More Religious Women Less Likely to Abort

From here.

New York, N.Y. – January 28, 2008 – A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly reveals that religious women are less likely to obtain abortions than secular women, not because religious women have stronger pro-life attitudes, but because religious women are more likely to lead a sexually conservative lifestyle.

Researchers found that religious women were less likely to obtain an abortion than secular women, in part because they are less likely to become pregnant before marriage. Among those who become pregnant before marriage, religious women are more likely than secular women to take the traditional religious path and marry the father of the child, rather than get an abortion.

Because religious women lead a sexually conservative lifestyle, they are less likely to find themselves pregnant and without a potential marriage partner, when abortion may be a particularly appealing option. Also, religious women are more likely to get married if they become pregnant.

Not surprising...if more women would quit giving it away for free, generations to follow wouldn't be such a screwed up mess.

"Haven't you read," he [Christ] replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Matthew 19:4-6

We weren't designed to hook up with anyone who is looking for instant gratification minus commitment. It's disrespectful, it's dangerous, and it's demeaning. IMHO, the feminist movement has been a major factor influencing this new "hook-up" sub-culture that is replacing commitment with free sex. The movement is also largely responsible for the break-up of the family, divorce, abortion abuse, and our kids losing their mothers to the workforce [more on feminism in my next post].

Then, of course, there are those secular humanists who preach free sex before, during and after your marriage...

Richards Dawkins writes:

Returning to the original topic of sex outside marriage, I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? Agony Aunt columns ring with the cries of those who have detected -- or fear -- that their man/woman (who may or may not be married to them) is "cheating on them". “Cheating” really is the word that occurs most readily to these people. The underlying presumption -- that a human being has some kind of property rights over another human being’s body -- is unspoken because it is assumed to be obvious. But with what justification?

...

What, actually, is wrong with loving more than one person? Why should you deny your loved one the pleasure of sexual encounters with others, if he or she is that way inclined?

I'll tell you what's wrong with it Richard...it messes up our kid's lives. They live by example, and we're telling them that commitment is just not necessary anymore. Because of that, our children are being shoved from house to house day in and day out and having to spend their holidays with God knows how many different sets of "parents". And, the parents are so busy with their revolving sex lives and all the struggles that go along with that way of life, that they have no time for their kids. My husband does have "property rights on my body", and I wouldn't have it any other way.

And, then of course, we have Hitchens who states that sex and schadenfreude are his two purposes for living. That's just great, Hitch, except for the fact that once you've dabbled with anything in heels, you're not going to be able to make a commitment to any one person in particular. Our children are the ones who are suffering for our indiscretions.

Screw marriage...what's the point when you can get it for free? Secularists are quick to suggest that our children do just fine being raised by others, so they've got that covered as well. Kids don't need a traditional family. Personally, I think they're off their rock, but whatever. When I consider the kids I grew up with and the friends my children hang out with, it's usually pretty obvious what a kid's home life is like by just considering their attitudes. Eight times out of ten, I'm right on target as to whether they come from a traditional family that hasn't been ripped apart by divorce, infidelity or whatever. Of course, there are *always* exceptions.

Women get this through your thick skulls....if they're "hooking up" with you, you're a ho, and there is no way in hell they're ever going to make it permanent. If that flips your switch, keep on giving it away. But, you're being foolish beyond belief...

And, men, quit expecting to get laid every time you take a women to dinner. Have a little respect, and find yourself someone you love enough to settle down with before you take them to bed.

84 to 75!!!!!

YEAH!!!!

Kansas State just ended their home court losing streak against Kansas University!!! The last time they beat KU at home was in 1983. It was an awesome game...hope you all caught it.

GO KSU!!!

Roe vs. Wade

I guess I missed the big Roe vs. Wade 35th anniversary celebration on the 22nd.

Gosh, we can't have that....



HT: PapaG

Sebelius' Son's an Entrepreneur!

Did you catch our Governor delivering the Democratic response to the State of the Union address last night?

Yeah....whatever.

I wrote the woman off when she compared the Kansas Board of Education to Fred Phelps. But, I thought I'd give her son a little advertising for his shirt designs/game board website. He's an entrepreneur, after all....

From here:

"Kathleen and Gary are very proud of their son John's creativity and talent," Corcoran said. "He began this game as a class project at the Rhode Island School of Design, and he's now turned into an entrepreneur."

Be sure to read the comments to that article...kind of interesting.

So, what has their son put together?? An "adult-themed" game board called "Don't Drop the Soap". What an interesting name, no? Now what parents wouldn't be just proud as punch to have their son develop a game and give it a name that refers to jail house sodomy. Gosh, I'd be just giddy with delight!

And, check out the apparel that he's designed. Lovely...shoot, great prices too...$75-$95 for those things. *eye's rolling*

So, follow that link and buy yourself a "cool" shirt and a nifty game board!

[mumbles to self...must be KU student...]

Mercy...now, I've heard it all.

Blah!!!!!!

This thing is so freaking ugly, I'm going to wind up having nightmares again.

From here:

As vulnerable as naked mole rats seem, researchers now find the hairless, bucktoothed rodents are invulnerable to the pain of acid and the sting of chili peppers.

A better understanding of pain resistance in these sausage-like creatures could lead to new drugs for people with chronic pain, scientists added.

Naked mole rats live in cramped, oxygen-starved burrows some six feet underground in central East Africa. Unusually, they are cold-blooded — which, as far as anyone knows, is unique among mammals.

"They're the nicest, sweetest animals I've ever worked with — they look frightening, but they're very gentle," said neurobiologist Thomas Park at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Scientists knew the mole rats were quite sensitive to touch — perhaps to help replace their almost useless eyes. After probing their skin, Park and his colleagues unexpectedly discovered the rodents lacked the chemical Substance P, which causes the feeling of burning pain in mammals.

Interesting article, and I certainly hope their research will lend to aiding those with chronic pain...but, my God, that poor little thing is nasty lookin'.

Debate reviews are starting to pop up...

The first Hitchens/Richards debate review I ran across was this one.

Starts like this...

My heart at first sank when I saw Jay Richards. He has hair reminiscent of an early Abba member or a really blonde version of the BeeGees. He looked as though he had just put away his surfboard and strolled into the debate. Christopher Hitchens came slouching in making every effort to look like a disenchanted intellectual who is angry with the world but is sustained daily by his special breed of cynicism.

