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stcynic | November 6, 2005I am happy and proud to report that the reformatting was a smashing success. I've still got a lot of stuff to move back to the hard drive from CD, and a lot of software to reinstall, but I'm up and running and running smoothly. Got my antivirus to install correctly (that was one of the big problems I was having, it wouldn't update itself and it wouldn't let me either uninstall it or reinstall it because it kept saying a previous installation was not completed). I also did add a second hard drive to my computer, an old 40 gig I had laying around, that I can use for data storage so if I run…
stcynic | November 6, 2005Okay folks, I'm about to do a major overhaul on my computer. I appear to have mucked up my operating system and caused some serious problems, so after burning about 30 gigabytes worth of stuff (songs and research) to CD last night I'm going to reformat and start over. Problem #1 is that I don't have the install disk for my mother board, but I've downloaded what I believe are all the right drivers to get the job done anyway. So if I'm gone for a couple days, it's because I screwed up that project royally and my frustration has probably sent me to the top of a tower with a high powered rifle.…
stcynic | November 4, 2005Dean Esmay stopped by last night and left a comment in reply to my recent posts about his stance on evolution. True to his usual form, he slings a lot of invective and says almost nothing of any substance. He begins:
Heh. It's fun to watch this: ad hominem first. Ed always starts there--it's what he's all about in the end. His ad hominem attacks are always mixed in with carefully out-of-context insinuations to make it seem as if I believe things I don't.
One of the ways in which you can tell you're dealing with a pseudo-intellectual poser is when they use the phrase ad hominem when they…
stcynic | November 3, 2005It can hardly be surprising that the Discovery Institute has picked up on Dean Esmay's ignorant blather about ID and us "Stalinist" evolution advocates and are shouting it from the rooftops as evidence that "even religious skeptics" disagree with us. The fact that Esmay is an atheist or agnostic doesn't mean he has anything approaching a coherent position on evolution, or even a basic understanding of it. His completely incoherent claim that evolutionary theory "tends to hold that mutation is not the primary way by which creatures evolve" a few months ago was proof that he has not even an…
stcynic | November 3, 2005Blue Mass Group has an excellent post about how easy it is to compile a list of rulings for a judge to make them appear to be an extremist. They look at the lists provided by liberal activist groups to paint Alito as a right wing nut, then give their own list of other rulings by Alito that would have made it look the opposite (cases where he ruled, for instance, that a school district had to pay for a student to attend another school because they were negligent in not preventing his classmates from engaging in anti-gay bullying of the student; where he ruled that a trial court must consider…
stcynic | November 3, 2005The battle over creationism in public schools is heading for Indiana, as lawmakers there prepare to submit a bill to mandate the teaching of intelligent design there. And in the process, they're leaving behind all sorts of evidence of the essential equation of ID and creationism.
The proposal comes a little more than a month after Bosma and a handful of other House members met privately with Carl Baugh, host of the Trinity Broadcasting Network show "Creationism in the 21st Century," to discuss bringing intelligent design to public schools.
Baugh was in town as the guest of Zion Unity…
stcynic | November 1, 2005http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47148
People are convinced that you can't give tax breaks to rebuild casinos after a hurricane
stcynic | November 1, 2005Tomorrow is the 81st birthday of a fascinating man that Sandefur and I have had the great privilege to get to know over the last couple years. His name is Mark Perakh. He's a retired physicist from CSU, the owner of the TalkReason site and the author of many articles and at least one book on the intelligent design movement. He's also a contributor to the Panda's Thumb. And to say he has lived an interesting life is to provide new meaning for the word "understatement". He was born in the Soviet Union shortly after the revolution that swept the communists into power. He fought in World War 2,…
stcynic | October 28, 2005Okay, there likely won't be anything new for a couple days. I'm heading out of town, first to Grand Rapids and then to Kalamazoo. Today I'm going to stop at the East Grand Rapids debate tournament and see some old friends there, maybe even watch a debate or two. Then I'm having dinner with one of my good friends and business partners and heading to Kalamazoo. Tomorrow I'm going with my best friend and some other old friends to see another old buddy, Don Reese, perform at the comedy club there. And playing with various children I don't get to see often enough. So all in all, it's gonna be a…
stcynic | October 26, 2005I have no idea how they figure this out, but according to this page, here's what this blog is worth:
My blog is worth $157,506.66.How much is your blog worth?
