What's New Friday January 4, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 4 Jan 08,   Washington, DC

1.  DARWINISM: IS EVOLUTION COMPATIBLE WITH FAITH?
The National Academies of Science yesterday released a new edition of 
Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a report first issued in 1984 and 
updated in 1999.  Much has happened in the war between science and 
religion in the intervening years.   The panel that produced the report 
was headed by Francisco Ayala, a biologist at UC, Irvine, and a former 
Dominican priest.  Clearly intended for a lay audience, the report refers 
to evolution as "the foundation of modern biology."   Hearing only the 
briefest mention of the NAS report on the morning news, I went to 
Google "News" to get an idea of the press reaction.  The first item that 
came up was a press release from The Discovery Institute calling 
the "foundation of modern biology" description "outrageous hype."  The 
Discovery Institute, you will recall, is where intelligent design was 
dreamed up.  Released on the day of the Iowa Caucus, the Science, 
Evolution, and Creationism report was all but ignored by mainstream 
media.   The report stresses that acceptance of evolution does not require 
abandoning belief in God.  However, there is a growing mountain of 
evidence supporting evolution and not a shred of evidence for the 
existence of God. 

2. THE NOMINATION: WHO ELECTED IOWA TO DECIDE? 
Ironically, on the day NAS released its report, Science, Evolution and 
Creationism, the Republican Caucus in Iowa was picking an avowed 
creationist to be their choice as the nominee for President of the United 
States.  Could we have designed a worse procedure for selecting nominees 
for "leader of the free world"?  The NAS report was intended to explain to 
the American people the absolute certainty of evolution, and the sheer 
foolishness of creationism.  Asked on ABC Good Morning America if he 
thought creationism should be taught in the schools, he dodged, saying he 
favors education.

3. ATLANTIS: STUCK ON A LAUNCH PAD FOR ANOTHER MONTH.
There it sits like a monument to past glories, on the launchpad where it 
has been for a month.  Maybe in another month they will get the fuel gauge 
working, but by then a Russian cargo ship may be blocking the docking port 
on the ISS.   The aging shuttle was to have been launched on December 6.  
They still have 13 launches to go in the next two years to complete the 
ISS in time to abandon it on schedule.

4. BEACHED: PROTECTING WHALES FROM THE NAVY’S SONAR.
A federal Judge yesterday severely limited the Navy’s use of sonar on a 
training range of the Southern California coast.  Balancing national 
security and the welfare of whales is not a new problem.  Twenty years 
ago, in an effort to monitor global temperature change, it was proposed to 
locate huge hydrophones off lonely, fog-shrouded Herd Island in the 
Antarctic, perhaps the gloomiest place on Earth - which is why no one 
lives there. But whales love it. Sound pulses from Herd would be detected 
in Coos Bay, OR. Speed of sound is related to water temperature, giving an 
ocean-average temperature. It was cancelled to protect the whales.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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