Same old, same old...........

Is it wrong for one blogger to reference another? I don't think so.
When I was a Biology teacher I often mentioned to students that textbooks, especially science textbooks need to be rewritten periodically to keep up with changing ideas, discoveries, theories etc. This, I pointed out is very different from religious books like the bible, where stories and ideas never change. Yes of course religious commentary is ongoing, but the fundamental (no pun intended) "knowledge-base", never changes. The word of god is the word, period.

Science books change all the time. There are now 8 planets in our solar system, Pluto is no longer considered a planet because several other Pluto-like objects have been discovered out there in the Oort cloud. rather than increase the number of planets, astronomers reclassified Pluto. Arbitrary? Yes, but it sells more books. Biology, especially Evolutionary Biology changes all the time. The new transitional seal fossil (see older blog), the new Hobbit-like species of Homo, these and other discoveries will change the texts much to the chagrin of all teachers.

So when I saw this on another blog: The Biology Textbooks are Wrong? , I didn't think much of it until I saw who was saying they are wrong. Take a look at the "Fox News" video.
The guy, Casey Luskin, is from the Discovery Institute , which certainly looks scientific until you start reading the fine print. Click under Science and Culture and read About CSC. These guys are creationists with heavy make-up. The more things change, the more they................

Canadian Aboriginals and the Catholic Pope

Sometimes its worthwhile to get a different perspective on an issue at home. In the case of Canadian Aboriginals the story linked to the title, says it all for me. One of the oldest and most out spoken critics of religion is a publication from the United Kingdom (1881) called the freethinker. I could not have said it better, hence the link. The damage to aboriginals around the world by religious missions and missionaries is incalculable. For Canadians who smugly think theirs is a welcoming and multicultural society, well think again. We are still burdened with past racism and the glacial speed at which the problems are being addressed boggles the mind.

Puijila darwini

I would love to hear how Intelligent Design creationists explain this one. Another transitional fossil in the loooooooong list of transitional fossils has been discovered by shear serendipity. A team led by scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature found the fossil in 2007 during an expedition on Devon Island in Nunavut. While driving an ATV near the Haughton Crater part of the team ran out of gas. To pass the time waiting for assistance Carleton University student Elizabeth Ross starting poking around. She found a small, black bone that she showed to Mary Dawson, Curator Emeritus with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. They then found the jaw and limb bones spread on the surface and eventually 65% of the creature's bones.....amazing! It was a "seal" with legs not flippers and it was named for the Inuit word for a walking seal and Charles Darwin who predicted that one day such a fossil may be found. A wonderful discovery that will rewrite the books again!

So yes kiddies....all that stuff in the books about evolution looks better and better as we transition from bipedal-dumb-asses to rational Homo sapiens sapiens. Its a trip that some of you will never make if you don't use your head.

Word of the Day: Islamofascism

So I'm still busy with bringing my computer back from the dead and doing taxes, also linked with death (there is a joke in there). I couldn't help but to comment on Iran's Jew-hating, Holocaust denying President Mahmoud (Ahmadinejad) Ime-a-nut-job. What is there to say really? Little Mahmoud was the first speaker in the U.N.'s Antiracism Conference or should that be Anti-antiracism Conference. On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ime-a-nut-job shows what kind of slimeball he really is, lashing out at Israel and calling Israelis "racist perpetrators of genocide". This of course caused most of the Western nations that were there to walk out. Others, Canada and the U.S. included were clever enough not to attend the conference. Which brings me to the word of the day: Islamofascism and that makes Little Mahmoud an Islamofascist. I'm not going to bore you with definitions or reasons, but if you look at that oily sand hill called the middle east, I believe Israel is the only sliver of dirt in the region that even resembles a democracy. The only place you can get a fair trial and not fear of having an appendage or worse chopped off. The only place where freedom can and does exist - even if it's underpinnings are religious. Israel of all the countries in that region should be the model that the Islamofascists can aspire to. Little Mahmoud should go home to his sandlot and stay there.