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My thoughts on what's going on |
| This is my thoughts on many subjects, and each item will be added as they are entered. |
| As you are probably aware, I have read a number of books on the subject of the Evolution/Creationism Debate, particularly how it applies to the US and I have added a few books on the subject, including one that dates back to 1984. They are as follows: 1.
2.
3.
These have given me an education about the issues and reading The Discovery Institutes web page and listening to their ID The Future podcast gives me the alternate view. I also watched: 4.
5.
These are well worth reading and watching on the subject and what's more the pro-creation literature is voluminous and available also. So I have a wide view that has lead me to some conclusions about the nature of Fundamental Christianity and it's representation of the Bible to the public and attempts to include the Creation Story into Science Classes through out the US. I have no objections to the various versions of Creationism or Intelligent Design being discussed and taught in Religion Classes or Philosophy of Religion, but Science Class is fro SCIENCE, nothing else. The History of Science will show all the relevant debates around Darwin's Theory Of Evolution, whereas the religious side is not related in SCIENCE classes in K12. What we found about the Dover case was the proponents of Intelligent Design were in fact Creationists and LIED to the Judge (John E Jones III) whilst under oath. This is not what Christians are required to do or what they have been taught to do in Sunday School, so what are they? I'll leave that up to you, even if you are not in that subset of Fundamentalist Christianity or the wider Dominionist Church. Myself, I am not convinced that the Literal Interpretation of Genesis is correct or true, but rather a creation myth used as a sacred play in the Temple long before it was written Down. |
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| I'll be posting such posts as below as a record of my research for an as yet titled non-fiction work, so please be patient and comment when you feel it appropriate. Clifford M Dubery |
| Molecular Sleuths Track Evolution Through The Ribosome A new study of the ribosome, the cell's protein-building machinery, sheds light on the oldest branches of the evolutionary tree of life and suggests that differences in ribosomal structure between the three main branches of that tree are "molecular fossils" of the early evolution of protein synthesis. The new analysis, from researchers at the University of Illinois, reveals that key regions of the ribosome differ between bacteria and archaea, microbes that the researchers say are genetically closer to eukarya, the domain of life that includes humans. The study appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. read the rest at Medical News Today Animal Evolution - The Development Of Nerves University of Queensland researchers have traced the origins of one of the most important steps in animal evolution - the development of nerves. Professor Bernie Degnan, from UQ's School of Integrative Biology, together with PhD student Gemma Richards and colleagues from France, have traced the evolution of the nerve cell by looking for pre-cursors in, of all places, the marine sponge. "Sponges have one of the most ancient lineages and don't have nerve cells," Professor Degnan said. "So we are pretty confident it was after the sponges split from trunk of the tree of life and sponges went one way and animals developed from the other, that nerves started to form. "What we found in sponges though were the building blocks for nerves, something we never expected to find." Professor Degnan said the science involved came from the relatively new area of paleogenomics, which is the study of ancestral genomes to paint a more accurate picture of animal evolution. Read the rest of this article at: Medicine News Today. |
| Mark Perakh has written a definitive response to Michael Behe’s Irreducible Complexity of the Bacterial Flagella. Remember Michael Behe? He is a professor of bio-chemistry at Lehigh University and author of Darwin’s Black Box, published in 1996. This was the lead book in the assault on High School Science in the US lead by the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He was a key expert witness for the Dover School Board Federal Court Case known as Kitzmiller et al vs. The Dover School Board, and was the subject of a successful demonstration of how Intelligent Design is not science, to put it mildly. The truth is, it was embarrassing and the prosecution wiped the floor with him. They introduced contrary evidence in the form of a stack of books that Behe had said he hadn’t read and that they were wrong. An extraordinary drama as an expert witness was made to be seen as a fool. Bacterial Flagella is not the only arrow in the quiver of the ID movement and I must advise you to read Kenneth R Millers recent book, Only A Theory, 2008, an excellent rebuttal to a lot of the other so called evidence for Intelligent Design. Let me say, Perakh has nailed even the appearance of Intelligent Design in the real world. |
| With the Louisiana decision to promote Intelligent Design (a particular form defined by the Discovery Institute) I have bought a book from Amazon and read it straight away, which is unusual for me . I found “The Devil in Dover”, both informative and concerning. Lauri Lebo, the author and resident of the area where the events took place gives us a very personal and detailed account of how the Fundamentalist Christian Creationists brought shame and expenses to the Dover Pennsylvania School Board, as well as personal heartache and stress. Watching “Judgment Day” and “Flock of Dodos” is not enough, after Lebo there is a satisfaction that we can understand both sides of the Kitzmiller et al vs. Dover Area School District in the narrative Lebo gives us and we end up with a deeper understanding of the effects on both sides of this case. From Lauri Lebo herself to the two who started the whole thing, William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell. The invitation to the Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Centre for the Defendants, The ACLU and the Pepper Hamilton LLP for the Complainants. The battle lines were drawn by a thorough research on one side and a lazy attitude to research on the other. An example was Barbara Forrest's testimony, the amount of work she and her associates did on the Of Pandas and People book was a detectives nightmare, yet they persisted with the tenacity only someone who understands science could do. This sort of dedication to their case was not evident in their testimony, in fact they managed to contradict and show their lying. Which must have been embarrassing