If anyone would like to offer even half of that, you've got a deal. On the other hand, their formula for figuring it out must be pretty whacked since the Panda's Thumb, which averages about 7000 hits a day, is given a value of $0.00. Figure that out.
stcynic | October 26, 2005There is an update below the fold with much new information
Last week I wrote about the fact that Michael Behe claimed last week under oath that his book, Darwin's Black Box, received even more thorough peer review than a scholarly article in a refereed journal. Now more and more facts are coming to light. We only know the names of 3 of the 5 reviewers - Michael Atchison, Robert Shapiro and K. John Morrow. Atchison, I've already documented, did not review the book at all. He had a 10 minute conversation about the book over the phone, without ever seeing the text, with an editor who was…
stcynic | October 25, 2005The Thomas More Law Center's defense of the Dover school board is beginning to resemble a Keystone Cops sketch. After having yet another witness drop out, they presented Steve Fuller, a British sociologist, to defend the teaching of ID in public schools. And you're gonna love the rationale he offered for why it should be taught:
Because the scientific community is a monolith, impenetrable and often hostile to new theories, intelligent design proponents have to turn to the public schools to recruit support, a witness said Monday...
A sociology professor from the University of Warwick in…
stcynic | October 25, 2005And naturally, let the Worldnutdaily lead the way. Their crack reporting staff is hot on the trail of the story of Hurricane Wilma forcing a "homosexual party" to be postponed. We're talking about Key West here, folks. There's a "homosexual party" going on pretty much every night. I'm sure the hurricane also postponed a few church-related events, but that's not really newsworthy is it?
stcynic | October 22, 2005University to Ban Bibles, the headline screams. Brave New Schools, says the tag above the headline. The first sentence reiterates the message:
Edinburgh University in Scotland will begin banning Holy Bibles from its student halls of residence due to concern they are the source of discrimination against students of other faiths.
The mind boggles. The university is really going to ban students from having Bibles in their dorm rooms? Could this possibly be? If this is true, I'll be the first one to protest it. As it turns out, it's not. But you have to go down a couple paragraphs to find out…
stcynic | October 21, 2005I forgot to mention this from last night's dinner conversation. Don told a joke, actually an old Jewish proverb, that is absolutely hilarious. Here it is:
4 Rabbis are out golfing and as they play, they're arguing about some fine point of interpretation about a Hebrew scripture. After a while it becomes clear that 3 of the Rabbis are on one side and the 4th is on the other side and he cannot convince them that he's right. So finally he stops and lifts his hands to the sky and says, "God, please tell these men that I am right in my interpretation. Give us a sign." The sky opens up and a bolt…
stcynic | October 21, 2005Or more accurately, an evening with delightful company interrupted for a couple hours by Michael Ruse. I went last night to an address by Ruse, the inaugural event of a series of lectures on the subject of religion and science. Those of you who have seen Ruse speak will not be surprised by my review of his performance. He is an immensely charming Brit with a mischievous sense of humor, and like most philosophers he manages to say in an hour and a half what a normal human being could say in 25 minutes. His talk was on the history of the evolution/creationism struggle in America, and…
stcynic | October 20, 2005Assuming my car is finished in time (I'm taking it in for brake work in a half hour and they say they'll have it done quickly), I'll be heading to Grand Rapids tonight to hear philosopher of science Michael Ruse speak. Ruse was a key witness in the McLean v. Arkansas case in 1981 and has written widely on evolution and creationism. I've not had the chance to meet him before, so I'm looking forward to it. I'll be meeting up with Dave Snyder, a longtime reader of this blog, and some of my MCFS colleagues for the speech and for dinner. Should be a fun night.
stcynic | October 16, 2005Today is my 38th birthday. Not a big deal to me. As my father likes to say, there's no point in worrying about birthdays until you stop having them. I'm spending the day quietly at home, doing a little writing and research, listening to the brilliant new Wynton Marsalis CD, Live in the House of Tribes, and kicking myself for not putting Antowain Smith into the starting lineup in fantasy football instead of Mewelde Moore. And I'm about to go take a walk around the lake on this spectacular autumn day. Cheers!
stcynic | October 14, 2005The Kansas City Star had an article in Sunday's paper that suggested that the ongoing battles between intelligent design creationism and evolution were damaging the state's ability to attract businesses involved in scientific and technical fields:
"They want to bring things like intelligent design into classes and downplay the fact of evolution," said Holt, a postdoctoral researcher specializing in plant genetics at the University of North Carolina. "I find it incredibly troubling."
Holt's reluctance to include Kansas on his prospect list may be a worrisome sign for a region hoping to spur…
stcynic | October 11, 2005Tara Smith, a fellow Panda's Thumb contributor who teaches at the University of Iowa, is forming a new Iowa Citizens for Science group, akin to my MIchigan organization. If I have any readers from Iowa, I strongly encourage you to get involved with them and help them battle the anti-evolution forces. For more information, email Tara.