but the one most responsive to change.
- Charles Darwin, (1809-1882)-

Battle of Tours

At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Cordoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from Gaul, never to return in such force.

Charles was the illegitimate son of Pepin, the powerful mayor of the palace of Austrasia and effective ruler of the Frankish kingdom. After Pepin died in 714 (with no surviving legitimate sons), Charles beat out Pepin's three grandsons in a power struggle and became mayor of the Franks. He expanded the Frankish territory under his control and in 732 repulsed an onslaught by the Muslims.

Victory at Tours ensured the ruling dynasty of Martel's family, the Carolingians. His son Pepin became the first Carolingian king of the Franks, and his grandson Charlemagne carved out a vast empire that stretched across Europe.

"Battle of Tours." 2008. The History Channel website. 10 Oct 2008, 01:41 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5418.

On This Day

1845 - The United States Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, MD.

1865 - The billiard ball was patented by John Wesley Hyatt.

1911 - China's Manchu dynasty was overthrown by revolutionaries under Sun Yat-sen.

1913 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson triggered the explosion of the Gamboa Dike that ended the construction of the Panama Canal.

1938 - Nazi Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.

1943 - Chaing Kai-shek took the oath of office as the president of China.

1965 - The Red Baron made his first appearance in the "Peanuts" comic strip.

1970 - Pierre Laporte, the labor minister of Quebec, was kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ) during the October Crisis in Canada. He was found eight days later strangled to death.

1973 - U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with federal income tax evasion.

1991 - The United States cut all foreign aid to Haiti in reaction to a military coup that forced President Jean-Claude Aristide into exile.

October 10, 1881

Darwin publishes work on mold and worms

On this day in 1881, Charles Darwin published The Formation of Vegetable Mold Through the Action of Worms. He considered the work a more important accomplishment than his The Origin of Species (1859), which turned out to be one of the most influential and controversial books in history.

Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages, including the HMS Beagle's trip. By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London.

Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage, while also secretly working on his radical theory of evolution. Knowing that scientists who had published radical theories before had been ostracized or worse, Darwin held off on publishing his theory of natural selection for nearly two decades. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published The Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died in 1882.

"Darwin publishes work on mold and worms." 2008. The History Channel website. 10 Oct 2008, 01:37 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=4117.

October 10, 1957

President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to African diplomat

In the conclusion to an extremely embarrassing situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in which African diplomats were confronted with racial segregation in the United States.

While the matter might appear rather small relative to other events in the Cold War, the continued racial slights to African (and Asian) diplomats during the 1950s and 1960s were of utmost concern to U.S. officials. During those decades the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for the "hearts and minds" of hundreds of millions of people of color in Asia and Africa. Racial discrimination in America--particularly when it was directed at representatives from those regions--was, as one U.S. official put it, the nation's "Achilles' heel."

Matters continued to deteriorate during the early 1960s, when dozens of diplomats from new nations in Africa and Asia faced housing discrimination in Washington, D.C., as well as a series of confrontations in restaurants, barbershops, and other places of business in and around the area. It was clear that American civil rights had become an international issue.

"President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to African diplomat." 2008. The History Channel website. 10 Oct 2008, 01:40 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2448.

First, if 90-odd percent of Americans say they believe in God, it's unhelpful to dismiss them as silly. Second, when they check that "believe in God" box, a great many people are not talking about the God the atheists rail against—a supernatural being who intervenes in human affairs, who lays down inexplicable laws about sex and diet, punishes violators with the stinking fires of hell and raises the fleshly bodies of the dead.

When over fifty percent of Americans believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, what are we atheists supposed to think? If we include all Christians worldwide, particularly the ones in poorer Catholic and Eastern Orthodox nations, the percentage is probably much higher. This doesn't take into account the non-democratic Islamic nations, where Western ideas are spat upon, and where basic education is limited to males, and where people are threatened into believing in the all-powerful Allah. So, the actual number of believers in an angry, vengeful, and intervening god is probably much much higher than even Lisa Miller cares to imagine.

Apologetics is a form of faith; it's faith in faith. Miller finishes her paper-thin argument by hauling in the invisible sacred cow.

Submitting faith to proof is absurd. Reason defines one kind of reality (what we know); faith defines another (what we don't know). Reasonable believers can live with both at once.

Reasonable believers? Can reason and faith coexist? And how can faith define the unknown? Isn't the unknown, by its very definition, indefinable? Here, Miller's mental gymnastics are Olympic quality. And most believers would likely take great offense to her reducing their unshakable faith to an algebraic X. Personally, I prefer to think of all faith simply as a Y.

Look, Mr. Incredible, do you think that we (those of us who accept the evidence for evolution) are incapable of criticizing Charles Darwin or saying flat-out that he was wrong in some cases?  We're not, and he was.  Scientists throughout the ages have held erroneous positions, sometimes because of biases, sometimes because they didn't have access to all the data yet, and sometimes because of simple mistakes.  That's okay.  That's why we don't accept scientific theories because someone says so.  We test them, we try to poke holes in them, we try to prove them wrong.  This is the greatest strength of science, because it allows errors to be discovered.

The theory of evolution has been thoroughly vetted for about a hundred and fifty years.  It has survived every challenge so far.  It has passed every test.  It continues to be tested, and it continues to produce verifying evidence.  More evidence for evolution exists now than has ever existed.  Check again in ten, twenty, fifty years, and this will be true then.  It has been supported from several independent fields of science such as geology, biology, embryology, genetics, and paleontology.

