The Tragedy of Eukaryote Evolution

archaea, bacteria, California, careers, coronavirus, death camps, eukaryotes, Evolution, gender binary, gender-reveal party, genders, heterosexuality, housework, Insider (magazine), Jane Ward, John Zmirak, Maine, New York University Press, nucleus, parody, prokaryotes, sex, sexuality, The Stream, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, tigers, UC Riverside, wildfires
Think of all the frustrated longings, misunderstandings, jealousy, and more entailed by the fact that males and females constitute separate genders. Source
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#5 Story of 2020: Coronavirus, Intelligent Design, and Evolution

2019-nCoV, body plans, Charles Darwin, coronavirus, COVID-19, Darwinian evolution, Design Inference, disease, DNA, Edward Jenner, epidemic, Evolution, evolutionary biologists, genetic engineers, Ignác Semmelweis, Intelligent Design, International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, living cell, Macroevolution, Medicine, MERS-CoV, Michael Dini, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, molecular biology, mutation, natural selection, Nature Medicine, New York Post, organs, oxygen, pandemic, quarantine, RNA, SARS-CoV-2, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, smallpox, species, The Origin of Species, Theodosius Dobzhansky, virus, World Health Organization, Wuhan
The measures being taken against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic owe nothing to evolutionary theory. Source
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#6 Story of 2020: Amid a Pandemic, Wisdom from C. S. Lewis

Adolf Hitler, Anglo-Irish writers, Anxiety, Belfast, bleach, Boxen, C.S. Lewis, Castlereagh Hills, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cherry blossoms, churches, coronavirus, Europe, Faith & Science, fear, grocery stores, gyms, hand sanitizer, isolation, Letters of C.S. Lewis, Marion Wade Center, movie theaters, Nazis, Northern Ireland, pandemic, restaurants, rubbing alcohol, Seattle, The Weight of Glory, toilet paper, tuberculosis, University of Washington, W.H. Lewis, war, Wheaton College, World War I, World War II, worry, “Learning in War-Time”
Lewis's advice seems eerily applicable to our own situation, just substitute “pandemic” for “war.” Source
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“Morality Pills”: Ethicist Calls for Drugs to Solve COVID Non-Compliance

bioengineering, bioethics, chemicals, conformity, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, ethics, Evolution, Friedrich Nietzsche, government mandates, intellectual elites, masks, Medicine, moral enhancement, morality, morality pills, oxytocin, Parker Crutchfield, Racism, teleology, The Conversation, transhumanism, Western Michigan University
Whatever one thinks about government mandates relating to the coronavirus, Parker Crutchfield’s “solution” is worse than the problem. Source
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Suicide by Zoom — Technology and Dehumanization

abortion, assisted suicide, California, coronavirus, Culture & Ethics, dehumanization, Humanize, Medicine, Meera Shah, New York State, oncologists, Oregon, oxymoron, pandemic, patients, Philadelphia Inquirer, Planned Parenthood, silver lining, suicide, Technology, telehealth, telemedicine, Wesley Smith, Zoom
Some have seen a silver lining in the pandemic and welcomed its encouragement of medicine practiced online, potentially freeing doctors to work across state borders, and widening access to care (or virtual care) generally. I’m not sure that’s to be celebrated in its entirety. The trend toward “telehealth” undercuts the crucial personal relationship between doctor and patient, which had already been in retreat before the virus came along. There are other downsides, too, including lethal ones. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, “The pandemic is helping U.S. abortion-rights advocates achieve a long-standing goal: Make it easier for women to use pills to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks.” Get your abortion pills online — what could be more convenient? NPR approves, quoting New York physician Meera Shah with Planned Parenthood: “I…
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Lancet Hydroxychloroquine Paper Scandal Illustrates Scientific Bias, Not Only in Medicine

Atheism, censorship, confirmation bias, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Evolution, Evolution News, human evolution, Human Origins, hydroxychloroquine, Indiegogo, James Todaro, Latin America, LinkedIn, Macroevolution, malaria, materialism, Medicine, Michael Behe, Microevolution, Neurodynamics Flow, origin of life, Sapan Desai, scientific culture, Surgisphere, The Guardian, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, World Health Organization
If you’ve ever wondered how much of high-stakes science is politicized, reflecting the ideological views of the scientists involved despite all their insistences to the contrary, look no further than this. A blockbuster paper in the leading British medical journal, The Lancet, reported increased mortality associated with the “controversial” malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, being tested for use against COVID-19. Why would a malaria drug, of a value that has yet to be determined, be controversial? You already know the answer: it’s because of the identity of the medicine’s biggest cheerleader. He Looked Them Up on LinkedIn In briefest terms, scientists drew on shady data from a previously obscure company, Surgisphere, operated by a skeleton crew with a questionable Internet profile. Having won the approval of the journal’s expert peer reviewers, they…
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Doctor’s Diary: Fear Is a Gift from Our Designer

compassion, coronavirus, courage, emotions, fear, Gavin de Becker, Intelligent Design, joy, Love, murder hornets, pain, pandemic, parking structure, patients, physicians, sweat, The Gift of Fear, yellow jackets
Editor’s note: Dr. Simmons is the author most recently of Are We Here to Re-Create Ourselves? He is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. As a physician, I have cared for many patients who were fearful. Often with good reason, but not always. Might fear actually be a purposeful design? Might it be present to protect a person? One might liken fear to pain, which is a similar gift. How would we have survived as a species if running bare-footed across sharp rocks or being stung by an irritated hive of yellow jackets (or murder hornets!) didn’t hurt? Without pain how would a child learn not to touch a hot stove? Or, pull away immediately to lessen the damage? In 1997, Gavin de Becker authored The Gift of…
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Thomas Aquinas Weighs in on the Coronavirus and Public Policy

Andrew McDiarmid, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, double effect, Evolution News, health, ID The Future, Medicine, neurosurgeon, pandemic, Podcast, policymakers, political calculations, public policy, science, Thomas Aquinas, transparency, WHO
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with pediatric neurosurgeon and professor Michael Egnor about public policy decisions regarding the coronavirus. Download the podcast or listen to it here. In a conversation based on a recent article for Evolution News, Egnor says scientists should have “stayed in their lane,” giving policymakers the information that science can provide about a potential pandemic, and left the political calculations alone. He argues that WHO failed in one of its primary jobs, which is providing timely information and recommendations for preventing and slowing the spread of pandemics. They sat on information about COVID-19 for weeks, long after they knew there was a serious problem in China. Egnor also urges policymakers to apply science along with other expert information in a…
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Stephen Meyer: Teach the (Coronavirus) Controversy

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Our colleague and CSC director Stephen Meyer has a terrific article up now at The Federalist. As readers will know, when it comes to evolution education, the Center for Science & Culture advocates “teaching the controversy.” Note Meyer’s application of the “Teach the Controversy” principle to how medical opinion is being given to U.S. leaders who make policy decisions about a national response to COVID-19. As Dr. Meyer observes, “The administration’s virus taskforce has recommended only a gradual lifting of stay-at-home orders and has established criteria for full re-opening that could take months to satisfy in many states.” His proposal is that rather than listen only to a group of experts with one set view, it would be productive to listen to another group as well, a “Team B,” or “what…
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