Interesting News Of The Day

Monstrous Skull Fossil Found in UK
AP
posted: 6 HOURS 56 MINUTES AGOcomments: 287filed under: Science News, World News
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LONDON (Oct. 27) - British authorities say the fossilized skull of a giant sea monster has been found off England's southern coast.
The fossil came from a pliosaur, a ferocious predator that lived in the oceans 150 million years ago.

The skull was discovered in Dorset by a collector and measures 8 feet in length. The discovery was announced Tuesday.
Scientists believe the creature would have been about 52 feet long.
David Martill, a paleontologist from the University of Portsmouth, says pliosaurs had short necks and huge, crocodile-like heads with powerful jaws and a set of razor-sharp teeth.
He said they used paddle-like limbs to propel their bodies through the water and were generally carnivores.
The skull will be put on display in a Dorset museum.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Prostitution for the religion of sports:

Police: Woman Offered Sex for Tickets
AP
posted: 1 HOUR 37 MINUTES AGOcomments: 132filed under: Crime News, National News
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BENSALEM, Pa. (Oct. 27) -- Police in a Philadelphia suburb they've arrested a woman who offered sex for World Series tickets.
Bensalem police say 43-year-old Susan Finkelstein was arrested on Tuesday.
Investigators say Finkelstein posted an ad on the Web site Craigslist that stated she was a die-hard Phillies fan and buxom blonde in desperate need of two World Series tickets.
Police say her posting went on to say the price was negotiable and that "I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!"
An undercover officer responded to the ad. Police say Finkelstein offered to perform various sex acts in exchange for World Series tickets.
She is charged with prostitution and related offenses. Her listed phone number was disconnected, and it couldn't immediately be determined if she had an attorney.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-10-27 16:44:21

Science News

Fossil Skull of Giant Toothy Seabird Found
By ANDREW WHALEN, AP
posted: 5 HOURS 55 MINUTES AGOcomments: 28filed under: Animal News, Science News, World NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

LIMA, Peru (Feb. 28) - The unusually intact fossilized skull of a giant, bony-toothed seabird that lived up to 10 million years ago was found on Peru's arid southern coast, researchers said Friday.
The fossil is the best-preserved cranium ever found of a pelagornithid, a family of large seabirds believed to have gone extinct some 3 million years ago, said Rodolfo Salas, head of vertebrate paleontology at Peru's National History Museum.
The museum said in a statement that the birds had wingspans of up to 20 feet and may have used the toothlike projections on their beaks to prey on slippery fish and squid. But studying members of the Pelagornithidae family has been difficult because their extremely thin bones — while helpful for keeping the avian giants aloft — tended not to survive as fossils.
"Its fossils are very strange, very rare and very hard to find," Salas told The Associated Press.
The cranium discovered in Peru is 16 inches long and is believed to be 8 million to 10 million years old, based on the age of the rock bed in which it was found.
"Rarely are any bones of these gigantic, marine birds found fossilized uncrushed, and to find an uncrushed skull of this size is very significant," said Ken Campbell, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
Campbell, who examined photos of the find but was not involved in the dig, said he knows of "no specimen of comparable quality." Dan Kepska, a paleontology researcher at North Carolina State University who also was not part of the project, agreed that the skull is the most complete ever reported.
He called the birds "one of the great enigmas of avian paleontology."
With fossils discovered in North America, North Africa and even Antarctica, Kepska said, the birds were ubiquitous only a few million years before humans evolved and scientists puzzle over why they died out. Some believe they are related to gannets and pelicans, while other say they are related to ducks.
Campbell said the Peru find "will undoubtedly be of great importance to our understanding of these gigantic birds, and it will help clarify the relationships of the other fossil pelagornithids found in the Pisco Formation."
The formation, a coastal rock bed south of the capital, Lima, is known for yielding fossils of whales, dolphins, turtles and other marine life dating as far back as 14 million years.