Yes, Darwin was wrong about some of the finer points.  But how does that invalidate the literal mountain of evidence supporting evolution?  That's what you need to address.  A few months ago I posted "Where's the Evidence for Evolution?" that listed eight important points about that evidence.  That's a good place to start if you want to know where I stand.

Another thing: You keep accusing me of precluding myself from any contrary evidence, but that's simply not true.  You keep saying, "There's plenty of evidence, you just won't accept it."  You even said that the evidence for evolution has already been defeated.  This is news to me.

In any case, here I am asking for it.  I'd love to hear it.  I'm begging to have a conversation about it.  As I've stated before, I haven't precluded myself from anything.  I anxiously await a presentation from you (or anyone) of the evidence for evolution and how it's wrong.

Dr. Jackson has been announcing the Death of Darwin, a conscious distancing of darwinists from Darwin's original defunct theory, since 2005. As a further point of irony, this year's 150th anniversary of Origins [coinciding with Darwin's 200th birthday] will also mark the need of the latest revision of this stillborn theory. Whether that qualifies Dr. Jackson as a prophet or simply as an insightful observer remains to be seen.

The point of his lecture was that though darwinist proponents present a public picture of overwhelming evidence [if the evidence for evo is so overwhelming, why am I so underwhelmed?], they are much more candid and critical amongst themselves. Dr. Jackson notes that, "They apparently don't read each other's mail, but I do!"

He began by relating a few pertinent quoptes from evolutionists on the limitations of their theory:

"Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.''

- Hugo deVries quoting Dr. J. Arthur Harris, Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation, 1905.

“[Natural selection] may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people have suggested.”

-Daniel Brooks, as quoted by Roger Lewin, “A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity,” Science, Vol. 217, 24 September 1982, p. 1240.

He might well have including the following one as well [though he did not]:

“His [Darwin’s] general theory that all life on earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of fortuitous mutations, is still, as it was in Darwin’s time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe.” - Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.

One of the problems with Darwinism is that Charles Darwin claimed that natural selection was a creative force, given the uniformitarian presumptions of Lyell' s geology. Natural selection was documented more accurately by creationist Edward Blyth 20 years prior to Darwin as a passive, stabilizing force. Blyth's natural selection is more in line with the Genesis account, where God creates animals "after their kind." 

Dr. Jackson gave a nod to Dr. Mastropaolo, noting that since Redi and Pasteur have disproven spontaneous generation, naturalistic darwinism has no foundation.

He also noted the discovery of dinosaur contents in the stomache of repenomamus robustus, a opposum-sized mammal. It's cousin repenomamus giganticus was the size of a pit bull. He notes how this discredits the picture of tiny shrew-sized mammals of no more than 1 meter scurrying and hiding in the shadow of the dinosaurs. Apparently, mammals were further on than the evo picture would like!

He also noted that missing links are still a problem for evolutionists. He elaborated on this point first by showing us an illustration featured in the March 19, 2007 issue of Newsweek magazine [entitled "The Evolution Revolution"] of the alleged "family bush" of ape-to-man evolution [featured on page 56 and entitled, "Origins of Humankind"]. He then demonstrated that while the illustration shows a clear path from ape to ape-man to man and while the article makes dogmatic statements about evolutionism, in actuality the entire scenario has been falsified. Several of the proposed missing links were actually identical species that had been given different names, but somehow they represented ancestral forms to themselves! In fact, when critics noted that one of the more recent [allegedly closer to human] links was more ape-like than its proposed ancestor [the exact opposite of how it's supposed to work!], the Church of Darwin said, "No problem. Evolution just went backwards for about a million years." In fact, another ad hoc suggestion is that man-ape bipeds mated back with ape quadrupeds [ew!] for a while before the tow groups finally parted ways. [Again, ew!] Anyway... As for the rest, many were ruled out as ape-men after further analysis revealed they were either fully ape or fully human. When the dust settled, no ape-men remained as candidates for the missing link.

He then turned his attention from the fossil record to genetics, noting that molecular clocks don't really work and that DNA similarities as evidence for evo is a farce. He noted it is only natural that we should have more similar DNA with chimpanzees since we look the most alike - not because they're our ancestors!

At the end of his lecture, Dr. Jackson discussed the up-coming Extended Evolutionary Synthesis [EES], which will be unveiled during next year's Darwin celebrations. EES is slated to replace the Modern Synthesis [MS] more commonly called neo-Darwinism, that was patched together by the likes of Dobzhansky. He noted the need for significant revisions to Darwin's stillborn theory is due to the fact that observational science is once again making a shipwreck of evo. To keep the naturalistic [pipe] dream alive, they are proposing a further revised darwinism which, according to Dr. Jackson, will not concentrate on genes or fossils. The meeting of the so-called Altenberg 16 led by Massimo Pigliucci was a concentrated effort to come up with a criterion fro what EES might look like. While Pigliucci denounces the idea is a theory in crisis, one can't help but wonder why the Big Overhaul is necessary if it's so solid?

