Evolution

When I think of the 2010 season for the Ravens, the special moment was Joe Flacco's comeback in Pittsburgh. If Flacco develops into an elite quarterback, I will look back at the last minute of this game as his first defining moment. Sure, Flacco has won playoff games. He has thrown big touchdown passes in the past. But this was the time he put the Ravens on his back and led them to victory on their chief rivals' home turf. It didn't matter that there were only 68 seconds left and no timeouts.

Arda Ocal (@arda_ocal) of theScore Television Network, Baltimore Sun and Layfield Report spoke with former WWE Superstar Goldust (Dustin Rhodes). Check out the interview below:

Richard Weikart is correct that Dr. Ben Carson should not be opposed as a commencement speaker at Emory University, as Dr. Carson's accomplishments provide ample justification for this honor ("Evolution and morality," May 13). Mr. Weikart, however, is very wrong to suggest that Dr. Carson might be justified in opposing evolution on the grounds that it threatens morality. There are three ways that evolution might be said to threaten morality, none of which are persuasive. First, one might argue that the idea of "survival of the fittest" can be used to justify eugenics.

Look at what has become national ritual: A horrific shooting in some otherwise ordinary corner of the country - this time a town in Connecticut - with many dead and wounded, shock and grief, wall-to-wall television coverage. The president and the governor ask us to pray for the victims and their families. A police chief, suddenly and reluctantly a celebrity, provides details of the killings, including the make and model of the weapons. We're told to refrain from politicizing tragedy in its immediate aftermath - that's part of the ritual, too. More grieving, more stories and magazine covers, a week of funerals.

In his column against gay marriage,Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.once again demonstrates why he is not the true heir and successor to Ron Smith ("Drawing a line at same-sex marriage," April 15). Mr. Smith and his keen intellect pursued truth whether it agreed with his prior beliefs or not while Mr. Ehrlich has shown again that he couches partisan viewpoints in intellectual language to disguise the truth. There is, indeed, a likely coalition against the gay marriage act. Leaders in my own faith, the Catholic Church, are drumming up a bandwagon to get signatures for referendum against the act. I won't be signing it. Opponents all blindly and stubbornly ignore the fact that we are at this point recognizing the validity of gay marriage not in spite of Christian beliefs, but because of them.

Evolution Craft Brewing Company's Lot 3 IPA defeated Old Dominion's Oak Barrel Stout in the final round of Estrada Design/Build Chesapeake Beer Madness. Evolution won its third title in a row after earning 62 percent of the public's votes. The local craft-brew competition, which matches beers head-to-head in March Madness-style brackets, kicked off Sept. 30 at Park Place in Annapolis. After the kick-off event, readers and beer lovers voted online at WhatsUpMag.com for their favorites.

Evolution Brewing Craft Company will move to Maryland from Delaware next February, the company has confirmed. The move is a coup for the Maryland craft industry. Since it opened in April 2009, Evolution has become one of Delaware's major microbreweries. Over 4,500 barrels of beer are expected to be brewed this year, according to the company.  Along with five new microbreweries that have opened or will open by next year in Maryland, Evolution's move brings the total of craft breweries in the state to at least 20, according to the Brewers Association of Maryland.

Almost 500 Emory University faculty and students have expressed their dismay that their commencement speaker on Monday does not toe the ideological line when it comes to evolutionary biology. Yes - gasp - the renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson does not believe in evolutionary theory. Not only that, but biology professors at Emory and their supporters also accuse Dr. Carson of committing a thought crime because he allegedly "equates acceptance of evolution with a lack of ethics and morality.

LIKE MANY SCHOOL districts around the country these days, Cecil County is struggling with the issue of how to teach evolution. Some county school board members wonder if a new edition of a biology textbook that discusses evolution also offers a significant enough challenge to it. The board is scheduled to decide next week whether to accept the textbook. In other districts, the fight over evolution has been much more heated, leading to lawsuits and proposals for restrictive legislation. This latest round of the evolution vs. creationism debate sounds like echoes of the Scopes monkey trial 80 years ago. Across the country, teachers are refraining from teaching evolution, even when it is included in the curriculum.

Arda Ocal (@arda_ocal) of theScore Television Network, Baltimore Sun and Layfield Report spoke with former WWE Superstar Goldust (Dustin Rhodes). Check out the interview below:

In a post earlier today on the anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species , I casually grouped creationsts among hysterics about the Obama re-election and other individuals who do not appear to be wired to code. I may not have done them justice. Also today, at the Chronicle of Higher Education , one can find a sober article by Adam Laats  that explores the difficulties that supporters of evolution in dealing with creationists. In short, he says, caricaturing creationists is not productive.  Take one, the Hon. Paul C. Broun Jr., whom the good people of Georgia have dispatched to the United States House of Representatives.