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2009-02-28 10:10:33

Small, Hot Earth-Like Planet Discovered
Space.com
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(Feb. 3) - What may be the smallest extrasolar planet, measuring less than twice the size of Earth, has been discovered orbiting a sun-like star.
The world is far hotter than ours, however. And controversy over the size claim has heated up, too. Astronomers used the COROT space telescope (a mission led by the French Space Agency, and also involving the European Space Agency and others) to detect the new planet as it transited its parent star, dimming the light from the star as it passed in front of it. The host star is located 457 light-years from Earth, where one light-year is the distance light will travel in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.
"For the first time, we have unambiguously detected a planet that is 'rocky' in the same sense as our own Earth," said Malcolm Fridlund, ESA's COROT Project Scientist. "We now have to understand this object further to put it into context, and continue our search for smaller, more Earth-like objects with COROT."
He added, "This discovery is a very important step on the road to understanding the formation and evolution of our planet."
Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who was not involved in the discovery said, "My first thought is that it's extremely exciting because we've been waiting to find a planet that we can really call rocky. I would just caution that more information, more data, is needed."
For instance, the discovery has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, and not much information about the planet has been released by COROT scientists. Seager says in order to confirm an exoplanet is rocky, scientists need to nail down its mass and radius (or the combination of size and density, or mass and density).
"It looks like the mass is not well-determined and so that's why they're saying they're not sure what the density is," Seager told SPACE.com. "They think it is terrestrial-like. It might have water ice, or it might have rocks, but it's certainly not a gas giant." COROT scientists estimate the planet ranges from 5.7 to 11 Earth masses.
Hot discovery
One big difference in the newfound planet compared to Earth: COROT-Exo-7b is located very close to its star, orbiting once every 20 hours. Its temperature is so high, ranging from 1,832 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit that the researchers say the exoplanet could be covered in lava or water vapor. The density of the planet is still under investigation, though scientists say it may be rocky like Earth and covered in liquid lava. COROT-Exo-7b may also belong to a class of planets that are thought to be made up of water and rock in almost equal amounts. Given the high temperatures measured, the planet would likely be a very hot and humid place.
"Finding such a small planet was not a complete surprise," said Daniel Rouan, researcher at the Observatoire de Paris Lesia, who coordinates the project with Alain Leger, from Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale. "COROT-Exo-7b belongs to a class of objects whose existence had been predicted for some time." Small and odd
Very few of the more than 300 exoplanets found so far have a mass comparable to that of Earth and the other terrestrial planets — Venus, Mars and Mercury. That's because terrestrial planets are extremely difficult to detect.
Of the Earth-like planets detected, this is the first one spotted using the so-called transit method, which can yield both the planet's mass and radius. Other methods just reveal the planet's mass, Seager said.
The newfound planet's size status is also questioned. When astronomers study planets, they're interested in both mass and diameter.
"The claim that it is the 'smallest exoplanet' found to date is not correct," said planet-formation theorist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It is the smallest mass exoplanet found to date that transits, but other hot super-Earths have been found that do not transit but have lower masses." Boss was not involved in the current discovery.
For instance, he adds Gliese 876 d has "a minimum mass of 5.9 Earth masses and a best estimate for the true mass of 7.5 Earth masses."
Most of the methods used so far are indirect and sensitive to the mass of the planet, which is why bigger worlds are easier to detect. COROT can directly measure the size of a planet's surface, which is an advantage to astronomers. In addition, because the probe is in space, it has longer periods of uninterrupted observation than from the ground.
The internal structure of COROT-Exo-7b particularly puzzles scientists, as they are unsure whether it is an "ocean planet," a kind of planet whose existence has never been proved so far. In theory, such planets would initially be covered partially in ice, and they would later drift toward their star, with the ice melting to cover it in liquid. © Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.
2009-02-03 15:49:34

Posts I Forgot

World's Oldest Prehistoric Axes Unearthed By JULIA ZAPPEI, AP
posted: 28 DAYS 8 HOURS AGOcomments: 555filed under: World NewsPrintShareText SizeAAAKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Jan. 30) - Malaysian archeologists have unearthed prehistoric stone axes that they said Friday were the world's oldest at about 1.8 million years old.
Seven axes were found with other tools at an excavation site in Malaysia's northern Perak state in June, and tests by a Tokyo laboratory indicate they were about 1.83 million years old, said Mokhtar Saidin, director of the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Science Malaysia.
The group released their conclusions Thursday, and other archeologists have not yet examined the results.
"It's really the first time we have such evidence (dating back) 1.83 million years," Mokhtar said, adding that the oldest axes previously discovered were 1.6 million years old in Africa.
However, other chopping tools, as well as human remains, have been found in Africa that are much older, with some dating back 4 million years, he said.
Geochronology Japan Inc., a lab in Tokyo, calculated the age of the tools by analyzing the rock that covered them, Mokhtar said. The result has a margin of error of 610,000 years, he said.
Some previous discoveries have suggested there were humans in Southeast Asia up to 1.9 million years ago, but those have been disputed, said Harry Truman Simanjuntak, a researcher at the National Research Center of Archaeology in Jakarta.
Simanjuntak cautioned that others still need to investigate claims about the axes' age.
The oldest previous evidence of human existence in Malaysia was stone tools dating back about 200,000 years, found at the same excavation site in Perak.
The archeologists are trying to find human bone remains in Perak, Mokhtar said, but stressed that it might be unlikely because of decay due to warm, humid climate conditions. The oldest bones found in Perak so far have only been about 10,000 years old.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-01-30 07:47:52

Ancient Whales Gave Birth on Land By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer, LiveScience
posted: 22 DAYS 18 HOURS AGOcomments: 584filed under: Science NewsPrintShareText SizeAAASkip over this content

(Feb. 4) -- More than 47 million years ago, a whale was about to give birth to her young ... on land. That's according to skeletal remains of a pregnant cetacean whose fetus was positioned head-down as is the case for land mammals but not aquatic whales.
The teeth of the fetus were so well-developed that researchers who analyzed the fossils think the baby would have been born within days, had its mom not died.
The fossil discovery marks the first extinct whale and fetus combination known to date, shedding light on the lifestyle of ancient whales as they made the transition from land to sea during the Eocene Epoch (between 54.8 million and 33.7 million years ago).
Philip Gingerich, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his team discovered the pregnant whale remains in Pakistan in 2000, and then in 2004, Gingerich's co-authors and others found the nearly complete skeleton of an adult male from the same species in those fossil beds. The adult whales are each about 8.5 feet long and weighed between 615 and 860 pounds, though the male was slightly longer and heavier than the female.
(Gingerich is also director of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology.)
On the dig that ultimately yielded the pregnant whale, Gingerich and his team first spotted what looked like a line of chalk on the ground surface, which later turned out to be the teeth of the whale fetus.
"Very quickly I got into the baby's teeth," Gingerich told LiveScience. "Then I kept going around it, and the ribs seemed too big for the size of the animal and they were all going the wrong way. So I have to say I spent the whole day excavating this thing confused about what in the world was going on here."
Soon after, Gingeric discovered another, larger, skull, and he realized the fetus was still inside its mother.The new species, now called Maiacetus inuus, is a member of the Archaeoceti, a group of cetaceans (an animal group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises) that predate modern toothed and baleen whales. Archaeocetes had mouths full of several types of teeth, as well as nostrils near the nose tip. Both features are seen in land mammals but not in today's whales.
Like other archaeocetes, the newly discovered whale was equipped with four legs modified for foot-powered swimming (sort of like climbing, or scrambling, up a steep hill but instead in water). While the whales likely could support their weight on their flipper-like limbs, they probably couldn't go far on land.
"They clearly were tied to the shore," Gingerich said. "They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth."
The team suggests that Maiacetus fed at sea and came ashore to rest, mate and give birth.
The head-first position of the fetus matches what is found in many land animals, particularly the artiodactyls (pigs, deer and cows), which are thought to have given rise to ancient whales. Human babies also emerge head first, ideally.
Scientists speculate that a head-first orientation allows land mammals to breathe even if they get stuck in the birth canal.
That's not the case underwater. "If you're born in the water you don't want the head out away from the mother until it's going to pop free, because you don't want it to drown,” Gingerich said.
In addition, tail-first delivery in modern whales and dolphins would ensure the baby is facing in the same direction as its mother who is likely swimming. To keep mom and baby from getting separated, tail-first delivery would be optimal, Gingerich said.
The research, published in the Feb. 4 issue of the online journal PloS ONE, was funded by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. © Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.
2009-02-04 12:52:41