When one reads Pigliucci's notes of the A-16 meeting, we're left with the possibility that EES will incorporate some sort of vitalism. At the very least, we are sure to be treated to some sort of magical "self-organizing principle" to explain the specified complexity of nature. This is sure to be a wide open door for more eco-nuttery. It's possible that we'll see some sort of a Gaia synthesis bordering on a religious philosophy. When I asked Dr. Jackson hypothetically if this became the case that EES would start having obvious pantheistic or vitalist religious overtones, if he thought we might be able to use the Establishment Clause to remove antiscience darwinism from USAmerican schools, he stated that he believed that under such a hypothetical situation, darwinism would still be taught from the secular angle in lower education. He thought that it might be introduced in graduate school perhaps. I think they'd soft sell it with a "Save our Mother Earth" eco-nuttery approach at first, to get past the First Ammendment restriction, and get only into the more religious or philosophical portions in college or perhaps high school.

Speculation aside, one thing is clear: Despite Pigliucci's objections to the contrary, Darwinism is again dead. While the public face of Darwinism protests, "Wait! There's life in the old broad yet!" there is an other picture behind the scenes. They're scrambling around the emergency room table, trying to pump new life into a theory that's been dealt lethal doses of scientific truth. They forget that Darwin's original Frankenstein theory was stillborn at best, but that won't keep them from altering it beyond recognition while using fuzzy/slippery terms to claim that it's really just the same old theory with some interesting new add-ons.

EEC is just more proof that the speculative nature of Darwinism makes it unfalsifiable.

"Why Granma, what a big imagination you have!"

"The better to dupe you with, my dear!"

Who's afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? Not me! I'm a bricklayer, baby!

--Sirius Knott

A obra completa de Charles Darwin já está na internet. São páginas de texto e imagens, além de arquivos de áudio, manuscritos e diários, alguns inéditos inclusive. Estão disponíveis gratuitamente 50 mil páginas e 40 mil imagens.

Site: http://darwin-online.org.uk/

Fonte:INFO Online

The "deepest ever" living fish have been discovered, scientists believe.

A UK-Japan team found the 17-strong shoal at depths of 7.7km (4.8 miles) in the Japan Trench in the Pacific - and captured the deep sea animals on film.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Deepest ever' living fish filmed.

I found this both stunning and eerie -- truly an insight into just how otherworldly this world of ours can  at times be!

I think the scientist who found the fish "quite cute", however, just might have the odd issue in need of addressing!

© 2008 Gary William Murning

California caves to dopey demands of homophobic bigots - I blogged about Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding before. This was the couple that was so outraged that California changed the language on their marriage licenses from "bride" and "groom" to "Party A" and "Party B" in accordance with California law now legalizing gay marriage that they childishly opted not to sign their paperwork and to protest. Well apparently they won their case and the language is returning to what it was before. PZ Myers had a good suggestion though:

Now gay couples getting married in California will have to get their revenge: they should cheerfully appropriate the terms bride and groom, too. Rachel Bird can call herself a bride (she could all along, of course), but so can the biggest, butchest, bristly-bearded gay leatherman with a biker mustache…and he should be able to get state recognition of his status as a bride.

Westboro Baptist Church to protest at Joe Biden’s mother-in-law's funeral - I don't really know why I still report about these attention-seeking, media whore's except that as someone trying to convince people to reject religion, these guys make my job so much easier.

Answers in Genesis is praying for Bill Maher - Apparently,

He is definitely a poster boy for “lostness.”

This is great because when Bill never accepts their nonsense, it will serve as yet another proof that PRAYER DOESN'T WORK!

Nudie Church - It's how Adam and Eve would have held church services. And wouldn't you know it, other Christians aren't too happy about it.

Obesity and health - Despite the obvious evidence that obesity is linked to serious health risks, some deniers still won't accept it.

CRAP-BASED MEDICINE NEWS:

Deja vu - Fresh on the heels of 1 pathetic study that the mainstream media touted as proof that acupuncture was effective in treating hot flashes comes yet another absurd study suggesting hypnosis is effective in treating hot flashes. You won't believe what the flaws in the study are:

That's right, there is no placebo control group. It's no treatment versus hypnosis. Remember yet again, as I've discussed before, hot flashes are highly subject to the placebo effect. Indeed, placebo effects as high as 40% have been documented in previous studies.

I'm starting to think I should urinate in a cup, get just 1 woman with hot flashes to drink it, and if she gets better over time to just market it as effective in treating hot flashes.

Alt. Med.: not just for people anymore - Alternative Medicine has been making a killing marketing to pet owners. And it's really easy to do because your pets can't tell you these guys are quacks.

Shruggie (noun): a person who doesn’t care about the science versus pseudoscience debate - Newest Science-Based Medicine blogger Val Jones recounts her journey from indifference towards crap-based pseudoscience to skeptical blogger.

ATHEIST DISCRIMINATION:

Republicans smear Senate candidate Kay Hagan for meeting with atheists - I've blogged about this race in North Carolina between Hagan and anti-atheist bigot Elizabeth Dole. And so far, Hagan is still winning but like McCain when he's down in the polls, Dole seems to now be trying to exploit Hagan’s attendance at a fundraiser last month held by 2 atheists who were very active with the ACLU, continue to stand for the rights of the oppressed, work with church/state separation group. Here is the despicable mailing that just went out from the North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee about Hagan.

EPIC FAIL!

Bill Donohue draws more attention to Crackergate aka The Eucharist Challenge:

Under the name fsmdude, a Canadian man, Dominique, has posted over 40 videos on YouTube desecrating the Eucharist. Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:

“On September 29, I wrote to YouTube CEO Chad Hurley asking him to take down these offensive videos. I left a phone message for him on October 3, but he refuses to respond. Accordingly, I have posted my own video on YouTube calling attention to this matter.

