The Audacity of Pope
Catholics, abandon intelligent design. Pope Benedict XVI has spoken, and he appears to believe in evolution, although he also says that science cannot answer the philosophical questions it raises and that Christians should take a broader view of creation. The Pope added that "[T]he theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory" and can never be completely proven because, "We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory." Of course he's right that evolution can't be technically proven—no scientific theory is provable; even if we could produce these changes over 10,000 generations in the laboratory, that still wouldn't show beyond all doubt that that's how species actually originated. Pope Benedict seemed to endorse "theistic evolution," the idea that God was the driving force behind evolution, and science and religion do not need to conflict. The Pope's remarks are published in a new book, Creation and Evolution, published last week in German.
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Abstinence of Malice
The federal government spends tens of millions of dollars every year on abstinence education. But according to a Congressionally authorized study by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., the government may be burning money. Researchers studied four abstinence education programs, randomly assigning 2,057 adolescents to either participate in the program or not participate, and tracking these teens for up to six years. They found that kids who participated in abstinence education programs were no less likely than the control group to have sex in the following years. Slightly less than half of each group remained abstinent to the reevaluation, and 56 percent of abstinence education participants had been abstinent for the last 12 months, as opposed to 55 percent of the control group. The difference was not statistically significant. The average age of first intercourse (for those who reported intercourse) was 14.9 years for both groups. Abstinence education participants were also no more likely to have unprotected sex than kids who didn't go through the programs, although it's worth noting that the nonparticipants did not receive comprehensive sexual education in lieu of abstinence ed. Harry Wilson, the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families, replied to the study, saying, "This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can't expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career."
The Fungus (Expert) Among Us
Stonemason Edward Gange loves him some fungus. The enthusiast and amateur mycologist has been taking notes on fungi near Salisbury, England for more than 50 years, and finally his work has paid off: Mr. Grange and his son, University of London ecologist Alan Gange, are now senior authors on a paper published in the journal Science. The younger Ganged analyzed his father's data, 52,000 sightings of 315 species of mushrooms and toadstools, to find that fruiting periods have dramatically increased in length, and many species that used to fruit once a year are now fruiting twice a year. The Ganges and their coauthors hypothesize that these new fruiting behaviors are due to climate change: Over the 56 years of the study, August temperatures and October rainfall have both increased. Responding to the news that he is to be a senior author in arguably the most prestigious journal on Earth, Edward Gange told BBC News, "I'm on top of the world, I can't quite believe it yet." Hey, man, you're the one who spent 56 years documenting fungus. I'm sure you've seen stranger things.