Genesis And Theistic Evolution: Part 3

Sorry for the wait, but here's the conclusion to my post series on Genesis and Theistic Evolution. Here are the other two posts on the subject for those catching up:

TheoPoetic Musings: Genesis And Theistic Evolution: Part 1

TheoPoetic Musings: Genesis And Theistic Evolution: Part 2

Anyways, here is one interesting interpretation of Genesis that comes from the Jewish Midrash---Genesis Rabbah 8.1 and Rashi:

IV. “The First Human was Created Androgynous”: Two Creations or One Creation?

Shortly before the verse discussed in our earlier study (HY VIII: Bereshit), in which a man leaves his parents to cleave to his wife and to become one flesh, we read of the creation of the first woman from man. After God brings all of the various animals and beasts before Adam as potential companions, without success (although Adam does give each one a suitable name), God casts a deep sleep upon him:

Gen 2:21. “And the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon the man, and he slept, and he took one of his tzela’ot (ribs? limbs? sides?) and closed the flesh beneath it.” Rashi: “One of his tzela’ot.” From his side, as in the verse, “And on the side (tzela’) of the Tabernacle” [Exod 26:20]. This is what we have said: They were created with two faces/sides.
This verse is often thought of in modern times as the height of male chauvinism, establishing the inferiority of woman by the fact that she was fashioned from man. But Rashi—who is very brief here, if not cryptic—clearly states that this is not so: the word צלע, often translated in the Christian tradition as “rib,” in fact means “side” or “half” of the body; a proof-text is invoked from the description of the construction of the Sanctuary in the wilderness. The original human had two sides; one became man, the other woman. Hence, there is no inherent inferiority to woman; man and woman were created as equal in stature.

To understand this motif more clearly, let us examine Rashi’s sources. This is based a midrashic motif that appears in several different places—Genesis Rabbah 8.1; Lev. Rab. 14.1; Midrash Shohar Tov (Tehillim) 139.5; b. Berakhot 61a; b. Eruvin 18a; and, in truncated form in a halakhic discussion, at Ketubot 8a—each with certain variations.

Genesis Rabbah 8.1. “Fore and aft You have created me” [Ps 139:5]… R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar said: When God created the first man, he created him androgynous. Of this it is written, “Male and female he created them… and he called their name Adam” [Gen 5:2]. R. Shmuel b. Nahman said: When God created the first man, He created him diprisophon (i.e., with two faces), and severed him and made him two backs—one back facing this way, and one back the other. They challenged him: But is it not written, “And he took one of his tzela’ot” [Gen 2:21]? He replied: [One] of his two sides (sitrohi), as one says, “And the side (tzela’) of the Sanctuary” [Exod 26:20], and its [Aramaic] translation is, velistar mishkena.
How are we to imagine this first human being? Like Siamese twins, with two heads, four arms and four legs, and two torsos, who simply needed to be separated into two individuals? And were they, perhaps, in sexual embrace (“the beast with the two backs”), whom could reasonably be described as Siamese twins joined at the genitals? According to one midrash, particularly beloved by some of our latter-day prophets of a re-eroticized Judaism, the Roman invaders were scandalized upon breaking into the Holy of Holies to discover that the cherubs that crowned the Holy Ark were representations of a male and female figure in intimate embrace. Or was he/she, as the word androgynous is used today, a single individual, with a dual sexual nature?

It seems significant that, in the versions from the great midrashic collections, such as that quoted above, the sexually androgynous nature of the human being is but one of many dualities mentioned, alongside moral, existential and philosophic dualities, all of them inferred from the verse “fore and aft You have formed me.” (For a fuller discussion of this passage see HY III: Bereshit, or Bereshit (Midrash) in the blog archives for October 2005)

I will begin my discussion by reiterating a point I have often made in the past: midrash is to be read, not as a literal account of events, but as myth, in the positive sense: as an image, a paradigm, used to convey some universal, eternal truth about human beings or the world. To say that something is myth is not to dismiss it as untrue, but to acknowledge that it expresses a depth-insight that cannot be expressed as well in conceptual language. The question then, as Levinas would say, is what issue is being discussed by the rabbis in the guise of this seemingly mythical language?

