible Huffington Post, the favorite blog of the latte liberal set, have finally decided to casually report the latest “eyewitness” allegation of Palin’s supposed YEC beliefs as unvarnished fact, after it has been bouncing around in the moonbat blogosphere the past few weeks. This supposed eyewitness is one Philip Munger, who claims that in 1997, after Palin gave a commencement speech to some homeschooled students (wow, a perfect storm of liberal boogeymen! How convenient!), she casually told him, after he asked her about her religious beliefs, that she believed dinosaurs and humans coexisted, and that Jesus would return to Earth in her lifetime. And who, exactly, is Philip Munger? Does he have a background in reporting or science any other qualifications which might make his claim credible? Not exactly. A musician by profession, he’s also a raving far-left moonbat blogger whose most notable prior claim to fame was a cantata canonizing Rachel Corrie.
But beyond the question of whether or not we can trust Munger to be an unbiased (*snort*) source of info on his former mayor and governor, has there been any further corroborating evidence that might confirm these claims of his? None so far, but they satisfy the left’s need for the “truthiness” which they like to project onto their opponents. They don’t need any actual evidence, corroboration or fact checks when it satisfies their gut feelings about what Palin, and by implication, anyone who dares vote for her, is all about. Even if Munger’s claims are fake, they’re still accurate! We want our biases confirmed and our prejudices pandered to! And if you press them some more, they’ll fall back on Ken Ham’s catchphrase: were you there ? No, I wasn’t there in Wasilla back in 1997, but I do know that Munger is not an unbiased and credible source, and in either science or politics, the verification of a source as credible is crucial in evaluating any sort of claim. Until Palin makes a genuine, wholehearted YEC statement which I can see and hear with my own eyes and ears, Munger is nothing more to me than another sludge driller.
(h/t to both lgf and the Curmudgeon)
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September 26th, 2008 Central Archivist
This week China prepared to put three “taikonauts” into orbit to perform a spacewalk. Evidently, the Chinese were so confident in the success of the mission they issued a press release that included dialog from the mission… before the launch actually took place. One might be tempted to make a quip about Chinese quality control, if it weren’t for the tragic scandal involving milk and milk products (including baby formula) unfolding in that country at the moment.
The New Zealanders who worried it was The End Of The World As We Know It got a temporary reprieve when CERN’s Large Hadron Collider suffered a helium leak this week, shutting down its operation until next Spring. Evidently, a quarter of the Kiwis surveyed were worried the LHC would create a planet-devouring micro black hole. No worries, mates. If a micro black hole was created (extremely unlikely), it would evaporate almost immediately.
Posted in Commentary, News | 1 Comment »
September 13th, 2008 RWA
Needless to say, us Rational Republicans were pretty disappointed when Sarah Palin offered an ambiguous answer to question of allowing creationism in public schools, saying that she wouldn’t enforce its teaching in schools (and the evidence tends to confirm this her actual position), but was not necessarily against discussion of it in the school curriculum. Not only did this feed into the hungry Palin smear machine in the forms of distortions of her actual position (including some made by people who should know better) but has aided in the spreading of particularly vicious lies pandering to the prejudices of far-left political bigots. The most recent one: Palin is not just a creationist, but a Young Earth Creationist, who believes that the Earth is less than four thousand years old and that people and dinosaurs walked the Earth. Now, there are enough faux conservatives out there who actually believe that crap, but Palin certainly isn’t one of them. But this is starting to catch like wildfire through the blogosphere, as one might expect. Among the perpetrators are Howard Zinn’s foster child Matt Damon and frustrated Catherine Zeta-Jones wannabe Maureen Dowd. The source of this rumour, as both Ace and Patterico have pointed out, is an obviously fake viral e-mail, that has been debunked on CNN, no less. Oops.