So I expect FSMdude to see a large increase in visitors now that Donohue has actually helped publicize his videos on YouTube. Good thinkin' Bill. I highly recommend everyone visit Bill's video page, comment on it, and rate it a full 5 stars. Let's make sure everyone knows about the Eucharist Challenge.

And here are some more related videos: here and here.

Behold God’s giant golden footprint - Another example of pareidolia:

Vote Big Foot/Nessie:

EVOLUTION TODAY:

Are humans still evolving? - According to geneticist Steve Jones human evolution is grinding to a halt. Tell that to the formerly 12-fingered actress Gemma Arterton, who's playing the newest Bong girl in Quantum of Solace.

University of Oklahoma goes off my "don't know anything about you" list and onto my "Awesome" list - They're offering a year of Darwin celebrations to celebrate his big 200th anniversary.

AND NOW FOR A MOMENT OF SCIENCE:

Snippets Of DNA Withstand Eons Of Evolution - "Small stretches of seemingly useless DNA harbor a big secret, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. There's one problem: We don't know what it is. Although individual laboratory animals appear to live happily when these genetic ciphers are deleted, these snippets have been highly conserved throughout evolution."

• Snippets Of DNA Withstand Eons Of Evolution

Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) was born on 23 August 1769. After an education at Stuttgart, he accepted a position as a tutor with the family of the Comte d'Hericy. During his time as a tutor, he became friends with the well-regarded agriculturalist Tessier. Cuvier became the protégé of Tessier, and through his correspondence with Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, managed in 1795 to secure an appointment as an assistant professor of comparative anatomy at Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1796, he began a series of lectures at the Ecole Centrale du Pantheon. In that same year, he read his first paper, entitled Memoires sur les especes d'elephants vivants et fossils, which was published in 1800. For Cuvier, 1789 was a pivotal year as it saw the completion of his first systematic work of natural history, entitled Tableau elementaire de l'histoire naturelle des animaux. The period after the publication of this work saw Cuvier devote himself to three broad lines of inquiry: the structure and classification of mollusks, the classification and natural history of fish, and finally, the natural history of fossil mammals and reptiles. Cuvier’s research into fish led to the Histoire naturelle des poisons, and it was during this period that Cuvier established the paleontology of Mammalia. The ultimate result of his natural historical and palaeontological inquiries was entitled, Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupeds. His extensive inquiry into the remains of animals found in the fossil beds of Montmartre and the cave hyena, among other fossils, substantially contributed to his 1825 work, published in Paris, the Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe.

While Cuvier’s body of work was centered in the discipline of comparative anatomy, as significant were his findings on fossil mammals and his contribution to the emergent science of geology. While not the first individual to argue either for the prevalence of extinction or for geological change in history, his understanding of geological process through catastrophic upheaval and his advocacy of the general theory of “catastrophism,” proved important for the development of geological change in Charles Lyell’s multi-volume Principles of Geology, published from 1830 to 1833. Cuvier also figures prominently in William Whewell’s account of animal morphology and geology in his History of the Inductive Sciences.

For Cuvier, particularly in the Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe, the science of geology, the study of fossils, and an acknowledgment of the ubiquity of catastrophic change, allowed for the recovery of the true history of the earth. More importantly, the science of geology, for Cuvier, revealed a more precise account of the origins of the world than that provided by religious cosmology, particularly polytheistic cosmologies. Cuvier’s work, furthermore, exemplifies the intermixing of specific traditions within the sciences in the early 19^th century: the more established natural histories and the emerging discipline of geology were, in Cuvier’s work, codependent.

Such an arguably important figure as Cuvier was, as Martin Rudwick has pointed out, “recently stultified by the perception that he had been doubly on the wrong side: wrong in his opposition to organic evolution and wrong in his claims for the reality of catastrophes.” (see Martin Rudwick’s Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes, x) The dearth of study on Cuvier, though a pivotal figure in early nineteenth century science, not only exemplifies the tendency for accounts of natural history to drive towards Darwin, but also underscores the scholarly attention towards the “victors” of “controversy.” Cuvier has not attracted the sustained attention of historians of science due to the eventual Victorian acceptance of Lyell’s “gradualist” model of geological change over Cuvier’s “catastrophism.” Nor is the inattention to Cuvier an isolated incident in the wider scholarship of the period. The comparative scholarly inattention to the work of William Whewell and the sheer mass of scholarly work on J.S. Mill, demonstrates the propensity of scholars to reward the “victor” of “controversies” with sustained attention, while the "loser", in this case Whewell’s account of induction and his history of the inductive sciences, recedes into the background. An acknowledgment of Cuvier’s contribution, and of those like him, as has recently become the case with the work of Martin Rudwick, will go a long way in providing a fuller picture of nineteenth century science.

After a very very long delay, i finally wrote my first post...

This post is actually a task that given by our lecturer, Mr Agus Nggermanto, in Creativity and Innovation... To be honest, this class is one of the most unique class in my department. Creativity and Innovation. Just like the name of the class, we all of the student must be creative to answer all of the question from our lecturer. 

Okay, lets start from creativity itself...

If we googling the word creativity, we can found that creativity is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativity is that it is simply the act of making something new.

