Here we go again... In the seventies, we pure scientific minds had to fight creationists who had decided to melt science and god into a short historical blancmange of really screwed interpretations of facts... Now some of these evolved smart fanatics have refined this con-artistry into what's labelled as "intelligent design"— a new lemon of a theory trying to marry a more subtle allusion to a designer or creator and better science analysis to explain the complexities of life's purpose... This is a clever trickster of an idea, of course supported by the supreme moron, George-da-prez, himself...
"Intelligent design" is very very clever but definitely not intelligent...

Okay, I know it's a complex and vexed issue for many but:

Do we want to be the not-very-bright (low intelligence level really) result of some Frankenstein in the big sky — aka a moronic conglomerate of fallen angels who could not make the cut in the higher levels, after 15 billion years of "intelligent design" in the universe, or

or do we recognise being a small part in a now resilient changing (evolving and extinguishing) active matter construct resultant from a complex set of unchartered chaotic circumstances in that same very long-time changing environment, but with a possible bright future because we have accidently developed the ability to care about our humble origins in that massive universe...?

Hard choice... Are we coming or going? Yep, "intelligent design would be the easy simpler option... but...

as tempting as it is, that theory of "intelligent design", does not match the reality of evolution and many incremental modifications exclusively due to environmental and accidental changes. "Intelligent design" tends to assign a purpose to what we are. This in itself cannot make sense in a world where uncertainty is as important as certainty and our decided purposes are numerous and conflicting.

Ah... I can feel an underhanded attack of purposeful "morality" coming on from the blithers... an intelligent designed morality... Blimey, the tricks and porkies from them are getting more and more refined...

Darwin, mate, we need you more than ever, even if you more or less believed in "god" then you weren't stupid about it...

Yes Miranda (SMH 08/09/05), ... but even the mafiosi dons of the Sicilian Mafia believe in god...

But on a more pragmatic note, the Australian Museum (Sydney) is slowly going to the dogs... I mean that scientists are slowly being replaced by Luna Park attendants. This mastery of executive decision adopted to encourage the kiddies to visit this “shrine

"Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck".
This was written by one of my heroes, Donald Horne, (although I sometimes disagreed with some of his views)... who died today. May his work be truly valued by generations to come.

Bush Speaks Out On Intelligent Design

A short extract of an article published in the New York Times:(06/10/05):

“"""Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon....

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. - Tom Vail, who has been leading rafting trips down the Colorado River here for 23 years, corralled his charges under a rocky outcrop at Carbon Creek and pointed out the remarkable 90-degree folds in the cliff overhead.

Geologists date this sandstone to 550 million years ago and explain the folding as a result of pressure from shifting faults underneath. But to Mr. Vail, the folds suggest the Grand Canyon was carved 4,500 years ago by the great global flood described in Genesis as God's punishment for humanity's sin.

From the SMH

""""""Intelligent design not science: experts
By Deborah Smith Science Editor
October 21, 2005

Intelligent design is as unscientific as the flat Earth theory and should not be taught in school science classes, a coalition representing 70,000 scientists and science teachers has warned.

Yesterday they expressed "grave concern" that the subject was being presented in some Australian schools as a valid alternative to evolution. Proponents of intelligent design claim that some living structures are so complex they are explicable only by the action of an unspecified "intelligent designer".

But the scientists and teachers say this notion of "supernatural intervention" is a belief and not a scientific theory, because it makes no predictions and cannot be tested.

"We therefore urge all Australian governments and educators not to permit the teaching or promulgation of intelligent design as science," they say in an open letter to newspapers.

"To do so would make a mockery of Australian science teaching and throw open the door of science classes to similarly unscientific world views - be they astrology, spoon bending, flat Earth cosmology or alien abductions."""""""

Have you seen a Pat Robertson picture? The evangelist is a spitting image of a slightly more intelligent version of George W bush... He has the same narrow gaze and the similar eye span. And his visions are limited to his beliefs of after life. in the same way as our George believes in petroleum usage...

Am I living on planet Zurf by mistake?

Do I belong to the same species as these shrinked heads?

From the BBC
""""""""""Evangelist says voters reject God
A US Christian evangelist has told a Pennsylvania town not to ask for God's help if disaster strikes after it voted against teaching intelligent design.
ID says life is too complex to have developed through evolution and an unseen power must have had a hand."""""""""

From The Independent

Creationist descends on Britain to take debate on evolution into the classroom
By Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent
Published: 21 April 2006
A leading creationist who claims to use science to prove the Bible's version of how the Earth was made begins a controversial tour of Britain today.

John Mackay, an Australian geologist who believes he has uncovered fossil evidence which dismisses evolution and proves that Noah's flood really did happen will speak at several state schools and universities during his eight-week visit to the UK.

His visit has provoked anger among educationalists who are concerned about what they see as an increasing focus by evangelists on children.

They fear creationism - which rejects Darwin's theory of natural selection and insists that God created the world in six days - is becoming an increasingly accepted view in Britain's classrooms and lecture halls.