LOL....

And, true enough...Jay is sporting some blond surfer dude lookin' locks, and Hitchens just looks angry.


Now, personally, I prefer this hair style...



...but, I digress. Must.focus.on.debate.not.the.cutie patootie.

Anywhoo...the review is interesting, but I'm dying to get my hands on the video!

Good Lord, here we go again...

More discoveries of organisms dated millions of years ago that look exactly like they do today...

Nearly a half a billion years ago, tiny horseshoe crabs crept along the shorelines much like today's larger versions do, new fossil evidence suggests.

Two nearly complete fossil specimens discovered in Canada reveal a new genus of horseshoe crab, pushing their origins back at least 100 million years earlier than previously thought.

...

Analysis of the recent finds also indicates the ocean creatures haven’t changed much over the eons.

"We wouldn't necessarily have expected horseshoe crabs to look very much like the modern ones, but that's exactly what they look like," Rudkin said.

"This body plan that they've invented, they've stayed with it for almost a half a billion years. It's a good plan," Rudkin told LiveScience. "They've survived almost unchanged up until the present day, whereas lots of other animals haven't."

"They've survived almost unchanged up until the present day, whereas lots of other animals haven't."

...or so we are led to believe. Everything is a transitional in the eyes of an evolutionist. Certainly organisms have the ability to adapt, but the question is to what extent.




Fossil horseshoe crab from "445 million years ago", and a modern day horseshoe crab




View of the fossil under water.




Modern horseshoe crab.







Related posts:

Jellyfish find.

Salamander-like amphibians.

Questioning dinosaur "feathers".

Out of place fossils...insect fosilized in amber.

Hey, Richard Hughes....

I know you're out there somewhere. Ya gonna read Vox's new book? I think this one has your name written all over it.

Order it. NOW.

I had this really vicious nightmare last night...

Survival of the fittest and all that....



Remind me not to read atheist websites before going to bed.

I'm skeerd...

Weigh in Week 3 - Jan. 28

Okay people...let's have it. Did you lose anything this week? Personally, I don't have a clue if I did or not because my scale bit the dust. Mr. FtK borrowed it to weigh one his remote control planes....absolutely no idea why he was doing that. But, when I got it back, it didn't work. I replaced the batteries and everything. Bizzare.

Anywhoo...I haven't been taking the diet very seriously, but plan to this week. I want to lose those last 8 pounds within two months. That's the goal. I've got to get my game on and do it.

Last weeks results...

FtK: +1 -2
Big Mama: 0 -2
DaveScot: +2, +2
Sean: ?

Curious...

Well, I wonder how the Hitchens vs. Richards debate went this afternoon.

I hope someone posts it to You Tube *soon*. If anyone catches a glimpse of it anywhere LET ME KNOW!

The Irrational Atheist

Recently, I ran across Vox Day's blog due to the result of the fallout that occured after a little run in that I had with PZ Myers (long story). I've not spent a lot of time reading his views about various topics yet, but he is certainly interesting and entertaining.


He's authored a book that will be released in February that I've been contemplating whether or not to purchase.

I had decided to hold off for a while as the stack of books I want to read is growing by the day. But, yesterday he posted a review of his book by atheist blogger, Brent Rasmussen. I'm vaguely familiar with Brent's blog due to it being mentioned by someone I met in a forum a few years ago, but I've not perused his site for quite some time. I must say that I found his review of Day's book a bit shocking...certainly unexpected.

This is my review of Vox Day's new book called "The Irrational Atheist". I'd like to make some things perfectly clear before I proceed with this review. I am still, and barring some pretty convincing evidence that I find personally credible, will most likely always be an atheist...

It was actually painful for me [to] read. This is due to the fact that that I really do respect Richard Dawkins and his scientific accomplishments, as well as Daniel Dennett's heady forays into philosophical thought. I also absolutely love listening to Christopher Hitchens speak and debate. As for Michel Onfray and Sam Harris? Eh, not so much, but I do appreciate their ability to raise awareness and articulate some of the same things that I have thought about myself over the years and to put them into commercially successful books.

I am not going to go into a point by point review of the various arguments that Day addressed in TIA. Suffice it to say that by the end of the chapters dealing with the individual authors, I was happy that it was over. It was a thorough, detailed, dispassionate (with a little snarky levity thrown into the footnotes for flavor), and completely disheartening take-down of some of the best arguments that the godless have put into print - on their own terms, without using the Bible (in the first part of the book, that is), or any other sacred text to do it with. Amazing. And depressing. It is not my place to defend their books. I truly hope that they do find time to defend and clarify their books, specifically to the counter-arguments and claims made by Vox Day in TIA, though, because they really need to. Trust me, it wasn't pretty....

My advice is to read this book - and then do your damnedest to find something in it that you can argue against. Something beyond "that's stupid!" - which is what always seems to be the first-blush response from an atheist to a theist. (Fucking hell I'm tired of that shit.) I couldn't do it. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did. I hope you do.

I strongly encourage Dr. Dawkins, Dr. Dennett, Hitch, Harris, and M'sieur Onfray to respond to TIA. It is not your run-of-the-mill "flea" book looking to make a quick buck riding on the coattails of The Amber Heard Fan Club*. It's the real deal, it's substantive, meticulously researched, it brings up real problems, and it addresses these problems without falling into the trap that other fleas have fallen into in the past.

Now, I'm thinking that I should go ahead and order The Irrational Atheist right away. I'm also thinking that I should peek in on Brent's blog more often, as he seems, well... almost rational!

Monkey Memory

When scientists found out that chimps had better memories than students, there were unkind comments about the calibre of the human competition they faced.


But now an ape has gone one better, trouncing British memory champion Ben Pridmore.

Ayumu, a seven-year-old male brought up in captivity in Japan, did three times as well as Mr Pridmore at a computer game which involved remembering the position of numbers on a screen.

The rest of the article can be found here.

Maybe Shubin will write about our inner monkey as a sequel to "Your Inner Fish".

