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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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April 30, 2008
Category: Policy and Politics
As former Kansas congressman Jim Slattery kicks off his campaign to replace Senator Pat "Memory Pills" Roberts, Roberts is already having trouble keeping his facts straight. Sean Tevis explains: I heard that Senator Pat Roberts, who is seeking his third Senate term, issued an ad criticizing Slattery for his work as a lobbyist in Washington. “He stopped working for Kansas 14 years ago and made millions for himself,” the ad says. But I can tell you first-hand that’s not true. The company I work for, based in Overland Park, contacted Jim Slattery three years ago to help us. We designed...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:13 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 29, 2008
Category: Culture Wars
It's not just the science groups who are upset with Expelled's misuse of the Holocaust for petty political advantage. The venerable Anti-Defamation League says that the anti-evolution film misappropriates the Holocaust: New York, NY, April 29, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:05 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
Expelled is a really, truly, awful movie. Even setting aside its errors and its Holocaust nigh-denial, it's just a badly assembled bit of cinema. It's offensive and absurd to compare the events of the Cold War to the treatment of the supposed martyrs: the folks who variously were called bad names, didn't get tenure because they didn't publish research or get grants, the one who didn't get a new contract after failing to live up to the previous one, etc. People starved behind the Berlin Wall. They were sent to Siberia, and not in any figurative sense. It's doubly offensive...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:26 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Chatter
No time for bloggery today, but enjoy the music. "We Looked Like Giants" by Death Cab For Cutie from the album Transatlanticism (2003, 5:32). "Slippery People" by Talking Heads from the album Speaking in Tongues (1983, 5:06). "Grassy Grass Grass" by Elizabeth Mitchell from the album You Are My Little Bird (2006, 0:56). "Perfect Crime" by Guns N' Roses from the album Use Your Illusion I (1991, 2:23). "Get On Out" by Soul Asylum from the album Grave Dancers Union (1992, 3:30). "Coast to Coast" by Elliott Smith from the album From a Basement on a Hill (2004, 5:35). "Territorial...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:22 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 25, 2008
Category: Creationism
David Klinghoffer complains about responses to his Hitler-praising column. He links to this blog four times, despite the fact that I only wrote about him twice (three times once I post this). His complaint: By these Darwinist propagandists, it is asserted that I agree that “Hitler was right about the Jews,” … Not a bit of which is remotely true. Obviously.Obviously, I was simply responding to Klinghoffer's claim that "Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today don’t grasp," that "Hitler’s insight into Judaism [is] … a profound theme in rabbinic literature," and to his praise for Hitler's...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 7:36 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 24, 2008
Category: Creationism
Orac doesn't think Expelled's Nazi claims are a form of Holocaust denial. I disagree. Orac has some good points, and "denial" may be a strong word. Orac gives the basic criteria of Holocaust denial as rejecting at least one of these statements: 1. The Holocaust was the intentional murder of European Jews by the Nazi government of Germany during World War II as a matter of state policy 2. This mass murder employed gas chambers, among other methods, as a method of killing 3. The death toll of European Jews by the end of World War II was roughly 6...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:32 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
The video at ExpelledExposed.com highlighting Chris Comer's story was one of last week's most viewed and most discussed on YouTube. In a week, it basically tied the YouTube trailer for Expelled, and exceeded the viewership of the Dick-to-the-Dawk viral video put out by the producers of Expelled. We don't know if the next three videos we're rolling out over the next few weeks will get the same response, but I'm very fond of the one we're highlighting this week:...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:31 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 23, 2008
Category: Creationism
Yoko sues Expelled filmmakers over Imagine | Entertainment | Reuters: John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his sons are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission. … Yoko Ono, son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from continuing to use "Imagine" in the movie. They are also seeking unspecified damages. For those of you keeping track, the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:07 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 22, 2008
Category: Policy and Politics
Hilzoy compares three candidate comments on the alleged autism/vaccine link: Last month I wrote about John McCain's statement claimed that there is "strong evidence" that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. I expect better from Democrats, and while saying that we don't know whether vaccines cause autism is better than saying that they do (or did, while thimerosal was still used), it's not better enough. And both Democratic candidates have said this. Obama: "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:45 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
I'm still digging out of the post-Expelled craziness. Our video about Chris Comer has gotten more views than the Expelled trailer on Youtube or the rapping Dawkins video, and traffic keeps streaming in to ExpelledExposed.com. If you haven't done so already, there's still time to locate a stupid statement by Ben Stein (from anywhere, not the movie) and refute it as part of NCSE's "Set Ben Straight" contest. Fabulous prizes! Now get out there and enjoy this amazing planet of ours....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:11 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
