No end to the evil, I guess ...

I rarely just swatch stuff from other blogs, but I am just trying to get back to regular blogging after an absence (thanks to all who have enquired; my mother is making a good recovery,though at her age it takes time). So I am working my way through the In Box.

More from the evil Discos, with my comment below:

"Evolution: No Controversy? ? No Funding"

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor has his response to The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology's boycott of Louisiana after the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act:

Most Americans are creationists, in the sense that they believe that God played an important role in creating human beings and they don?t accept a strictly Darwinian explanation for life. And they think that they ought to be able to ask questions about evolution in their own public schools. They don?t share your passion for ideological purity in science classes. They have a quaint notion that science depends on the freedom to ask questions, and their insistence on academic freedom is catching on. They don't want religion taught in the science classroom, but they know that students are not learning about all of the science surrounding evolution. Seventy-eight percent of Americans support academic freedom in the teaching of evolution in schools, and that number is rising fast ? it?s up 9% in the past 3 years. People clearly resent your demand for censorship. After all, it?s their children in their schools, and they aren?t happy with a bunch of supercilious Darwinists telling them that they can?t even question Darwinism in their own classrooms. So if you?re going to boycott all the creationists who despise you, you?ll eventually have to hold all of your conventions in Madison or Ann Arbor. Keep up the arrogance and eventually you won?t have to boycott people at all. People will boycott you.

Well, no kidding. Basically, if they have had 150 years to make their point and haven't persuaded most people, maybe there is something wrong with the point they are trying to make.

Generally speaking, in science, if you can prove something, you don't need to hassle people about believing it. Most Americans believe that you can put a man on the moon because the Americans actually did it.

And if you cure somebody's cancer, trust me, he'll be happy to believe it.

It's different when people are expected to accept a belief system about the past history of life forms that is supported by little more than this kind of childishness.

Too bad for those guys, they won'tbe eating beignets, listening to the jazz.

Origin of life research: A perfect circularity

Here is neuroscientist Michael Egnor, who has said such kind things about The Spiritual Brain on on origin of life research:

The National Research Council’s report — The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems — is a must read. Not for the science — what there is of it can be summed up simply: we have no clue how life began. No, the report is a must read for the insight it offers into the current state of origin of life research:

For generations the definition of life has eluded scientists and philosophers. (Many have come to recognize that the concept of “definition” itself is difficult to define)… Indeed, because the chemical structures of terran biomolecular systems all appear to have arisen through Darwinian processes, it is hardly surprising that some of the more thoughtful definitions of life hold that it is a “chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” [emphasis mine]

Aside from jargon that would make Derrida squirm— “the concept of definition is itself difficult to define”— the Council claims to see, through post-modern haze, a more thoughtful definition of life: life is defined as “a chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”! This more thoughtful definition of life is an even grander tautology than 'survivors survive': Darwin’s theory must explain life because life is defined as ‘what Darwin’s theory explains.’ You've got to admire the audacity.

Here's a backgrounder on why origin of life is such a difficult problem. Oh, and here is a $1 million dollar prize if you can figure out how the genetic code arose spontaneously.

And the theory that life began in outer space has fallen on hard times, according to recent reports:

For the first time, there are solid data to refute a popular theory that life came to the Earth aboard a comet, Rutgers researchers said Monday.
Deteriorated DNA from microbes, frozen for millions of years in the Antarctic ice, shows that organisms could not have survived the bombardment of cosmic radiation during deep space travel from outside the solar system, said Paul Falkowski, a Rutgers biologist and oceanographer.

Toronto journalist David Warren comments,

Like every other pointy-head Darwinoid theory, the idea behind "Panspermianism" is to transfer the problem of life's origin on earth, out of the finite space & time of the earth's own geological history, & into some abstract place where the laws of chance have an infinite amount of time to do whatever is necessary. But the game is up. We can now roughly date the origin of our universe, & 15 billion years is WAY too short a time for random processes to produce a non-random result. Verily, 15 billion times 15 billion years is still not nearly enough time.

There are some miracles that just cannot be explained away.

Note: If you are looking for the story about the major film about the ID guys, starring Ben Stein, go here.

Neurosurgeon: Darwin doesn't matter

Award-winning neurosurgeon Michael Egnor makes the obvious clear: Contrary to promotional campaigns aimed at students - at taxpayer expense - Darwinian evolution is not a useful asset to a medical doctor.

Of course not. Basically, the doctor has to deal with a human patient in front of her today. Suppose the doctor has a patient just diagnosed with adult onset diabetes - we'll call her Mrs. Plunkett (wow, does she love sugar in her tea). What difference would it make if cave women never got diabetes? Or always did? The information would be interesting - but not useful. The doctor must persuade Mrs. Plunkett to quit smoking, give up her charge account at Fanny Farmer's, get more exercise, and lose some weight. And so forth. Whatever the evolutionary history of diabetes is, it's just history. The doctor is concerned with futures - specifically, Mrs. Plunkett's future, especially if she doesn't listen to the wise advice she is offered.

Egnor now blogs with the evil Discos (follow the link above).