Speaking of my inner fish, I've haven't been blogging as much the past few days because I've been absolutely enthralled with following link after link in regard to Shubin's work. He recently interviewed with Carl Zimmer on Bloggingheads, and I've listened to it twice already. The extent to which common descent is embedded into the brains of those trained in evolutionary thought is truly amazing. Although I think his extrapolations of the evidence is off the charts, I like Shubin....he is extremely excited about his work and he's very easy to understand. I spent a bit of time this morning at Barnes and Nobel pouring through his book. It just about killed me to leave it there, but I'm not paying $24 for the thing. I'll have to wait until it's available at the library.

But, I have been jotting down a ton of notes about the Tiktaalik find and it's connection with our "inner fish". Hopefully, I'll find the time to share my thoughts at some point.

Unfortunately, I have a stack of paper work a mile high that I have to go through this weekend. It's time to do those dratted taxes again....puke.

Hank Hanegraaff sounds a bit put off with Dawkins

Listen here.

There are a few sound bites from Dawkins in the recording that honestly send chills down my spine. When he starts pontificating about religion, that accent of his is just creepy.

He sounds like the spawn of evil, IMHO...

Today's choice of poison: Monster energy!

Here's a review of the drink.

I love all these energy drinks, but my husband can't stand them. I usually drink the sugar free variety, so that may be why he doesn't care for them. But then, he and my boys love coffee....I can't stomach the stuff. It's scary when you catch your 5th grader starting a pot of coffee. He always claims he's making it for Dad, but then I catch him drinking a cup himself.

My family has caffeine issues...

Who said it?

"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

I can't stand one more day of winter

Honestly, if I don't get some warm weather and sunshine soon, I'm going to slip into hibernation.





I must think warm thoughts....





....and hope for an all expenses paid trip to some place sunny and WARM.

Who said it?

"One may find it easier to believe in an infinite array of universes than an infinite Deity, but such a belief must rest on faith rather than observation."

Dating Agencies for People who are Married?

I was reading this article that Vox Day linked to, and this jumped out at me:

So I contacted a dating agency for married people. I was a little nervous of the interview, so I took along a close girlfriend.

WTF? They have dating agencies for married people?

That is i-n-s-a-n-e.

But, sure enough, there are all kinds of links for married folks who want to get a little on the side...no strings attached.

What on earth is the world coming to? I mean, what is the point of marriage these days? It's as though sex means nothing more than any other bodily function. The article I linked to above makes it clear that women looking for these type of relationships are *only* thinking about what *might* please them for *a moment* with no thought as to how their families may suffer from their infidelity.

The world is going to hell in a handbasket...

I Have a Dream!

Bill Clinton nodded off during the Martin Luther King presentation...

Here.

Lol...poor thing. The long hours on the campaign trail are seriously catching up him.

Weekly Message

My family and I have been attending a non-denominational church for about two years now. When we moved to our new home, which was about 25 miles from our previous one, we decided we might consider joining a different church as well. I had been very involved in my last church almost to the point of burn out, and the struggles I watched between some of the parishioners was rather heart wrenching at times. My Mom has always told me that evil strikes the hardest in the church, and that is so often true. Where better to strike than at the heart of God.

We visited a couple churches in the area, and just didn't really feel at home in any of them until my son's friend at his new school invited us to attend his church. One morning we decided to take him up on it, and from the second we walked in the door, we knew that it was the place for us. I'm not quite sure what it was about the place, but we felt very comfortable there.

The music is very contemporary, which is a nice change for us, and the weekly message is always applicable to our everyday lives. I guess the word I'm looking for to describe my church is "authentic". I don't feel like I'm just showing up on Sunday and wanting to hurry up and get it over with. The message I'm getting each Sunday really helps me each week as I participate in the world outside the doors of the church. I feel like I'm charging my batteries at the beginning of each week. As the world and all the crap that goes along with everyday life seems to wear me down, Sundays seem to charge me back up again.

I just noticed that our church's website posts the message each week, so I thought I'd link to it so that if anyone is interested, they could listen to it as well. I know some of my readers are Christians, so you might enjoy listening in on something a bit different than your own services. And, no doubt a few atheists might want to know what that crazy soccer Mom is indoctrinating her children with. I might start posting them on Sundays every once in a while.

I've yet to join any groups or activities at our new church because I have a tendency to get involved in too many once I get my feet wet. I just want to sit back for a while without diving in and taking on too much like I did at my previous church. But, my boys both attend Wednesday night midweek classes and really enjoy them.

Here is the link to the audio of Sunday's message. You just go to the right of the page to the green box and click on the 1/20/2008 message: Life Rules: Time is Irreplaceable. Enjoy...

[edited: 1/23 several serious typos]

Week 2 - Jan. 21

Time to weigh in again...not a good week for me because I *gained* a pound. Ugh.







Last weeks results...

FtK: +1 -2
Big Mama: 0 -2
DaveScot: +2, +2 (starting this week)
Sean: ?

Do-it-yourself "spirituality" in comparison to traditional religion

Interesting findings...

Rosemary Aird conducted surveys of 3,705 21-year-olds in Brisbane as part of her Ph.D. studies at the University of Queensland's School of Population Health.

"I had a look at two different beliefs – one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God," Aird told the Brisbane Times.

Her research found the newer non-traditional beliefs linked to higher rates of "anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behavior" – results, she suggested, arising from New Age beliefs focused on self-transformation, self-fulfillment and self-enlightenment to the exclusion of community.

"Traditional religion tends to promote the idea of social responsibility and thinking of others' interests, whereas the New Age movement pushes the idea that we can transform the world by changing ourselves.

...

"My generation was about social responsibility and collective interests compared to the Me Generation," Aird said. "'New Spirituality' promotes the idea that self-transformation will lead to a positive and constructive change in self and society.

"But there is a contradiction – how can one change society if one is focused on oneself?"

These results kind of remind me of my mother-in-law. She is the most selfless person I think I've ever met, and she's about the happiest person I know as well. The woman in helping people out 24/7, never asking for a thing in return and always has a smile on her face. You can tell how happy it makes her to help others rather than focus on herself.

It seems like all these nifty self help methods would tend to make a person focus even more on themselves and the millions of little flaws we all have. I think my Mother-in-law has it all figured out. She's a Christian, but I rarely hear her say anything about religion at all. Her beliefs are reflected in everything she does rather than what she says. She's a great role model for myself and the kids. I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to live next door to her, and the kids have loved growing up next to their Grandmother. My Father-in-law passed away a few months after my youngest son was born, so I think she has enjoyed having us nearby as well.

