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Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is also a graduate student at the University of Kansas, completing a doctorate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not modeling species distributions or battling creationists, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of the NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.
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June 30, 2007
Category: Chatter
I'm out of town, here are some hints to the state, city, and organization I'm visiting, and my means of getting there: The means of travel and the organization: "Science Vs. Romance" by Rilo Kiley from the album Take Offs and Landings (2001, 5:43). The state: "California" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers from the album She's the One (1996, 2:39). The city: "California Uber Alles" by Dead Kennedys from the album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980, 3:00). The organization:"Small Change" by Tom Waits from the album Small Change (1976, 5:05). "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" by Radiohead from the album...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:51 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 29, 2007
Category: Chatter
"I Wanna Be A Witch" by Kim Fox from the album I Wanna Be A Witch (1997, 3:40). "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" by Bob Dylan from the album MTV Unplugged (1995, 4:48). "It Was a Good Day" by Ice Cube from the album The Predator (1992, 4:20). "Heaven Or Las Vegas" by Cocteau Twins from the album Heaven Or Las Vegas (3:58). "Cabo Verde Manda Mantenha" by Cesaria Evora from the album Café Atlantico (1991, 4:03). "Frank's Wild Years" by Tom Waits from the album Swordfishtrombones (1983, 1:50). "Watasala Warila Nanzifile" by Alberto Mwamosi & Gabriel Bila...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:13 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 28, 2007
Category: Policy and Politics
I'm conflicted over Tyson Foods's decision to sell antibiotic-free chickens. On one hand, anything that increases supply and reduces the costs of chicken that aren't pumped full of antibiotics is good. Antibiotic-laced chicken farms are breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, bacteria which can enter the food supply or transfer those resistance genes to other populations through anything from dirt on trucks from the farm, or fertilizer produced from the chicken droppings. On the other hand, Tyson Foods has a horrific labor record. It provides cheap chicken by using every trick in the book to beat back union drives. The consequences...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:57 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 27, 2007
Category: Culture Wars
Roy Torcaso, 96, fought for the right to serve in public office without declaring his religious beliefs: Mr. Torcaso, who said he was an atheist, was a bookkeeper by profession. He worked for a Bethesda construction company when his legal challenge started in 1959. He had been urged by his boss to become a notary public. At the Montgomery County Circuit Court, he refused to swear to a state oath given to notaries public that made them profess the existence of God. "The point at issue," he said at the time, "is not whether I believe in a Supreme Being,...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:38 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Culture Wars
Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa. I believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think. There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison. Even if some thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it. Better to think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all.Discuss. Laputa was a flying sky-island of natural philosophers where no one's clothes fit because they preferred astronomical...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:35 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brain and Behavior
The Chinese Room is a thought experiment in artificial intelligence. John Searle proposed it as a way to falsify the claim that some computer algorithm could be written which could mimic the behavior of an intelligent human so precisely that we could call it an artificial intelligence. Searle proposed that we imagine a log cabin (though it has been observed that it must be an enormous log cabin, perhaps a log aircraft carrier), in which a person sits. Around that person lie reams of paper, full of rules in English, as well as a story written in Chinese (or any...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:48 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 26, 2007
Category: Biology
In today's big section on evolution in the New York Times, John Noble Wilford explains the explosion of new material and new understanding of the human family tree. Through the 1990s and into this century, new fossil discoveries have pushed our understanding of hominid origins back in time, and refined our knowledge of how we got from those origins to our current form. Those new fossils are helping molecular biologists trace the ways that our genes evolved over millions of years, and those insights are sending anthropologists and systematists back to the bone to test new hypotheses. Wilford explains:...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:48 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Culture Wars
Pete Seeger tells us "Moderation in all things, even moderation." A useful motto in many situations. For instance, my friend Mike the Mad Biologist rightly criticizes hackish pundits, and hackish politicians, for Compulsive Centrist Disorder, the belief that the true answer to any question must lie halfway between the positions being advocated, regardless of what those positions are, and where that midpoint happens to lie. We might call this an extremist form of moderation. Moderation is a sticky issue in the culture wars these days. Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins expend a good deal of effort explaining why religious moderates...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:55 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
The UK's military chief of staff is concerned: Climate change poses a challenge for the military in adapting operations and helping to deal with the consequences of migration and increased tensions as people compete for resources, the head of the U.K. armed forces said. Rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns are likely to increase desertification, putting pressure on food and water supplies in parts of the world such as Darfur in Sudan and other parts of Africa, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, chief of defense staff, told delegates yesterday at a two-day conference at Chatham House, a London-based policy...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:10 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture Wars
Denyse "Buy my book" O'Leary thinks that evolutionary biologists are just like religious folk. Among the deep parallels she finds: Scientists and the religious both give booklets to children, celebrate birthdays of important figures, claim that certain things are facts, and seek official recognition. Finally: - sacred bones. Christian churches have the bones of the saints; Buddhist stupas the toe-nail-clippings of Buddha; evolution is built on sacred bones, that the evolutionists read meanings into in the way that the pagan priests of Caesar's time read meaning into scattered bones.What is the difference between science and cleromancy?...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:01 AM • 2 Comments •
