This is the blog where Rodney Blevins comes to pontificate on various subjects ranging from the spiritual to the scientific and sometimes downright whimsical. This is also where you can find his many podcasts.
// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Current Events, Humor, Science, Technology
An example of a solarcooker from solarcooker.org
I just read about something called the “Kyoto Box” over at Steve Milloy’s blog.
What is it exactly? According to an article on the BBC website: (more…)
// April 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Current Events, Science
This article Bad news for Catlin Expedition: Satellite Data Shows Arctic Cooling in February and March really ticks me off. I just wish the earth would make up it’s mind. I mean Al Gore’s reputation is at stake here (yes, the Al Gore), not to mention all the trillions we will be spending on fighting global warming.
Apparently, this has been happening since 2005, according to the article: (more…)
// January 12th, 2007 // No Comments » // Science
I recently picked up the November issue of National Geographic to peruse an article called “From Fins to Wings”. The article is once again trying to explain how simpler forms in nature – a fin for example – evolved into something more complex – a limb or a wing.
// December 1st, 2006 // No Comments » // Science, Technology
This is really cool: An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists – New York Times
It raises a hypothetical situation in my mind. What if we were to set this object in front of a Creationist and an Evolutionist and ask them to explain its origin. Which answer would make more sense?
// September 10th, 2006 // No Comments » // Science
Check out this animation of the inside of a cell and all the stuff that goes on.
Studio Daily | Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell
After seeing this, could anyone still believe that it all evolved?
// June 21st, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Science
In Today’s New Reason to Believe e-mail sent out by the Reasons to Believe organization. They state the following:
New work on the characteristics of an enzyme that plays a key role in photosynthesis provides an effective response to one of the most compelling arguments for evolution. Biologists point to seemingly faulty designs in nature as evidence for evolution. One widely recognized example of a “poor” biochemical design is the enzyme ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, which plays a key role in photosynthesis. This enzyme (which converts carbon dioxide and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate into two 3-carbon sugars that eventually yield glucose) works at an extremely slow rate and is readily confused by the presence of oxygen. The biochemical confusion results because carbon dioxide and oxygen are featureless molecules that are difficult to tell apart. However, scientists have found that by slowing down the rate of chemical conversion, the enzyme is able to discriminate between carbon dioxide and oxygen. Thus, the enzyme appears to be perfectly optimized to handle carbon dioxide binding in the presence of oxygen. This classic example of a biochemical imperfection is now recognized as an elegantly designed system.
Here’s a link to the article they refer to.
If you don’t receive the Today’s New Reason to Believe e-mail, you can subscribe to it by visiting the Reasons to Believe website.
NOTE: I have disabled comments on this and all future articles because I am being deluged with spam.
UPDATE: Since moving over to Movable Type, I have reinstated comments. Hopefully, I won’t get any spam.
// February 13th, 2006 // No Comments » // Science
Here’s today’s Reasons to Believe e-mail. Just thought I’d pass it on. As always, you can subscribe to these e-mails yourself by registering at the Reasons to Believe website, reasons.org, click here to go directly to the sign-up page. Once you’ve registered and logged-in, click on the link “Signup for various Email lists”. If you don’t want to register, I believe you can just go here and sign-up without registering.
Okay, ’nuff said, here it is:
“Human Evolutionary Trees Ready to Topple”
New research underscores the inherent unreliability of the evolutionary “trees” used to describe humanity’s origin. For human evolution to be declared a fact, evolutionary relationships (phylogenies) among hominids in the fossil record and modern humans must be clearly established (constituting branches that emanate from larger branches and, finally, from an evolutionary trunk). Paleoanthropologists now recognize that no reliable phylogeny for the hominid fossil record exists or is possible. The reason: many of the physical features of hominid fossil remains used by paleoanthropologists to build evolutionary trees appear to be due (from an evolutionary perspective) to processes other than descent from a shared ancestor. New research continues to highlight the seriousness and complexity of this problem. If reliable evolutionary trees for the hominids cannot be constructed, then, at least formally, human evolution cannot be declared factual.
Reference:
Stephen J. Lycett and Mark Collard, “Do Homoiologies Impede Phylogenetic Analyses of the Fossil Hominids? An Assessment Based on Extant Papionin Craniodental Morphology,” Journal of Human Evolution 49 (2005): 618-42.
Related Resource:
“The Unreliability of Hominid Phylogenetic Analysis Challenges The Human Evolutionary Paradigm” by Fazale Rana
// January 25th, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Science
Here’s today’s Reasons to Believe e-mail update which I found so interesting, I thought I’d pass it on.
Increasing scientific support for nontestable naturalistic models argues for the recognition of testable supernatural models. One criticism scientists often level against claims for supernatural causation is that it is not experimentally verifiable. “You cannot put God in a test tube!” they state.
However, many scientists such as Leonard Susskind enthusiastically support the idea that there are many universes, or multiverses, outside of the one in which we live, even though these multiverses, by definition, lie beyond direct experimental verification. In contrast, RTB’s creation model appeals to a supernatural causal Agent but outlines a number of ways to verify that Agent’s work.
Certainly, if the unverifiable multiverses are part of the scientific domain, RTB’s testable creation model belongs there as well.
// November 9th, 2005 // No Comments » // Science
Ah yes, I’m back after not having blogged for a while.
This time it’s to point out a brief, but good article which is a short list of “Books that question the conventional wisdom on the environment” by famous author Michael Crichton. Check it out.
-RB
// August 15th, 2005 // No Comments » // Science
Here is an excellent article on the – often vehement – Darwinist refutation of Intelligent Design: David Klinghoffer on Darwinism & Intelligent Design on National Review Online
Here’s my favorite quote from the piece:
In a wonderful irony, the only intellectual framework in which people can genuinely be expected to pursue truth dispassionately, even if that truth undermines our sense of personal prestige, happens to be the religious framework, in which people aren’t animals at all but rather beings created in the image of God.
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