The woman is also fearless! She's 70 years old, and a few months ago, I looked out my window and caught her up on her roof cleaning the leaves out of her gutters and down spouts. By the time I got a pair of old clothes and shoes on to go over and help her, she was done! I suppose all that outdoor work will keep her young, but I sometimes worry that she's going to take a fall and get herself killed!

We all love her lots.

McCain's Daughter Meghan

I ran across her blog this evening. Cute gal...lots of great pictures from behind the scenes! I'm still leaning toward McCain and Obama. McCain took the South Carolina Primary, but that darn Hillary won the Nevada caucuses. Grrrr....

My Inner Fish

I wish...

Did I mention that Jeremy can sing??

My friend, Jeremy, who posts here quite often, recently wrote and sang this song at his church in Kansas City.

He supports TE and I support ID, so we butt heads more often than not, but he's a fine Christian and I have a lot of respect for him. He's able to engage in meaningful dialogue minus the venom, and he's usually better at controlling himself than I am. *wink*

Turnout for the Golden Compass

Evidently, The Golden Compass didn't do so well at the box office.

The writer-director of “The Golden Compass,” Chris Weitz, is peeved. The movie tanked so badly that the second and third installments are not going to be made (it did fairly well overseas, but unfortunately for New Line Cinema, that didn’t help because it pre-sold those rights).

Well, I honestly can't say that I'm not relieved to see that the next two books aren't going to make it to the big screen.

Your "Inner Fish"...(good grief)

Well, Shubin is certainly looking to make some money off his Tiktaalik find, and he didn't waste any time in churning out the propaganda. His new book should have Darwinists everywhere drooling about their "inner fish". Honestly, I can't wait to get a hold of this book myself. It sounds like a fictional masterpiece.

For those of you who, like me, are having a rather hard time figuring out what is so great about this fishy find, read this and join us in the land of reality.

Another Interesting Dino Find

Boy, those 130-million-year-old dinosaurs sure as heck preserve well!

[The] Psittacosaurus, or parrot lizard, a beaked reptile about the size of a pig that could walk on either two or four legs.

...

Lingham-Soliar has identified what he says is fossilized surface skin as well as a cross-section of the thick layer below the surface, called the dermis, around the animal's lower left side.

"To have soft tissue preserved is amazing in the fossil record, because clearly the soft tissue is about the first thing that will decay and disintegrate," Lingham-Soliar said.

"Until now we had seen only surface preservations, but this is the first time we see a deep cross-section of the skin cut away at right angles to the surface."

...

The finding could also cast further doubt on a theory that had gained many proponents in recent years—the possibility that dinosaurs had primitive feathers, suggesting that some are the ancestors of today's birds.

Lingham-Soliar argues that the parrot lizard was adorned with bristles of collagen fibers, not early feathers.

"What is unexpected is the 40-plus layers of collagen, which even in thinner-skinned meat-eating dinosaurs would comprise many layers of fibers with the potential of being misidentified as proto-feathers," Lingham-Soliar said.

But not all paleontologists agree with his conclusion.

Hans-Dieter Sues is associate director for research and collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

He said there is a "preponderance of evidence to support that birds came from dinosaurs" known as theropods.

"[Lingham-Soliar] has tried for some time to argue that the featherlike structures on the theropod dinosaurs from the same formation as [where] the Psittacosaurus [was found] are collagen fibers, too," Sues said.

"However, many of the Chinese theropods have complex structures that clearly cannot be explained away in that fashion."

Again, we find soft tissue and evidence refuting feathers. Even with the facts shoved right in their faces, they'll go down fighting for their dino to bird scenario.

I'm not so sure those birdies evolved from dinos, as recent findings suggest that the early history of birds was much more diverse than once thought, with a wide array of birds living during the Mesozoic era.

Personally, I'm waiting for the study that tells us how long fossilized soft tissue can survive before it will decay and disintegrate. Although, it really makes no difference as Team Evo will explain away the results one way or the other.

Scientist clones himself

From here...

A scientist has achieved a world first... by cloning himself.

In a breakthrough certain to provoke an ethical furore, Samuel Wood created embryo copies of himself by placing his skin cells in a woman's egg.

The embryos were the first to be made from cells taken from adult humans.

Although they survived for only five days and were smaller than a pinhead, they are seen as a milestone in the quest for treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

But critics fear the technology could be exploited by mavericks to clone babies and accused the scientists of reducing the miracle of human life to a factory of spare parts.

......

The unmarried father of two, who is in his forties, is working on extracting stem cells from such embryos - a process that inevitably leads to the death of the embryo.

John Smeaton, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: "We have got scientists wandering around in an ethical wilderness, forgetting about matters of justice relating to our fellow human beings.

"We have people creating human beings with the intention of destroying them. That's appalling."

And the Vatican condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being".

"This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues.

Stem cell experts gave the U.S. breakthrough, published in the journal Stem Cells, a cautious welcome.

Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, said: "This is another step along what has turned out to be a tortuous road.

"However, it is still a long way from the goal of achieving embryonic stem cells."

U.S. researcher Professor Robert Lanza questioned the validity of the research and said the embryos looked "very unhealthy".

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment On Reproductive Ethics, said: "Human cloning is unethical, unsafe, and completely unnecessary.

"It is time that scientists started to put some brakes on."

Dr Calum MacKellar, of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, said the creation and destruction of human embryos was "extremely offensive to millions in the UK".

Although Dr Wood's team is the first to create human embryos from adult cells, human embryos have been cloned before.

Scientists at Newcastle University created cloned human embryos in 2005 using cells from embryos rather than adults, seen as less useful in creating potential treatments.

British law says created embryos must be destroyed in 14 days and cannot be implanted in a woman.

I guess I'm not sure why scientists are hell bent on going this direction. There are other avenues for stem cell research other than going down the embryonic path. Personally, I think cloning leads us down the slippery slope to opening up all kinds of bizarre possibilities. I even worry that there are egomaniacs out there who are looking to take over God's role as Creator and re-vamp His design of the human body. Color me paranoid, but the whole cloning thing kinda freaks me out.