What, precisely, is the point of the distinction between “androgynous” (or “hermaphrodite”) and diprosaphon or du-partzufi (i.e., Janus faced?) in the Talmudic reading of this midrash? I read the idea of the first human being as androgynous as suggesting that the archetypal human being transcends sexuality, so that each of the two sexes represents only a part of the full range of human capacities. The primal androgynous represents an ideal image of humanity, combining the ideal characteristics of both sexes (bracketing the contemporary issues as to whether these are innate or “cultural constructs,” and certainly whether they are “politically correct”): initiative, abstract intellectual qualities, creativity, physical strength, leadership qualities, “conquering worlds,” of the male; and the more nurturing, intuitive, tender, intimate, home-building qualities, connected to the stuff of life itself, and typically more readily sacrificing self for others, of the female. (These spiritual qualities seem to be symbolized by the Kabbalistic identification of male and female with the qualities of mind known as hokhmah and binah, “Wisdom” and “Understanding/Intuition”; sexual union, known as da’at, “knowledge, is simultaneously a merger or synthesis of the two. See Chapter 1 of Pseudo-Ramban’s Iggeret ha-Kodesh.) Of course, no individual embodies all of these qualities. Their presence in the paradigmatic Adam suggests that neither sex is sufficient unto itself. The fully human is a synthesis of the two, that doesn’t exist in realty, but only in the archetypal world of the Golden Age, of Creation itself.

The du-partzufi image, on the other hand, suggests two fully-formed individuals, man and woman, who were originally joined and then, as part of their creation, severed in two. Here the emphasis is on man/woman as an incomplete creature, who seeks completion through mating with a partner, who is so-to-speak a lost part of himself. Or shall we say, rather, that human life is a constant two-step dance of uniting and parting, autonomy and togetherness, the relationship/community of man and woman being a basic, elemental part of world. (An interesting Jerusalemite strictly-Orthodox female Kabbalah teacher and scholar, Sarah Yehudit Schneider, has written at length about these issues in her Kabbalistic Writings on the Nature of Masculine and Feminine)

I see at least three basic ideas implied by these midrashim:

1. The basic common humanity of man and woman. The differences between the sexes, insofar as based on status or power, are temporary imperfections (even if long-standing in terms of historical time), and not innate. The curse of Eve, as the origin of male supremacy, is a fault in the world as we know it.

2. Sexual attraction as a search for a lost part of oneself. Elsewhere (at the end of b. Kiddushin) Hazal compare a man’s quest for a mate to that of one seeking a lost article. Marriage, and its sexual consummation, is a restoration of the primordial state of oneness. That is why various firms of solipsistic sexual gratification—i.e., those oriented toward self-pleasure alone—are seen as contradicting this verse (see Sanhedrin 58a-b, where the entire Noachide teaching on sexuality is learned from Gen 2:24).

3. Male and female are present in the psyche of each person (as in the Jungian notion of the animus and the anima, a part within the psyche representing the opposite sex within the individual’s own identity). Hence male and female, man and woman, are not exclusively, or even primarily, biological, physical concepts, but spiritual definitions. Each is a component of the “full stature” of humanity. Therefore, a person must seek wholeness not only through personal integration, but through his relationship with a partner.

In the Talmudic discussion, two further elements are introduced: were man and woman created in one act of creation, or in two separate acts? (Some say that the third and fourth of the seven nuptial blessings allude to these two aspects of human creation.) And was the “side” or “rib” from which Eve was created a face or a tail? At first blush, the latter view sounds like an insult to woman. But Emmanuel Levinas, in his Nine Talmudic Readings (Bloomington–Indianapolis: Indiana U. Pr., 1990, pp. 161-177), suggests that the issue here is whether the essence of sexuality has to do with a spiritual difference between man and woman, something about the human essence of each, or whether the difference between them is in fact a strictly biological, functional difference, relating to the “lower” functions of the body—what is referred to in the Talmudic versions as “the tail.” That is, the point is not that woman is “tail-like,” but that she shares in the full, singular humanity of man, and it is only their relatively marginal biological functioning that makes the sexes different.

An Interesting Postscript:

Just over six months ago, I was present at a wedding at which Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat recited the fourth of the seven blessings. He made a small but significant departure change from the usual version of this blessing, printed in all the Siddurim and “benchers.” Rather than the traditional:

ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם, אשר יצר את האדם בצלמו, בצלם דמות תבניתו, והתקין לו ממנו בנין עדי עד. ברוך אתה ה' יוצר האדם. Blessed are You, O Lord God King of the universe, who has formed man in His image, in the image and likeness of His pattern, and created for him an eternal building. Blessed are You, who forms man.
He read:

ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם, אשר יצר את האדם בצלמו, ובצלם דמות תבניתו התקין לו ממנו בנין עדי עד. ברוך אתה ה' יוצר האדם. Blessed are You, O Lord God King of the universe, who has formed man in His image, and in the image and likeness of his pattern created for him an eternal building. Blessed are You, who forms man.
By moving the conjunctive letter vav, and thus grouping the phrases together differently, the whole syntax of this sentence changes. It is clear in the latter version that woman is not merely an appendage of man created to provide as a “eternal building”—in vulgar terms, a breeding machine, a source of ongoing offspring and thus eternal continuity—but herself made in the Divine image and likeness just as is man. This change is highly significant—far more egalitarian, and portraying the relationship between the sexes in far more complementary terms.

Though I had heard about this alternative reading, I had until then never heard it recited publicly nor seen it in print. I approached Rav Riskin afterwards to ask him about this, and he explained that he had learned this reading from Rav Soloveitchik, and that other students of Rav Soloveitchik (including Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, who was also present at this wedding) also used it. It seems clear that this reading is as ancient and legitimate as the more familiar one. Later, I consulted the article in Encyclopaedia Talmudica (IV.646) on Birkat Hatanim, where I found the sources for this alternative reading given as Semag, Aseh §48, citing R. Saadia Gaon.

(Read more: Here).

See also: "Androgyne
Androgyne derives from two Greek words, but makes its first appearance as a compound word in Rabbinic Judaism (see, e.g., Genesis Rabba 8.1; Leviticus Rabba 14.1), most probably as an alternative to the Greek Pagan-related usage of hermaphrodite." And: Some thoughts on gender and Judaism. Last but not least I defer you to an earlier post of mine for an evolutionary reading of Genesis: TheoPoetic Musings: Fundie Nuts Vs. Harry Emerson Fosdick.

