Posts by Danforth

Hubble snaps planet orbiting distant star

Never mind Fomalhaut b...

...I think Nasa should be more concerned by what appears to be an Imperial Star Destroyer on the left.

'Great tits cope well with warming'

Another BBC headline...

...that made me laugh - in reference to two government ministers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7358335.stm

AFAIK the headlines used on the website are the same as the ones used on Ceefax so perhaps there's a character limit that occasionally throws these up by accident... but personally I suspect someone at the BBC is trying to sneak silly headlines past the editor.

UK Gov boots intelligent design back into 'religious' margins

RE: lack of evolution theory proof

Erik Aamot wrote: "show me a species or even sub-species that has 'emerged' , outside of crossbreeding existing species? [...]"

The AIDS virus is a good example to look up. Because the genetic code is relatively short (compared to a mammal, say) changes to the code become more significant and they tend to be expressed more easily. It's only had fifty-odd years and the variants have all arisen to fit the environment they find. The African variants spread more efficiently through heterosexual sex than the European one, for instance.

"somehow DNA spontaniously changes..."

Not such an amazing thing. Errors in the copying process and all that. If there was an intelligent creator behind the universe I'd expect replication to work better!

"That which exists outside of time, cannot usually be measured or observed within time-space ..."

Aye. A believer can always state their God is 'beyond' scientific understanding, that's why the argument rarely gets anywhere! I would however point out that a God who is above and beyond human understanding goes against what the Abrahamic faiths say about God taking an active and loving interest in his creation. If you believe in a God with whom you can have a personal relationship, you have to apply scientific reasoning to evidence of his presence and influence in the world. Scientifically speaking, anyway. :)