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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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July 31, 2007
Category: Chatter
Because you need some music to go with your posts from the archives: "(Was I) In Your Dreams" by Wilco from the album Being There (1996, 3:30). "Fingertips [21 - Darkened Corridors]" by They Might Be Giants from the album Apollo 18 (1990, 1:01). "Red Right Ankle" by The Decemberists from the album Her Majesty (2003, 3:29). Probably my favorite Decemberists song. "And how it whispered 'Oh, adhere to me/ for we are bound by symmetry.'" "The E Street Shuffle" by Bruce Springsteen from the album The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Band (1973, 4:26). "Not A Second...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:42 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
It isn't Passover right now, but several people recently commented that this is one of our better posts from the old blog, so enjoy....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:51 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 30, 2007
Category: Chatter
Randomly selected from my "driving" playlist in iTunes. It's like you're in the car with me right now, as I drive across the western US. "How to Fight Loneliness" by Wilco from the album Summerteeth (1999, 3:52). "Fingertips 18 - The Day That Love Came to Play" by They Might Be Giants from the album Apollo 18(1990, 0:08). "Gotta Serve Somebody" by Bob Dylan from the album Slow Train Coming (1979, 5:21). "State Trooper" by Bruce Springsteen from the album Nebraska (1982, 3:17). "Help!" by The Beatles from the Ed Sullivan Show (1965, 3:01). "Julia" by The Beatles from the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:12 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physical Sciences
Reposted from the old TfK, while I Travel from Kansas. Everyone is answering Seed's Question of the Week: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be? I'm down with this answer: I want people to understand that there is no law of averages. There are no laws of probability (at least not if you mean something like "Really improbable things don't happen"). You can't prove just anything with statistics.My inclination would actually have been phrased the exact opposite way, though getting at the same point....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:46 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 29, 2007
Category: Chatter
That title is not an homage to Kerouac, but to Cormac McCarthy and to John Buass, who I finally met on Friday and who tried hard to convince me, Mike Silverman, and anyone else in earshot, that The Road is not that dark. The title is also an accurate description. By the time this post publishes, I should be somewhere past Topeka, following roughly the route shown in the new temporary banner. I'll only have intermittent 'net access, so may or may not check the comments to get your advice, but feel free to suggest brief diversions the parents and...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:26 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 27, 2007
Category: Chatter
iTunes spins the wheels and reveals: "Midnight Rider" by The Allman Brothers Band from the album Dreams (1989, 4:26). I'm compiling this post at midnight. Does that make me a Midnight Writer? "Dinner Bell" by They Might Be Giants from the album Apollo 18 (1990, 2:11). Lunch yesterday: Ribs and brisket at Kansas City's famous Arthur Bryant's. Trillin is right, it is the world's best restaurant. "Hymn 43" by Jethro Tull from the album Aqualung (1971, 3:18). "Ed Is Dead" by Pixies from the album Come on Pilgrim (1987, 2:29). "I'll See You In The Evening" by Mazarin from the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:51 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Reposted because it amuses me. Right before Saddam Hussein's execution, I wrote: As my AP English teacher told us when we read Billy Budd by Herman Melville "A criminal is hanged, a man is hung." Yet another piece of 19th century arcana that the Bush administration has made necessary in the modern world.In other news, I'm currently packing furiously. I'll be scheduling some posts to go up over the next week or so, since I'll be driving west to Oakland, CA, and will have little or no internet access during the drive and probably until I actually find an apartment....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:00 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 25, 2007
Category: Culture Wars
The Kansas Tourism Bureau should send a copy of this book to PZ Myers. Giant squidlike aliens and enmity of the gods would make great attractions. Neatorama explains the cover of Joseph Millard's 1964 exposé of the wonders of Kansas: THE GODS HATE KANSAS by Joseph Millard INVASION FROM THE STARS It began with the landing of nine meteors in Kansas. Then, suddenly, it exploded into a massive catastrophe. First, the meteorite investigating team were turned into automatons, ruled by an unknown, alien intelligence. They barricaded themselves from the world and began building a rocket project, aimed at traversing the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:14 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
Tony of Tony's Kansas City has a scoop: I am leaving Kansas. TfK will be unchanged, or at least will continue changing in the same way it's always changed, but in honor of the move out of state, my upcoming birthday (July 26), the birthday of TfK (August 4) and the anniversary of the move here to Scienceblogs (August 20), I'd like to challenge you cunning linguists out there to suggest a new name. This blog has always been about the readers and the community. It started out void and without form, and your attention, smart comments and helpful corrections...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:29 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 24, 2007
Category: Culture Wars
The Discovery Institute promotes a podcast in a post titled: William Dembski Addresses Forthcoming Intelligent Design Research that Advances ID and Answers CriticsHow lovely to know before it happens not only that this "research" will yield answers for his critics, but that those answers will advance his own particular beliefs. Watch him move in one paragraph from "It’s too early to tell what the impact of my ideas is on science" to "I think ID is finally in a position to challenge certain fundamental assumptions in the natural sciences about the nature and origin of information. This, I believe, will...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:38 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