Genesis And Theistic Evolution: Part 1

One of my friends mentioned a Phillip Johnson book that dissects evolution just as most Fundamentalist do---needless to say the book sounds interesting despite Dr. Johnson's crackpot theories:

Johnson has advocated strongly in the public and political spheres for the teaching of intelligent design in favor of evolution, which Johnson characterizes as "atheistic" and "falsified by all of the evidence" and whose "logic is terrible". In portraying the philosophy of science, and by extension its theories such as evolution as atheistic...
---
[edit] Neocreationism
See also: Neocreationism
When asked how best to raise doubts and question evolution with non-believers, Johnson responded:

What I am not doing is bringing the Bible into the university and saying, "We should believe this." Bringing the Bible into question works very well when you are talking to a Bible-believing audience. But it is a disastrous thing to do when you are talking, as I am constantly, to a world of people for whom the fact that something is in the Bible is a reason for not believing it... You see, if they thought they had good evidence for something, and then they saw it in the Bible, they would begin to doubt. That is what has to be kept out of the argument if you are going to do what I to do, which is to focus on the defects in [the evolutionists'] case—the bad logic, the bad science, the bad reasoning, and the bad evidence.[32]

Allegations of limiting academic freedom
In 2006 Nancey Murphy, a religious scholar at Fuller Theological Seminary‎, claimed she faced a campaign to get her fired after she expressed her view that intelligent design was not only poor theology, but "so stupid, I don't want to give them my time." Murphy, who accepts the validity of evolution, said that Johnson called a trustee in an attempt to get her fired. Johnson admits calling the trustee, but denies any responsibility for action taken against her.[39]
[edit] AIDS denialism
Johnson is involved in AIDS denialism, which challenges the scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS.[40][41][42] He has written five articles about the subject.[43] The scientific community consider the AIDS denialist arguments to rely on cherry-picking of scientific data[44] as denialists selectively ignore evidence of HIV's role in AIDS. Denialism is thought to endanger public health by dissuading people from utilizing proven treatments.[45][46] In the Washington University Law Quarterly, critics Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey criticized Johnson and DI fellow Jonathan Wells for denying the AIDS/HIV connection and promoting denialism without any scientific support.[47] Specifically, they were criticized for signing a petition, which gains publicity rather than deal with the science.[47]

Anyways here are some of my thoughts on the subject:
First, Genesis is not a textbook on history, science and biology, but a spiritual and theological text. Personally, I read Genesis as a "mythic truth"---to me, it's a spiritual narrative, which speaks of God being the beginning of all things as Genesis 1:1 in the Hebrew states: אֱלֹהִ֑ים ‏בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א (berashit bera Elohim), which literally means: "in the beginning of God's or the gods' creating." God is still creating---in other words God is still overseeing evolutionary processes. See also: The Myths of Genesis for an interesting explanation of mythic truth. Anyways to me the narrative of Adam and Eve were superimposed onto a framework of the earlier existing Near Eastern creation myths by the scribes of "the Elohist tradition who referred to God as Elohim, which was derived from the name of the Canaanite God El (generally translated as "God" in English)." One such Near Eastern creation myth was the Enuma Elish part of which the Genesis creation accounts depend on:

Relationship with the Hebrew Bible
The dependence of at least part of the creation accounts found in Genesis on a common ancient Near Eastern "creation-by-combat" myth are "not gainsayable."[2] The ancient Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat circular disc surrounded by a saltwater sea. The habitable earth was a single giant continent inside this sea, and floated on a second sea, the freshwater apsu, which supplied the water in springs, wells and rivers and was connected with the saltwater sea. The sky was a solid disk above the earth, curved to touch the earth at its rim, with the heavens of the gods above. So far as can be deduced from clues in the bible, the ancient Hebrew geography was identical with that of the Babylonians: a flat circular earth floating above a freshwater sea, surrounded by a saltwater sea, with a solid sky-dome (raqia, the "firmament") above. It is the creation of this world which Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 describe.[3][4] Comparisons between the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts are often obscured by English translations, which impose on the Hebrew the Christian doctrines of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and of the Trinity. Thus the opening of Genesis 1 is traditionally rendered: "In the beginning God created both Heaven and Earth...", whereas the Hebrew makes it clear that Genesis 1:1-3 is describing the state of chaos immediately prior to God's creation:[5] In the beginning of God's creating the skies and the earth, when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God's spirit was hovering on the face of the water, God said, 'Let there be light!'[6] In both Enuma Elish and Genesis, creation is an act of divine speech—the Enuma Elish describes pre-creation as a time "when above, the heavens had not been named, and below the earth had not been called by name", while in Genesis each act of divine creation is introduced with the formula: "And God said, let there be...". The sequence of creation is identical: light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, and man. In both Enuma Elish and Genesis the primordial world is formless and empty (the tohu wa bohu of Genesis 1:2), the only existing thing the watery abyss which exists prior to creation (Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, tehom, the "deep", a linguistic cognate of tiamat, in Genesis 1:2). In both, the firmament, conceived as a solid inverted bowl, is created in the midst of the primeval waters to separate the heavens from the earth (Genesis 1:6–7, Enuma Elish 4:137–40). Day and night precede the creation of the luminous bodies (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, and 14ff.; Enuma Elish 1:38), whose function is to yield light and regulate time (Gen. 1:14; Enuma Elish 5:12–13). In Enuma Elish, the gods consult before creating man (Enuma Elish 6:4), while Genesis has: "Let us make man in our own image..." (Genesis 1:26) – and in both, the creation of man is followed by divine rest. "Thus, it appears that the so-called Priestly Source account echoes this earlier Mesopotamian story of creation."
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Other similarities:
What is Enuma Elish about? It is not primarily a creation story: very little of the content is about creation. Also, much more important than the creation of humans is the creation of the gods: theogony. The vast majority of the content is praising the attributes and deeds of Marduk, and his establishment as the chief god with his temple at Babylon. It is not too difficult to discern the purpose of Enuma Elish:

(1) to establish Marduk’s supremacy as the head of the Babylonian pantheon.