By reading those definition, of course we can(not) live in this world without it. Why? Its just because creativity is like connecting things. Actually, that was a Jobs' statement. He was a founder and a CEO of Apple Computers. But, he is quietly right. I mean, what can you do if you stuck in a problem but you are not creative enough to solve it. Of course it will be disaster. It will be different if we are creative. We can find many ways to solve it. 

Nah, usually a creative person is a person that have more right brainer. Our brain was divided into two side, left and right. A left brainer usually works better with logic, detail, precision, scientific, analyze, repetitive, and organize. On the other side, right brainer usually works better with the condition of creative, imaginative, general, conceptual, and irregular. That is why that most of creative persons are the right brainer. 

Why? Because right brainers usually think outside the box. While the left brainer only think with the ordinary ways and they use it repetitively. Repetitively. Remember this. This is what makes left brainer are not creative. They tend to use a way from other, then use it repetitively. Different with the right brainers. The right brainers are very irregular. They didn't wants the same. They wants different. They need a creativity to be different.

Charles Darwin ever said that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change". Based on his statement, we need to be creative if we wants to response for change. Creative can save our life, our planet, and many things. Creativity is not just about design and music. Creative can be in a form of many things. But, i want to show you some creative design.

Here they are...

Creative, isn't it?

Hehehe...

Below,

I will show you that creative even can touch our sense of food..

(???)

Okay...

Let se...

Mmmm...

How about this menu?

Can you even think,

to eat it?

Hehehe...

and this

Maybe some of the peoples will think that menus are very disgusting. But it is surely creative...

Those finger cookies, crazy skull cheese cake, and brain style panna cota is a menu in a restaurant. They are so creative to create menus like that. They can attract more customer, whose curious with those menu, and of course, gain more profits.

So, still wandering if creativity needed? Hahaha.. That's an awful question. Okay, let's be a right brainer and live creatively!

It is very interesting to observe the people divided mostly into two groups of competition for one or the other goals of their own. From individuals to nations, all are in race to go ahead from their rivals. Subjects and goals of such rivalries may be many. Here in this brief Article, I am going to discuss the ‘Rivalry’ of two sectors of Retail Trade. Both strive for the same customers or the markets. These two retail sectors will be named further as ‘Former’- An Unorganized Small Traders’ Group, serving the society for not only centuries but millenniums; and ‘Latter’ – The Organized Mall Culture, recently developed during the last two decades and growing fast throughout the world.

The back and forth between these two retail sectors is rapid. I just remember an old Hindi movie “Toofan Aur Diya”. The title may be taken in English version as “Lamp (lit with kerosene with no shield of glass) against whirl-wind”. Here, as an observer, we can watch the exertions of the weak with the strong. Let us see how long this competition does go on and what its future would be. It can be presumed that this ‘Rivalry’ may end with either of the two outcomes - one, as per Charles Darwin’s theory “Survival of the Fittest”; and the other the “Co-existence of Both”. Whether we Love it or hate it, the organized retail sector is to stay everywhere. On the basis of viability of business, some units of both the retail sectors may close their shutters for ever or may shift elsewhere, but all of them are never to quit the battle field of their rivalry.

Due to straight result of globalization, the Latter is increasing at the speed of light stretching the feet towards even smaller cities. Some Social Activists have started their movements against the Mall Culture with their slogans as “No more Shopping Malls in India”. One of such Activists, Medha Patkar says, “Opening of a mall in a city puts an end to the business of thousands of hawkers and traders. This mall culture will plunge the middle class into a greater financial crisis and turn hawkers into beggars.”

On the other hand, quite contradictory to above, ICRIER (a renowned think tank) commissioned by the Ministry of Commerce to study impact of the Latter on the Former reported that they both can co-exist. How surprising the finding is that a lion and a hare can live together in a den as we might have read in some fables in our childhood days. It is easy to say ‘Nothing is impossible in the world’, but somebody has humorously commented as whether we have ever tried to insert back the tooth paste once pressed out from the tube!

I have studied the Report with a bird-fly-view and noted as over all that ICRIER has, no doubt, sought opinions from various people concerned to the studies; but at the same time, we should bear in our mind that it is not all the time necessary to believe that few opinion givers represent the views of all the people. Just to have fair and authentic opinions, the Researchers should take into consideration many factors and particularly intellectual standards of the opinion givers. We have witnessed many Reports of Commissions and findings of Opinion Polls, not only in India but worldwide, and found that realities and such calculative results have no match of their ends. We all know that when Saddam was in power, he had gone under the exercise of having mandate of the people of Iraq and showed to the world that 98.5% of the population was in favor of his dictatorial rule of Government. But, when he was finished, the very same public had destroyed the statues of Saddam erected in public places.

While summing up, I would say that the casting votes are in the hands of the customers and they only can play a role of a king-maker whom the crown of success is awarded. Any sector, whether be a traditional retail street shop or a big mall, will have to create good relationships with customers and attract them to pay frequent visits to their respective business premises. They would need to win the trust of the customers with standard quality of goods, fair price, genuine weight & measurement and prompt services after sale. The customer will never compromise with these fundamental expectations. A trader, in any status, may fool the customer for one time, but not all the times. Now-a-days, the customer everywhere has become more aware of his best interests as well as laws of consumer protection. Those days have gone when they were easily cheated and exploited.