Who said it?

"To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of one thousand volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason.

But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!"

It's double (or triple) caffeine Friday!!

Have I mentioned that I'm NOT voting for Billary???

Okay...I can laugh at myself (sometimes)

Yes, I know the joke is suppose to be on me, but it's freaking hilarious. Just look at them nasty 'ol cavemen stalking that mild mannered creationist. Bug off you freaky transitionals!

More on the Pope and the Secularists

Earlier today I offered a post in regard to the Pope canceling his visit to a university in Rome.

Vox Day offers his take on the turn of events as well...

Let's break down the logic here:

1. Pope scheduled to speak.
2. Secular bigots protest scheduled speech and demand its cancellation.
3. Pope cancels speech, as per demand.
4. Secular bigots whine that they'll be blamed for refusing dialogue. Gee, how could anyone possibly reach that conclusion?

LOL...go read it.

Cliff and Norm on Darwin and Beer

Remember the episode on the old Cheers sitcom where Cliff Clavin explains the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm?

“Well ya see Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

“In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the lowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer elimates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

Oh, if only that were true...

Christopher Hitchens vs. Jay W. Richards

Whoo...whee, we have an interesting debate coming up that will take place at Stanford University next Sunday, Jan. 27th.

Honestly, I'm scared for Jay. I mean, Hitchens' one goal in life is to gobble up Christians at *every possible* oppportunity. He doesn't like theists, and he hates the concept of an ultimate judge. He's out for blood. Look at this dude...


And, then we have our dear choir boy with the angelic face and GQ looks...


Now, our DI Fellows are scrappers, but Hitchens is just *SCARY*. The dude drinks like a fiend and even smokes in the shower!!! Freaky.



But, I'm not truly worried due to the fact that D'Souza got the better of Hitchens recently, so no doubt Richards will hold his own as well.

I'll bet Jay is chomping at the bit to get a piece of Hitchens...

Go get'em Jay!!!!

A little comic relief

This is hilarious.

Excerpts:

EXCOMMUNICATION: Scientists who remain recalcitrant and refuse to be re-integrated into the community of real scientists must by all legal means be removed from that community like a stubborn rotting tooth yanked from an otherwise healthy mouth. Untenured professors must not be granted tenure. Tenured professors must be socially shunned, encouraged to seek employment elsewhere (e.g., at a Bible college or Burger King), and be assigned undesirable parking spaces. Funding institutions (e.g., the National Foundation for Science and the NIH) must as a matter of policy refuse to fund the research of Intelligent Design sympathizers.

...

ACCREDITATION: Academic institutions that employ Intelligent Design sympathizers that in any way give Intelligent Design legitimacy (e.g., present it in a favorable light in the science curriculum or even go so far as to set up committees, think-tanks, centers, or institutes to weight its "merits") must have their accreditation revoked more quickly that the driver's licence of a blind man on his fifth DUI conviction. Accrediting bodies need to ensure that only real science, like Darwinian evolution, ozone depletion and the environmental impact of SUV's, is taught at accredited institutions.

...

Evolution has now become the universal governing principle of science. Scientists need to be scrupulous about giving evolution proper credit. Scientists whose writings betray less than full enthusiasm for evolution need to be reprimanded like a school boy caught free basing cocaine behind the barn.

A MUST READ...

Two books to add to your reading list

The Devil's Delusion, by David Berlinski, and...













God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, by John Lennox.

Scientists run off the Pope?!

Sheesh...

ROME (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday cancelled a speech at Rome's La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit by the head of the Catholic Church to a secular setting.

...

Many scientists fault the intellectual, conservative and tradition-minded pope for a series of positions he has taken that they say subordinate science and reason to faith.

The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini, a professor emeritus of La Sapienza, who wrote to rector Renato Guarini complaining of an "incredible violation" of the university's autonomy.

Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the sprawling university's physics department, as well as radical students, joined in the call for the pope to stay away on Thursday, the start of the university's academic year.

Students opposed to the visit kicked off "an anti-clergy week" on Monday by showing a film on Galileo, the 17th-century physicist who ran afoul of Church doctrine by insisting that the Earth orbits the Sun.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi condemned the professors and students for "intolerance" towards the pontiff, and renewed the invitation for Benedict to visit the public university.

"I condemn the acts, statements and attitudes that provoked unacceptable tension and a climate that does not honour Italy's traditions of civility and tolerance," Prodi said, according to the ANSA news agency.

Unbelieveable. But, this seems to be the goal of academia... keep your religious beliefs completely separate from anything that *we* (the enlightened few) consider to be based on "logic and reason". You're free to consider the evidence that supports your faith as long as you keep your mouth shut about it and worship your God in the confines of your church basement.

And, again with the "conviction of Galileo"! My goodness, if I had a dollar for every time that event is recalled by scientists, I'd be a millionaire! Secular scientists should be grateful to early Christian scientists rather than pointing out this one event over and over. Christian believers were the forerunners in the scientific revolution.

There is more to the Galileo event than the simple tale that materialists like to point out. I recommend Dinesh D'Souza's latest book to get a more accurate picture of the history surrounding Galileo's conviction. Read What's so Great About Christianity, Chapter 10: "An Atheist Fable, Reopening the Galileo Case". I'm not rehashing this issue for the 100th time, but I will say that the Bible doesn't state that the sun revolves around the earth. It is silent on this scientific question. There are a few passages that refer to the sun rising and setting, but these can be understood as a spiritual text using ordinary understandable language. Even the weatherman, who knows all about the earth going around the sun, will use terminology like: “Sunrise tomorrow will be at 5:00am”.

Shame on those scientists and students for displaying horrific intolerance against religious belief.

[Edit: Here is an article by D'Souza on Galileo.]

Scientology

For the absolute life of me, I can't figure out what on earth Tom Cruise is talking about in this video clip on scientology. He certainly doesn't help his audience better understand the religion/philosophy.

Here is an interesting site which provides information about Scientology.

Scientology is not authoritarian. There is no enforced belief. Rather, a maxim in Scientology is that only those things which one finds true for himself are true. In Scientology one learns to think for himself – it is a voyage of self-discovery.

Hmmm... weird definition of "true". How can something be "true" if it's not? Perhaps a different word would be more appropriate.

