Richard Dawkins was recently issued a challenge --disprove creation in one sentence. I can do that myself. Here it is: If we can see Andromeda --some 2.5 MILLION years distant from earth --then creationism is false!

The recommendation, published in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows from the Academy’s Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on ‘‘Evolution in Health and Medicine’’ held in April 2009 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. The paper’s authors say “Better education about evolutionary biology and its applications in medicine will have substantial benefits for physicians, their patients, public health workers, researchers, and other health professionals.”

The GOP is not a political party; it's a crime syndicate! It is also described as an irrational, kooky cult that cannot deal with facts or logic but is freaked out by 'scary images', 'boogiemen' and vague or even non-existent threats like terrorists, commies, liberals or normal sex.

What the hell are they talking about? The earth is 6000 years old and Ardi rode to school on a triceratops!!!!! The discovery sheds new light on human evolution during a previously little known epoch. Scientists believe that humans and apes both descended from a "last common ancestor,'' an even more primitive primate that lived between 7 million and 9 million years ago. Ardi isn't the last common ancestor, White said, but "it's the closest we've come to the last common ancestor.'' A few older hominid skulls and teeth have been discovered, but nothing as complete as Ardi or Lucy.

Talk about a back-to-school special! Watch out co-eds, 'cause this year, Kirk Cameron and his sidekick Ray Comfort are teaming up with Answers in Genesis (the pseudo-scientists who brought you the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY) to convince you and your school chums that Darwin was misogynistic, racist Nazi. Their "Origin into Schools" effort will target 50 major college campuses on Nov. 21, where Creationists will be giving out free copies of Darwin's On the Origin of Species on the classic tome's 150-year anniversary. Only these special editions of the book that introduced the world to the concept of evolution will be prefaced with a 50-page introduction written by Comfort, AKA Banana Man.

The San people of southern Africa, who have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, are likely to be the oldest population of humans on Earth, according to the biggest and most detailed analysis of African DNA. The San, also known as bushmen, are directly descended from the original population of early human ancestors who gave rise to all other groups of Africans and, eventually, to the people who left the continent to populate other parts of the world. The study helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.

UPDATE. On Friday, Texas education leaders "forged a compromise" to pass a new state curriculum for teaching evolution. Teachers will no longer be required to teach "the weaknesses of all scientific theories." However, state regulations will instead require teachers "to encourage students to scrutinize 'all sides' of scientific theories," a move criticized by evolution proponents. The new rules, to be in place for the next decade, will impact not only what Texas students learn, but what textbook publishers include in science textbooks. "Through a series of contradictory and convoluted amendments, the board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks," according to Kathy Miller, president of the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network.

"Proponents of an amendment that would mandate teachers explain the “strengths and weaknesses” of the theory of evolution to Texas high school students suffered a defeat Thursday morning, when the measure failed during a preliminary vote. The vote was 7-7, and the amendment needed a simple majority in order to pass. However, the board still has to make a final vote on Friday and depending on political pressure, the decision could change in the next twenty-four hours. ... The Texas Freedom Network, an organization that has been fighting against teaching the 'strengths and weaknesses' of evolution called the vote 'a victory for sound science in the state of Texas,' on its blog just minutes after the vote."

Footprints found in Kenya that resemble those left in wet sand by beach goers today show that 1.5 million years ago a human ancestor walked like we do with anatomically modern feet, scientists said on Thursday. The remains of the footprints found in sedimentary rock near Ileret in northern Kenya most likely were left by a human ancestor called Homo erectus, also known as Homo ergaster, an international team of scientists wrote in the journal Science. The scientists found a series of footprints, including one apparently left by a child, left by individuals walking on a muddy river bank. Judging from stride length, they estimated the individuals were about 5-foot-9 in height.

There are still scientific debates to be had about the details of how natural selection operates – for example, to what extent characteristics acquired during life can be passed on to off spring via chemical modifications to DNA – but there is no serious disagreement in the scientific community about the fundamentals of Darwin's theory. A century and a half of science from fossils to DNA has turned up nothing that would bring Darwin's theory down. In fact, it has made his defences stronger.

During the Bush regime, a GOP constituency of religious fanatics, fundamentalists, and deniers of science mounted a full-court press against the principles of Democracy and the enlightenment. They put forward a dark age agenda: 'Intelligent Design', a stealth religious ideology cooked up by right wing focus groups --not scientists. It is religion under a false flag. The body of evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming though ignored, misstated and rationalized by those having a political agenda.

Senator WIse of Florida intends to introduce a bill on the teaching of intelligent design in spite of the fact it was already taken up by the Florida State Board of Education.

A team of researchers are reporting the ongoing emergence of a new species of fruit fly--and the sequential development of a new species of wasp--in the February 6 issue of the journal Science. Jeff Feder, a University of Notre Dame biologist, and his colleagues say the introduction of apples to America almost 400 years ago ultimately may have changed the behavior of a fruit fly, leading to its modification and the subsequent modification of a parasitic wasp that feeds on it. The result is a chain reaction of biodiversity where the modification of one species triggers the sequential modification of a second, dependent species.

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance." Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

Evolution of reptiles into mammals and then humans has given us three unique brain systems: the reptile brain; the mammalian brain; the human brain. Perhaps no story better illuminates the spectrum of potential in our triune brain than that of "The man who lit the world"... history's premier visionary engineer, Nikola Tesla.

A Dinosaur Saddles exclusive animated video. Why banning the teaching of evolution in schools isn't always a bad idea.

Pink iguanas unknown to Charles Darwin during his visits to the Galapagos islands may provide evidence of species divergence far earlier than the English naturalist's famous finches, researchers said Monday. The findings also for the first time describe the black-striped reptiles -- first seen in 1986 and only a few more times since -- as a new species, said Gabriele Gentile of the University Tor Vergata in Rome, who led the study. They also add to understanding of the evolution of species on the remote islands, which remain much as they were millions of years ago and which inspired Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Many of its species are found nowhere else.

Apocalypse (Greek: Apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil") is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the end of the world, which may be a shortening of the phrase apokalupsis eschaton, which literally means "revelation at the end of the æon, or age.1

For creationists -- Christians who believe the Bible's first chapter of Genesis is the literal telling of the universe's start -- the museum is a godsend. Many have returned with family and friends, some from faraway states arguing it's one of the few with a Christian worldview. Many scientists say they fear damaging effects on science education when young people tour the museum and fail to square its lessons with what they're learning in school. One display shows humans coexisting with dinosaurs -- despite the two species being separated by 65 million years in most science texts.

It seems to me that fear plays an integral role in politics. I suspect there is a connection between the fear of death (terror management), the rejection of evolution, a predisposition to create fact from fiction when faced with frightening situations…and a convergence of all three in politics.