Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

I'm glad someone mentioned Dr. Shweitzer's work, since, as you point out, this is only confirmation of old news. The reason "it can still take that long for a major discovery to become accepted" is that human nature has not changed in the last several thousand years: we have our treasured beliefs, and we don't like to see them challenged, ESPECIALLY when changing them could render our past work pointless or even wrong.

The controversy is usually framed as Creation vs Evolution, but really it's Biochemistry vs Evolutionary Biology.

In the linked BBC article, I did not see any indication that these researchers took other recent findings into account, such as the discovery of water in ringwoodite, trapped in a diamond that came from the earth's mantle. Those who studied it concluded that there is "an ocean's worth of water" in the mantle. http://www.livescience.com/440...

I find it much more plausible that our oceans were derived from internal water than that asteroids deposited it. I mean, really, how much water could your average meteor deposit? Looking at the amount of water on our planet's surface, we would have to assume a long, horrendous bombardment. Asteroid material would then account for a large percentage of the earth's crust, and I don't hear anyone suggesting that.

And don't get me started on that whole "Theia" hypothesis. The only evidence for a planetary impact is the fact that we have a moon, and it's larger than one would expect. Very weak argument.

I have a co-worker from Ghana; I asked him if he has family back in West Africa and if they are worried. He laughed and said that Ghana has a good health care system, much better than Liberia, for example, and they are not worried. I was amazed by the contrast with US citizens (us), who are fretting so much about the disease. Granted, Ghana's government is taking the disease very seriously and is handling it professionally... another contrast.

I could show you a confirmed non-reworked rabbit fossil in Precambrian rock, and you would not accept it. Don't believe me? How about:

Pollen has been found in Precambrian metamorphic rock of the Roraima formation (Nature 210(5033):292–294) and elsewhere.

Fossil footprints found in Poland, dated at 400 million years -- 18 million years before the earliest Tiktaalik fossils (http://www.livescience.com/6004-legged-creature-footprints-force-evolution-rethink.html)

We know that all living things change over time due to environmental pressures and DNA mutation, yet we have 150+ million-year old "living fossils" such as the coelacanth and Wollemi pine. So we call it "evolutionary stasis", which means non-changing change.

And Biochemists tell us that the physical properties of proteins like collagen preclude any trace lasting longer than 3 million years under ideal conditions, yet Dr. Mary Schweitzer has found those and other proteins as well as soft tissues in dinosaur fossils dated over 68 million years old (Bone, 17 October 2012). So we tell the Biochemists they are wrong about the physical characteristics of molecules because what we found doesn't fit our paradigm!

The theory of evolution never falters under these blows, it only reshapes and incorporates the conflicting evidence. No, we may never question *whether* it happened, but only minor details of *how* it happened. Why? Because this is not about objectively examining evidence and coming to a conclusion, it's about examining evidence, applying the foundational assumptions of our worldview to the data, then working the conclusions in a way that they reinforce that worldview.

Because really, the only other possibility leads us to a Creator who just might demand an account for our lives.

Did you actually read the summary above, which states that the belief or non-belief in evolution was no predictor of scientific comprehension? That means they did not find the "incredible blind spot" you mention. Or perhaps you are trying to say that you believe the findings of the study are incorrect?

Also, you are comparing apples and oranges: it is one thing to explain skin pigment differences by deactivation/deletion of pigment genes -- then proceed to knock out pigment genes in a gray mouse and get white progeny; but it is quite another to stipulate that that mouse arose from a lizard by many tiny changes over eons. The latter cannot be tested as the former can; instead one examines evidence, then builds his theory on the foundation of his assumptions.

And if you try to tell me you start with no assumptions, your "blind spot" is greater than you think...

You're trying to sell me half a horse. *Selection*, whether natural or artificial, is what you are describing, and is not controversial in any context. The process by which new information might be generated, in the form of new genes for example, is hotly debated by the experts. Random mutation is woefully inadequate, gene duplication simply kicks the can down the road (where did that first gene come from?), as does the increasingly popular panspermia hypothesis.

Ah, but what if it was the arrangement of the stars that caused that amount of space to be available!

Well I for one welcome our robot overlords.

Aaaaaaaaaand it's gone.

Ah, another classic. The most memorable part of the game was hearing the voice say, "The wizard/valkyrie/warrior/elf is about to die!"

Shock! I didn't realize this was from 1985! Ugh, I feel old...

I know every poll has a long string of "why did you leave out X??" comments, but I have to second this one (and thanks to the mods who agreed). I put a lot of quarters into Galaga. That poor Fire button took quite a beating from me....

I have good news for you!

Due to Obamacare implementation, many companies are shortening the work week for a large percentage of their employees. You may get your wish after all.

/cynicism

This president promised he would boot the lobbyists; that they would not have access to his administration. The FCC appointment is only the latest evidence that that promise is broken. Conor McGrath wrote in the Journal of Public Affairs in September that Obama employs 119 (make that 120 now) former lobbyists.

Wow. If I fall off the wagon and break my promise, I'm like any other human. But when I do it over and over again with no sign of regret or shame, that's different. That's a matter of character, and you would be right to be slow to trust me in other areas.

Exactly. This should have been in the what-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.

Certainly there may be some astute and incisive remarks by a few commenters, but who's really gonna scroll down that far?

And more importantly, how will a comment challenging the results of a paper change anything?