The source and founder of the Scientology religion is L. Ron Hubbard, who devoted his life to finding answers to questions that have troubled mankind for millennia. Mr. Hubbard’s intellectual rigor, his curiosity and boundless spirit of adventure inspired his search, even as a young man.

The first widely released results of Mr. Hubbard’s researches did not lie in Scientology, however, but in another field of endeavor, “Dianetics.” The word Dianetics comes from the Greek words dia, meaning “through” and nous, meaning “soul,” and is defined as “what the soul is doing to the body.”

Dianetics constituted L. Ron Hubbard’s first breakthrough, and it was his initial discoveries in this area which led to further researches and the exact isolation of the source of life itself. Man does not have a spirit. He is a spirit. He has a mind and he has a body. Dianetics addresses and handles the effects of the spirit on the body. Dianetics thus helps provide relief from unwanted sensations and emotions, accidents and psychosomatic illnesses (ailments caused or aggravated by mental stress).

The word Scientology is taken from the Latin scio, which means “knowing in the fullest sense of the word,” and the Greek word logos, meaning “study of.” It literally means “knowing how to know.” Scientology itself is defined as “The study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.”

Scientology addresses the spiritual being. It directly raises his awareness and ability, and by so doing, he also becomes increasingly able to overcome the negative factors that impair him.

In over half a century of investigation, Mr. Hubbard isolated many, many fundamental truths about life, leading to his development of Scientology and the subsequent growth of the Scientology religion.

The philosophy seems to focus on self-help and working with an "auditor" (glorified pychologist), and then of course, they check you out with the "E-meter" to be sure you're in the right "spiritual state".

Auditing is assisted by use of a religious artifact which helps the auditor and preclear locate areas of spiritual distress or travail. This religious artifact is called an Electropsychometer,or E-Meter. (Electro-psycho-meter from electrometer, a calibrated device used for measuring extremely low voltages and psyche, the human soul, spirit or mind.) The E-Meter measures the spiritual state or change of state of a person and thus is of enormous benefit to the auditor in helping the preclear locate areas to be handled. The reactive mind’s hidden nature requires utilization of a device capable of registering its effects — a function the E-Meter does accurately.

When the E-Meter is operating and a person holds the meter’s electrodes, a very tiny flow of electrical energy (about 1.5 volts — less than a flashlight battery) passes down the wires of the E-Meter leads, through the person’s body and back into the E-Meter. The electrical flow is so small, there is no physical sensation when holding the electrodes.

The pictures in the mind contain energy and mass. The energy and force in pictures of painful or upsetting experiences can have a harmful effect upon an individual. This harmful energy or force is called charge.

When the person holding the E-Meter electrodes thinks a thought, looks at a picture, reexperiences an incident or shifts some part of the reactive mind, he is moving and changing actual mental mass and energy. These changes in the mind influence the tiny flow of electrical energy generated by the E-Meter, causing the needle on its dial to move. The needle reactions on the E-Meter tell the auditor where the charge lies, and that it should be addressed through auditing.

Different needle movements have exact meanings and the skill of an auditor includes a complete understanding of all meter reactions. Using the meter, the auditor ensures the process covers the correct area in order to discharge the harmful energy connected with that portion of the preclear’s reactive mind. When charge lessens, the person heightens his ability to think clearly in the area being addressed and his survival potential increases proportionately. As a result, the preclear discovers things about himself and his life — new realizations about existence, the milestones that mark his gains.

These realizations result in a higher degree of spiritual awareness and consequently a greater ability to succeed.

Scientologists are drug free which would explain why Tom is so opposed to ADHD medication. Honestly, after watching that video clip, I'm not so sure that medication would be a poor choice for him. Something just seems amiss...

Casey Luskin refutes the NAS

Luskin addresses the latest rendition of "ID sucks, and we don't like it" being promoted by the NAS (National Academy of Sciences).

In an earlier post, I highlighted Cornelius Hunter's response to "Science, Evolution and Creationism", and today I encourage you to read Casey's article.

Darwinism is in deep, deep doo doo. Seriously... ID supporters seem to be crawling out of the shadows lately, standing up against the bogus claims of academia and demanding to be heard.

Hold on, I've gotta get out the pom poms......

Who said it?

"It should now be clear where the follies of evolutionary views lie. If someone presents a model for explaining the origin of life, but he cannot say where the creative information characteristic of all life forms came from, then the crucial question remains unanswered.

Somebody who looks for the origin of information only in physical matter, ignores the fundamental natural laws about information; what is more, he scorns them.

It is clear from the history of science that one can ignore the laws of nature for a limited time only."

Are all the Dudes Gonna Die Off?

OH, MY FREAKING GOODNESS...! Men, you are evolving right out of existence!


Check this OUT!

By the extrovert standards of our parliament, it is a surprisingly quiet debate, but one that will have all manner of implications. The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is expected to become law next summer, says controversially that the fathers of artificially conceived children need not necessarily be recognised by the state. Are fathers destined to become redundant?

The bill is a reflection of much wider scientific and social changes. The technology to produce artificial sperm, or even create offspring from two females, is already in the pipeline; in addition, genetic evidence has shown that the Y chromosome, the only one that confers maleness, is in a long-term evolutionary decline.

And if that were not humiliating enough for men, in sizable communities across the country lesbians are not only forming partnerships, but they are openly bearing and raising children together, secure in the knowledge that British society now accepts such a lifestyle choice. Do men have a future at all?

Okay, that seriously sucks...what on earth is the point of living without men around?? But, hey, this may be one reason for those "tolerant" males to consider whether their tolerance for homosexuality may end up eliminating the male gender altogether! Maybe it's an inbred evolutionary impulse to question homosexuality. We want to keep our men thriving!!

Read the article...it is extremely interesting.

Who said it?

"But what if the vast majority of scientists all have faith in the one unverified idea? The modern 'standard' scientific version of the origin of life on earth is one such idea, and we would be wise to check its real merit with great care.

Has the cold blade of reason been applied with sufficient vigour in this case? Most scientists want to believe that life could have emerged spontaneously from the primeval waters, because it would confirm their belief in the explicability of Nature the belief that all could be explained in terms of particles and energy and forces if only we had the time and the necessary intellect.