Read more at the Independent

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The last thing the Poms need is an Aussie geomoron Bible-basher... see cartoon at begining of this line of blog...

From Al Jazeera

Spain to recognise great ape rights

Tuesday 27 June 2006, 20:26 Makka Time, 17:26 GMT

The proposal has prompted ridicule from some in Spain.

Spain's parliament is to declare its support for rights to life and freedom for great apes, in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has recognised such rights for non-humans.

Spanish parliament is to ask the government to approve the Great Ape Project, which would mean recognising that our closest genetic relatives should be part of a "community of equals" with humans, supporters of the resolution said.

Backers of the resolution expect support from the Socialist Party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, whose government has legalised gay marriage and reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education.

"With this, Spain will make itself a world leader in protection of the great apes," said Pedro Pozas, general secretary of the Great Ape Project's Spanish branch.
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Gus: Spain is leading the world on recognising the rights of others... After many years of oppression by its own government, the Spanish people embrace the true meaning of rights. May their enlightenment towards nature in ourselves and other species spread to our own tight-arse culture of jumping toads. See cartoon at the head of this line of blogs...

Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design

John Hooper in Rome
Monday August 28, 2006
The Guardian

Philosophers, scientists and other intellectuals close to Pope Benedict will gather at his summer palace outside Rome this week for intensive discussions that could herald a fundamental shift in the [http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1859760,00.html|Vatican's view of evolution].
There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design" taught in some US states. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say it is a disguise for creationism.
A prominent anti-evolutionist and Roman Catholic scientist, Dominique Tassot, told the US National Catholic Reporter that this week's meeting was "to give a broader extension to the debate. Even if [the Pope] knows where he wants to go, and I believe he does, it will take time. Most Catholic intellectuals today are convinced that evolution is obviously true because most scientists say so." In 1996, in what was seen as a capitulation to scientific orthodoxy, John Paul II said Darwin's theories were "more than a hypothesis".
-------------------
Gus:cartoon at the head of this line of blog is self explanatory... The monkeys were made at the end of the sixth day of creation and mutated into sapiens when god refined the bum scratcher... Then god created George W Bush as his chief intelligent design engineer... This fellow has the gift of turning the words of godly peace into full-blown war without flinching a bum nmuscle... Ah, we live in interesting times... with the Catholic church lagging a hundred years behind the present...
Orthodoxies are like pot holes on the road leading we know not where, aren't they?

 

Pat Robertson's Law School

Australian scientists say the oldest evidence of sex using copulation has been found in a 375 million-year-old fossilised fish.

The discovery provides more clues as to how many animals evolved, including humans.

Palaeontologists from Victoria, Western Australia and the UK searched for evidence of how some species within a extinct prehistoric class of fish - placoderms - fertilised and gave birth to live young.

In two fossil specimens from Australia they found what they were looking for.

So-called claspers - fin-like sexual organs - are found in modern day sharks and there is evidence of them in the fossilised fish.

Dr John Hall from Museum Victoria says it appears they were used for sexual fertilisation and is the earliest example of reproduction using internal fertilisation, similar to modern mammals.

"This form of reproduction was far more widespread than ever previously dreamed of," he said.

"It's probably right back there that we see the patterning on the pelvic fin with its copulatory structure that was to eventually evolve into the legs of land animals including humans.

"We humans have a saying that we like to get a leg over, but these placoderms they like to get a leg in."

The finding might also provide clues on the behaviour of the fish.

see toon at top

Still makes me think how the grand canyon was amazingly created. It's a miracle just by looking at it.

Grand Canyon Tours from Las Vegas

'...Imagine you are a teacher of recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted... by politically muscular groups of Holocaust deniers. The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central principle of biology they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied'

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Rare Sharing of Data Led to Progress on Alzheimer’s

By GINA KOLATA

In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.

Now, the effort is bearing fruit with a wealth of recent scientific papers on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s using methods like PET scans and tests of spinal fluid. More than 100 studies are under way to test drugs that might slow or stop the disease.

And the collaboration is already serving as a model for similar efforts against Parkinson’s disease. A $40 million project to look for biomarkers for Parkinson’s, sponsored by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, plans to enroll 600 study subjects in the United States and Europe.

The work on Alzheimer’s “is the precedent,” said Holly Barkhymer, a spokeswoman for the foundation. “We’re really excited.”

The key to the Alzheimer’s project was an agreement as ambitious as its goal: not just to raise money, not just to do research on a vast scale, but also to share all the data, making every single finding public immediately, available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world.

No one would own the data. No one could submit patent applications, though private companies would ultimately profit from any drugs or imaging tests developed as a result of the effort.

“It was unbelievable,” said Dr. John Q. Trojanowski, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s not science the way most of us have practiced it in our careers. But we all realized that we would never get biomarkers unless all of us parked our egos and intellectual-property noses outside the door and agreed that all of our data would be public immediately.”

Biomarkers are not necessarily definitive. It remains to be seen how many people who have them actually get the disease. But that is part of the research project.

---------------------

Gus: I don't remember where I placed it on this site, but I wrote a piece once about scientific cooperation in the 1930s... People shared information to promote the best in humankind... But profit and secrecy soon came in the way and firms started to hog their treasured research. A lot of real progress was thwarted... Beyond that, even when the Chaos Theory came on the horizon, one discovered that most scientists in many nations had been working on the same thing. In the 1980s there was a bit of a melt on this theory that helped to generate a better understanding of our place in a changing universe. But this cooperation is still in its infancy... The ownership of knowledge has closed the window of opportunity.

What is extraordinary to me is that these young scientists are "amazed" at the sharing... Sharing of knowledge was common place in the age of last century's enlightenment (1930s), before American private enterprises placed their mittens on the loot. May there be more sharing of ideas and of research in the future.

I believe Dick Smith is giving one million dollar to a young Australian who can solve the world overpopulation riddle. I am too old for the grand prize, so I will keep my trap shut on the solution to this subject for which I have made much noise about... Now I can't remember what I said about this...  The Romans, (?) or was it the Egyptians (?), had the idea to kill the first born of every jewish family... In the middle ages, in European families, one of the sons had to become a celibate priest and one of the daughters had to become a celibate nun...

China has the one child policy and yet numbers are still climbing ever so, with unbalance towards males... Culling, like culling kangaroos. was an option used by the Nazis... Some philosophers place WAR as the top of the list to cull human rat-like plague... The rise of targetted limited war and of medicine fix-it has helped the population explosion despite a reduced birth rate in more "advanced" nations — where the "shit-jobs" have to be performed by "imports". India's population growth is out of control... Natural disasters are a drop in the bucket, because there are far too many of us already... The major question is who should fit the quota of death, elimination and reduction? Would all nations abide by the "rules"? Is climate change going to be the major factor in population reduction? Should capitalism — the major promoter of population growth — be eliminated in favour of a sustainable system? So many questions especially for us oldies who still enjoy life and don't need to be reminded that we've extended our welcome...

And yes, I still don't need glasses yet... There!

see toon at top...

Married couples should be given a cash bonus for staying together, a national family and marriage alliance says.

The Australian Family Association and National Marriage Coalition are today celebrating National Marriage Day.

Association vice-president Mary-Louise Fowler says the proposal of a so-called marriage bonus would reward couples who remain in wedlock.

"People who marry and stay married, and bring all these benefits to society and go to that effort, are in fact pretty much ignored and treated just like everybody else," she told ABC News Breakfast program.

"We need to look and examine ways to help people stay in marriages."

Ms Fowler does not specify a particular amount, but says a cash bonus would reward married couples who "stick at it".

"I'm surprised it caused such a flurry. It was an innovative idea," she said.

"Why not produce a marriage bonus? Why not reward people who stick at it? We know it's not easy to stick at it.

---------------

Gus: Blimey!!!

What about giving cash to people who fart silently and stinklessly? Or cash to people who stay thin? Or people who don't pick their noses in public? Not easy to stick to marriage? Cash-glue? I'm all for it!!! So gimme-gimme-gimme 500 bucks plus 20 per cent interest per year of sticking together... Alleluyah, I'm a millionaire!!! Seriously though, I think we should give cash to Atheists, because it's not easy to be on your philosophical lonesome without a crutch... What about cash and a medal for oldies who don't soil their pants?

 

Scientists have found fossil evidence of the first animal to grow a set of pearly whites — a prehistoric fish that lived more than 380 million years ago.

An international research team discovered teeth in several specimens of an ancient fish species, known as placoderms, a finding that likely represents the origins of teeth and jaws in animals.

A full set of chompers has been key to the success of most top predators.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/prehistoric-fish-the-first-to-grow-a-set-of-teeth-20121018-27sae.html#ixzz29bO38aR7

 

Gus: interestingly enough, the placoderms also showed the first sexual penis bone (actually specified sexual fins like in sharks) recorded as mentioned in one of the article up from this one... The first human male lost his penis bone when god took it to create Eve... Joke. Just a joke... Lighten up...

A Georgia congressman who attacked the theory of evolution found himself with an unlikely opponent in Tuesday's US election, when 4,000 voters in one county cast write-in ballots for the 19th century father of evolution, British naturalist Charles Darwin.

In a September 27 speech, Paul Broun, a physician and member of the US House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee, called evolution and the Big Bang Theory, "lies straight from the pit of hell".

Since Mr Broun, a Republican, had no opposition in the general election, a University of Georgia plant biology professor, Jim Leebens-Mack, and others started a write-in campaign for Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution.

"We don't feel our interests are being best served by an anti-science fundamentalist representing us on the Science, Space and Technology Committee," Mr Leebens-Mack said.

Mr Leebens-Mack launched a Facebook page calling on "Darwin for Congress" and asking voters to "send a message to Paul Broun and his colleagues".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-10/charles-darwin-gets-4000-votes-in-us-election/4364602

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