- Valibhai Musa

Don't laugh -- there's, like, an actual person doing serious scientifical researchification on geezer genetics and stuff and he says guys like this ---->
are the key to evolution!
::: repeat after me: 'anything's possible with a paper bag' :::

Steve Jones of University College London scarily asserts that "human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West".
::: nothin' like a little pressure, right?!? :::

Jones says peepaws are prone to pass on the, uhh, 'mutations' necessary for folks to continue plodding our way down Darwin's path.
::: I knew it! We ARE freaks of nature!! :::

“Human social change often changes our genetic future,” he said, citing marriage patterns and contraception as examples. “Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns."

I mean, ok, we could try to warp our Watson-Crick through chemical intervention or set up shop in some radioactive Real Estate, but who wants to get all Chernobyl only to plop out another average Earthling?

Not me!

Nope, if Jones is right and it's the gnarly goo in old-man spoo that puts the man in humanity -- then it's time to give grampa the good joog ... just like that other Jones ... Catherine Zeta, that is.

You didn't know it but this bad bitch has been working hard on behalf of all of humanity!
::: Thanx CZJ! xoxoxo :::

She's taking this whole 'sexy septuagenarian' scenario VERY seriously!
I mean, why else would she consciously breed with the Crypt Keeper and birth a bunch of mutant babies???

Poke a pensioner - save the world!

Es una teoría, inspirada en dogmas religiosos, que afirma que el mundo y los seres vivos han sido creados de la nada por la libre voluntad de un ser inteligente por un propósito divino. Por extensión el termino se aplica también a las opiniones o doctrinas religiosas o filosóficas que defienden que el origen del mundo hay que encontrarlo en la creación de un Dios personal, como ocurre en la religión judaica (el Bereshit) o islámica (sura 41); y que han dado lugar a los movimientos pseudo-científicos que se oponen al hecho evolutivo. Hoy en día uno de sus objetivos primordiales es lograr lo obstaculización de la enseñanza de evolución biológica en las escuelas, destacando la "cruzada" emprendida por ciertos movimientos de raíz cristiana protestante en EUA, tal y como refleja la presente viñeta.

A lo largo de los siglos, sus principales promotores se han encontrado entre los seguidores integristas y ortodoxos de las religiones monoteístas (judaísmo, cristianismo, islamismo) quienes toman como principal defensa la inefabilidad de los escritos contenidos en sus libros religiosos. Aunque también el creacionismo ha sido apoyado o nombrado por filósofos de la antigüedad como Lao Tzu, Platón y Cicerón.

Se pueden distinguir varias subcorrientes dentro de esta teoría:

• El creacionismo clásico, el cual niega la teoría de la evolución biológica y sus pruebas científicas sobre el origen de la vida. Se hace una interpretación literal de los libros sagrados.
• Creacionismo anti-evolución actual.Trata de utilizar fundamentos de carácter no religioso pertenecientes a las ciencias naturales contra la teoría de la evolución presentando pruebas fuera de su verdadero contexto y tergiversadas.
• Creacionismo pro-evolución o evolución teísta. Cree en la existencia de un creador y un propósito, pero acepta que los seres vivos se han formado a través de un proceso se evolución natural.
• Diseño inteligente. Presentado como la versión "light" del creacionismo, no suele hacer explicita su motivación religiosa. Defiende que dada la complejidad en el proceso de creación de la tierra y de los seres vivos ha tenido que intervenir un ser inteligente.

Fijismo o fixismo

Teoría que sostiene que las especies se han mantenido inalterables desde la Creación tal y como fueron creadas, sin que hayan evolucionado a lo largo del tiempo. Frente a la presencia de fósiles esgrime que serian restos de animales que perecieron en los diluvio bíblicos o simples caprichos de la naturaleza.

Fundamentada en el filósofo friego Aristóteles, los principales impulsores de la teoría fijista fueron:

• En el siglo XVII, Carlos Linneo, el reconocido naturalista y científico sueco, quien asentó las bases de la taxonomía moderna, desarrolló de forma formal el fijismo. Mantuvo que las especies se habían creado de forma separada e independiente y negó la posibilidad del origen común de los seres vivos.
• Un siglo después, el zoólogo y naturalista francés Georges Cuvier respondió a las voces en contra de la teoría fijista que aludían a la existencia de los fósiles con la teoría del catastrofismo. Según esta algunas especies desaparecieron como consecuencia de catástrofes y de ahí los fósiles.

En la actualidad, pese a estar considerado como una pseudociencia, el fijismo mantiene adeptos en EUA, entre ellos el propio presidente George W. Bush.

Teoría del diseño inteligente

Corriente que sostiene que el origen o evolución del Universo y los seres vivos son el resultado de acciones racionales emprendidas de forma deliberada por uno o más agentes inteligentes (El Dios de las religiones monoteístas). En realidad, es un movimiento creacionista que oculta sus motivaciones religiosas presentando experimentos y pruebas científicas modificadas y sacadas de contexto con el fin de lograr la respetabilidad ante la comunidad científica internacional.

Su principales argumentos se basan en que la complejidad de la creación del universo y de la vida; que el universo este demasiado bien adaptado para los seres vivos; y la existencia de gran diversidad de vida no puede deberse a un simple azar.