They also want to believe because their arch opponents - religious fundamentalists such as creationists - do not believe in life's spontaneous origin.

It is this combative atmosphere which sometimes encourages scientists writing and speaking about the origin of life to become as dogmatic and bigoted as the creationist opponents they so despise."

Skinny Songs

Hey, you dieters, I stumbled across Skinny Songs to help motivate you as you work at dropping those pounds.




Somehow, I can't see DaveScot strutting his stuff to these little ditties, but I think Big Mama and I would enjoying listening to them as we exercise. The link provides sample songs and lyrics. Kinda cute, here's an example:

Use it to Lose It

yeah, come on, give me something I can use
something make you wanna move
yeah, come on, let’s do this! Let’s do this here!

You say you don’t want no gut (no gut)
Don’t want to have no big butt (uh huh)
Well then get up outta your rut
Come on y’all, let’s make that cut (hey!)

That’s it now, get off your duff
No more fat, we have had enough
Gotta do a little huff and puff
so that you can strutt your stuff

We’re in a feel good revolution
You just need some evolution
To improve your constitution
Get a move on! That’s the solution!

You got to use it, to lose it. You got to use it, to lose it
You got to use it, to lose it. You got to use it, to lose it

C’mon now, you wan’ it, right?
Then you know what to do -- just get up and move!
Ain’t gonna get it unless you sweat it
So if you wanna lose it, then get up and use it!

The food you gotta ration
and let’s see you do some dashin’
Throw your soul in, do it with some passion
then you’ll be stylin’ in the latest fashion

You got that body for a reason
So come on now, do a little wheezin’
Just think, it will be pleasin’
To show it off in the summer season

We’re in a feel good revolution
You just need some evolution
To improve your constitution
Get a move on! That’s the solution!

You got to use it, to lose it. You got to use it, to lose it
You got to use it, to lose it. You got to use it, to lose it
Yeah, you got to use it -- Yeah, you got to lose it
Yeah, you got to use it -- Yeah, you got to lose it -- Just do it, yeah!

IT EVEN HAS THE WORD 'EVOLUTION' IN IT!! LOL...

No. Please.

Flores Man not a Different Species

Scientists are taking a closer look at the 'Hobbits' of Indonesia:

The long-running debate about the existence of so-called hobbits of Indonesia has taken a new turn with a study that suggests these ancient people were not an unusual species of human but modern humans with a growth disorder.

...

Ever since there has been debate whether or not the bones were actually from pygmies - even today there are pygmies on the island - and not a new species of human that lived between 120,000 and 10,000 years ago. One idea is that they suffered from microcephaly, a disorder that limits brain growth.

Today support for this idea comes from the discovery of a gene for a rare growth condition, MOPD II, that causes small brain and body size but near-normal intelligence, reported in the journal Science by a large international team including Dr Anita Rauch of Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Erlangen, Germany, and colleagues.

Adults with this rare inherited condition reach an average height of a metre and although their brain is comparable in size to that of a three-month-old baby, they have near unaffected intelligence. The research study was triggered by two unrelated tiny girls living in northern Bavaria.

Another transitional bites the dust...

Who said it?

"The materialists are offensive to me in many respects; their doctrines I hold to be pernicious, and I am disgusted at their arrogance.

If their system could be of any utility to man, it would seem to be by giving him a modest opinion of himself, but these reasoners show that it is not so; and when they think they have said enough to prove that they are brutes, they appear as proud as if they had demonstrated that they are gods."

Weigh-in, Week 1 - Jan. 14

Okay, dieters...get on that scale and let us know if you lost any weight last week!

Here is an interesting article on the most effective way to lose weight. Tests show that a high protein/low carb diet seems to be the way to go about shedding those unwanted pounds.

UPDATE: Total weight loss

FtK: -3
Big Mama: -2
DaveScot: 0 (starting this week)
Sean: ?

Total: -5 lbs.

Morrison's Mess

Sheesh...our attorney general didn't even last a year. During the last election the Democrats and the media demonized Phil Kline, our previous AG, in order to get their guy in office. Then Morrison turns around and lands us with a bigger scandal than Kline could have ever created.

What a Mess.

Where is that %^*& Tooth Fairy??!

I keep finding teeth every time I turn around. A tooth on my bedroom dresser...on an end table...on the kitchen counter...on the back of the toilet. Where's that tooth fairy when you need her?





I was starting to wonder if teeth were falling from the sky or if my boys were playing some kind of weird prank on me. But, apparently they are both losing their molars at the same time. Evidently when they pull those suckers out, they just drop them wherever the event occurs. Not that that should particularly surprise me as that's what usually happens with their clothes, their school back packs, their shoes....you get the picture. But, you'd at least think they'd mention it in passing.

I suppose that since the tooth fairy has retired, they aren't sure what to do with them. A while back my youngest lost a tooth and did mention it to me. I was busy at the time and told him to lay it on the counter and I'd put it with the others we've kept. Why we keep them I have absolutely no idea, but it seems that's what good parents are suppose to do...gather those sweet little baby teeth.

Anywhoo...that night after they'd gone to bed, I headed to mine and found a note taped to my bedroom door. Written on a napkin with my son's tooth taped to it was this message to me:

Hey, this is the *third* tooth lost, and the tooth fairy's late. Can you call or email her? She's being lazy.

Granted, my kids have never bought into the "Tooth Fairy", "Santa" silliness, but they do know how to play it up in order to get a buck. They used to find a gold dollar under their pillow for each lost tooth, and apparently my youngest was put off with the fact that the fairy no longer visits.

His note put a smile on my face, and I managed to dig up some gold dollars for that "lazy" fairy.

Just because...

...they're cute.

Who said it?

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption ... For myself, as no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneous liberation from a certain political and economic system, and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."

From Ape to Blogger

Who said it?

"I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable. God cannot be explained away by such naive thoughts."

Response to Latest NAS Rag

The NAS (National Academy of Sciences) recently published another booklet titled Science Evolution and Creationism which annoints Darwinism a scientific "fact" equivalent to the theory of gravitation. They make some extremely outlandish claims about "creationists" that, IMHO, seem outright dishonest, although perhaps it's another case of the rabbit and the duck. Who knows...

