Crucifixion—The Archaeological Evidence

Last week, an angry mob of Afghani protesters enraged by the recent burning of a Koran in Florida — their angers stoked by local Muslim leaders — stormed a U.N. compound and murdered at least 7 people. The only thing more upsetting than this incident has been the public response blaming these deaths on Pastor Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp, a member of Jones’ congregation at the Dove World Outreach Center, who torched a Koran on March 20.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-blame-free-speech-for-murders-in.html

On a related note, is this an appropriate thing to say to a Jew?

I did not say you think like Hitler, or hold the same opinions as Hitler, or do terrible things to people like Hitler. Obviously and most emphatically you don't. I said you shriek like Hitler. That is the only point of resemblance, and it is true. You shriek and yell and rant like Hitler. Not all the time, of course. You also tell very good jokes, and tell them brilliantly. You deservedly get lots of laughs, as a good comedian should. But throughout your speeches you periodically rise to climaxes of shrieking rant, and that is just like Hitler.

here

Fascinating interview with Lynn Margulis in Discover Magazine.

Some notable quotes below the fold: Read the rest of this entry »

Over a six-year period, a bacterium from the genus Rickettsia swept through the whitefly population, assuring survival advantages for the whiteflies and for itself. The new research appears in the April 8 issue of Science.

“Whiteflies that have this infection have greater fitness, at least in the laboratory,” said the senior author of the study, Martha S. Hunter, a professor of entomology at the University of Arizona. “We’ll be testing whether this fitness benefit exists in the field as well.”

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There's also an interesting paper here on endosymbiosis:

The recognition that mitochondria and plastids are derived from alphaproteobacterial and cyanobacterial endosymbionts, respectively, was one of the greatest advances in modern evolutionary biology. Researchers have yet however to provide detailed cell biological descriptions of how these once free-living prokaryotes were transformed into intracellular organelles.

A key area of study in this realm is elucidating the evolution of the molecular machines that control organelle protein topogenesis. Alcock et al. (Science 2010, 327 [5966]:649-650) suggest that evolutionary innovations that established the mitochondrial protein sorting system were driven by the alphaproteobacterial endosymbiont (an "insiders' perspective"). In contrast, here we argue that evolution of mitochondrial and plastid topogenesis may better be understood as an outcome of selective pressures acting on host cell chromosomes (the "outsiders' view").

here

The video series is now on youtube. Click on the video to see the all the parts, this is part 1

The entire series is now on Dr. Craig's channel on youtube. There was some discussion here about it so I figured I'd make it it's own thread.

As some of you might know (or perhaps no one noticed?), I've been interested in Mike Gene's concept of FLE for a long time. I've defended it, and even tried to expand it into different areas of Biology. Unfortunately, I can no longer in good conscious defend FLE. I am no longer a proponent of it. This marks another turning point in my long journey. I've dabbled in many different schools of thought, FLE proponentry was my longest stint. And now, it's time to change hats again. I've been thinking about Quantum intentionality and it just makes a lot more sense in terms of logic and the evidence.

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