(2) to establish Babylon’s preeminence over all the cities in the country.

Although we have the epic attested only in its Babylonian form, it is obvious that the myth was originally Sumerian: most of the names besides Marduk are Sumerian rather than Semitic names. The Babylonians inherited the gods of the Sumerians, with Enlil (the god of earth) generally as the chief god. In the 18th c. BCE, Hammurabi (1792-1750) not only produced a very influential code of laws, but also effected a religious reform by asserting that Marduk was the chief god. The city of Babylon also rose to prominence during this period (first Babylonian dynasty, 1894-1595).

ENKI AND NINHURSAG: A PARADISE MYTH
(ANET 37-41)

The story takes place in Dilmun, a pure paradise where there is no sickness or death, “the lion kills not, the wolf snatches not the lamb,” etc. Enki (=Ea), the god of the wisdom and the sweet waters that bring life to the land, impregnates the goddess Ninhursag (=Nintu), the “mother of the earth”. She gives birth to the goddess Ninmu. Enki impregnates his daughter Ninmu, giving birth to Ninkurra. Enki impregnates his granddaughter Ninkurra, giving birth to Uttu. Before Enki can lay his hands on his great-granddaughter, Ninhursag advises her to reject Enki unless he brings a gift of fruit. Enki comes with fruit, she happily receives him, but instead of producing a child, she uses his semen to produce 8 different plants. Enki eats these, infuriating Ninhursag. She curses Enki, vowing never again to look upon him with the “eye of life.” Enki apparently begins to deteriorate and the Anunnaki, the Sumerian gods of the underworld mourn, and in the end Ninhursag is brought back to the gods.
Similarities to Genesis 1-3:

-seduction with fruit

-the eating of trees brings a curse consisting of the withholding of life



GILGAMESH AND THE HULUPPU-TREE
(S. N. Kramer, Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, Chicago, 1938; cf. S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 1944, 30f.). The second half of this myth is appended to the Gilgamesh epic in Tablet 12.

Heaven and earth are separated, humans are brought into being, Anu and Enlil choose heaven and earth respectively for their realms, Ereshkigal has been given the underworld, and Enki has headed for the watery abyss beneath the earth. A tree planted by the bank of the Euphrates river was blown down by the wind and floated away on the river. Inanna (=Ishtar), the queen of heaven sees the tree and takes it home to her “holy garden” where she transplants it and tends it, hoping that when it is grown she can make a bed and a chair out of it. But when it is grown, she is prevented from using it because a serpent has made its home at the root of the tree, the Zû-bird has made a nest in the top of the tree, and the demon Lilith has made her house in the middle of the tree. Gilgamesh saves the day by killing the serpent with his ax, also frightening off both Lilith and the bird family. Gilgamesh cuts down the tree and gives it to Inanna for her bed and chair. Inanna makes two objects out of the tree—pukku from the roots and mikku from the crown—and gives them to Gilgamesh. One day these gifts fall into the underworld, and Gilgamesh is distressed not to be able to recover them. His companion Enkidu goes to rescue them, but is prevented from returning to the living. His spirit gives Gilgamesh a report on what the afterlife is like.

Similarities to Genesis:

-tree with serpent (combined with demon)

See also: Creation myth for various other Creation myths. The Jews were certainly aware of the other Creation myths of surrounding cultures and they had lots to borrow from---however, there are differences between the Judeo-Christian Creation myth as well. Genesis is also a subversive myth:

Paganism and biblical ‘subversion’

So what is the purpose of this portion of Scripture - the first chapter of Genesis - according to biblical historians? In a nutshell, the opening section of the Bible appears to have been written to provide a picture of physical and social reality that debunks the views held by pagan cultures of the time. In short, Genesis 1 is a piece of subversive theology.

Genesis 1 appears to have been written to debunk the views held by pagan cultures of the time

To anyone familiar with the Old Testament this subversive, anti-pagan intent will come as no surprise. One of the golden threads of the Old Testament is its sustained critique of the pagan religions of Israel’s neighbours - the Egyptians, Canaanites and Babylonians. The first two of the Ten Commandments, for instance, are all about shunning the pagan deities of the ancient world. Moreover, the book of Psalms - the hymnbook of ancient Jews - regularly and explicitly declares that the creation owes its existence not to the pagan gods but to Yahweh, the God of Israel. In Jeremiah 50:2 the Babylonian creator god, Marduk, is explicitly named and denounced.
Given the prominence of this motif in the Old Testament it would be surprising if the Old Testament’s longest statement about creation did not take a swipe at pagan understandings of the universe. We do not have to speculate about this. Through a stroke of very good fortune, scholars are now able to see just how the writer of Genesis went about his task of debunking his ancient rivals.

See also: Genesis: The Origin of Revolution. I shall continue this discussion in a subsequent post.

Dinosaur "Dance Floor" Found

Huge Field of Dinosaur Tracks Found

By LiveScience Staff, LiveScience
posted: 2 HOURS 40 MINUTES AGOcomments: 93filed under: Science News

(Oct. 20) - More than 1,000 dinosaur footprints along with tail-drag marks have been discovered along the Arizona-Utah border. The incredibly rare concentration of beastly tracks likely belonged to at least four different species of dinosaurs, ranging from youngsters to adults.

