A bit oversimplified, as he admits, but it’s an interesting argument. He addresses some criticisms here, here, and here.

(Via The Talent Show)

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

The poll also touched on respondents reasons for not believing in evolution. Most of the reasons given were religious in nature, with 19 percent giving, “I believe in Jesus Christ” as their reason for rejecting evolution, 16 percent responding, “I believe in the almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth” and another 16 percent saying their rejection of evolution was “Due to my religion and faith”.

It’s strange that “Jesus Christ” and “Evolution” have become an either/or dichotomy for some folks – sort of like saying “I don’t believe in the germ theory of disease because I believe in Jesus Christ”.

(Via Pharyngula)

(Pointed out to me by Ged)

Here are a couple of simulations that illustrate the effects of selective pressures. The first simulation (via Pharyngula) is in the form of a game that runs automatically in your browser. Organisms take the form of strings of code that represent positions on a game board. As the game plays itself out, various positions are evaluated for fitness based on how well they score, and are kept or discarded accordingly – natural selection in action. The successful positions are then recombined with mutations based on real-world genetic mutations, and this new generation is then tested. As the game continues, you can see the population becoming more “fit” as the scores increase.

This particular simulation also provides an interesting rebuttal to the ID notion of Irredcuible Complexity – the idea that certain biological structures could not have evolved because the removal of any one part renders the structure useless. As the “organisms” in the game evolve and are tested for fitness, they are also tested for Irreducible Complexity. Any board position that has five or more components and is rendered “unfit” by removing one component is flagged as Irreducibly Complex – undercutting the claim that evolutionary processes can’t produce such structures.

Give the simulation a try and see what you think.

I found the second simulation while surfing through links and comments from the original Pharyngula post. This one is a youtube video that uses a couple of clever demonstrations to show the power of reproduction under selective pressure:

Shawn Hornbeck’s disappearance had a happy ending when police found him alive earlier this month. The news took many people by surprise, most likely including psychic Sylvia Browne, who had earlier told Shawn’s parents that he was dead:

His parents were beyond desperate when they went on Montel Williams’ syndicated television program, where they were brought together with renowned psychic Sylvia Browne … Browne was telling his parents the worst possible news — that Shawn was dead, and that his body was in a rocky, forested area within 20 miles of their home. For the next three weeks, the search reportedly focused on finding Shawn’s body in that prescribed area.

Of course, they failed to find the body because last week — four years after he went missing — Shawn Hornbeck turned up very much alive.

It’s despicable that someone would pretend to have knowledge of a child’s fate and lead his parents – and the police – astray like this.

Browne was totally wrong, not just about Shawn’s fate, but about his abductor as well. According to James Randi:

But there was more specific drivel from Browne, She said that Shawn had been taken by a “dark-skinned man, he wasn’t black – more like Hispanic.” She said the kidnaper had long, black hair worn in dreadlocks and was “really tall.” He was driving an older model blue sedan, she said, a car with fins like in the late 1950′s and early 1960′s Chevrolets. All of this drivel was wrong, from the description of the man – he is not Hispanic nor dark-skinned, he’s Caucasian, he’s heavy and not tall – and his car was quite the opposite of Browne’s invented notions: it was a white pickup truck.

Maybe it’s time to have criminal penalties for psychics who provide police with false information?

Imagine, in fancy, that some science fiction equivalent of Simon Wiesenthal built a time machine, travelled back to 1945 and returned to the present with a manacled Adolf Hitler. What should we do with him? Execute him? No, a thousand times no. Historians squabbling over exactly what happened in the Third Reich and the Second World War would never forgive us for destroying the central witness to all the inside stories, and one of the pivotal influences on twentieth century history. Psychologists, struggling to understand how an individual human being could be so evil and so devastatingly effective at persuading others to join him, would give their eye teeth for such a rich research subject. Kill Hitler? You would have to be mad to do so. Yet that is undoubtedly what we would have done if he hadn’t killed himself in 1945. Saddam Hussein is not in the same league as Hitler but, nevertheless, in a small way his execution represents a wanton and vandalistic destruction of important research data.

I’m not sure how far such arguments can swing the pendulum in favor of not executing someone, but it’s certainly something worth thinking about.

The perpetual sunshine in most of the extreme north and south means plenty of light for energy-producing solar panels; the perpetual darkness in the shadowed polar regions means a steady supply of water ice, which can be harvested for consumption …

I for one agree that harvesting water ice for consumption is a great idea.

The author of the WaPo article seems to think that its a possibility, saying:

Schoenborn, a close associate of Benedict, raised eyebrows last year with an article in the New York Times suggesting the Catholic Church supported the Intelligent Design movement.

He did not endorse it outright, but agreed with the ID movement’s view that scientists who say evolution rules out God draw an ideological conclusion not proven by the theory.

Benedict has argued this way since his teaching days. At his inaugural mass after his election last year, he declared: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”

However, one can agree that “scientists who say evolution rules out God draw an ideological conclusion not proven by the theory” without disputing the truth of evolutionary theory. It would be impossible for the theory of evolution – or any other scientific discipline – to “rule out God” in the sense of disproving his existence. Science deals with the natural world, and can’t comment one way or the other on the supernatural. Of course, scientists need to behave as if the supernatural does not exist while they are practicing science, but that’s not the same thing as disproving the supernatural.

An article at Time.com today also seems skeptical that there will be any papal endorsement of Intelligent Design:

Benedict XVI will indeed be hosting a scholarly pow wow this weekend at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, to debate evolution and creation. But don’t expect the Catholic Church to start disputing Darwin’s basic findings, which Pope John Paul II in 1996 called “more than a hypothesis.” Moreover, advocates of the teaching in U.S. schools of intelligent design — which holds that nature is so complex that it must be God’s doing — should not count on any imminent Holy See document or papal pronouncement to help boost their cause. This weekend’s private retreat is an annual gathering of the Pope’s former theology students to freely discuss one topic of interest, without the aim of reaching any set conclusion.

Somewhat related: Nancy also recently posted about Coral Ridge Ministries attempts to link Darwin’s ideas to Hitler’s madness, leading to a lengthy discussion in the comments there. What such a theory neglects to consider is that Hitler also used the Bible and Chrisitanity to argue for his worldview, yet I’m sure Coral Ridge wouldn’t claim that Christianity led to the holocaust.

Anti-evolutionists are skillful at burying the weaknesses of their arguments beneath a wealth of scientific jargon. This presents a problem for fair-minded non-scientists trying to determine where reality lies. If rivals in a debate make differing claims about the relationship between thermodynamics and evolution, for example, how is someone unversed in physics to know who is presenting things accurately?

…The good news is that much of the creationist fog can be dispersed via some basic understanding of how the scientific community operates. Many, indeed most, anti-evolution arguments should provoke suspicion even among those without training in science.

He goes on to list four ways to tell when an argument is probably on less-than-solid footing. Read the whole article at CSICOP’s Creation and Intelligent Design Watch website.