While you can make obvious connections between this and the scurrilous “Barack is a Muslim” lies, but in their own way, they’re even worse. Even if Obama were a Muslim, so what? The only people who fell for that lie were disgusting bigots who hold prejudices against Muslims to begin with, no different than the people who went into anti-Mormon hysterics over Mitt Romney’s presidential run. On the other hand, while simply being a Mormon or a Muslim or an evagelical Christian is not itself relevant to whether or not someone is responsible enough to govern, professing beliefs in something like young earth creationism is not just irrational but anti-rational, and by spreading this rumour, the far left clearly hopes to get more moderates and undecideds on their side. Although the CNN report above claims that the “Palin is a YEC” rumours will mainly play with already-decided liberal Democrats, the reality is, a lot of people who are not necessarily liberal Democrats will take these rumours very seriously. If Republicans want to avoid being the target of these sorts of lies in the future, they should quit trying to weasel themselves out of these questions in order to appeal to the Coulter-Falwell types who they erroneously assume to be their base. In addition to lending themselves to lies, they result in grave doubts from people who on the surface, should be their allies. In other words: Draft Jon Huntsman in 2012.
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August 20th, 2008 midwifetoad
It’s always interesting to see people with their inhibitions down. You learn so much about their real feelings. sometimes alcohol does it and sometimes politics.
From the CNN website we get a rather simple news story, followed by readers’ comments.
From CNN’s Mark Preston and Rebecca Sinderbrand
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, will speak on Sen. John McCain’s behalf at the Republican National Convention, a source in the McCain campaign tells CNN.
pat C. August 20th, 2008 10:58 am ET
ANOTHER OLD MAN HAS BEEN.
Nicolette August 20th, 2008 10:59 am ET
Go back to Israel where you belong you traitor!!!!!
blaising August 20th, 2008 11:26 am ET
Lieberwoman is a pus head…stick a pin in it and watch it pop.
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
August 9th, 2008 midwifetoad
I’ve always been reluctant to demonize cdesign proponentsists, particularly those rare individuals who seek genuine debate. So it is a pleasure to report that Uncommon Descent has a genuine debate in progress, and that one of its senior bloggers has something intelligent to say.
jjcassidy
Only with Darwin did extermination become advancement of the species and death improvement of the race.
That is a fallacy and Schloss rightly pointed it out. It was well known and practiced in animal husbandry long before Darwin came along. Darwin’s only real significant contribution to science was coming up with the notion that the well known principles of artificial selection to improve breeds of animals had a working corollary in nature which he termed natural selection and further that natural selection operating over millions of years led to the emergence of new species.
I made the exact same argument that Schloss made months ago. It’s painfully obvious to anyone who hasn’t made it a mission in life to demonize Charles Darwin.
In point of fact Darwin was right that new species come about in this manner. The mistake is in thinking that the same mechanism which can cause new species to emerge can account for all of phylogeny. It’s an unjustified extrapolation. Mike Behe in the “Edge of Evolution” explains this very well and tentatively puts the limit of Darwinian evolution’s capacity for change somewhere between class and family IIRC.
Dave was on a roll. Too bad he mistakes Behe’s “tentative” limit for an actual testable hypothesis.
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August 6th, 2008 midwifetoad
Thanks to Pharyngula for the link.
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July 23rd, 2008 RWA
Jindal won’t be McCain’s running mate.
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July 10th, 2008 midwifetoad
The regents met in closed session for more than one hour before voting 7-1 to reaffirm ISU’s final decision in the case.
The Discovery Institute is not pleased:
Stellar Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez Denied Fair Hearing by Iowa State Board of Regents
The Board of Regents of the State of Iowa has denied the tenure appeal of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University (ISU). Dr. Gonzalez’s appeal has been ongoing since the summer of 2007, when he was first denied tenure by ISU.“We are extremely disappointed that the Board of Regents refused to give Dr. Gonzalez a fair hearing in his appeal,” said Gonzalez’s attorney Chuck Hurley. “They say in Iowa that academic freedom is supposed to be the ‘foundation of the university.’ That foundation is cracked.”
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