Anti-evolution
sb admin | May 15, 2009NCSE has announced that two remaining anti-evolution bills have died in committee: Alabama & Missouri.
To recap the year:
Mississippi - dead in committee
Oklahoma - dead in committee
Iowa - dead in committee
New Mexico - dead in committee
Florida - dead in committee
Alabama - dead in committee
Missouri - dead in committee
Texas - in committee
The boys over at the Discovery Institute must be a little down this evening. With a record like that, they are the Detroit Lions of anti-evolutionism.
jlynch | May 15, 2009NCSE has announced that two remaining anti-evolution bills have died in committee: Alabama & Missouri.
To recap the year:
Mississippi - dead in committee
Oklahoma - dead in committee
Iowa - dead in committee
New Mexico - dead in committee
Florida - dead in committee
Alabama - dead in committee
Missouri - dead in committee
Texas - in committee
The boys over at the Discovery Institute must be a little down this evening. With a record like that, they are the Detroit Lions of anti-evolutionism.
sb admin | May 15, 2009
Finished grading today, so the Spring semester is finally over. I'm out of here for a few weeks. See you sometime in June.
sb admin | May 11, 2009So I'm trying to simplify things in real life as I think I am suffering from information overload (among other things).
First task was to clean up my Facebook friends. From here on, it's family, colleagues and (usually graduate) students. Folks I know only in virtual space are likely to have gotten bumped. Sorry if you were one of those - truly, no offense was intended. I'm willing to follow folks on Twitter though, so feel free to join that way. Just follow me and I'll reciprocate. There's also Friendfeed.
Second task will be to prioritize regarding blogging. That will involve some thinking…
sb admin | May 10, 2009Turns out that yesterday I posted my 2000th post here at Scienceblogs without even noticing it. Heh!
sb admin | May 10, 2009Back in December 2006 I referred to Francis Beckwith as an ID supporter. This resulted in he informing me that he "has never been much of fan [of] design arguments, ever [and that his] interest in the debate focuses on the jurisprudential questions involving the First Amendment and what could be permissibly taught in public schools under that amendment." At that time I retracted and removed any reference to Beckwith as a supporter. More recently, Beckwith has objected to others referring to him as a creationist and an ID supporter. Tim Sandefur has replied, and now Barbara Forrest has offered…
jlynch | May 10, 2009Back in December 2006 I referred to Francis Beckwith as an ID supporter. This resulted in he informing me that he "has never been much of fan [of] design arguments, ever [and that his] interest in the debate focuses on the jurisprudential questions involving the First Amendment and what could be permissibly taught in public schools under that amendment." At that time I retracted and removed any reference to Beckwith as a supporter. More recently, Beckwith has objected to others referring to him as a creationist and an ID supporter. Tim Sandefur has replied, and now Barbara Forrest has offered…
jlynch | May 9, 2009I spent this morning at a workshop for K-12 biology teachers. The workshop was organized by the School of Life Sciences here at ASU and gave some 20 students to interact with faculty regarding teaching evolution. My presentation was titled "Teaching Evolution One Icon At A Time" and aimed to educate the teachers regarding the Discovery Institute's "teach the strengths and weaknesses of evolution" approach post-Kitzmiller. Slides are below:
jlynch | May 7, 2009Mark Chu-Carroll has done it so that you don't have to ... read the Dembski & Marks paper that I mentioned a few days back. Shorter MC-C: "Same old rubbish." Read his full verdict here.
Update (5/11): Dembski "responds" (and apparently cannot bring himself to actually name who makes the criticism) and Mark sets him straight.
jlynch | May 1, 2009In 2000, Baylor's Michael Polanyi Center (Dembski's pet project) hosted a conference title "The Nature of Nature: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Role of Naturalism in Science". It now looks like the proceedings of the conference are finally appearing:
Bruce L. Gordon and William A. Dembski, eds., The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2009).
You've got to hand it to those ID boyos, they believe in loooooooong editing phases on their projects. This could explain why we're waiting on so much that has been promised.
The volume…
jlynch | May 1, 2009Yet another defeat for the anti-evolutionists. NCSE is reporting that Florida's Senate Bill 2396 has died in committee. To recap:
Mississippi - dead in committee
Oklahoma - dead in committee
Iowa - dead in committee
New Mexico - dead in committee
Florida - dead in committee
Alabama - in committee
Missouri - in committee
Texas - in committee
I can't imagine the Discovery Institute is too happy. It has failed miserably in developing "a new science for a new century" and, having given science up, has failed at legislative action. Time for Plan 9, I think.
jlynch | April 24, 2009
In the past I have argued that historians of science probably need to get more involved with the fight for good science education. Michael Barton has brought my attention to historian Abigail Lustig giving testimony before the Texas Board of Education.
jlynch | April 20, 2009John West over at the DI moans:
David Klinghoffer has a provocative essay commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. Klinghoffer notes that Columbine killer Eric Harris was inspired in part by his fanatical devotion to Darwinian natural selection, a trait Harris unfortunately shared with many opponents of human dignity during the past century. Given the pervasive influence of Social Darwinism in our culture, Klinghoffer suggests that Darwin's Tree of Life might be more appropriately viewed as a Tree of Death.
Wow. So much wrong, so little time. Let'…
jlynch | April 6, 2009 Today we celebrate Paul Nelson Day in honor of the five year anniversary of his theory of "ontogenic depth" and a promised exposition that has never appeared. Methods of celebration vary - PZ has in the past suggested that we should make it a point to ask people "How do you know that?" today, and the ones who actually can explain themselves competently will be complimented by being told that they're no Paul Nelson. I have suggested that you can invent a new concept (such as "ontogenic depth") and promise to explain it later.
No matter how you choose to celebrate, have a happy Paul Nelson Day!
jlynch | April 4, 2009Most readers probably have heard of Michael Egnor, the DI's pet neurosurgeon. Egnor has been harping on about what he perceives as the lack of utility of evolution - which he, of course, equates with "Darwinism" - in medicine since 2007, and various folks here have commented on what has been termed his "egnorance".
This is going to annoy him. Jerry Coyne has in the past argued that evolutionary biology "doesnât have much practical value in medicine" but has now changed his mind based on evidence presented by David Hillis. Dr Egnor could take a lesson from this illustration of evidence leading…
jlynch | March 23, 2009NCSE is reporting that the Supreme Court has today denied certiorari without comment to Caldwell v. Caldwell, which challenged the constitutionality of the Understanding Evolution website. It's yet another setback for the DI who supported Caldwell. Let's just blame those liberal Darwinists over at the Supreme Court, shall we? More details over at NCSE.
jlynch | March 22, 2009I spent last Thursday and Friday at the Unchallengeable Orthodoxies conference hosted by the ASU Sandra Day O'Connor Law School in conjunction with the University of Cambridge. Lots of interesting discussion on academic freedom, scientific practice and suchlike. I presented a 20 minute case study on why I felt that evolution was not an unchallengeable orthodoxy and why creationist claims about being stifled or expelled do not hold up when examined in light of scientific practice and the history of science. It's a talk that I'm working up into a longer version to be presented at the American…
jlynch | March 21, 2009The DI-inspired "Academic Freedom/Strengths & Weaknesses" bill that was in committee in New Mexico has failed to get a hearing before close of session and has thus expired. Dave Thomas has more over at PT. The state of play for 2009 must be depressing for the DI
Mississippi - dead in committee
Oklahoma - dead in committee
Iowa - dead in committee
New Mexico - dead in committee
Alabama - in committee
Missouri - in committee
Florida - in committee
Texas - in committee
As a strategy this is clearly not working.