The NAS attempts to deem ID and anything that questions Darwinism as a religious scheme being pushed by "small groups of politically active religious fundamentalists who believe that only a supernatural entity could account for the physical changes in the universe and for the biological diversity of life on Earth".

Ah, yes, we're such an insignificant little group of "fundamentalists", yet the Darwin elite are out in force attempting to stop school districts and univerisities one after the other from questioning their reigning paradigm.

Did I mention that 72.2% of the elite NAS scientists are atheists, 20.8% are agnostic, and only 7% hold a "personal belief in God"?

I don't suppose their worldview or personal philosophical beliefs have anything to do with their perception of the "facts", could they?

Nah...surely not. It's only those religious "fundamentalists" who allow their personal beliefs to interfere with "truth".

No matter, Cornelius Hunter responds with a nice rebuttal at the ID Report. Be sure to give it a read.

Although the NAS likes to claim that "creationists" are biased, as Hunter points out, they don't take into account their own bias and how it affects their work and science in general...

Like the creationist who mandates a particular interpretation of scripture and interprets scientific evidence accordingly, the evolutionist also mandates a particular interpretation of the scientific evidence. All explanations must be thoroughly and completely naturalistic, no matter how contorted those explanations become.

How worldviews affect the debate

As I mentioned toward the end of an earlier post, it is usually a guarantee that Darwinists and supporters of Design will consider the same information, read the same articles, listen to the same lectures, consider the same evidence and inevitably walk away with polar opposite conclusions. It's one of the more alluring aspects of this debate for me at times.

When I sit back and watch the debate from the sidelines, I'm just shocked how differently each side processess the information they receive. Both sides consider the other to be at times underhanded and deceitful, yet it seems more likely to me that they are coming at the issues from opposite ends of the spectrum.

It's kinda like the duck and the rabbit illusion...



Telic Thoughts offers another rendition of the duck/rabbit illusion, but it freaked me out.

I'm so hungry...

...that even the Flying Spagetti Monster is lookin' good to me right now.

Darn diet!!

Creating Life in the Lab

It looks like science is on the brink of creating life!

This article is very interesting. As you're reading it, consider the number of scientists (designers) working on this project, the number of times they mention create or design, and what the finished product will *really* tell us about how the complexity we find in nature today evolved from that first living molecule. Also consider how much time and effort the designers put forth trying to find the perfect molecules in which to experiment on.

In the end, we're still left with this:

Conjuring simple life from nonlife in a dish would no doubt raise comparisons with the emergence of the first living cells on Earth about 4 billion years ago. "The closer we get to a simple system, the closer we get to a good early cell model," Murtas said at Synthetic Biology 3.0.

But the analogy is not perfect. As Murtas points out, "Using [modern] biological molecules, I find it hard to believe that an early simple cell ... can ever have existed with only 30 to 40 genes." But how could it be possible for the first cells to have already evolved more than 40 working genes?

The synthetic minimal cell envisioned by Forster and Church wouldn't reveal much about how life began. For one thing, the protein and gene "parts" from which scientists would build such a cell are all modern molecules shaped by millions or billions of years of evolution. Assembling these parts into a simpler system would be like building a Model T using Honda parts: It wouldn't turn back the hands of time on the parts themselves.

Gosh, I know evolutionists will read this article and jump for joy thinking that this is some kind of major breakthrough, but when I read it, all I see is the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for a Designer. Their lab is full of them!

Too Cute...

Wikipedia Gets a Spanking...

DaveScot has the story here.

How bad would this suck???!

Twins that were separated at birth wound up marrying each other never knowing that they were brother and sister!


Man, that is gut wrenching. Evidently, they had their marriage annulled. I can't imagine having to live through something like that.

A good case for legalizing incest, no? For some of my readers, that wouldn't pose a problem, but even if they had decided to stay married, I think it would feel extremely weird to know you're married to your twin!

From the side column at the article I linked to above there was this:

THE twins would have felt a “lightning bolt” attraction from the moment they met, according to an expert.

Dr Glenn Wilson, of the Institute of Psychiatry, said we create a blueprint of our perfect partner based on our opposite-sex parent.

We are also attracted to partners who look like us.

He said: “If you are raised separately from a close family member there is a tendency to experience a powerful lightning bolt attraction to them if you meet in later life. It can be an incredibly intense response and almost impossible to resist.”

But siblings growing up together don’t fall for each other because “familiarity breeds contempt”.

Dr Wilson added: “We don’t fancy anyone we’re raised with. It’s probably a mechanism to protect the gene pool.”

That's confusing. First it says that we'd feel an instant attraction to our siblings if we met not knowing we were related, yet at the end of the article, Dr. Wilson says that we "don't fancy anyone we're raised with". If that's due to a mechanism that protects the gene pool (as he suggests), how does it only occur if siblings are raised together rather than if their not?

I remember reading something about this one time.....I'll have to google a while.

CONGRATULATIONS!!

I just got an email from a cyber friend of mine I met in one of the science forums a few years ago. He and his wife are the proud parents of a new baby girl!! Yes, he's a fan of Darwin, but he's one of the very few people I've encountered in this debate who can actually discuss the issues without the ridicule, arrogance, and anger.


Congratulations, Monkey Boy!!!!

LOL

Take a peek.

Be thankful that you evolved along the more preferable branch of ape like creatures

Well, at least we can be thankful that we've evolved far enough along that we no longer eat dirt.

But then, in comparison to what some of us live off of, perhaps dirt would be the better option...



Yes, this post is completely irrelevant to anything other than the fact that *I'm hungry*. I read that article about the dirt eaters and started envisioning all the yummy things that we humans get to enjoy.

Sigh...

I was doing so well with my dieting toward the beginning of the week (had lost 3 pounds), but yesterday I didn't get on that treadmill, and I ate two burritos and a *big* 'ol bowl of popcorn after 7PM. This morning I got on the scale and I've gained 2 of those pounds back.

Ugh...

[edit: whoops! My link above didn't work...I fixed it. Note the reason why I said that we may be better off eating dirt than a grease burger and fries...dirt is actually good for the chimps.

In related news...when my kids were little, I never washed their pacifiers when they fell to the floor. Neither did I use bacterial soaps etc. that so many parents are fond of these days. I figured they needed to deal with bacteria and build their immune systems. Scientific or not, my kids were *rarely* ill when they were young.]