Category Science

In Florida, officials ban term climate change

The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years.

But you would not know that by talking to officials at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on the front lines of studying and planning for these changes.

Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts

The Scientific American reports on the dodginess of eyewitness testimony. This is interesting in light of Gospel apologetics which claim that either the disciples were eyewitnesses or that eyewitnesses in general are reliable.

IN 1984 KIRK BLOODSWORTH was convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl and sentenced to the gas chamber—an outcome that rested largely on the testimony of five eyewitnesses.

Scientists pledge to increase interference with the Church

Usually, you expect biting satire to come from The Onion, or Private Eye. this unexpected piece of genius comes from the Guardian in response to the meddling of churches and religious organisations recently to the proposed law changes to allow three-parent families relevant to mitochondrial donation. The church was deemed irresponsible for trying to sway politicians on the matter.

Quote for the Day: D Rizdek on naturalism

Over on another post and thread, D Rizdek is doing a fantastically erudite job of mounting a solid case for naturalism. Here are two of his quotes from that thread which are well worth replicating – indented quotes belong to whom he is debating:

Unfortunately the debate is asking “Does science embrace all in the universe?” In other words what is the status of scientism?

and

I certainly don’t consider all of what I am to be “in science”

These tell me two things.

Guest post: a request about homosexuality and genetics

Here is a guest post from someone (a South American who wants to remain anonymous) who contacted me by email asking for help in dealing with the topic of homosexuality and genetics after he read my two posts on homosexuality and Christianity. It seems that there is a prominent Christian author pairing whose work seems to be a concerted effort to minimise the importance of genetic determinism in producing homosexuality. Over to the guest poster:

My brain

The other day I was getting really frustrated with my manual coordination. I was leaving school on a Sunday after doing some work and was trying to locate a particular key on a keyring. With one hand. Whilst holding three bags with my other and something under my arm. With something also being held in my mouth. I was attempting to swing various keys around the ring, locating which particular one I wanted out of about twenty keys. The keys kept slipping into the wrong place and I was swearing in sheer frustration.

The exactitude of human evolution up in the air

So human evolution in its African context has been hotly researched, but the research is necessarily slow. Fossil digs take a ling time and are few and far between. New finds from 2000 onwards in Georgia are throwing a lot of theories up in the air. What were once thought to be different species of early human ancestors might have been variations in the same species. As the Guardian reports: