Scientist to creationists: Don't quote me
Former chemistry professor Homer Jacobson has requested that two passages be retracted from a 1955 paper he wrote on the origins of life after discovering that creationists were using them to support their arguments. The 84-year-old scientist told the New York Times that he made the discovery when, on a whim, he decided to Google himself and quotes from his paper popped up on creationist sites such as Darwinismrefuted.com and Evolution-facts.org. To bolster their case, the sites zeroed in on his statements that amino acids couldn't form spontaneously without energy—Jacobson says today that he failed to mention that energy sources most surely existed billions of years ago—and that life could arise only under very specific conditions, which he now calls "a dumb mistake." His retraction request appears in the November / December issue of American Scientist, which published the original paper. (NYTimes; American Scientist)
White House redacts CDC climate testimony
Democrats accused the White House again this week of sacrificing scientific reasoning to politics when it redacted six paragraphs of congressional testimony from Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, on the potential public health effects of global warming. The White House said the testimony conflicted with findings by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but Democratic senators pointed out that the U.N. panel had raised nearly identical concerns as Gerberding, including a greater risk of severe wildfires such as those that swept southern California this week. (Associated Press)
China launches first moon orbiter
China moved a step closer to landing on the moon this week, when it launched its first lunar probe, the Chang'e 1. Named for a Chinese goddess who legend has it traveled to the moon, Chang'e is set to orbit Earth's neighbor for a year snapping images, gathering data and mapping the lunar surface. China was the third nation after the U.S.S.R. and U.S. to send people into space, but Japan beat it to the lunar punch last month by sending up its own orbiter. (Washington Post; New York Times)
Rodents shaken, not stout
Maybe the people who came up with those vibrating weight-loss belts were on to something. Researchers report that mice who jiggled 15 minutes a day on a gently vibrating platform for 15 weeks came out 28 percent leaner—although not much lighter—than unshaken mice. The team members, who have filed a patent on the method and, in one case, started a company based on it, say the vibrating may have prevented stem cells from turning into fat, although other researchers are skeptical. A Harvard University fat cell expert told New Scientist that the group had not kept close enough tabs on the animals' food intake.
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA; New Scientist)
First land animals had Technicolor vision
When the ancestors of the lungfish dragged themselves from shallow pools onto dry land for a look-see, it appears they brought color vision with them. Researchers previously assumed that lungfish, believed to be the closest relatives to the first landlubbing vertebrates, saw dimly through their beady eyes. But a team found that the five visual pigment genes expressed in the lungfish retina were more similar to those of amphibians than to fish pigments, suggesting their ancestors enjoyed a colorful view. (BMC Evolutionary Biology)
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5 Comments
Add CommentIn reference to: "Scientist to creationists: Don't quote me" - Watch the documentary "Jesus Camp" for a look at how Creationism is taught to Evangelical children...its scary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[b]Go to youtube.com and search for "Jesus Camp"...where they bow down to President Bush and Kids at 5 years old think there isnt enough in life for them...5 YEARS OLD!! It's a brainwashing camp![/b]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statements about bowing down to President Bush are lies. Lying about what some fundamentalists are about is not helpful to the argument for evolution.
John_Toradze,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think you are one of the posters here to
subvert fair reason with unreasonable doubts. I think that cardboard cutout of Bush should be ground up so you can
eat it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWvIOPiKFrs&feature=related
I doubt anyone here is intentionally lying about Jesus Camp. It's fair to object to perceived inaccuracy, with or without citing a source, but use of "lying" amounts to an accusation against other posters. No wonder people took umbrage.
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