August 27, 2007
Over at Effect Measure, Revere takes a few shots at Matt Nisbet:
It's not just that the Dawkins/Hitchens “PR campaign provides emotional sustenance and talking points for many atheists,” although it does that too. It's that the various writings of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, PZ and now a…
August 25, 2007
It's that time of year again! That most worthless of weekly news mags, U. S. News and World Report, has just published its annual list of America's Best Colleges. As usual, they tinkered with their ranking system again, for the sole purpose of fiddling with the order, thereby creating some news…
August 24, 2007
But when it comes to brain-dead venom-spewing, Kristol is an amateur compared to Town Hall columnist Lisa De Pasquale. How bad have things gotten for the right? Well, let's have a look.
A standard criticism of the phony machismo that is the stock-in-trade of right-wing politicans is that they are…
August 24, 2007
Now that it has become obvious to all that every stated reason for the Iraq War was either an outright lie or a gross exaggeration, and that any hope for a successful outcome was squandered by the incompetence and myopia of the Bush administration, the Right's know-nothing political lackeys have…
August 23, 2007
Perhaps you've heard of Andrew Keen? He showed up on Colbert recently to discuss his new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture.
One of his points is that bloggers in particular are mere amateurs who inevitably coarsen the public debate and threaten…
August 23, 2007
Matt Nisbet has been beating his favorite dead horse again. That's the one where he excoriates people like Richard Dawkins for being just so darn mean in his discussions of religion. In this post he praises Carol Tavris for echoing his favorite talking points, and in this one he praises Michael…
August 22, 2007
While I'm getting caught up, allow me to echo Ed Brayton's sentiments on the changing of the guard over at the National Center for Science Education. Nick Matzke, hero of the Kitzmiller trial, will be leaving to obtain a PhD in evolutionary biology from Berkeley. Not too shabby!
And taking his…
August 22, 2007
I'm back in Virginia after my brief visit to New York. It was really great to meet so many of my fellow science bloggers. I feel so unworthy right now! Bora has the skinny on the weekend's doings along with copious photographs.
After our big brunch on Saturday, I decided to eschew the visit to…
August 14, 2007
With the fall semester starting in just under two weeks, it's time to take off for one last trip. We're having a big Science Bloggers gathering in New York City this weekend, and I've just gotta see for myself that there are actual people behind all these blogs I keep reading. Along the way I'll…
August 13, 2007
Salon has posted this interview with physicist Taner Edis. You might recognize Edis as the coeditor (with Matt Young) of the magisterial book Why Intelligent Design Fails.
The subject of the present interview is his new book, An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. Edis has a lot…
August 13, 2007
Meanwhile, just in case you were looking for something truly stupid, go gawk in amazement at this column by David Warren of The Ottawa Citizen. Here's the opening:
I get such apoplectic letters, whenever I write about “evolutionism,” that I really can't resist writing about it again. This is not…
August 13, 2007
As much as I despise the Republican Party and believe that Democrats do a vastly better job of running the government, there is one area where I think the Republicans have it all over the Dems. They are much more convincing on television. When I see Republican politicians on the various political…
August 13, 2007
Via P.Z., I came across this article, from the Colorado Springs Gazette, about Christian teenagers abdoning their faith upon reaching college:
The trend is known as the “Great Evacuation,” and the statistics are startling to youth ministers.
Studies have shown at least 50 percent -- and possibly…
August 10, 2007
Sometimes I wonder what it is like to be a blogger for the Discovery Institute. Imagine the strain of getting up every morning, swallowing every ounce of pride and intellectual integrity you might possess, and searching desperately through the media for something, anything, you can present as…
August 8, 2007
Today's New York Times has this interesting article about some recent hominid fossil finds. Alas, it falls into the familiar trap of reporting every mundane find as if it is a scientific revolution:
Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches…
August 8, 2007
After yesterday's post suggesting that the Democrats hadn't caved on the FISA vote, a number of commenters and bloggers pointed out to me that the outrage was that the Democratic leadership allowed the bill to come to a vote at all. They could have blocked it, thereby giving more time to push for…
August 7, 2007
Several of my fellow Science Bloggers have come to a strange conclusion regarding the recent FISA vote in Congress. Ed Brayton titles his post on the subject “Democrats Cave on FISA Amendment.” P.Z. Myers concurs, writing, “It's a perfect example of the failure of the Democratic party: they…
August 7, 2007
Certain portions of the political blogosphere have erupted over the subject of teacher's unions. It started with this column, from July 3, by Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. Those of you who follow these things will recognize Cohen as one of the most odious skunks in the punditocracy. Any…
August 6, 2007
Most people remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle solely as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. But Doyle was actually quite prolific, and wrote a large number of novels and short stories in a variety of different genres. One of these novels was The Land of Mist, published in 1926.
The novel was one of…
August 6, 2007
Well, it's time to put my Monty Hall woes to one side for the moment and get back to some regular blogging. A heartfelt thnaks to everyone who left comments. I'm a bit behind in replying, but all have been read and pondered.
So, while I was busy moping last week Slate posted this interesting…
August 1, 2007
Sorry for the sporadic blogging. For the past week I've been working on the Progressive Monty Hall problem, and it has proven to be considerably more complicated than I at first realized. I had expected to polish it off with a few hours work. Instead I have thought about little else for the past…
July 25, 2007
There are many reasons, of course. But here's an especially compelling one:
DON'T jump to conclusions now. Just because Wendy Bullard of Raleigh, N.C., isn't allowed to walk her dog through the Streets at Southpoint, an outdoor mall in Durham, doesn't mean that when she visits New York she can't…
July 24, 2007
Here's Discovery Institute flak Casey Luskin commenting on an article about evolution posted at MSNBC's website. The MSNBC article is available here.:
Question: What do you do when a theory logically predicts both (a) and not (a)?
Answer: Apparently you heavily promote it.
MSNBC recently…
July 24, 2007
Here is one of the questions from last night's bizarre CNN/You Tube debate with the Democratic candidates:
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Zenne Abraham in Oakland, California. The cathedral behind me is the perfect backdrop for this question. This quarter reads “United States of America.” And when I turn it…
July 24, 2007
Have you seen that show Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel? I first saw it a few months ago and was hooked after one episode. I quickly placed it in the pantheon of all-time great non-fiction series, right alongside Good Eats and Mythbusters.
In each episode former British Special Forces…
July 23, 2007
Incidentally, I think Kevin Padian gets things just about right in his review of the three books on the Dover trial. For the record, the three books are Monkey Girl, by Edward Humes, 40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman, and The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything, by Gordy Slack.
Here's…
July 23, 2007
Here's William Dembski protesting a recent book review in the journal Nature:
Indeed, the review and its inclusion in NATURE are emblematic of the new low to which the scientific community has sunk in discussing ID. Bigotry, cluelessness, and misrepresentation don't matter so long as the case…
July 23, 2007
One of the sillier myths to have widespread acceptance in our culture is that the mainstream media, especially The New York Times, has a liberal bias. Anyone who actually reads the Times knows better. After all, these are the folks who kept the worthless Whitewater story alive during the Clinton…
July 19, 2007
Via David Heddle, I came across this announcement for a conference in Texas entitled “Intelligent Design in Business Practice.” From the announcement:
Successful business leaders are intelligent designers, guiding organizations along innovative paths to achieve ends otherwise unattainable.…
July 19, 2007
In a brief essay describing renewed efforts to raise the profile of science in the national discourse, Time magazine writer Michael Lemonick offers the following (see the original for links):
What I'm talking about is the growing drumbeat of amply justified fear that America is fast losing its…
