Here are some brief summaries in descending date order of web
articles for the period 22-30 November 1999.
My comments are in square brackets.
Steve
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http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/ancienthuman_route991130.html
ABCNEWS... Following Genetic Trail: Study Says Ancient Humans
Followed Second Route... Nov. 30 ...hereditary material in cells suggest
that modern humans followed a migration wave from Africa to Asia
more than 50,000 years ago. (summary 34 words/original 347
words = 9.8%). [This Italian mtDNA study reports that people in
Ethiopia, the Arabian Peninsula and India today share genetic markers
not found in Middle East populations, indicating a later southwards
migration route out of Africa separate from an earlier northward one
around the eastern Mediterranean and Greece over 100,000 years
ago. If this holds it might have Biblical interpretative implications.
But presumably this two-stage process would also be consistent
with a more Biblical three-stage process: 1) a primary northeastern
migration from Africa to the Middle East c. 100 kya; 2) a second
northwest migration from the Middle East population to the
Mediterranean and Greece, say c. 90 kya; 3) a third southern
migration from the Middle East population back to Ethiopia, Arabia
and India c. 50 kya? If Adam is to be the last common physical
ancestor of all modern humans, and in the Middle East, he would
presumably have had to have lived c. 100 kya at the root of these
later migrations?]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/113099sci-space-alaxies.html
"The New York Times November 30, 1999 Physicists Fret About
Nothing ... By JAMES GLANZ ... astronomers around the world
have been trying, with increasing desperation, to disprove an
astonishing discovery announced early last year: distant galaxies
are being swept apart, ever faster, by a tide formed of apparently
empty space... some antigravity effect seemed to be accelerating
the expansion...Dr. Weinberg and others to a suggestion that some
physicists regard as desperate...there have been many Big Bang
universes, most of which really do have huge cosmological
constants that are incompatible with life. But by the luck of the
draw, a very few would have lighter vacuums like the one in this
universe, and only in such universes could life, and physicists, exist
to ponder the problem. But not even Dr. Weinberg seems
convinced that this solution is the right one..." (summary 142
words/original 1437 words = 9.9%). [This seems to be saying that
the universe is even more fine-tuned for life, with a `just-right'
cosmological constant making life possible only in this narrow
window of time. When an atheist physicist like Weinberg starts
talking about unobservable multiple universes to explain the evident
design of only one, things must indeed be "desperate" for
materialists!]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991130/sc/space_mars_3.html
Yahoo! Tuesday November 30 ... Mars Mission Is Prelude to
Manned Exploration ... (Reuters) - When the Mars Polar Lander
touches down on the south pole of the Red Planet on Friday, the
experiments it will carry out will be paving the way for an eventual
manned exploration of the planet. The lander's most important task
is to look for water... it could give vital clues to where life on the
planet, even in its most primitive form... said Project Scientist
Richard Zurek". (summary 84 words/original 842 words = 10.0%).
See also: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9911/29/lander.science/index.html
[Finding life on Mars would not necessarily explain the origin of life
itself, since bacteria could have originated on Earth and been
transported to Mars by meteorite, or vice-versa. Or life could have
originated elsewhere in the Solar System and been transported to
Mars and/or Earth as bacteria by comet. Only if any life on Mars
was so fundamentally different (e.g. D-amino acids) from life on
Earth, that they could not have shared a common ancestor, would it
fulfil the materialist's dream and "transform the origin of life from a
miracle to a statistic'" (Shklovskii I.S. & Sagan C., 1966].
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991130/sc/space_planets_3.html
Yahoo! Tuesday November 30 ... Six New Planets Found Orbiting
Distant Stars ... (Reuters) ...Vogt said the newly found systems
were unlikely to harbor any Earth-like planets. Jupiter-sized
planets in oval-shaped or eccentric orbits -- instead of the neatly
stacked, circular orbits of our solar system -- would have such
gravitational force as to quickly eject any smaller neighbor, he
said. But he said the hunt will continue.." (summary 69
words/original 705 words = 9.8%). See also:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9911/29/space.planets.reut/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/sixplanets991129.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_542000/542251.stm
[More evidence that our type of solar system is rare, if not unique. Of the
28 extrasolar planets detected, none are like the Earth, or in solar systems
with circular orbits like our solar system]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000113078204876&rtmo=glbbnGku&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/11/25
/ecnmic25.html
Electronic Telegraph... 25 November 1999. SCIENTISTS have
developed "Methuselah" mice in the first experiment to suggest that
mammals, including humans, can live longer if the body's
resistance to chemical damage is boosted. An ageing gene ... is
disclosed today by an Italian group... in the journal Nature. See
http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/402309A0.abs_frameset
(summary 45 words/original 477 words = 9.4%). [More evidence
that humans could, in the absence of genetically defects, live
hundreds of years?]
http://www.the-scientist.library.upenn.edu/yr1999/nov/palevitz_p8_991122.html
Volume 13, #23 The Scientist November 22, 1999 Missing Links
and the Origin of Biochemical Complexity ...Barry A. Palevitz ...
November 22, 1999 ...Having lost the fossil wars, creationists
turned to biochemical pathways and subcellular structures. How
could a biochemical pathway, which may involve 20 or more
separate steps ... evolve? They don't, according to a new breed of
"neocreationists" rallying under the banner of Lehigh University's
Michael Behe. ... Now philosopher of science Niall Shanks ... With
colleague Karl Joplin ...argued that biological systems exhibit
"redundant complexity," not irreducible complexity...Behe proposed
a "special kind of complexity that cannot be explained in naturalistic
terms," says Shanks, but "it can be explained naturally without
magic or hocus pocus." (summary 117 words/original 1186 words =
9.9%). [There is nothing new in this critique by these philosophers.
See http://www.etsu.edu/philos/faculty/niall/complexi.htm. Their
claim that the Chinese "feathered dinosaurs" are found missing
links is wishful thinking, and the clear aim is to discredit Behe as
just another creationist. This type of ad hominem argument might
have worked against the ICR, but it will play into ID's hands by: 1)
showing that Darwinism is unfalsifiable, because it doesn't need
any evidence, but only imaginary just-so stories as illustrations; and
2) helping advance ID's Wedge strategy of bringing out into the
open the issue of whether science follows the evidence or
naturalistic philosophy. Expect a *devastating* reply from Behe!]
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"In short, it is clear that Darwin's success was due to several common vices
as well as to several uncommon virtues. His gifts as an observer in all fields
concerned with the needs of a theory of evolution were extraordinary. His
industry and patience in collecting and editing his own observations as well
as other people's were hardly less remarkable. On the other hand, his ideas
were not, as he imagined, unusually original. He was able to put his ideas
across not so much because of his scientific integrity, but because of his
opportunism, his equivocation and his lack of historical sense. Though his
admirers will not like to believe it, he accomplished his revolution by
personal weakness and strategic talent more than by scientific virtue."
(Darlington C.D., "The Origin of Darwinism", Scientific American, Vol.
201, May 1959, p66)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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