Commentary on the Endless Dispute Between Evolution and Creationism
Jason Rosenhouse received his PhD in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 2000. He subsequently spent three years as a post-doc at Kansas State University. Observing the machinations of the Kansas Board of Education led to his unhealthy obsession with issues related to evolution and creationism. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, VA.
May 31, 2006
Category: Philosophy
Thanks to alejandro for directing me to his own take on Dembski's theodicy, discussed in the previous post. You can find his thoughts here. I liked his summary of the problem of evil: This article discusses that old chestnut, the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:03 PM • 20 Comments • 12 TrackBacks
Category: Philosophy
I have written before that I regard the problem of evil as essentially a decisive refutation of Christianity. It's not quite logically impossible to reconcile an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God with the sheer quantity of evil and suffering in the world,...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 1:57 PM • 55 Comments • 37 TrackBacks
May 25, 2006
Category: Legal Issues
A three judge panel for the eleventh circuit court of appeals has vacated the decision of the lower court in the Cobb County sticker case. At issue here was the decision by the Cobb County School Board to include the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Philosophy
Over at Telic Thoughts, macht has posted this reply to some of my earlier posts on the nature of science. I believe he is still missing most of the important points. But in the interest of making this into something...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 12:49 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 23, 2006
Category: Anti-Creationism
I'm a bit pressed for time today, so why not just have a look at this insightful op-ed by Jay Ingram in The Toronto Star. He begins: Scientists are absolutely correct to argue that intelligent design -- the claim that...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:13 PM • 38 Comments • 3 TrackBacks
May 22, 2006
Category: Anti-Creationism
After writing that last post, I decided to have a look at the comments to macht's essay. I found another delightful instance of macht being clueless. Commenter Daniel wrote: “if some modern scientist happened to introduce something supernatural into science...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:27 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
My essay on the nature of science has provoked this limp response from macht, over at Telic Thoughts. My essay emphasized the fact that science has a specific goal in mind: To understand the workings of nature. Understanding is measured...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:23 PM • 3 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
May 21, 2006
Category: Ask a Science Blogger
Seed's ScienceBlogger Question of the week is the following: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be? My knee-jerk response was pretty obvious: “Evolution!” Sadly, John Lynch got there first. Then...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 9:02 PM • 25 Comments • 14 TrackBacks
May 19, 2006
Category: Evolution
I have a new essay up at CSICOP's Creation Watch site. The subject: What is Science? Figured it was high time to polish off that little question once and for all. Enjoy!...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:03 PM • 6 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution in Pop Culture
Who was the guest on yesterday's episode of The Colbert Report? It was Ted Daeschler, a paleontologist at The Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia. He was part of the team that discovered the fish-tetrapod transitional form Tiktaalik roseae. Not...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:32 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
May 18, 2006
Category: Politics
With the Bush administration, and Repbulicans generally, tanking in the polls, the time has come to do some serious pandering to the right-wing base. Expect to see a lot more articles like this one, from The Washington Post: A U.S....
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:37 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
As a follow-up to yesterday's post, have a look at Carl Zimmer's post on the subject. He provides a lot of the scientific specifics: But that's not what has emerged from the new study. The Broad Institute scientists lined up...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:14 PM • 3 Comments • 12 TrackBacks
May 17, 2006
Category: Evolution
The New York Times is reporting on new data concerning the date of the evolutionary split between the human and chimapnzee lineages: Scientists are re-evaluating a pivotal event in human evolution, the split between the human and chimpanzee lineages, in...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:55 PM • 46 Comments • 105 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
The last six months have been hard ones for ID folks. First, there was the big Dover decision. Then came several new transitional forms (see here and here, for example). The evolution of complex biochemical systems gets less mysterious every...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:24 PM • 27 Comments • 11 TrackBacks
May 16, 2006
Category: Politics
As a coda to the previous post, consider this article, from yesterday's The New York Times. It's headline is the title of this entry. Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:17 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
In Sunday's post I wrote the following: People like [Kevin] Shapiro, George Will, or Charles Krauthammer are lonely voices in the conservative wilderness, accorded about as much respect in the Republican party as pro-lifers are in the Democratic party. Every...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:35 PM • 10 Comments • 12 TrackBacks
May 15, 2006
Category: Mathematics
The New York Times is reporting that President Bush has chosen Larry Faulkner, a chemist and a former President of the University of Texas at Austin to head the National Math Panel: The former president, Larry R. Faulkner, who led...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:37 PM • 11 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
Many thanks to Dave of Cognitive Daily for pointing out to me that my “comments moderation” feature was turned on, meaning that I had to personally approve of each comment before having it appear. Until he pointed it out to...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:24 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
Many thanks to Afarensis for the kind welcome and the lovely virtual chess set. Also thanks to Orac at Respectful Insolence and to Razib at Gene Expression for their kind greetings. It's nice to feel welcome. Actually, Razib has already...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
In just two short seasons Prison Break has earned its place among the best television shows of all time. Granted, the story has gotten increasingly absurd with each passing week. The fact remains that it is relentlessly suspenseful and has...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:32 PM • 8 Comments • 13 TrackBacks
May 14, 2006
Category: Evolution in Pop Culture
I used to be a big fan of The Simpsons, but like a lot of people I started losing interest a few years ago. After more than a decade on the air the show seemed to have lost its spark....
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 9:43 PM • 7 Comments • 2 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
I've been on blog vacation for about three weeks now, and a number of things have happened in that time. So let me get a few things off my chest. Stephen Colbert was brilliant at the White House Correspondent's dinner....
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:39 PM • 4 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
Let me begin by thanking the good folks at Science Blogs for inviting me to join their party. The move seems to have gone smoothly. Still settling in, kicking the tires, testing the foundation and all that. Expect the links...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:51 PM • 3 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