Apareció y se desarrolló en Estados Unidos en 1987, tras haber fracasado los intentos de los creacionistas clásicos de introducir su modelo de creación en la escuela. Actualmente, el gran promotor del Diseño Inteligente es el Instituto Discovery, un grupo de presión constituido por cristianos conservadores, que cuenta con un presupuesto anual de cuatro millones de dólares para persuadir a la opinión pública, a los gestores de la educación y a los representantes políticos.

Evolucionismo

Se denomina evolucionismo a la teoría que explica la transformación de las especies por los cambios producidos en sucesivas generaciones. Basa la credibilidad de la teoría en pruebas paleontológicas, semejanzas anatómicas entre distintas especies que vivieron a lo largo del tiempo, biogeográficas,...

Sus primeros defensores fueron filósofos griegos como Anaximandro, Empédocles y Epicuro. Tras la caída del Imperio Romano; con el paréntesis de algunos autores árabes, no se volvió a proponer como teoría hasta el siglo XVIII con la aportación del naturalista francés Lamarck, quien defendería la mayor complejidad de la naturaleza según pasa del tiempo y la adecuación de las especies según el medio en el que viven. Más tarde, sus argumentos inspirarían al científico inglés Charles Darwin quien escribiría "El origen de las especies" donde sentaría las bases del evolucionismo moderno. En la actualidad, el evolucionismo de Darwin se ha completado con trabajos como el de la herencia genética de Mendel, llamándose "Síntesis evolutiva moderna".

Teoría de la generación espontánea

También llamada autogénesis, es una antigua teoría biológica de creación que sostenía que podía surgir vida animal y vegetal (vida compleja) de forma espontánea, a partir de la materia inerte. Era una creencia popular profundamente arraigada, ya que la observación superficial indicaba que surgían gusanos del fango, moscas de la carne podrida, cochinillas de los lugares húmedos, etc. Hoy en día se la considera una pseudociencia a partir de los experimentos del italiano Redi y del francés Luis Pasteur.

Conclusión

Las teorías sobre el origen del universo y los seres vivos reflejan la eterna guerra, nunca condicionada al entendimiento que se viene realizando desde el Renacimiento entre las ciencias y la religión. Ambos caballos de batalla estas representados en el lado de la religión por el creacionismo, el fijismo y la teoría del diseño inteligente contra el evolucionismo que representa a la ciencia, la racionalidad y la lógica.

Respecto a quien es la más verdadera y creíble de la teorías me inclino por el evolucionismo pues está respaldado por teorías y pruebas solidas.

Fuentes

• Enciclopedia libre Wikipedia
• "Creation Wiki" La enciclopedia de la creación
• Claves del evolución humana
• Diccionario enciclopédico Espasa 2006

Money quote from Darwin's autobiography:

"[I] happened to read for amusement ‘Malthus on Population,’ and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species.”

Source: Panda's Thumb

"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science – and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well."

It's worth reading the rest of the article to see Rev. Dr. Brown's views on how Darwin's theory of natural selection is consistent with Christian teachings (which sounds a bit of a stretch to me). Still, I like how he points out that even Darwinism isn't the be-all and end-all explanation of our earthly existence, and that  further inquiry is required.  Moreover, while the apology came more than 100 years late, it still bears saying. Though gone, Darwin bears a great legacy on the world today. The acknowledgment and acceptance of his ideas vindicates him, and paves the way for the kind of open-minded approach we need to provide an antidote against religious bigotry and fanaticism.
The entire article may be found here: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin/malcolmbrown.html

The Maori Party has some smart thinkers including Dr Peter Sharples who personally I have a high regard for. However if the recent movements closer to National have been anything more than superficial they could be about to make an incredibly stupid move. As mentioned in my previous post the next National government will be making some drastic changes to our electoral landscape specifically for their own benefit. They're going to remove the Electoral Finance Act to make it easier for the NZ business lobby to contribute vast amounts of money anonoymously to their campaigns and then they'll make moves to dump MMP and go back to FPP, an unfair system in which National always had an unfair advantage. Mixed in with all this they're going to abolish the Maori seats. Without these seats the Maori Party would be no more.

Would the Maori Party be stupid enough to make a pact with a party that plans to pass legislation that would cast them into the history? It is often said that reason is left behind when it comes to vengeance. Does the Maori Party wish harm on Labour so much that they're willing to sacrafice themselves and the voices of their constituents?

365 citater - 365 illustrationer

Bogen koster kun 200 kr.
Kalenderen er lavet af Peter C. Kjærgaard fra Darwin i Danmark på Århus Universitet. Peter C. Kjærgaard er i øvrigt en god kæmper imod Intelligent Design.

Glæd din bionørdede kæreste (der ikke kan få nok af Darwin), din mor (der altid har været lidt vild med ham), din far (der elsker biller), dine søskende (som du endelig kan give en gave, du gerne selv ville have), dine børn (der trænger til lidt dannelse), din bedstefar (der ligner Darwin), din bedstemor (der heldigvis ikke gør), din præst (der vil tage den med i sin prædiken), alle dine venner (for at minde dem om, at der er andet i livet end pizza) eller dig selv (fordi du simpelthen ikke kan undvære den).

Her er med andre ord den perfekte gave til alle Darwinelskere og -hadere. Et helt år fyldt med sjove, spændende, oplysende, rystende og rørende citater af Darwin selv, hans familie, venner og fjender. Hver eneste dag byder på et nyt citat og en passende illustration.

I'll be posting my notes and thoughts on the conference over the next few days.

