March 7, 2011
For some perspective on yesterday's story about MRSA and other bugs found on BART train seats, let's turn to Good Magazine, which interviews microbiologist Pat Fidopiastis about a separate study, funded by Clorox, which found bacteria on shopping cart handles. Fidopiastis writes:
none of this…
March 5, 2011
As someone who rides BART to work when I don't bike, this is a disturbing finding: On BART Trains, the Seats Are Taken (by Bacteria):
The Bay Citizen commissioned Darleen Franklin, a supervisor at San Francisco State Universityâs biology lab, to analyze the bacterial content of a random BART seat.…
March 5, 2011
Attention conservation notice: ~5600 words about a ~10,000 word article and two others totaling ~7500 words, all examining the Templeton Foundation. If you aren't interested in the ins and outs of the to and fro over the Templeton Foundation's influence, and the question of whether the longer…
March 3, 2011
This is the awesomest thing EVAR!
March 3, 2011
I've dropped out of the Kansas blogging scene in the years since I moved out to California, but I still have fond memories of the other bloggers in the area. Perhaps the most prolific, and undoubtedly the most influential, of the Kansas City bloggers was Tony Botello, of Tony's KC. He's a…
March 2, 2011
If unhinged wingnuts can be believed, your own TfK is responsible for Rep. Peter King dropping plans to invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak at his anti-Muslim hearings. Also, a bunch of clergy have asked him not to pursue his race-baiting hearings, as did a Congressman once interned by the US…
March 2, 2011
Shorter Casey Luskin, Disco. 'Tute Complaints Department: Want a Good Grade in Allison Campbell's College Biology Course? Don't Endorse Intelligent Design:
A college professor in New Zealand grades students down for using debunked creationist claims in college essays. Therefore, Tennessee needs a…
February 27, 2011
Kevin Drum meditates on the conservative movement hating on vegetables:
A first lady campaigning against obesity and in favor of breast feeding is now the target of all-out war from the right. I imagine that if she were taking on illiteracy, teenage drug use, or planting flowers, the Republican…
February 26, 2011
Martin Cothran, friend to bigotry of all kinds, wonders "Has the Obama admininstration [sic] endorsed Big Love?"
No.
He is reacting to the Obama administration's decision not to defend section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and to Francis Beckwith's erroneous comments on that decision.
Before…
February 25, 2011
If you aren't following me on twitter, you really should. Like a lot of bloggers, I've taken to using twitter as a repository for minor commentary and individual links that aren't quite deserving of their own blog post, but that still amuse me. So if you aren't reading the twitter feed, you aren'…
February 25, 2011
The Wonkroom's Brad Johnson takes on USA Today's Dan Vergano over geoengineering. Geoengineering is the idea that we could combat global warming by pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, thus blocking some solar radiation and keeping things cooler.
Vergano is a sharp science writer and…
February 24, 2011
Jerry Coyne is confused:
Iâm surprised that accommodationists and the National Center for Science Education donât criticize [other] evolutionists for describing the evolution and natural selection as âpurely natural and materialistic processes,â for that steps on the toes of the faithful just as…
February 23, 2011
It's three years late, but the White House and the Department of Justice have finally concluded that the misnamed Defense of Marriage Act â which forbids the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in states where they are legal â is unconstitutional and discriminatory.…
February 23, 2011
I have no good excuse for not having followed events in Libya, Bahrain, and Wisconsin as closely as I ought. Both events, popular uprisings against a repressive executive bent on crushing the rights of citizens, highlight the ability of regular people to stand together in solidarity.
I've…
February 23, 2011
Not that Glen Beck's wankery is a surprise, but Mark Chu-Carroll has a nice takedown of Beck's culturally illiterate attack on the rabbis who think he's an antisemitic wanker. Enjoy.
