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.
March 30, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Read: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four. I walked back to the convention center with the sixteen year old. The rest of the posse went a different direction. He seemed keen to persuade me of the absurdity of...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 9:32 PM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 29, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Read: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. So I'm standing on line at Subway, contemplating the very long wait between me and my turkey on wheat, when I happen to overhear part of the conversation going on among the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 9:18 PM • 89 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 28, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Read Part One and Part Two. Stephen Meyer was next up. Strobel and Richards played their parts well, but, let's face it, the conference thus far had mostly been amateur hour. Strobel stepped in it every time he mentioned something...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:38 PM • 27 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 27, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Read Part One of this series here. At this point Strobel and Meyer left the stage. The room grew dark, and a video came on the large screen to my left. It was an excerpt from the The Privileged Planet,...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:28 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 26, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
The ID folks put on one of their dog and pony shows in Knoxville, TN this weekend. My curiosity piqued, I decided to check it out. So I left big bowls of food and water for the cats, piled into...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:37 PM • 27 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 23, 2007
Category: Mathematics
In the mood for a good brain workout? Well search no farther! The fourth installment of the Carnival of Mathematics has arrived! Just look beneath the fold for some first rate math blogging:...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:47 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 22, 2007
Category: Science
Speaking of cranks, all of the recent fuss over Al Gore's testimony to Congress on the subject of global warming has seen the revival of statistician Bjorn Lomborg. You might remember him as the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:03 PM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
Over at Red State Rabble, Pat Hayes has some further thoughts on the Darwin quote I discussed yesterday. Turns out Dembski's even more vile than I thought. After reproducing the quote in question, Hayes writes:...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:51 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 21, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
While I was slumming over at Dembski's blog I cam across a link to this article, by right-wing superhack David Horowitz. Apparently Dembski's crew thought this little essay was helpful to the cause. Horowitz is discussing the horrors perpetrated by...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:38 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
In yesterday's post I remarked that people seem to lose their minds upon deciding to become anti-evolution advocates. There is no better case in point than William Dembski. Ten years ago he was the star of the ID movement. A...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:16 PM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
As a companion piece to yesterday's post, have a look at this article from today's New York Times. It begins: Damage to an area near the center of the brain, several inches behind the eyes, transforms the way people make...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:37 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 20, 2007
Category: Evolution
I only have time for quick blogging today, so why not have a look at this article from The New York Times? It discusses the evolutionary origins of morality. Here's the opening: Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:11 PM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 19, 2007
Category: Evolution
So far I haven't been participating in the anti-Egnor festivities. For those who don't know, Michael Egnor is a medical doctor who lately has become the flavor of the month over at the Discovery Institute's Blog. They get very excited,...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:43 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
After all of our hard work last week, let us begin with something a bit lighter. Via Larry Moran I came across this post, at Cosmic Variance, regarding the great muffin joke debate. I reprint the joke below the fold....
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:56 PM • 27 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 15, 2007
Category: Philosophy
While I am laying down the law regarding the proper usage of controversial words, allow me to express a few thoughts about spirituality. P.Z. Myers gave this post, in which he comments on the awarding of the Templeton Prize, the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 11:11 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
On Tuesday I discussed a post by my SciBling Rob Knop on the subject of spirituality in an age of science. In that post I made three main points: (1) That Rob was badly mischaracterizing the views of Richard Dawkins...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 10:17 PM • 71 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 14, 2007
Category: Evolution
Allow me to direct your attention to the cover story from the current issue of Newsweek. It provides a useful summary of recent developments in human evolution. It's a decent article, and I recommend reading it through to the end....
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:32 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 13, 2007
Category: Religion
That last post makes a nice lead-in to this post, from my fellow Science Blogger Rob Knop. This post is a follow-up to this previous post, in which Knop professed his own Christian faith, and protested what he perceives as...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:14 PM • 123 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
I've just finished rereading Ed Larson's book Summer for the Gods. I first read this book in graduate school, before I had developed any serious interest in evolutionary biology. The book is about the Scopes' trial and its aftermath. As...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:28 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mathematics
I'm a little late to the party, but do go have a look at the third installment of The Carnival of Mathematics over at Michi's Blog. Lots of good procrastination material! The fourth installment is set to go up on...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 1:25 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 9, 2007
Category: Miscellaneous
It seems tha P.Z. Myers is is turning 50 today and, following the example of Richard Dawkins, we're all supposed to write him a poem. Seems like a good way to wrap up the week's blogging. So here's my poem,...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:50 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 8, 2007
Category: Evolution
With all the fuss lately about the atheistic books of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, it is easy to overlook another glut of books that tend to threaten religion. I am referring to the series of books intending to provide...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 2:24 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 7, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
According to this news brief, the Idaho Science Teacher's Association has come out against teaching ID in science classes: Science teachers in Idaho are officially against teaching intelligent design in the state's public schools. The Idaho Science Teachers Association has...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:05 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
Have a look at this brief account of a recently unearthed fossil dinosaur. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, it provides yet another example of those transitional forms creationists say do not exist: Ryan named the new dinosaur Albertaceratops...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:55 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
I realize there's nothing Earth-shattering about documenting right-wing bias on the Fox News Channel. But yesterday's panel on Hannity and Colmes really had to be seen to be believed. To discuss the conviction of Scotter Libby for perjury and obstruction...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:34 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 6, 2007
Category: Religion
On a recent trip to the local Barnes and Noble, I noticed a remarkable thing. On the main kiosk, the place where the Stephen King and John Grisham books are located, there were two prominently placed volumes that caught my...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:09 PM • 42 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chess
File this one under, “It's my blog and I'll post what I want to post!” Late last year world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik got married in Paris. Some photos of the wedding have now been posted at Kramnik's website. No...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 2:33 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chess
My parents have been in town for the past two days, so I'm a bit behind on my blogging. So how about we get back into the swing of things with a little chess news. Sunday's New York Times had...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 2:25 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 2, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
On February 24 there was a pro-ID confab. in Istanbul. Among the attendees was David Berlinski, whose boneheaded essays for Commentary appear with depressing regularity. The conference website includes a brief abstract for Berlinski's talk. So, how about we wrap...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:04 PM • 61 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 1, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Christianity Today has published this lengthy review of The God Delusion. The review's author is Alvin Plantinga, who is often described as America's foremost philosopher of religion. As regular readers of this blog are aware, I find the central truth...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:15 PM • 119 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
