Earth is younger than previously thought - Spoiler: It's not 6000 years old.

Researchers have calculated that the planet could have taken far longer to form following the birth of the solar system 4.567 billion years ago than scientists have previously believed.

By comparing chemical isotopes from the Earth's mantle with those from meteorites, geologists at the University of Cambridge claim the planet reached its current size around 4.467 billion years ago.

Read the Article

Science Duck: The Huffington Post has a soft spot for pseudoscience

Mild mannered blogger PZ Myers over at Pharyngula recently labeled the Huffington Post a “stronghold of anti-scientific, anti-medicine woo.” I often check in with HuffPo for political commentary, so was bummed to see the litany of anti-science crimes that HuffPo has committed. Is it really the case that the Huffington Post gives blank checks to peddlers of pseudoscience? It seems so. Here are the numbers:

Method: A search was conducted for the word ‘homeopathic’ using the search box on three online news outlets’ web sites: The Huffington Post, NPR, and Fox News. The term ‘homeopathic’ was chosen because homeopathy is well established as a pseudoscientific practice that is now taking a serious beating in the UK, as physicians are calling for it to be removed from NHS coverage. The number of news stories containing the word ‘homeopathic’ were tallied for each news outlet, and each story was rated as to if it contained a favorable, unfavorable or neutral view of homeopathy.

Results:

• Fox news returned a total of 20 news stories; 5% were favorable towards homeopathy, 50% were unfavorable, and 45% were neutral.
• NPR returned a total of 8 news stories; 12.5% were favorable towards homeopathy, 50% were unfavorable, and 37.5% were neutral.
• The Huffington Post returned a total of 77 news stories; 68.83% were favorable toward homeopathy, 14.28% were unfavorable, and 16.88% were neutral.

Conclusion: Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that homeopathy is junk science, the Huffington Post appears to bias their ‘reporting’ to portray it as a valid medical practice. Both NPR and (even) FoxNews appear to err on the side of truth, and usually produce either neutral or completely honest accounts of homeopathy. Granted, HuffPo is a strange combination of proper news reporting and random bloggers’ opinions, so we should expect more woo to crop up. But it’s not a free-for-all either: their blog posts are in fact edited to fit their editorial guidelines. They’ve at least allowed a couple level-headed bloggers to post rational/evidence based discussions of homeopathy (e.g., Steven Newton, David Brenders), but give a much bigger soapbox to pet homeopaths and anti-science folks like Dana Ullman

Read the Article

Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Chuck Missler takes the misunderstanding of evolution to a whole new level

No Dominion: The Lonely, Dangerous Fight Against Christian Supremacists Inside the Armed Forces

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he's crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

In January, the MRFF broke the story on the Pentagon's Jesus Rifles, where rifle scopes used in Afghanistan and Iraq were embossed with New Testament verses. In April, he got the military to rescind its invitation to the Reverend Franklin Graham to speak at May's National Prayer Day because of Islamophobic remarks. Most shockingly, MRFF received its second nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in late October. These high-profile victories have earned him the enmity of the hardcore Christian Right and the mentally unstable. And the crazies are getting crazier. Weinstein and his family are bombarded with hate mail, from the grammatically incorrect and easy to dismiss - "I hope all your kids turn out gay as hell, take it in the ass, and get aids and die!!!!" - to the kind of threats that immediately make you leap out of your chair and double-check that the doors and windows are locked. (MRFF has referred multiple death threats on Mikey, his family, and MRFF employees to the FBI.)

Read the Article