Mike Dunford is a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he studies evolution. He's also a contributer to The Pandas Thumb. As is the case with everyone else here, his opinions are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of any organization he is affiliated with.
November 28, 2006
Today's quote comes from Alfred Russell Wallace's first paper on evolution - his 1855 paper On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of Species. In addition to paving the way toward his later work on natural selection, this paper...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:01 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 27, 2006
I woke up early today, went downstairs, turned on the news, and very quickly discovered that I'd made it all of 5 minutes into my morning before making a bad decision. The lead-off story on MSNBC's top of the hour...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 1:45 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is why we need to get more people to spend more time thinking about science: "If an issue is not on the tips of their constituents' tongues, they'll say, 'Well, we'll deal with that tomorrow,'" - Al Gore, An...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 26, 2006
Bill Dembski seems to have decided that the sour grapes strategy is a winner - or at least less of a loser than anything else he's come up with lately. He's following up Denyse O'Leary's spectacularly bad series of peer...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 2:24 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2006
Another round of unholy wars seems to have broken out over the last few days. This particular round (again) focuses on the relationship between atheists and theistic evolutionists. The involved parties have broken into two groups, and I think both...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 1:37 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Nothing too profound today - just something taken from a comic strip that's taped to the lab door. "That's the problem with nature. Something's always stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV." Bob Watterson Calvin and...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 23, 2006
This Thanksgiving, there's a lot that I am thankful for. There's also a fair amount that I'm not all that thankful for. I'm thankful that as of the email I got from her last night, my wife is still in...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 1:33 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
"On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment - halftime." --Anonymous Back to science quotes tomorrow. Enjoy the holiday....
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2006
There's an article in Friday's Washington Post about the ongoing strike by Houston, Texas janitors. (The same folks who were getting trampled by police horses the other day.) Part of the article tells the story of Ercilia Sandoval, a Salvadorian...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:09 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In part to counteract the limited amount of time that I have available to write posts, I've decided to start a "quote of the day" series. Most of the quotes will be related to science or academics (or any of...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 12:01 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2006
As many of the other Sciencebloggers have already mentioned, Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute is up to his usual stupidity. In this particular instance, he's attempting, in a typically inept fashion, to fisk Carl Zimmer's recent article in National...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 3:20 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 17, 2006
Over at the ARN blog, Denyse O'Leary has a four-part article up attacking the peer-review system. Rob Crowther, of the Discovery Institute's Media Complaints Division, has chimed in with his own post on the topic. There's a great deal of...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 3:52 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 16, 2006
Via Bitch, PhD and Pharyngula, we find this video of a Tuesday night "incident" in the UCLA library. According to the campus paper, the incident is "under investigation." After watching the video, which shows a student repeatedly being tasered for...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 4:29 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As some of you have already seen at Pharyngula, Dispatches, and the Lippard Blog, a New Jersey public high school teacher was caught on tape teaching religion instead of history. One of the audio recordings is available online. The quality...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:34 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 15, 2006
The fieldwork I did earlier this month left me behind at work, so I haven't been able to post much over the last week or so. I'll be able to get back to regular posts soon. In the meantime, here's...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 8:59 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 7, 2006
When someone you love is deployed, you do your best to put your fears out of your mind. You take things as they come, you do what needs to be done, and you very quickly get good at not thinking...
Posted by Mike Dunford at 7:50 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 2, 2006
If you're looking for an update to this blog, you'll have to wait until Monday. I'm off to the Big Island for a few days of fieldwork. I'll be observing flies in their natural habitat over in Volcanoes National Park....
Posted by Mike Dunford at 7:44 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
