Geoscience Research Institute
    — News Archive (December 2003)

DISCLAIMER:  The following links do not necessarily represent endorsement by the Geoscience Research Institute, but are meant to provide information from a wide range of viewpoints and expertise on scientific issues, religious issues, and the interface between the two, particularly in the area of creation and evolution.

DECEMBER 30

• The Techno Sapiens Are Coming / January 2004 / C. Christopher Hook / Christianity Today — When God fashioned man and woman, he called his creation very good. Transhumanists say that, by manipulating our bodies with microscopic tools, we can do better.
  • Exploring the Future of Accelerating Change (conference) / September 12-14, 2003 / Stanford University
• "The Origin of Malaria: Mixed Messages from Genetic Diversity" / 2004 / Daniel L. Hartl / Nature Reviews Microbiology, v.2, p.15-22
• The National Creed / December 30, 2003 / David Brooks / New York Times — political parties grow more orthodox, while religions grow more fluid
• Experimental Lit / December 28, 2003 / Laura Miller / New York Times — evolutionary psychology, like all alluringly comprehensive Theories of Everything, can foster both valuable insights and the daffiest poppycock
• Strong Earthquake Hits Central California / December 23, 2003 / Charlie LeDuff and Dean E. Murphy / New York Times
• Lomborg celebrates ministry ruling / 22 December 2003 / BBC News — the scientist who wrote a best-selling book that set out to show the world was not heading for environmental meltdown is celebrating a victory
• RATE Posters Well Received at AGU Conference / December 2003 / Institute for Creation Research
  • Precambrian zircons yield a helium diffusion age of 6,000 years (pdf) / D. Russell Humphreys, Steven A. Austin, John R.Baumgardner, Andrew A. Snelling / American Geophysical Union
  • The Enigma of the Ubiquity of ¹⁴C in Organic Samples Older than 100 ka (pdf) / John R. Baumgardner, D. Russell Humphreys, Andrew A. Snelling, Steven A. Austin / American Geophysical Union
  • Abundant Po Radiohalos in Phanerozoic Granites and Timescale Implications for their Formation (pdf) / Andrew A. Snelling, John R. Baumgardner, and Larry Vardiman / American Geophysical Union
• Jesus With a Genius Grant (pdf) / November 23, 2003 / Alan Rifkin / Los Angeles Times — Fuller Theological Seminary is teaching that smart Christians can have it all--science and the Bible, body and soul, left and right. To some, that's apocalypse now. To others, there's no turning back.
• History and Future of the Relationship Between the Geosciences and Religion: Litigation, Education, Reconciliation? / November 5, 2003 / John F. Bratton (presiding) / Geological Society of America (oral session #249), Seattle, WA
  • In the Beginning: Religion and Geology in the Era of Nicolaus Steno / Alan H. Cutler
  • Stasis and Evolution in Grassroots Creationism / Eugenie C. Scott
  • Countering Public Misperceptions of the Historical Sciences / Keith B. Miller
  • Intelligent Design and Young-Earth Creationism—Investigating Nested Hierarchies of Philosophy and Belief / Marcus R. Ross
  • The Genesis Flood in Pre-Darwinian American Geology: The Case of Edward Hitchcock / Rodney L. Stiling
  • Religious Attitudes, the Wilderness Adventure, and the Study of Earth History: Reflections from the Colorado River Expedition of 1871-1872 / David B. Bieler
  • Strata or Tabulae? George McCready Price's Critique of Biostratigraphy / Ralph Stearley
  • Geology Education at Evangelical Wheaton College: History and Approaches / Stephen O. Moshier, Jeffrey K. Greenberg, and David E. Maas
  • Saints, Popes, and Jesuits: An Overview of the Interaction of the Catholic Church with the Geosciences / John F. Bratton
  • The Evolution of Creationist Perspective on the Fossil Equid Series / Kurt P. Wise, Todd C. Wood, and David P. Cavanaugh
  • How to Not Get Quoted by Antievolutionists / David C. Campbell
  • Using the Concept of Apparent Age to Invite Creationists on Board the Geological Bandwagon / John R. Wagner
  • The Relationship between Religion and Science: Moving from Antagonism to Mutual Respect / Gregg R. Davidson
• “Noah's Flood” and the Late Quaternary Geological and Archaeological History of the Black Sea and Adjacent Basins / November 4, 2003 / Valentina Yanko-Hombach and Jim Teller (presiding) / Geological Society of America (oral session #189), Seattle, WA
• "Faith and the Human Genome" / September 2003 / Francis S. Collins / Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, v.55, n.3, p.142-153
• Searching for the ‘magic bullet’ / March-May 2003 / Ken Ham / Creation, v.25, n.2, p.34-37 — Why do creation-defenders often seem to be too quick to jump onto the latest exciting-sounding ‘evidences’?
• Misleading Math about the Earth / January 2002 / John Rennie / Scientific American — science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist

DECEMBER 22

• National Faculty Leadership Conference ... Called to Make a Difference / June 24-27, 2004 / Washington D.C. area — a national Christian conference for university professors, administrators and those preparing for a career in academia
• Exploratorium: Journey to Mars / January 2004 / San Francisco, CA — webcasts, video conferences with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and daily images from JPL will describe the twin Mars Rovers rendezvous with the red planet
• Reason and Faith, Eternally Bound / December 20, 2003 / Edward Rothstein / New York Times
• The Field that Ate the Milky Way / 19 December 2003 / Shawna Williams / Physical Review Focus — a magnetic field has already swallowed our entire galaxy, and no one knows where it came from or when it arrived
• "EVOLUTION: Climb Every Mountain?" requires free registration / 19 December 2003 / Santiago F. Elena and Rafael Sanjuαn / Science, v.302, n.5653, p.2074-2075 — as a bacterial population becomes a niche specialist, it is less able to adapt to other niches
• "BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR: Illuminating the Dark Universe" requires free registration / 19 December 2003 / Charles Seife / Science, v.302, n.5653, p.2038-2039 — dark energy, dark matter, the age of the universe, a precise speed of expansion
  • Science breakthrough of the year: proof of our exploding universe / December 19, 2003 / Tim Radford / The Guardian (UK)
  • Magazine names age of universe 'discovery of the year' / 18 December 2003 / CBC News (Canada)
• "BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR: The Runners-Up" requires free registration / 19 December 2003 / Science, v.302, n.5653, p.2039-2045
  • Cosmic blasts — several discoveries lifted veils that had shrouded the most energetic explosions in the universe: titanic blasts of energy called gamma ray bursts
• Religion: For Dummies / December 18, 2003 / Laura Sheahen (interviewer) / beliefnet.com — scientist Richard Dawkins on Darwin, the Sistine Chapel, and why the world would be better off without religion
• "A larval Devonian lungfish" requires free registration / 18 December 2003 / Keith S. Thomson, Mark Sutton, and Bethia Thomas / Nature, v.426, p.833-834
• "Recent ice ages on Mars" requires free registration / 18 December 2003 / James W. Head, John F. Mustard, Mikhail A. Kreslavsky, Ralph E. Milliken, and David R. Marchant / Nature, v.426, p.797-802
• "Palaeolithic ivory sculptures from southwestern Germany and the origins of figurative art" requires free registration / 18 December 2003 / Nicholas J. Conard / Nature, v.426, p.830-832
• Carvings reveal early European's artistic skill / 17 December 2003 / Will Knight / New Scientist
• New doubts on dark energy / 17 December 2003 / Belle Dumι / PhysicsWeb (Institute of Physics)
• Oldest evidence of photosynthesis / 17 December 2003 / Paul Rincon / BBC News Online — scientists claim to have found the oldest evidence of photosynthesis - the most important chemical reaction on Earth - in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks
• Coral reveals ancient origins of human genes / 16 December 2003 / Carina Dennis / Nature science update — invertebrate DNA raises questions about evolution models
• Waiting for the Supermutants / December 14, 2003 / Paul Gordon / Los Angeles Times — how we know Darwin got it wrong
• Genome scan shows human-chimp differences / 12 December 2003 / John Whitfield / Nature science update — variations hint at how our lifestyle is reflected in our genes
• Nobel protester wins alternative prize / 10 December 2003 / Helen Pearson / Nature science update — Stockholm ceremony proceeds despite dispute
• The Guide: Creation ... Chance or Design? / December 2003 / David Tyler / Evangelical Press — see also Amazon
• The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross / December 2003 / George L. Murphy / Trinity Press Intl. — see also Amazon
• Pompeii: A Novel / November 2003 / Robert Harris / Random House — see also Amazon
  • review: 'Pompeii': Under the Volcano / December 21, 2003 / Daniel Mendelsohn / New York Times
• Whose View of Life?: Embryos, Cloning, and Stem Cells / November 2003 / Jane Maienschein / Harvard University Press — see also Amazon
• Eight Preposterous Propositions: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming / November 2003 / Robert Ehrlich / Princeton University Press — see also Amazon
• Science and the Study of God: A Mutuality Model for Theology and Science / November 2003 / Alan G. Padgett / Wm. B. Eerdmans — see also Amazon
• Tycho & Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership That Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens / January 2003 / Kitty Ferguson / Walker & Co — see also Amazon
• EarthScope — the National Science Foundations has awarded $219 million for applying modern observational, analytical and telecommunications technologies to investigate the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the physical processes controlling earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
• The Little Book of Time / July 2002 / Klaus Mainzer / Copernicus Books — see also Amazon
• The Future of Spacetime / May 2002 / Stephen Hawking, Kip S. Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris, and Alan Lightman / W.W. Norton — see also Amazon
• "I'm a Christian Too" ... The Greatest "Proof" of Evolution / September-October 1999 / Tom Willis / Creation Science Association for Mid-America
• Prisons of Light - Black Holes / September 1996 / Kitty Ferguson / Cambridge University Press — see also Amazon

DECEMBER 15

• Radioactive potassium may be major heat source in Earth's core / December 15, 2003 / BrightSurf.com
• World takes on evolution / 12 December 2003 / Mark Looy / Answers in Genesis
• Magnetic Field Is Fading, but No Dire Effects Are Foreseen / December 12, 2003 / Kenneth Chang / New York Times
• "Genome Comparisons Hold Clues to Human Evolution" requires free registration / 12 December 2003 / Elizabeth Pennisi / Science, v.302, n.5652, p.1876-1877
  • Comparing Genomes Shows Split Between Chimps and People / December 12, 2003 / Nicholas Wade / New York Times
• "Marsupial Origins" requires free registration / 12 December 2003 / Richard L. Cifelli and Brian M. Davis / Science, v.302, n.5652, p.1899-1900
  • "An Early Cretaceous Tribosphenic Mammal and Metatherian Evolution" requires free registration / 12 December 2003 / Zhe-Xi Luo,Qiang Ji, John R. Wible, and Chong-Xi Yuan / Science, v.302, n.5652, p.1934-1940 — This fossil from China dates to 125 million years ago and extends the record of marsupial relatives with skeletal remains by 50 million years.
• The world's expanding waistline: The shape of things to come / December 11, 2003 / The Economist
• Planet-formation model indicates Earthlike planets might be common / December 11, 2003 / BrightSurf.com
• "Geochronology: Dating of the Herto hominin fossils" requires free registration / 11 December 2003 / Peter Faupl, Wolfram Richter, and Christoph Urbanek / Nature, v.426, p.621-622 — "These important discoveries may therefore be distinctly younger than reported."
• Cave colours reveal mental leap / 11 December 2003 / David Whitehouse / BBC News Online — red-stained bones dug up in a cave in Israel are prompting researchers to speculate that symbolic thought emerged much earlier than they had believed
• Scientist Links Man to Climate Over the Ages / December 10, 2003 / Kenneth Chang / New York Times
• Chimp genome draft completed / 10 December 2003 / Helen Pearson / Nature science update — closest relative's code will highlight human qualities
• Humanity? Maybe It's in the Wiring / December 9, 2003 / Sandra Blakeslee / New York Times — neuroscientists have given up looking for the seat of the soul, but they are still seeking what may be special about human brains
• No fiery extinction for dinosaurs / 9 December 2003 / Paul Rincon / BBC News Online — it is unlikely the dinosaurs perished in a global firestorm triggered by the asteroid strike on Earth 65 million years ago
• "Episodic hyperthermic dysoxia: cause of the Permian/Triassic and Triassic/Jurassic mass extinction events and for the evolution of the saurischian/avian respiratory systems" (abstract) / November 4, 2003 / Peter D. Ward / Seattle Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America
• "Death by hydrogen sulfide: a kill mechanism for the end-Permian mass extinction" (abstract) / November 3, 2003 / Lee R. Kump, Alexander Pavlov, Michael Arthur, Yashuhiro Kato, and Anthony Riccardi / Seattle Annual Meeting, Geological Society of America
• Secular change worthy of Christian study / October 10-11, 2003 (conference dates) / Julia C. Keller / Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology — Princeton University held a conference on the topic of how people of faith should respond to the challenges of secularism
• See the Glory / Richard Hammar — each observing session with one of my telescopes is a form of worship; this website shares my images of the heavens with others
• Prehistoric Art (virtual museum) / Kemerovo State University, Russia
• "Information, science and biology" / 1996 / Werner Gitt / TJ (formerly Creation ex Nihilo Technical Journal), v.10, n.2, p.181-187