The recent presidential debate was an eye opener. First, we discovered that Mitt Romney wants to open National Parks and Wilderness areas to oil and gas drilling and exploration. Then, we learned that Mr. Romney is severely math deficient, proposing a tax plan that makes little sense and is mathematically impossible. You can't cut taxes on all including the wealthy, increase defense spending, extend Bush tax cuts and still reduce the national debt. It simply doesn't work, even my 10-year-old grandson could find holes in this piece of arithmetic.

See that above? On the right, you have the present-day girls' Big Bird costume. On the left? That's me in the 1982 version of the girls' Big Bird costume. Wait, my bad. Back then, it was just a Big Bird costume, no gender roles necessary. I mean, I know this has been going for ages, and that Halloween has turned into a way for people (grownups, one hopes) to let out their sexpot side for a day. (Check out this illustration of how costumes evolve from unicorn to sexy unicorn, nurse to sexy nurse, bee to sexy bee.)

Much of Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Jason Farley's recent research has focused on an evolving medical crisis: How to stop the spread of bacteria that have adapted immunity to most antibiotics. To stop it the medical community needs to track it. He's found that men recently arrested in Baltimore as well as Hopkins psychiatric patients were far more likely than the general population to be carriers of MRSA, the increasingly common bacteria resistant to many drugs. Now, he's launching a study exploring eradication of MRSA in HIV-positive patients, who, like others with compromised immune systems, are more likely to contract drug-resistant bacterial infections.

It's been years since Maggie Lebherz lived in sunny Spain as a college exchange student. Yet just one taste of fresh olive oil takes her back in spirit. "In 2007, I lived with a family in Salamanca, and my host mother cooked everything in olive oil, in a big cast-iron skillet," recalls Lebherz. "She rarely changed the oil, and it became spiced. Whether she was frying potatoes in olive oil or making paella, every meal was so delicious. " After Lebherz returned to the States and graduated from college, her cravings for the quality olive oil she'd enjoyed abroad turned her into an entrepreneur.

Outdoors expo Today , Waldorf Buckwild Outdoors Expo, Charles County Fairgrounds, La Plata. Information: BuckWildExpo.com. Turkey shoot TodayAug. 26 , noon to 4 p.m. Baltimore County Game & Fish Protective Association, 3400 Northwind Road in Carney. Information: Call Greg at 410-598-4970. Evolution of fish MondayAug. 27 , 7:30 p.m. Bonnie Dalzell will discuss fish evolution at a meeting of the Perry Hall Chapter of the Maryland Saltwater Sportsfishermen's Association.

WASHINGTON -- Last fall, Pope John Paul II delivered a speech in French on evolution to the Pontifical Academy of Science.The Catholic News Service and Vatican Information Service wrote stories quoting the pope as saying that evolution is "more than a hypothesis." The implication was that the church's historic teaching that man was uniquely created by God is itself evolving toward a scientific, non-creation model.That was the spin put on the pope's remarks by the New York Times, which carried a front-page story on this "new" teaching, and by other newspapers, the wire services and this columnist.

I SUPPOSE every religion has its fundamentalists, although I've never heard of a Buddhist one. Believe every word of it, they say, while the rest of us interpret scripture to suit our convenience. Holding firm keeps a lot of folks honest.Believing is a matter of purest faith for fundamentalists. If the Bible says God created the world in seven days, that's the way it happened, no changes, no slippery interpretations.That's where fundamentalism runs smack into evolution, which holds that creation took billions of years and has a lot of complications Genesis never mentioned: Dinosaurs.

Baltimore Bowmen Mondays through August, 4:30p.m. to dark. Shoot at 28 3-D targets in a wooded setting. $10 for nonmembers; $5 for members. Information: BaltimoreBowmen.com. Vingt-neuf Bowmen Tuesdays through Sept. 4, 5 p.m. to dark. Shoot at 3-D McKenzie and Rinehart targets on a 25-acre, fully wooded property at 8735 Honeygo Blvd. in Perry Hall. $10 for adults; $3 for children. Information: msgfpa.org. Prepare for hunting Saturdays and Sundays , 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; , and Wednesdays , 6 p.m.-dark.

Tyrod Taylor's evolution as a quarterback continues to progress as the sixth-round pick in last year's NFL draft takes his reps behind Ravens starter Joe Flacco. And as much as Taylor is finding his footing with the team and in the league, offensive coordinator Cam Cameron conceded that he too is developing a comfort level with Taylor. “I don't know if you're ever comfortable with a second-year quarterback because they are just learning so much as they go,” Cameron said after Tuesday's practice at the team's training facility in Owings Mills.