Pink Prozac - a luscious cocktail

Bush to veto stem cell research bill

Frustrating..

Evolve This

Is there an alternative to the theory of evolution? (Or: Why people who think so are wrong, misguided and dangerous.)

by Steven Novella, M.D

There are different versions of the dangerous error known as creationism. "Young earth" creationists believe the world was created ten thousand years ago in six days; others gallantly admit the earth is older. But all creationists deny one scientific fact: life on earth is the product of evolution, slow change over time brought about primarily by natural selection acting on variation.

There are a lot of these people. According to a 2001

Gallup

poll, 47 percent of all Americans accept a strict creationist view, and only 12 percent accept a strict scientific view of evolution. And the creationists have tried--with some success--to get their views inserted in school curricula across the country, in states like

Kansas

and

Georgia

. This despite the fact that nearly all scientists with a specialty in the natural sciences--about 98 percent of them--accept evolution as an established fact.

Two questions, then: Why the difference between public and scientific opinion? And why should we care?

There is an ongoing creationism vs. evolution controversy--but on school committees, not among scientists. Almost all scientists agree that there is an overwhelming consilience of evidence for evolution--from fossils, genetics, developmental biology, population studies, biochemistry, and anatomy. There is also evidence that makes sense only in light of evolution, like fossilized early whales with legs and the latent ability of chickens to grow teeth.

The controversy goes back over a century. After Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, most scientists were soon convinced, but there was strong religious opposition. States wrote laws against the teaching of evolution, and some of the laws remained on the books as late as the 1960s. But in the '70s and '80s, fearing that they were losing the battle with science, creationists changed their tactics: They would not try to outlaw evolution, just try to win "equal time" for creationism. Under the banner of "fairness" they argued that both "models" (they did not use the term "theory") of origins should be taught to students, who could then make up their own minds.

To make their religious faith seem more scientific, creationists came up with

Intelligent Design

. The central argument of ID is that life displays structures that are "irreducibly complex," which means structures that could not carry out their current function if they were any simpler--and since evolution requires that they have passed through simpler stages, they could not have evolved.

For example, ID proponent Michael Behe argues that the flagella of the single-celled paramecium--the tail-like motor that it uses to propel itself through water--could not function if any of its pieces were missing. This "irreducibly complex" argument, however, was shot down long ago by evolutionists who noted that a complex structure could have evolved from a simpler structure that served a function different from and simpler than its current purpose. A flagellum did not have to evolve to function as a motor; it could have evolved from a simple food gathering appendage. Intelligent Design proponents have no answer to this fatal criticism of their core claim.

But back to the real controversy: Why should we care about what our children are taught about science? In a world increasingly ruled by science and technology, the benefits of having a scientifically literate voting population and workforce should be obvious. Furthermore, more important than teaching the current findings of science--what scientists currently think is true--is teaching how science works. Intelligent Design should not be taught as science in the public schools because it is not science. For example, ID cannot state its hypotheses in a way that can be tested by observation and proven false. The wizards of ID distort the process of science.

The sad fact is, creationists have been successful in making evolution publicly controversial even though no scientific controversy exists. They have spooked textbook companies into removing the "e" word from their texts, or watering down the treatment of evolution. It is no wonder that public opinion differs so much from scientific opinion: Creationists have been successful in destroying good science education. They have created the public ignorance they now exploit to further their cause.

But here's a useful principle: The scientific community, not politicians, should determine what is proper science. People trained in laboratories, not seminaries, should be trusted on questions of the origin of species. Especially in a world where technology is a matter of national security, a world in which education is the key to defeating poverty and terrorism alike, we owe it to ourselves to heed scientists, not snake-oil salesmen.

U.S. Beliefs in Pseudoscience Worry Experts

It worries me too..

read here

Defining the word theory

Critics of evolution frequently assert that evolution is "just a theory", a misunderstanding of the meaning of theory in a scientific context: whereas in colloquial speech a theory is a conjecture or guess, in science a theory is "a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make". Critics also state that evolution is not a fact, although from a scientific viewpoint evolution is considered both a theory and a fact.

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech.

A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from and/or is supported by experimental evidence. In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable.

In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theory which explains why the apple behaves so is the current theory of gravitation.

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

Einstein

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
     The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....
     If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
     The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
     Immortality? There are two kinds. The first lives in the imagination of the people, and is thus an illusion. There is a relative immortality which may conserve the memory of an individual for some generations. But there is only one true immortality, on a cosmic scale, and that is the immortality of the cosmos itself. There is no other.
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Madalyn Murray O'Hair, All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists (1982) vol. ii., p. 29

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.”

Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 217

fossils

90,000 year old fossil of a human ancestor. Go to Human Evolution at the Smithsonion Institution.

Are there really those out there that don't take this seriously?

All below information taken from Smithsonian website.

Human Evolution

Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of at least 5 million years.

One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism -- the ability to walk on two legs -- evolved over 4 million years ago. Other important human characteristics -- such as a large and complex brain, the ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language -- developed more recently. Many advanced traits -- including complex symbolic expression, art, and elaborate cultural diversity -- emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years.

Humans are primates. Physical and genetic similarities show that the modern human species, Homo sapiens, has a very close relationship to another group of primate species, the apes. Humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa -- chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas -- share a common ancestor that lived between 5 and 8 million years ago. Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 2 and 5 million years ago come entirely from Africa.

Most scientists currently recognize some 10 to 15 different species of early humans. Scientists do not all agree, however, about how these species are related or which ones simply died out. Many early human species -- certainly the majority of them -- left no living descendants. Scientists also debate over how to identify and classify particular species of early humans, and about what factors influenced the evolution and extinction of each species.

Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 1.6 million and 2 million years ago. They entered Europe somewhat later, generally within the past million years. Species of modern humans populated many parts of the world much later. For instance, people first came to Australia probably within the past 60,000 years and to the Americas within the past 30,000 years or so. The beginnings of agriculture and the rise of the first civilizations occurred within the past 10,000 years.

Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropology is the scientific study of human evolution. Paleoanthropology is a subfield of anthropology, the study of human culture, society, and biology. The field involves an understanding of the similarities and differences between humans and other species in their genes, body form, physiology, and behavior. Paleoanthropologists search for the roots of human physical traits and behavior. They seek to discover how evolution has shaped the potentials, tendencies, and limitations of all people. For many people, paleoanthropology is an exciting scientific field because it investigates the origin, over millions of years, of the universal and defining traits of our species. However, some people find the concept of human evolution troubling because it can seem not to fit with religious and other traditional beliefs about how people, other living things, and the world came to be. Nevertheless, many people have come to reconcile their beliefs with the scientific evidence.

Early human fossils and archeological remains offer the most important clues about this ancient past. These remains include bones, tools and any other evidence (such as footprints or butchery marks on animal bones) left by earlier people. Usually, the remains were buried and preserved naturally. They are then found either on the surface (exposed by rain, rivers, and wind erosion) or by digging in the ground. By studying fossilized bones, scientists learn about the physical appearance of earlier humans and how it changed. Bone size, shape, and markings left by muscles tell us how those predecessors moved around, held tools, and how the size of their brains changed over a long time. Archeological evidence refers to the things earlier people made and the places where scientists find them. By studying this type of evidence, archeologists can understand how early humans made and used tools and lived in their environments

The Process of Evolution

The process of evolution involves a series of natural changes that cause species (populations of different organisms) to arise, adapt to the environment, and become extinct. All species or organisms have originated through the process of biological evolution. In animals that reproduce sexually, including humans, the term species refers to a group whose adult members regularly interbreed, resulting in fertile offspring -- that is, offspring themselves capable of reproducing. Scientists classify each species with a unique, two-part scientific name. In this system, modern humans are classified as Homo sapiens.

Evolution occurs when there is change in the genes (the chemical molecule, DNA) inherited from the parents and especially in the proportions of different genes in a population. The information contained in genes can change by a process known as mutation. The way particular genes are expressed – that is, how they influence the body or behavior of an organism -- can also change. Genes affect how the body and behavior of an organism develop during its life, and this is why genetically inherited characteristics can influence the likelihood of an organism’s survival and reproduction. Evolution does not change any single individual. Instead, it changes the inherited means of growth and development that typify a population (a group of individuals of the same species living in a particular habitat). Parents pass adaptive genetic changes to their offspring, and ultimately these changes become common throughout a population. As a result, the offspring inherit those genetic characteristics that enhance their chances of survival and ability to give birth, which may work well until the environment changes. Over time, genetic change can alter a species' overall way of life, such as what it eats, how it grows, and where it can live. Human evolution took place as new genetic variations in early ancestor populations favored new abilities to adapt to environmental change and so altered the human way of life.

Galileo

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. Galileo pioneered "experimental scientific method" and was the first to use a refracting telescope to make important astronomical discoveries.

In 1609 Galileo learned of the invention of the telescope in Holland. From the barest description he constructed a vastly superior model. Galileo made a series of profound discoveries using his new telescope, including the moons of the planet Jupiter and the phases of the planet Venus (similar to those of Earth's moon).

As a professor of astronomy at University of Pisa, Galileo was required to teach the accepted theory of his time that the sun and all the planets revolved around the Earth. Later at University of Padua he was exposed to a new theory, that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo's observations with his new telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus's sun-centered or heliocentric theory.

Galileo's support for the heliocentric theory got him into trouble with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1633 the Inquisition convicted him of heresy and forced him to recant (publicly withdraw) his support of Copernicus. They sentenced him to life imprisonment, but because of his advanced age allowed him serve his term under house arrest at his villa in Arcetri outside of Florence.

Galileo's originality as a scientist lay in his method of inquiry. First he reduced problems to a simple set of terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved them according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which he applied this technique to the analysis of motion opened the way for modern mathematical and experimental physics. Isaac Newton used one of Galileo's mathematical descriptions, "The Law of Inertia," as the foundation for his "First Law of Motion."

Why would all the great minds of our time have a hard time believing in a supernatural being?

A study in the leading journal Nature showed that of those American scientists considered eminent enough by their peers to have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, only about 7 percent believe in a personal God.

This overwhelming preponderance of atheists is almost the exact opposite of the profile of the American population at large, of whom more than 90 percent are believers in some sort of supernatural being.

The figure for less eminent scientists, not elected to the National Academy, is intermediate. As with the more distinguished sample, religious believers are in a minority,but a less dramatic minority of about 40 percent.

It is completely what I would expect that American scientists are less religious than the American public generally, and that the most distinguished scientists are the least religious of all.

What is remarkable is the polar opposition between the religiosity of the American public at large and the atheism of the intellectual elite.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Why you shouldn't read Kevin Trudeau's book.

Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About

I came across a website called quackwatch.org while searching for some explainations to the acid/alkaline theory of disease that Kevin Trudeau talks about in his infomercial.

Its nonsense..explaination

This website also has the transcript of Kevin Trudeau's infomercial and some interesting comments... right here.

What is going on here? Why is this book on the best seller list? 

scary!