DECEMBER 9

• Darwinism, Design, & Public Education / December 2003 / John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer / Michigan State University Press — see also Amazon
• Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge / November 2003 / David N. Livingstone / University of Chicago Press — see also Amazon
• The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number / September 2003 / Mario Livio / Broadway Books (Random House) — see also Amazon
• The Calvinist Copernicans: The Reception of the New Astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575-1750 / September 2003 / Rienk Vermij / University of Chicago Press — see also Amazon
• A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe / July 2003 / Gino Segre / Penguin — see also Amazon
• Grand Canyon: A Different View / May 2003 / Tom Vail (compiler) / Master Books — see also Amazon
• Einstein's Luck: The Truth Behind Some of the Greatest Scientific Discoveries / May 2003 / John Waller / Oxford University Press — an eye-opening look at the dark side of science and the less than savory dealings of some of the greatest scientists of all time; see also Amazon
• The One True Platonic Heaven: A Scientific Fiction of the Limits of Knowledge / May 2003 / John L. Casti / Joseph Henry Press (National Academies Press) — see also Amazon
• Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life / May 2003 / Leonard Mlodinow / Warner Books — see also Amazon
• God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science / March 2003 / Neil A. Manson (editor) / Routledge — see also Amazon
• The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega--the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe / January 2003 / John Barrow / Pantheon Books (Random House) — see also Amazon
• The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science / December 2002 / Scott L. Montgomery / University of Chicago Press — see also Amazon
• Origins: The Quest for Our Cosmic Roots / December 2002 / Tom Yulsman / Institute of Physics Pub. — see also Amazon
• Observer's Guide to Stellar Evolution: The Birth, Life, and Death of Stars / December 2002 / Mike Inglis / Springer-Verlag — see also Amazon
• Special Relativity and Motions Faster than Light / November 2002 / Moses Fayngold / Wiley — see also Amazon
• Creationism and Scriptural Geology, 1817-1857 / November 2002 / John M. Lynch / Thoemmes Press — see also Amazon
• Flatterland: Like Flatland Only More So / March 2002 / Ian Stewart / Perseus Publishing — see also Amazon
• How Blind Is the Watchmaker?: Nature's Design & the Limits of Naturalistic Science / April 2001 / Neil Broom / Intervarsity Press — see also Amazon
• Vestiges and the Debate Before Darwin / December 2000 / John M. Lynch (editor) / Thoemmes Press — see also Amazon
• The Becoming of Time: Integrating Physical and Religious Time / April 1995 / Lawrence W. Fagg / Scholars Press — see also Amazon

