Ger a load of this:

A 375 million year old fossil has been discovered that is a link in the transition of life from sea to land. The thing is a fish but is also kind of like a crocodile too. He looks pretty mean.

It will be interesting to hear the Creationists denounce and disavow this bit of evidence. No transitional fossils they have been singing in chorus for years. I do not expect that to change as they have no new tunes on their old pianos.

An AOL poll question today asked if you believe the Creation or Scientific stories of life origins, etc. I forget how many responded at the time, but 59% said yes to Science, 41% for Creation.

Those numbers are no victory for science. In fact they are pretty creepy. 41% believing unfounded contentions over mountains of hard facts is scarey.

check oudt this article in the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/04/06/fossil_discovery_fills_a_piece_of_evolutionary_puzzle/

...at least for the few of us who still post here! Sigh!

Maybe your revitalized Phactum will stir up more interest amongst potential posters here. However, be sure to tell Eric et al, when Council convenes, about Al's gripe re. pop-ups here. I know they annoy me and, I'm sure, many others as well. Even if PhACT has to pay for a new message board service, it would beat the hell out of no message board at all, due to a lack of participants.

Dave

PS: Al never responded to my two recent posts, which were specifically crafted to stir him up. Thus, I really believe he has made good on his threat, and refuses to participate on a board that triggers his spam-guard software to lock him out of access to it.

I think this one is significant. The creationists used to have a "god of the gaps" - where any question open . . . was proof of deity involvement. As stuff comes up from the ground, their theories shrink back. The history of creationist retreat has been going solid since their forerunners promoted a flat earth

One of the leaders of the expedition that found that fossil is a scientist working at the Academy of Ntural Sciences in Philadelphia. As sit so happens, the May PhACT meeting will be there so we probably will get some pretty good information about this.

That "god of the gaps" approach has been breaking down for a long time. Personally I prefer the "god of the grapes".