Now on ScienceBlogs: That Which I Sowed in Tears, I Now Reap in Joy: A Love Letter to my Beautiful Readers
A blag for math, physics and the New Enlightenment
Blake Stacey is a physics boffin and science-fiction writer who wandered the Earth and eventually settled in the nation-state of Denial.
« Returned from Crashing TAM 7 | Main | Would You Call These Colours Mauve and Green? »
Category: Evolution • Popularization • Pseudoscience
Posted on: July 15, 2009 12:09 PM, by Blake Stacey
"Because genetics has occasionally been described using metaphors from computers, Intelligent Design is a fact. Also, Thomas Jefferson!"
So, the Boston Globe loses its science section, and for compensation we get op-eds like this? I can see why the "elite national papers remain the go-to source for coverage of science"!
(Via.)
UPDATE (20 July): Jeffrey Shallit has a good post on Meyer and "his little honesty problem".
Share this: Facebook Twitter Stumbleupon Reddit Email + More
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/114920
Uncertain Principles 11.08.2009
Neurotopia 11.09.2009
The Primate Diaries 11.09.2009
Stoat 11.07.2009
Tomorrow's Table 11.07.2009
![[sex and science]](http://www.sunclipse.org/downloads/sexandscience3.png)
Comments
More-or-less off-topic, but I can't let it pass...
Okay, after all the brouhaha over 'mail order bride' adverts, this is ridiculous. I'm reading an entry about ID, and the ad at the top of the page has Ben Stein's ugly mug pitching for FreeScore credit reports. Or some such. The ad disappeared while I was signing into typekey, so I no longer have it in front of me. ("And there was much rejoicing!")
Anyone else seen this? Should we go to the trouble of expelling him all over again, or would that just be nit-picky?
Rt
Posted by: Roadtripper
| July 15, 2009 1:43 PM
We're doomed. When is the next bus for Tau Ceti??
Posted by: Athena Andreadis | July 15, 2009 2:21 PM
And, in conclusion, that is why slavery is still legal. Because Thomas Jefferson did it, and that trumps everything else.
Posted by: Joshua
| July 15, 2009 2:32 PM
ah, he's from the DI. that explains his craptacular argument.
Posted by: rob | July 15, 2009 4:05 PM
I know there was some talk before Darwin published his book in 1859, but, seriously, how much of evolutionary materialism (or whatever words he used) was seriously being considered by the general public in 1822?
Posted by: Badger3k | July 15, 2009 4:40 PM
Solution: Firefox + AdBlock
You're welcome. ;-)
Posted by: Woof | July 15, 2009 7:43 PM
MMMMmmmmmmmm! Sweet, sweet TARD.
Posted by: ERV | July 15, 2009 9:28 PM
@5
Evolution was seriously considered by the general public long before 1822. For one, the general public was much more involved with science than today, whether it was the nobs at lectures at the Royal Society (standing room only when Faraday was speaking) or labourers and tradesmen at the village Mechanics Institute, science was a prominent part of social discourse.
Secondly, evolution-as-a-fact had been firmly established by the 1780's and the problem then was to explain how it could happen. This was, in fact, a burning issue and much discussed in social circles. There were many theories and the least wrong than most, Lamarckism, appeared first around 1802 (IIRC). The first `evolution is is on its last legs' claim was made in 1825 (again, IIRC). The right answer was found by a Scottish geologist named James Hutton, but unfortunately he died (in 1797, twelve years before Darwin was born) before publishing and it was 1948 before anyone found out.
Posted by: Keith Harwood | July 15, 2009 11:45 PM
@ 8: I wouldn't say that evolution as a fact was settled by the 1780s. Arguably, change in forms of life over geological time, including extinction, was well supported by then, but Agassiz (for one) was an unrepentant Cuvier-style extinction and replacement type. Of course Agassiz was a bit nuts, but Cuvier resisted evolutionary ideas as undermining the delicate adaptive balance of characters well into the 19th century, and there was no paleontologist/ anatomist with higher stature than his: he was widely regarded as having decisively won his debates with Lamarck (though that was largely due to Lamarck treating evolution as an alternative to extinction) and Geoffroy (whose efforts--retrospectively insightful-- to link the anatomy of molluscs with vertebrates were demolished by Cuvier's detailed work).
Posted by: Bryson Brown | July 16, 2009 1:01 PM