The tracks range in length from 1 to 20 inches.
"The different size tracks may tell us that we are seeing mothers walking around with babies," said researcher Winston Seiler, a geologist at the University of Utah.
The tracks were laid about 190 million years ago in what is now the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.
"There must have been more than one kind of dinosaur there," said researcher Marjorie Chan, professor and chair of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. "It was a place that attracted a crowd, kind of like a dance floor."
While the site is covered in sand dunes now, the researchers say the tracks are within what was a network of wet, low watering holes between the dunes. In fact, the tracks provide more evidence of wet intervals during the Early Jurassic Period, when the U.S. Southwest was covered with a field of sand dunes larger than the Sahara Desert.

Chan and her colleagues, including Seiler, described the dinosaur track site in the October issue of the international paleontology journal Palaios.
By studying the shapes and sizes of the tracks, Seiler suggests four dinosaur species gathered at the watering hole, though the researchers have yet to match the prints with specific species. Currently, the tracks are named for their particular shapes and include:
-- Eubrontes footprints measure 10 to 16 inches long and have three toes and a heel. These tracks likely were made by upright-walking dinosaurs with a body length of 16 to 20 feet, or smaller than Tyrannosaurus rex.

-- Grallator tracks are about 4 to 7 inches long, are three-toed and were left by small dinosaurs only a few feet tall.
-- Sauropodomorph tracks, more circular than the other types, were left by creatures that walked on four legs and were the largest dinosaurs at the site. Their tracks range from 6 to 11 inches long. Seiler said the tail-drag marks are associated with these circular footprints, so they likely were made by sauropods.
-- Anchisauripus tracks measure 7 to 10 inches long and were made by dinosaurs that ranged from 6 to 13 feet in length.

Numerous dinosaur track sites have been found in the western United States and elsewhere around the world. For instance, tracks from a herd of 11 giant sauropod dinosaurs were discovered in the ancient coastal mudflats of Yemen. But the new discovery is rare in the density of tracks.
"Unlike other trackways that may have several to dozens of footprint impressions, this particular surface has more than 1,000," Seiler and Chan write.
Chan first visited the site of the dinosaur tracks in 2005 with a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger who was puzzled by them. Chan initially called them potholes, which are erosion features common in desert sandstone. "But I knew that wasn't the whole story because of the high concentration and because they weren't anywhere else nearby but along that one surface."
One unnamed reviewer of the Palaios study still believes the holes are erosion features, according to a statement released today by the University of Utah.
In 2006, Seiler saw the tracks and had similar thoughts. "At first glance, they look like weathering pits — a field of odd potholes," he said. "But within about five minutes of wandering around, I realized these were dinosaur footprints."
© Imaginova Corp. All rights reserved.
2008-10-20 15:09:13

Another Shark "Virgin Birth"

A blacktip shark, like the one pictured here, is the second documented case of a female shark becoming pregnant without the aid of a male shark.


So apparently another shark gave birth to a shark pup without the aid of "genetic material from a male." Here is the full article from AOL News:

Aquarium's 'Virgin' Shark Was Pregnant By STEVE SZKOTAK, AP
posted: 5 HOURS 42 MINUTES AGOcomments: 173filed under: Animal News, Science NewsPrintShareText SizeAAARICHMOND, Va. (Oct. 10) - Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark.
In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Neb., zoo.
"This first case was no fluke," Demian Chapman, a shark scientist and lead author of the second study, said in a statement. "It is quite possible that this is something female sharks of many species can do on occasion."
The aquarium sharks that reproduced without mates each carried only one pup, while some shark species can produce litters numbering in the dozen or more. The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.
"It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth," Chapman said.
The medical mystery began 16 months ago after the death of the Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit at the Virginia Beach aquarium. No male blacktip sharks were present during her eight years at the aquarium.
In May 2007, the 5-foot, 94-pound shark died of stress-related complications related to her unknown pregnancy after undergoing a yearly checkup. The 10-inch shark pup was found during a necropsy of Tidbit, surprising aquarium officials. They initially thought the embryonic pup was either a product of a virgin birth or a cross between the blacktip and a male of another shark species — which has never been documented, Chapman said.
Tidbit's pup was nearly full term, and likely would have been quickly eaten by "really big sand tiger sharks" that were in the tank, Chapman said in a telephone interview from Florida.

That is what happened to the tiny hammerhead pup in the Omaha case.
"By the time they could realize what they were looking at, something munched the baby," he said of aquarium workers. The remains of the pup were used for the DNA testing.
Virgin birth has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and has been suspected among sharks in the wild. The scientists who studied the Virginia and Nebraska sharks said the newly formed pups acquired one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development, then united anew.
Absent the chromosomes present in the male sperm, the offspring of an asexual conception have reduced genetic diversity and, the scientists said, may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild. A pup, for instance, can be more susceptible to congenital disorders and diseases.
The scientists said their findings offer "intriguing questions" about how frequently automictic parthenogenesis occurs in the wild.
"It is possible that parthenogenesis could become more common in these sharks if population densities become so low that females have trouble finding mates," said Mahmood Shivji, one of the scientists and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
The DNA fingerprinting techniques used by the scientists are identical to those used in human paternity testing.
Chapman, who is with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook, was assisted in the study by Beth Firchau of the Virginia Aquarium.
Chapman and Shivji were on the team that made the first discovery of virgin birth involving the Nebraska shark.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-10-10 00:01:59

Based on these scientific findings, here is my satire of a Fundamentalist/Bible Literalist shark's reaction to the event:

Shark Press: "So Mr. Sharkingswell what are your feelings about Virginia Mary Blacktip's virgin birth?