DECEMBER 8

• Courtly Combatant / December 13, 2003 / John Perry / World on the Web, v.18, n.48 — Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson has been in the lion's den since 1991, when he horrified the "mandarins of science" by publicly challenging Darwinism. Now in his 60s and despite suffering the effects of a stroke, WORLD's Daniel of the Year continues to befriend the lions even as he declaws them intellectually.
• "Forensic Science: Oxymoron?" [full article] / 5 December 2003 / Donald Kennedy / Science, v.302, n.5651, p.1625
• "An Ostracode Crustacean with Soft Parts from the Lower Silurian" requires free registration / 5 December 2003 / David J. Siveter, Mark D. Sutton, Derek E. G. Briggs, and Derek J. Siveter / Science, v.302, n.5651, p.1749-1751 — how eerily similar the soft tissue anatomy of the 426-million-year-old specimen is to that of modern relatives
  • "INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY: Gutsy Fossil Sets Record for Staying the Course" requires free registration / 5 December 2003 / Erik Stokstad / Science, v.302, n.5651, p.1645
  • Researchers Discover Oldest Male Fossil / December 5, 2003 / New York Times (Associated Press)
  • A Fossil, Decidedly Male, and Old as the Hills / December 5, 2003 / James Gorman / New York Times
• A Meteoric View of Life / December 4, 2003 / New York Times
• We’ve Been Lied To: Christianity and the Rise of Science / December 4, 2003 / Charles Colson / BreakPoint
• Roast dinosaur off the menu? / 3 December 2003 / Philip Ball / Nature science update — giant meteorite impact 65 million years ago may not have set the world on fire
• Jury delivers split verdict on plague researcher / 3 December 2003 / Erika Check / Nature science update — US microbiologist Thomas Butler guilty of theft, fraud, and illegally mailing bacteria
• New fossils from Ethiopia open a window on Africa's 'missing years' / 3 December 2003 / Cheryl Dybas / EurekAlert!
• Solar activity reaches new high / 2 December 2003 / Belle Dumι / PhysicsWeb — geophysicists have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has been for over a 1000 years
• Neanderthal 'face' found in Loire / 2 December 2003 / Jonathan Amos / BBC News Online — a flint object with a striking likeness to a human face may be one of the best examples of art by Neanderthal man ever found
• For a Good Time, Well, Don't Call Dad / December 2, 2003 / Mary Duenwald / New York Times — the fledgling field of Darwinian literary studies in which scholars try to draw connections between literature and evolutionary science
• When Fish Fluoresce, Can Teenagers Be Far Behind? / December 2, 2003 / James Gorman / New York Times
• ARN-Announce, n.34 / December 1, 2003 / Dennis Wagner / Access Research Network
• "PSEUDOGENES: Are They 'Junk' or Functional DNA?" / December 2003 / Evgeniy S. Balakirev and Francisco J. Ayala / Annual Review of Genetics, v.37, p.123-151
• Language tree rooted in Turkey / 27 November 2003 / John Whitfield / Nature science update — evolutionary ideas give farmers credit for Indo-European tongues
  • "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin" requires free registration / 27 November 2003 / Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson / Nature, v.426, p.435-439
• American super-quake caused Japanese deluge / 25 November 2003 / Betsy Mason / Nature science update — historic texts link tsunami to record-breaking groundswell
• Long Gone Neanderthals / November 25, 2003 / Jay Ingram and David Newland / Discovery Channel
• Dinosaur Museum to Open in Utah / November 25, 2003 / ABC News — a $6 million museum in northeastern Utah will be the new home to 17 life-sized replicas of prehistoric life
• Organelle's discovery challenges theory, could alter approach to disease treatment / 17 June 2003 / Jim Barlow / EurekAlert! — the discovery within a prokaryotic organism challenges the theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles
• Predator-Prey Interactions in the Fossil Record / January 2003 / Patricia H. Kelley, Michał Kowalewski, and Thor A. Hansen (editors) / Kluwer Academic - Plenum Publishers — see also Amazon
• How Darwinists Think (DVD and VHS) / 2003 / Phillip E. Johnson / Access Research Network
• Raising Questions about Evolution in the Schools (DVD and VHS) / 2003 / Phillip E. Johnson / Access Research Network
• North American Museum of Ancient Life / Thanksgiving Point / Lehi, Utah
• "Billion-fold Acceleration of Radioactivity Demonstrated in Laboratory" / 2001 / John Woodmorappe / Creation ex Nihilo Technical Journal, v.15, n.2, p.4-6

DECEMBER 1

• "New RATE Data Support a Young World" / December 2003 / D. Russell Humphreys / Impact, n.366 (Institute for Creation Research)
• "Willingly Ignorant" / December 2003 / Henry M. Morris / Back to Genesis, n.180 (Institute for Creation Research)
• Evangelical Colleges Make Marks in a Secular World / November 30, 2003 / Stuart Silverstein and Andy Olsen / Los Angeles Times — enrollment rates and public acceptance are up as scholarship moves toward the mainstream
• 'Life's Solution': It Had to Happen / November 30, 2003 / Elliott Sober / New York Times
• THE WHINE SPECTATOR: Conduct Unbecoming / November 27, 2003 / David Gelernter / Wall Street Journal — the world's smallest violin plays for Raymond Damadian, Nobel Prize loser
• A Course in Evolution, Taught by Chimps / November 25, 2003 / Nicholas Wade / New York Times
• Ohio faces a new challenge in intelligent-design debate / November 24, 2003 / Lawrence M. Krauss and Patricia Princehouse / The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH)
• New Worlds in the Cosmos: The Discovery of Exoplanets / October 2003 / Michel Mayor and Pierre-Yves Frei / Cambridge University Press — see also Amazon
• Making Truth: The Roles of Metaphor in Science / June 2003 / Theodore L. Brown / University of Illinois Press — see also Amazon
• Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe / April 2003 / Victor J. Stenger / Prometheus Books — see also Amazon
• Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning / March 2003 / Martin J. Rees / Perseus (Basic) Books — how terror, error, and environmental disaster threaten humankind's future in this century on earth and beyond; see also Amazon
• Scientific Method in Practice / December 2002 / Hugh G. Gauch, Jr / Cambridge University Press — see also Amazon
• If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... Where Is Everybody? / October 2002 / Stephen Webb / Copernicus Books (Springer) — fifty solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the problem of extraterrestrial life; see also Amazon
• Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries / October 2001 / Steven Weinberg / Harvard University Press — see also Amazon
• Origin of Life and the Universe: Science of Creation / June 2001 / Paul D. Garnett / 1stBooks Library — see also Amazon
• Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physics and Reality, a Western Perspective / 2001 / Shimon Malin / Oxford University Press — see also Amazon

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