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.
August 30, 2007
Category: Religion
Chris Mooney has a link to this analysis of recent polling data. The analysis was written by David Masci. The subject: How Americans feel about science and faith. Mooney thinks the data supports the Matt Nisbet line that people like...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:56 PM • 108 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 29, 2007
Category: Politics
And while we're perusing the Hardball transcript, here's Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee commenting on the causes of cancer. Huckabee, recall, was one of three Republican candidates to raise his hand to affirm his rejection of evolution. Take it away...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:25 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
God is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens and Catholic League president Bill Donohue showed up on Hardball yesterday to mull over the issues raised by the Time article. I'd write some commentary, but some things simply defy comment. I have...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:04 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Time's cover story this week is about Mother Teresa. Specifically, it's about her newly released personal correspondence in which she repeatedly expresses grave doubts about the truth of Christianity, even to the point of questioning whether God exists. It's a...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:33 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Last night's edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews provided more than its fair share of strange moments. There was an amusing exchange between Christopher Hitchens and Catholic League president Bill Donohue regarding the current Time magazine cover story about Mother...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 2:28 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 27, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Perhaps you saw this article from The New York Times last week. It describes some significant new findings in protein evolution: In work published last year, Dr. Thornton reported how his group reconstructed an ancestral protein of two hormone receptors...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 11:00 PM • 65 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Have a look at this op-ed from today's Washington Post, by Susan Goodkin and David Gold : With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:59 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Over at Effect Measure, Revere takes a few shots at Matt Nisbet: It's not just that the Dawkins/Hitchens “PR campaign provides emotional sustenance and talking points for many atheists,” although it does that too. It's that the various writings of...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:32 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 25, 2007
Category: Miscellaneous
It's that time of year again! That most worthless of weekly news mags, U. S. News and World Report, has just published its annual list of America's Best Colleges. As usual, they tinkered with their ranking system again, for the...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:02 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 24, 2007
Category: Politics
But when it comes to brain-dead venom-spewing, Kristol is an amateur compared to Town Hall columnist Lisa De Pasquale. How bad have things gotten for the right? Well, let's have a look. A standard criticism of the phony machismo that...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:46 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Now that it has become obvious to all that every stated reason for the Iraq War was either an outright lie or a gross exaggeration, and that any hope for a successful outcome was squandered by the incompetence and myopia...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:03 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 23, 2007
Category: Science
Perhaps you've heard of Andrew Keen? He showed up on Colbert recently to discuss his new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. One of his points is that bloggers in particular are mere...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:42 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Matt Nisbet has been beating his favorite dead horse again. That's the one where he excoriates people like Richard Dawkins for being just so darn mean in his discussions of religion. In this post he praises Carol Tavris for echoing...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:25 PM • 40 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 22, 2007
Category: Miscellaneous
While I'm getting caught up, allow me to echo Ed Brayton's sentiments on the changing of the guard over at the National Center for Science Education. Nick Matzke, hero of the Kitzmiller trial, will be leaving to obtain a PhD...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:09 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Miscellaneous
I'm back in Virginia after my brief visit to New York. It was really great to meet so many of my fellow science bloggers. I feel so unworthy right now! Bora has the skinny on the weekend's doings along with...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:14 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 14, 2007
Category: Administrative
With the fall semester starting in just under two weeks, it's time to take off for one last trip. We're having a big Science Bloggers gathering in New York City this weekend, and I've just gotta see for myself that...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:56 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 13, 2007
Category: Religion
Salon has posted this interview with physicist Taner Edis. You might recognize Edis as the coeditor (with Matt Young) of the magisterial book Why Intelligent Design Fails. The subject of the present interview is his new book, An Illusion of...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:52 PM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
Meanwhile, just in case you were looking for something truly stupid, go gawk in amazement at this column by David Warren of The Ottawa Citizen. Here's the opening: I get such apoplectic letters, whenever I write about “evolutionism,” that I...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 7:58 PM • 37 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
As much as I despise the Republican Party and believe that Democrats do a vastly better job of running the government, there is one area where I think the Republicans have it all over the Dems. They are much more...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:55 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
Via P.Z., I came across this article, from the Colorado Springs Gazette, about Christian teenagers abdoning their faith upon reaching college: The trend is known as the “Great Evacuation,” and the statistics are startling to youth ministers. Studies have shown...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:56 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 10, 2007
Category: Anti-Creationism
Sometimes I wonder what it is like to be a blogger for the Discovery Institute. Imagine the strain of getting up every morning, swallowing every ounce of pride and intellectual integrity you might possess, and searching desperately through the media...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 5:09 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 8, 2007
Category: Evolution
Today's New York Times has this interesting article about some recent hominid fossil finds. Alas, it falls into the familiar trap of reporting every mundane find as if it is a scientific revolution: Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 3:58 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
After yesterday's post suggesting that the Democrats hadn't caved on the FISA vote, a number of commenters and bloggers pointed out to me that the outrage was that the Democratic leadership allowed the bill to come to a vote at...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 2:50 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 7, 2007
Category: Politics
Several of my fellow Science Bloggers have come to a strange conclusion regarding the recent FISA vote in Congress. Ed Brayton titles his post on the subject “Democrats Cave on FISA Amendment.” P.Z. Myers concurs, writing, “It's a perfect example...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:23 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Certain portions of the political blogosphere have erupted over the subject of teacher's unions. It started with this column, from July 3, by Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. Those of you who follow these things will recognize Cohen as...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 6:06 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anti-Creationism
Most people remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle solely as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. But Doyle was actually quite prolific, and wrote a large number of novels and short stories in a variety of different genres. One of these novels...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 1:01 AM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 6, 2007
Category: Religion
Well, it's time to put my Monty Hall woes to one side for the moment and get back to some regular blogging. A heartfelt thnaks to everyone who left comments. I'm a bit behind in replying, but all have been...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 4:10 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 1, 2007
Category: Mathematics
Sorry for the sporadic blogging. For the past week I've been working on the Progressive Monty Hall problem, and it has proven to be considerably more complicated than I at first realized. I had expected to polish it off with...
Posted by Jason Rosenhouse at 8:33 PM • 61 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