for they were claiming to be followers of Jesus Christ!! Buckingham’s health became an issue unfortunately and his addiction to a prescription drug became evidence about his inability to remember what happened. Bonsell just failed any test given him, remaining ignorant about the costs to the School Board he had personally caused due to this whole Creationist nonsense. I will be interested to see a legal discussion and commentary on this case, from one of the prosecutors, as their comments in “Judgment Day” were incisive and interesting. The case is a primary reference on the subject of the “Wall of Separation” that is guaranteed in the US Constitution, something I would like to see here after John Howards attempts to introduce Religious Counseling in Schools. In the US the influence of the Fundamentalist Christian Evangelical people is built into the current Government of George W Bush, in the Military and within State Republican Parties. For example, an anti-evolution statement is in the Texas Republican Party Platform, so we can expect trouble there, and guess what, yes, it has happened. More about that later perhaps. What about Florida and Louisiana? Articulation, forthrightness, subtle reasoning but lucid expression, skepticism--these are the traits of intellectuals, not of untrained and undeveloped minds, nor of neat scholars, capable only to serve as curators of the past, but not as critics of the present. Jacob Neusner, 1977, The Glory of God is Intelligence, p8 |
| My job takes so much time from me that my family and writing are seriously under utilized. And the spell checker follows a seriously North American cant. So here I am today, tonight with no inspiration on the only day I have free time. Monday is my full day off, with some chores and love and then I sit down at my notebook to write and immediately halt. It is like the track ends here and I must leave the siding to find another track. My major story involves some fiction mixed with fact to make it "real" and yet I stumble on things I should know, areas I have been and seen, experienced, emotions I experienced and still remember. Sigh.... maybe next week? Or whilst out at night in the Taxi waiting fro the few jobs that may come in after 10pm. Cheers for now from Cliff |
| It seems the Creation/Evolution debate still has a long way to run in the US, Michael Behe's new book Buy The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism @ Amazon.Com! The Edge of Evolution" (Behe, 2007)has proven to be wrong, wrong, wrong, just like his previous book Darwin's Black Box. Ian Musgrave's explanation from his point of view as a biologist shows that Behe simply doesn't study Evolution. As a Bio-chemist he doesn't have to, but one would think that if you were to write about the subject, then you should be at least familiar with it. , at least I try to do the same. |
| Sometimes the real world is funnier than contrived comedies. This past week we have PZ Myers http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and his Guests attending the showing of Expelled http://www.expelledthemovie.com at the Mall of America, he confirmed his attendance at a website where he received confirmation by e-mail from the Expelled people. So far son Normal. Next scene is PZ Myers and his guests standing in line to enter the cinema, before signing in, when a policeman pulled him out of line. It was explained that he was a trouble maker and had to leave the premises. This is even more curious when you discover that PZ Myers is interviewed in the movie and his guests were his wife and daughter and Richard Dawkins (evolutionary biologist, author of The God Delusion
The upshot was, PZ missed out and went over to an Apple dealership and vented his spleen at his blog. Dawkins and PZ's Family entered and watched the show, Dawkins made himself known by asking a question, and the consequences have been flowing since on both sides. You can follow it through the two above links where other links to the ID movement response can be found. All in all it is yet another chapter to the Creationist/Evolution dichotomy that seems to concentrate in the US. What do you think? |
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| Isn't it strange that The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman has been so roundly criticised in the Christian Media. Having just seen the Film at my local Cinema, I now wish to read the books in his series it was taken from. Yes, I can see the Magisterium is Catholic and critical of the church in that way. Good reason to be critical, after all the Catholic Church has made some serious mistakes in the past, keeping those errors hidden will not result in progress for them or the rest of the world. Surely fiction can cover such topics without such censorship from the religious. They should be concerned with writings that tell the truth in the non-Fiction field. A work of fiction is just that, untrue, relative and only a commentary. All the other good attributes of fighting against the odds, heroism and honesty were portrayed well, lesson can be gleaned, distrusting the established Church is perhaps a good thing.What ay ye? |
| In the middle of last month I spent 4 days in a small Victorian, Australia, town in a district called East Gippsland called http://www.omeoregion.com.au/home.htmOmeo. Both Ecologically significant, and timber industry significant, you can imagine the various views I heard of the great forests that surround the place, Mountain Ash is the dominant tree of the forest, see details at this Parks Victoria site...http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/education/factfiles/20.htm. With only a short time to return to my real life I was anxious to see as much as I could see and so the camera and interviews were conducted. The Omeo Museum in the Justice District of Omeo using the Old Court House and the surrounding buildings, the link is here: http://www.omeo.org.au/index.html where you can see where Claire and I spoke to Graeme about the fires. Some of you maybe familiar with the recent Southern California Wildfires, well here in Victoria, we manage to have large and more frequent events in remote and populated areas. Omeo is remote by most definitions and has suffered a number of massive Bush Fires in its history, the latest in 2007 January/February period. The hottest and driest period of the summer season for this state. One of the main issues was the delay in fighting the fire when it was smaller and manageable in the National Park. Precisely because it was in the National Park that the CFA (Country Fire Austhority and Parks Victoria refused to do anything about it. As a result the fire didn't stay in the Park, did it!!! It grew in intensity and energy before threatening private land. |
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