Cornell University’s graduate student Lenore Pipes has an enjoyable research project. When she isn’t cycling, she helps with breeding foxes–trying to domesticate them–a process started by Russian scientists over 50 years ago. And they have had some success. The tamed animals now seek attention from, and give affection to, their caregivers. At the same time,…
In August, 2012, Dr. Caroline Crocker gave a talk at the American Scientific Affiliation meeting in San Diego on the Bunk-Detecting Principles. The audio of this presentation is now available on line. Listen here. To get the visual, scroll to the bottom of the page here. To invite Dr. Crocker to speak at your gathering,…
by Richard Weikart, PhD
Almost 500 Emory University faculty and students have expressed their dismay that their commencement speaker on May 14 does not toe the ideological line when it comes to evolutionary biology. Yes, gasp, the renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson does not believe in evolutionary theory. Not only that, but biology professors at…
by Dr. Mark Biedebach
As an engineer with a PhD in biophysics and a researching neurophysiologist, I could never escape the impression that there are a large number of living organisms that appear to exhibit engineering design. Therefore, I was happy to contribute an article expanding on the recent imitation of sunflower design (a Fermat spiral)…
“One can say, if one wishes, that a congenitally blind man teaming up with a congenitally legless man to safely move around the environment is an increase in ‘complexity’ over a sighted, ambulatory person. But it certainly is no improvement, nor does it give the slightest clue how vision and locomotion arose.”
This amazing word picture…
Only 600 miles or ten hours by car from Newport Beach (AITSE headquarters) you can find an impressive array of 42 dish antennas. And Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft does not intend to stop there–the Cascade mountain countryside will soon sport 350 dishes.
One might ask “why”? A reasonable question. The answer, “To look for aliens,”…
According to Oxford University’s Andy Gardner and University of Tennessee’s Francisco Ubeda, it is evolutionarily advantageous for men to be helpful and for women to be selfish. So, looking out for number one comes from your mom and altruism comes from your dad.
The authors support this claim with some observations about the behavior of ancient…
Dr. Larry Krauss of Arizona State is a theoretical physicist with an interesting take on the Big Bang. Basically, he asserts that, because the universe is expanding, our ability to detect those phenomena that support the Big Bang theory (Hubble expansion, cosmic microwave background, and the origin of light elements) is decreasing and will eventually…
Field and Stream magazine contained a story of three bucks who were found entangled and drowned. Sad, interesting, perhaps even poetic (so the article says). But, does this scene justify this speculation? “It’s kind of neat to see evolution right there in front of you,” says Tonkovich. “This is Darwin stuff, what we learned in…
According to Oxford University’s Andy Gardner and University of Tennessee’s Francisco Ubeda, it is evolutionarily advantageous for men to be helpful and for women to be selfish. So, looking out for number one comes from your mom and altruism comes from your dad.
The authors support this claim with some observations about the behavior of ancient…
Can random mutations (changes in the genetic material) lead to changes in organisms that render them more “fit” for their environments? How would one determine whether a particular adaptation could be “considered a gain, loss or modification of function” at the cellular level?
According to a review by Michael Behe, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, where…
In 1954 Dr. Anthony Allison published that people who have one gene for a mutated form of hemoglobin are protected from getting malaria, a disease that kills a million people every year. Therefore, this change in the DNA, which leads to sickle cell trait, has been touted as a positive mutation, particularly for people who…
Every couple of years thousands of people load their cars with sleeping bags, lawn chairs, food, drink, and more, make their way to the nearest mall, and settle down to spend the night. Others get up at 4 am, again navigating their way to a shopping center. These unfortunates then wait in line for hours…
The news was full of it–Venter Labs made a self-replicating synthetic cell. Some have even gone so far as to claim they created artificial life (the Economist’s headline is “And Man Made Life”)! If this is true, it is headline news and certainly worthy of all the attention it has received. But, what exactly did…
Dr. David Deming is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma with a PhD in geophysics. He is also controversial–so much so that, according to FIRE, his university “removed him from his department, stripped him of most of his classes, and moved his office to a converted basement lab…for his attempts at whistleblowing and for…
Dr. Phil Skell, former AITSE-member (now deceased), chemist, Professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and former member of the National Academy of Sciences says “no!” But then he is well-known for his controversial opinion that the historical sciences contribute nothing to experimental biology, in direct opposition to a statement by Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in biology…
When cavemen drew spotted horses, were they using artistic license, creating mythical figures, or drawing realistic representations of what was outside their caves? New DNA studies published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Science suggest that the cavemen were engaged in artisticrealism. That is, spotted horses actually were present in Southern France during the Stone Age.
