Published by Brunsell on 26 Sep 2009 at 08:35 pm
Web Highlights (weekly)
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Kirk Cameron monkeys with Darwin | Salon Life
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On that rich-with-gravitas promotional clip, Cameron begins by declaring, “Our kids can no longer pray in public,” a provocative and completely inaccurate assertion, as anyone familiar with the term “public” knows. He then narrows in for the killer point: “A recent study revealed that in the top 50 universities in our country, in the fields of psychology and biology, 61 percent of the professors described themselves as atheist or agnostic.” True, though he fails to point out that the same study found only 23.4 percent of college professors overall declare themselves atheist or agnostic. College: still pretty damn godly!
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Of course, plenty of people, from Darwin himself to Pope Benedict, have been able to reconcile religious beliefs with a respect for the profound elegance of science.
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“Hitler’s undeniable connection with [evolution]” and “the absence of any species-to-species transitional forms actually found in the fossil record.” (Apparently Cameron is not on the American Geological Institute’s mailing list.)
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what 19-year-old wouldn’t clamor for a 19th-century tract amended by someone whose argument for the evidence of God is the existence of the banana?
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But what’s not funny is what happens when “the opposing — and correct — view” gets into the hands of “our future doctors and lawyers and politicians.” That’s when they realize they’re holding a sneaky defilement of one of the most important books ever written. Nowhere on the front of the “beautiful, full color cover edition” are the words “extremist Christian version.” Because maybe if those targeted 50,000 students knew they were getting their free book from a ministry that advises its practitioners on how to “shut up” a Jew or explain to a homosexual that he’s damned, they might not be so keen on it. They might feel duped and angry at accepting something from a group that proclaims free speech but doesn’t have the courage to put its true intentions right there on the cover.
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Texas Textbook Hearings | TPMMuckraker
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history textbook hearing by the State Board of Education down in Austin, Texas.
Those are the standards on which — it can’t be repeated enough — publishers base their nationwide textbooks, and the ones that currently contain a clause requiring knowledge of Newt Gingrich.
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conservatism is not just a movement, it’s an industry. In the intersection of science and US policy, there is no better funded industry than climate change denial. It is bankrolled by the most profitable multinational corporations in world history. And to hear the far right talk about it at the recent Values Voters Summit, Jesus must be a major shareholder.
GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE “PRO-DEATH” AGENDA
Dr. Calvin Beisner, National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
• Why did the President’s science advisor support coerced abortions to protect the planet?
• Why are top abortion funders underwriting efforts to co-opt evangelicals on global warming?
• If “people are the problem,” what’s the final solution?
Cap and trade is about more than saving the planet. It’s the biggest tax hike in American history. It threatens to concentrate massive amounts of power into the hands of central government and international bureaucrats. And its ascendancy marks the rise of a new, more subtle challenge to the culture of life.
Ultimately, climate change hysteria rests on an unbiblical view of God, mankind, and the environment. Come and hear how the Cornwall Alliance is pushing back–producing ground-breaking studies on Biblical environmentalism, educating pastors and churches across the country, and activating thousands of Christians to rally against the hype through the WeGetIt.org Campaign. Learn why policies to fight alleged man-made global warming will instead cause hundreds of millions of premature deaths throughout this century, and how human liberty, responsibility, and flourishing are the key to a healthier environment.
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The Values Voters organizers are either unaware, or simply don’t care, that many conservatives, including George Bush, have now stated they accept that climate change is occurring and that some of it might be due to human activity. It’s textbook right-wing denial, married with a heaping helping of hypocrisy to frame climate change as part of a ‘pro-death agenda’ that will cause ‘hundreds of millions of premature deaths’ while implying that it’s the climate scientists who are blinded with hysteria.
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The Climate’s Warm Future Is Now in the Arctic: Scientific American
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When the summer sea ice goes, the Arctic will lose the ivory gull, Pacific walrus, ringed seal, hooded seal, narwhal and polar bear—all animals that rely on the ice for foraging, reproduction or as refuge from predators. And the sea ice is going, faster and faster: In the past 30 years, minimum sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has declined by 45,000 square kilometers annually*—an area twice the size of New Jersey is lost each year.
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Rapid change is coming even for animals once thought to be relatively immune, such as caribou. Whereas the nonmigratory population of the animals on the Norwegian Svalbard Islands is burgeoning thanks to more winter snowmelt exposing a greater abundance of plant life for foraging, caribou in other parts of the Arctic are suffering. In spring, plants are blooming earlier in the year thanks to warmer early spring temperatures, but caribou are still calving at the same time, meaning calves are born after most of the food is available, and therefore fewer of them survive.
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SkyandTelescope.com - News from Sky & Telescope - Stellar Mystery Solved, Einstein Safe
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For more than 30 years, Villanova University astronomer Ed Guinan has been plagued, puzzled, and perplexed by DI Herculis. On the surface, this binary star seems pretty much like any other binary star, with two stars going ’round and ’round each other in a predictable, orderly fashion. But there remained a nagging problem that as much as Guinan wanted, he couldn’t just sweep under the rug: DI Her was not behaving in accordance with Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
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Researchers discover first rocky planet outside our solar system
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“This is science at its thrilling and amazing best,” says Didier Queloz, leader of the team that made the observations.
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Because the calculated density is so similar to Earth’s, the researchers believe that the planet’s composition is comparably rocky.
Conditions on CoRoT-7b are much more extreme, though. Because it’s so close to its host star, researchers believe temperatures there could not support life.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.