Skeptic

A controversial creationist has offered a multitrillion-dollar challenge to scientists. Adnan Oktar"s "call to all evolutionists" promises "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution" - a sum roughly equal to $11.7 trillion.The Muslim writer, who uses the pen name Harun Yahya, is a fierce critic of "the Darwinist dictatorship" and a popular figure in Turkey, where only a quarter of the population believe in evolution.The 52-year-old former architecture student claims there are no fossils to support Darwinist theories."Notone [fossil] belongs to strange-looking creatures in the course of development of the kind supposed by evolutionists."However, scientists reject his claims that these fossils do not exist.

Dr Kevin Padian at the University of California told the New York Times Oktar "does not have any sense of what we know about how things change through time. If he sees a fossil crab, he says, "It looks just like a regular crab, there"s no evolution." Extinction does not seem to bother him." Oktar found fame in 2006 when 10,000 copies of his Atlas Of Creation were distributed worldwide. The 800-page volume illustrated his claims that for millions of years life forms have not developed, supporting his Islamiccreationist beliefs.Richard Dawkins, a British biologist, called the Atlas "preposterous", speaking of "the breathtaking inanity of the content".Oktar responded: "We could have spoken on a more scientific basis if he had been able to produce an intermediate form fossil capable of confirming evolution."This month Oktar won a case in a Turkish court claiming that Dawkins" website contained blasphemous and defamatory content.

View: Full Article | Source: New Zealand Herald

If you're an undiscovered psychic, soothsayer, dowser or medium, time may be running out for you to put your supernatural powers to the test and claim a million dollar prize. But you already knew that, didn't you? Ten years after stage magician and avowed skeptic James Randi first offered a seven-figure payday to anyone capable of demonstrating paranormal phenomenon under scientific scrutiny, the 79-year-old clear-eyed curmudgeon is revising the rules of his nonprofit foundation's Million Dollar Challenge to better target high-profile charlatans, and spend less time on unknown psychics, who too oftenturn out to be delusional instead of deceptive."We can't waste the hundreds of hours that we spend every year on the nutcases out there -- people who say they can fly by flapping their arms," says Randi.

"We have three file drawers jam-packed with those collections.... There are over 300 claims that we have handled in detail."A skeptic since his teen years, Randi launched his challenge in 1964, after growing outraged with fake mediums and fortunetellers using simple conjurers' tricks to prey on the public. A challenge was an efficient alternative to trying to prove a negative: Instead of traveling the world investigating and debunking miracle workers one-by-one, an unclaimed cash prize stands as afact on the ground -- an immovable obstacle around which anyone purporting supernatural powers must eventually navigate.The challenge started small. Randi initially offered $1,000 of his own money to anyone who could read a mind or bend a spoon under controlled conditions. He later upped the ante to $10,000, but still didn't get a lot of takers. "There wasn't much interest in $10,000, and frankly I couldn't afford more than that," he says.

View: Full Article | Source: Wired

Faith is probably the human race’s most endearing quality. Faith in God, faith in our children and even faith in our own ability. No matter how often our faith lets us down, we can always have faith that things can only get better. Just look at Tony Blair, after his anus horribilis of 2006, here he is, two years on, picking up mega bucks for after dinner speaking gigs, and no doubt secretly gloating over how much better things were with him in power. He may be too humble to confirm whether any mutual praying went on with him and George Dubya, but he has always had incredible faith, in both himself and in his creator. I think he’s the Pope now. Science doesn’tdeal in faith, it deals in facts.

Verifiable, catalogued, corroborated facts. But science is always behind the pace. New techniques are developed every day, new theories superseding old ones, new reputations to forge in the media. 100 years ago the latest scientific process was photographing the eyes of murder victims as; the last thing they saw was their assailant. That was seen as cutting edge, until it failed to show any results, now it’s obviously bunkum. And less than 50 years ago Thalidomide was seen as a wonder drug that would stop pregnancy pains like no other medicine before, or so said the scientists who tested it. Atomic clocks and quantum physics can only measure so many phenomenons. There are unquestionably forces beyond our understanding.Take identical twins, separate them and they will invariably choose the same clothes, hair do, musical taste (even if they’ve been apart all their lives). They can feel each others pain from the other side of the world and finish each others sentences. So, how can that be explained? Two bodies but only one soul? Telepathy? Jedi mind powers? One things for sure, science can only fudge a theory. So then, if science can’t get to grips with anything that’s not a trillion years old or too small to see, "who you gonna call" if there’s a ghost? Certainly not a TV series where the hostess freaks at the mere creak of a door. Maybe you could get a team of paranormal investigators to stop train spotting for a night and set up their reel to reel tapemachines. Is. ...

Submitted by Da Verminator: Scottish, English and British monarchs have been crowned on the ancient coronation stone since the ninth century.It spent 700 years under the chair in Westminster Abbey after it was seized in 1296 by King Edward I, and was finally returned to Scotland 12 years ago.It has since been viewed at Edinburgh Castle by tens of thousands of people, and is regarded as a symbol of Scottish independence. According to legend, Jacob used the ancient stone as a pillow when he dreamt of a ladder to heaven.But Scotland"s First Minister is convinced that it may be no more than a worthless lump of Perthshire sandstone.He believes it was passed off as the real coronation stone when Edward stormedScone Abbey in 1296.Mr Salmond said: "If you"re the abbot of Scone and the strongest and most ruthless king in Christendom is charging toward you in 1296 to steal Scotland"s most sacred object and probably put you and half of your cohorts to death, do you do nothing and wait until he arrives or do you hide yourself and the stone somewhere convenient in the Perthshire hillside? I think the second myself."He is not even convinced that the "fake" stone plundered from Scone was the same one that was returned to Scotland by Michael Forsyth, the then Tory Scottish Secretary, in 1996.On Christmas Day 1950, the Stone of Destiny was stolen from below the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey by a group of radical nationalist students.There have long been rumours that a Glasgow stonemason, Baillie Robert Gray, made copies of the stonewhen he was asked to repair it after it broke in two during the raid.After a brief sojourn north of the border it was later handed back to British authorities and was used in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953."There"s no question that Bertie Gray made copies," said Mr Salmond.

"It"s like the Loch Ness monster, it"s certainly a puzzle and a mystery which is best not definitively answered."The First Minister revealed his views on the eve of the premiere of a Hollywood film about the theft of the stone.

View: Full Article | Source: The Telegraph