Until then,

Sirius Knott

October 2, 1836

Darwin returns to England

The British naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, ending a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information proved invaluable in the development of his theory of evolution, first put forth in his groundbreaking scientific work of 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Darwin's theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called "natural selection." In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. His Origin of Species, the first significant work on the theory of evolution, was greeted with great interest in the scientific world but was attacked by religious leaders for its contradiction of the biblical account of creation.

Darwin Awards

Not a Shred of Sense

The ambulance responded to a frantic call concerning a neighbor's trip through an industrial tree shredder. It seems the individual had decided to prune his own trees, rather than hire a professional. Why not? After all, the local shop rented shredders that could make quick work of yard debris, including tree limbs up to 8 inches in diameter.

To save time (those fateful words) the neighbor had placed the shredder at the base of a great oak tree, where he could drop branches directly into the hopper. He intended to cut off the top third of the oak, since it had been killed by lightning.

With the shredder running wide open, the neighbor climbed his ladder to the first tree branch, stepped off the ladder, slipped, and fell. The paramedics found him very dead, half in and half out of the shredder's hopper, one leg shredded to the hip.

Clotheslined

(13 January 2008, Florida) A 37-year-old man was killed trying to cross the Manasota Key drawbridge on his motorcycle. Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, the man was seen racing at high speed towards the gap as the bridge began to open.

Bridge designers had anticipated such lunacy and invented the crossing guard. The closing gates swept him off his Suzuki and over the side of the bridge, into the water and out of the gene pool. By a twist of fate, the motorcycle continued up the ramp and made it across to the other side!

The Balloon Priest

(20 April 2008, Atlantic Ocean, Brazil) In 1982 Lawn Chair Larry, beloved survivor of a Darwin-worthy attempt, attached 45 helium weather balloons to his comfortable Sears lawn chair, packed a picnic and cut the tether. But instead of drifting lazily above the Los Angeles landscape, the combined lift of 45 huge helium balloons rocketed Larry into LAX air traffic lanes 16,000 feet above sea level. Astoundingly, he survived the "flight."

In homage to Larry's aerial adventure, a Catholic priest recently ascended towards heaven on a host of helium party balloons. Adelir Antonio de Carli, 41, was attempting to set the world record for clustered balloon flight to publicize his plan to build a spiritual rest stop for truckers.

Sitting for more than 19 hours in a lawn chair is not a trivial matter, even in the comfort of your own backyard. The priest took numerous safety precautions, including wearing a survival suit, selecting a buoyant chair, and packing a satellite phone and a GPS. However, the late Adelir Antonio made a fatal mistake.

He did not know how to use the GPS.

The winds changed, as winds do, and he was blown inexorably toward open sea. He could have parachuted to safety while over land, but chose not to. When the voyager was perilously lost at sea, he prudently phoned for help. But rescuers were unable to reach him since he could not use his GPS! HE struggled with the control panel as the charge on the satellite phone dwindled.

Instead of a GPS, the priest let God be his guide, and God guided him straight to heaven. Bits of balloons began appearing on mountains and beaches. Ultimately the priest's body surfaced, confirming that he, like Elvis, had left the building.

The number of living fossils that literally silence Darwinism is in the millions. Some of these are stored in warehouses. Only a very few are on display in various museums. This video has been prepared in order to put an end to the mentality that causes these fossils, that represent a complete response to Darwinism, to be hidden away, and that prevents them from being placed before the public.

In addition, she got me something which I have been longing to get for a long time. It was a book entitled, "The Origins of Species and the Voyage of the Beagle", by Charles Darwin. This, in my personal opinion, is the most important book in the world. And thus, I have been thinking of getting this book onto my book shelf and making it the most important book of all the other books in my collection.

Indeed, a great present I must say... What do we do without Charles Darwin's theory? We would have understood the characteristics and functions of every single living thing on this earth, but we would not have known the reason why they possess them or how they exist. To clarify, the evolutionary theory does not explain the origin of the universe or how the universe begin. This is the most misunderstood concept posed by people who do not understand Darwin's theory of evolution, and people like the creationists. To understand how the universe begin, the topic belongs to the cosmologists. Go to the cosmologists for the answers. The theory of evolution explains the diversity of life, and that's the real answer that Darwin had came out with. Based on tons of evidence throughout the years, Darwin is still right.

2008 is a year of international-wide conflicts and economic decline. But this book has brighten up my days ahead and the hope of more people coming to know the answer they have been looking for. And by constantly seeking after the answers to the big questions about life, one would somehow or rather find his or her answers. Additionally, I don't do birthday wishes, but apart from some personal hopes and dreams, I do hope things would get better, and that there would be better days ahead.

Thank you guyz (Sean and Elaine) for contributing your shares to my present.

What I like about mad experimentation is it's raw unbridled curiosity. What does it matter if some experiments go wrong or if others are completely useless and outright wacky? What counts is that humans have a desire to understand the world. Thomas Edison was a mad inventor; he wasted ten years of his life on devising a new mining technique, which failed miserably. He also designed furniture and homes made out of that comfortable substance know as concrete. Not big sellers.

The lesson here is that in a complex world, curiosity saves the cat, it doesn't kill it. But still there is an intellectual divide in society. There are those who care to know the world, and those who don't care to have their world views tarnished by reality. I'm talking about creationists here. To them a mad scientist is someone to be feared.