Sharky Sharkingswell: "It was a literal event, of course, for it was described in Sharkysaiah 7:14. And as we know Joseph Blacktip didn't "know" Mary, so of course we should believe the Holy Shark Bible says what it means and that the only way for Shark Jesus to be born is for Mary to literally be a virgin in the sense of sexual abstinence."

Shark Press: "But isn't the Sharkebrew word in Sharkysaiah used, almah, which literally means "young woman" and isn't the original context of the word virgin---"general purity?"

Sharky Sharkingswell: "I don't care about that or what Shark-bible scholars say. The Shark-bible is clear and says that Joseph was shocked about Virgina Mary's pregnancy and that's what the Institutionalized Shark-church teaches."

Shark Press: "But don't you find it fishy that Joseph and Mary were traveling/living together before marriage which was/is considered sinful?"

Sharky Sharkingswell: "No that's just foolish rebellious teenage talk everyone knows to doubt the Shark-made dogmas of the institutionalized shark-church and expose their origins and the misinterpretations of the shark-bible for what they are is to doubt Great White, our Shark-God. You should read G. K. Sharkerton's Orthosharky or Ravi Sharkarias' Can Sharks Live Without Great White? for they know what they are talking about."

Shark Press: "So there you have it, Mr. Sharky Sharkswell's take on the birth of our Shark-Messiah, Shark-Jesus, Son Of Virginia Mary and Joseph and Son Of Great White, our Shark-God."

Jellyfish Protein Scientists Win Nobel Prize

Jellyfish Protein Scientists Win Nobel Prize Reuters
posted: 44 MINUTES AGOcomments: 16filed under: Science NewsPrintShareText SizeAAASTOCKHOLM (Oct 8) - Two Americans and a Japanese researcher won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for the discovery of a glowing jellyfish protein that makes cells, tissues and even organs light up -- a tool used by thousands of researchers around the world.
The 10 million Swedish crown -- $1.4 million -- prize recognizes Japanese-born Osamu Shimomura, now of the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, Martin Chalfie of Columbia University in New York and Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, for their discoveries with green fluorescent protein.

AP
Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese-born scientist who works in Woods Hole, Mass., studies a protein that makes genes glow green along with Roger Y. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, and Martin Chalfie, of Columbia University.

"We can simply look inside an animal and say where has this gene been turned on, when is it turned on and when the protein is made, where does it go?" Chalfie said in a telephone interview. "They have their own flashlight telling you where they are."
Tsien, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, used coral proteins too, and extended the palette beyond green to yellow, blue and other colors, allowing scientists to follow several different biological processes at the same time.
He said asthma kept him indoors as a child, so he spent hours playing with colors as part of chemistry experiments in his basement.
Tsien said he was grateful for the prize and acknowledged that others in the field could also have been included. "I know only three people could get it and I'm sure the committee had a difficult decision," he said.
Chalfie said he missed the first call from the Nobel committee: "I looked on the computer, my laptop, and I found that I had won the prize. I slept through the phone call."
GFP has been used for art as well as for science. A green-glowing bunny named Alba was made in 2000 at the request of Chicago artist Eduardo Kac and green-glowing pigs have been gene engineered and bred to make green-glowing piglets.
As Nobel chemistry laureates, the three researchers join the ranks of some of the greatest names in science, such as Marie Curie, who also won a physics Nobel, and Linus Pauling, the scientist and renowned peace activist who won the prize in 1954.
The prizes were established in the will of 19th century dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.
The laureate for literature will be unveiled on Thursday, followed by the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.
Additional reporting by Adam Cox, Elinor Schang and Simon Johnson in Stockholm, Michael Kahn in London, Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong, Ellen Wulfhorst in New York and Maggie Fox in Washington; Writing by Maggie Fox; Editing by Doina Chiacu
Copyright 2008, Reuters
2008-10-08 09:36:39

08-08-08 At 8 P.M.: My Cousin's Wedding

Rain And Amanda's Ceremony

So my cousin, Rain, is a lesbian, so many have falsely believed that my views on the same sex marriage issue are because of that fact---but nothing can be further from the truth. Before I get to that, I have to say that their ceremony was short and sweet and performed by a Unitarian Universalist minister. Though I've known about Unitarian Universalism---that was my first experience with something like that, so it was interesting. I must say I can respect Unitarian Universalists, even if our beliefs differ.

(I gotta rep Bill, my aunt's boyfriend here, since I haven't mentioned him yet---he took most of the photos of the ceremony). Much to the chagrin of my homophobic minded friends, I gave Rain and Amanda these books as gifts: a New Testament geared to gays and a Bible study for gays. Oh, and they chose 08-08-08 at 8 P.M. as the date to be joined, because they've been together for 8 years.

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Anyways to get to my views: I have always believed that Baptist churches had the right to decide for themselves how to view things, so when I was pressed to defend my brother's beliefs (who is even more liberal than me on most things)---I reread all of the Baptists distinctives: soul liberty, liberty of conscience, freedom and church autonomy, etc. The Baptist distinctives then are where my views fit into the Baptist Tradition.

Other than that: issues of Biblical translation, historical issues and scientific findings are also part of my understanding of the issue. Although, I can agree with Conservatives that homosexuality was not God's original intent, but the traditional answers do not do the issue justice as it doesn't explain: intersexuality, Mermaid Syndrome, human cloacae, aphallia, which "is considered a substantially more troublesome problem in a male, and has in the past sometimes been considered justification for assigning and rearing a genetically male infant as a girl" and a number of other congenital malformations.

Also, my mom believes that homosexuality is God's answer to the problem of overpopulation. Either way, it is neither right nor just to deny love to God-fearing adults as true love never is a sin. The same-sex issue is unlikely to go away anytime soon, but it is the new civil rights movement. Facebook users can view my friend (who went to Campbell with me) Micah's note or you (everyone) can view the church he pastors for further relevant information.