February 22, 2011
Barry Kosmin, whose American Religious Identification Survey is one the basic datasets for anyone trying to understand religion in America, isn't convinced higher education causes people to become atheists:
Undoubtedly, educational attainment is closely associated with intelligence. So any link…
February 19, 2011
Shorter Jerry Coyne:
Wanting gnu atheists not to be dickbags is the equivalent of telling them to STFU. Jeremy Stangroom's claim that gnus use ad hominem attacks is wrong because, look, he tried to defend a 28 year-old woman having sex with a 14 year-old boy. If you need further proof that I'm…
February 18, 2011
Chris Schoen:
before we ⦠endorse Coyne's self-congratulation for never having "criticized an evolutionist, writer, or scholar in an ad hominem manner," it's worth taking a quick glance at his blog, where it's hard to find a post that doesn't devolve into ad hom (unless it's about kittens).…
February 17, 2011
Martin Cothran â proponent of patriarchy, hyper of the heteronormative, crusader for creationists, water-carrier for women-haters, doyen of defenders of Holocaust deniers, troubadour of traitors â thinks I should insult him more classily. If he's serious about that, he needs to do different sorts…
February 17, 2011
Wonk Room's Brad Johnson interviews the man behind HB 549. Rep. Read explains that he didn't seek scientific comment before drafting his bill, and that he decided the legislature had to declare that global warming is not happening, is not caused by humans, and is good for Montana anyway because:…
February 17, 2011
John Pieret on Russell Blackford on Accommodating Incompatiblism. Russell writes:
religion needs to be constantly reinterpreted to maintain even logical consistency with our empirically-based secular knowledge. This process in itself leaves religious beliefs looking ad hoc and implausible.
John…
February 16, 2011
HB 549, introduced by Rep. Joe Reed, has been referred to the state legislature's Natural Resources comittee:
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT STATING MONTANA'S POSITION ON GLOBAL WARMING; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE."
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
NEW…
February 16, 2011
Last Sunday, I talked at Kol Hadash, a secular Jewish community, about NCSE's recent work in the creation/evolution trenches. Our intrepid communications director Robert Luhn was there to film it, and has posted video of the talk to our Youtube channel. The Q&A will follow.
A big shout out…
February 12, 2011
If you haven't seen Kansas v. Darwin, the documentary about the Kansas science standards fight from 2005, you can stream it for free from the filmmaker's website.
Why not invite some friends over, stream the movie, and talk about what you'd all do if it happened in your neck of the woods? NCSE…
February 12, 2011
I closed my reflections on Egypt with the title's Ben Franklin quotation. And I want to expand on that point briefly, because there's often confusion about what it takes to make a republic. We sometimes think that a nation has become a democratic republic because it elects its leaders and has a…
February 11, 2011
From Nadia El-Awady's twitter feed on this first full day of freedom in Egypt:
An amazing thing happened yesterday. My country is free. For the first time in its history it is free. (cont)
This came about in the most wonderful way. We did not have a military coup. A foreign country did not invade…
February 11, 2011
Former Egyptian Vice President Suleiman, 4:02 pm, local Egyptian time, 2/11/2011:
In these difficult circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the position of the presidency. He has commissioned the armed forces council to direct the issues of…
February 10, 2011
A while back, Martin Cothran (who, in keeping with long tradition here, it must be noted remains a bigot in a staggering diversity of realms, not least his apparent desire to defend a dictator's decision to cut internet access to his nation in hopes of stymieing a revolution) declared:
A person…
February 10, 2011
Somehow, this passage from John Rawls Political Liberalism seems relevant to Egypt, to anti-creationism, to the disputes over gnu atheism, and even to a forthcoming reply to Martin Cothran on the nature of human rights:
Now the serious problem is this. A modern democratic society is characterized…
February 9, 2011
Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse are not accommodationists. At least, they say they aren't, and that's hard to evaluate, because "accommodationist" is a bad word, and to ensure that it stays a bad word, critics of accommodationists give it protean meanings. Sometimes it's supposed to mean the…
