Now on ScienceBlogs: Casual Fridays: What makes a good writer, and what motivates them?
You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that it loses itself early and does not find itself any more. --Mark Twain
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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The Birth of Intelligent Falling
A failure of Intelligent Design
Why it's called Intelligent Design Creationism
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April 30, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Freedom Singer and civil rights icon Bernice Johnson Reagon: If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.Relevant, I think, to the kerfuffle over evolution/religion accomodationism. Also relevant to note that most scientists are not incompatibilists of the Dawkins/Coyne/Myers school....
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:47 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Biology
Both the mammalogist and the political junkie in me wish we could see this: rumors are flying like monkeys and squirrels, which, of course, clouds the issueA literal cloud of flying monkeys and squirrels would be quite a sight....
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
In attacking the Obama administration's response to the swine flu outbreak, "Brownie" reveals more about the past administration than the current one: I think they want to raise this level because that gives them more attention, it gives them more, you know, more legitimacy, and allows them to get out there and say ‘oh look at us, we’re in control we've got this thing taken care of.’ It legitimizes what they’re doing.For eight years, the Bush team tried desperately to make everything seem like a crisis, hoping that fear would keep them in power. The Obama administration has been calm...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:18 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 29, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Shorter every conservative everywhere (RNC Chairman Michael Steele or disgraced former Representative Jim Ryun's sons or Martin Cothran, for instance): Arlen Specter, pfft. The Republican Party needs to abandon Ronald Reagan's Big Tent approach so that Republicans can have more leaders like Ronald Reagan.BTW, why can't Martin Cothran spell? "Barrack Obama"? "Arlen Spector"?...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 2:37 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 28, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
There's a kerfuffle under way in which Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, Richard Hoppe, and a host of others are debating whether NCSE is too nice to theists. Since I work for NCSE, I'm trying to stay out of this, and my comments about NCSE will be based on publicly available information, not any internal discussions; I will also avoid referring to NCSE as "us" to avoid confusion on this point. As the disclaimer to the left says, nothing here reflects NCSE's official position, and if you disagree, your disagreement is with me, not NCSE. While I don't intend any comprehensive...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:16 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Ending obstructions thrown up by wingnuts who think that abortion is more important than a global pandemic, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Sebelius has resigned as Governor of Kansas and is moving into her office. Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson is now the Governor. Sebelius won her nomination on a 65-31 vote, with Republican Kansas Senators Roberts and Brownback joining the entire Democratic caucus (including newly Democratic Senator Specter), and Republicans Kit Bond of Missouri, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and George...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 5:18 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 27, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Steve Benen observes that the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees our response to pandemics like swine flu, is currently without its Secretary. Governor Kathleen Sebelius, whose own state had some of the first cases of swine flu in the US, is waiting for Senate confirmation. The delay? Anti-abortion activists couldn't kill her nomination, but extracted the delay as a compromise. It doesn't actually get them anything tangible, but it makes them feel tough. Benen writes: I'm not arguing the U.S. response to the swine-flu problem is necessarily less effective because Kathleen Sebelius' nomination has been delayed; I'm...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:55 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
Martin Cothran's difficulties with basic reading comprehension continue. I'm putting most of this response below the fold, because sometimes someone on the internet is just wrong. All you need to know about Cothran's commitment to the truth is this reply to my claim that "I find [William F.] Buckley's condemnation [of Buchanan] significant because his political interests would have been best served by defending an ally against such charges." Cothran insists that: No one who is even vaguely familiar with the infighting that goes in the conservative movement could say that about Buckley (a neoconservative) and Buchanan (a paleoconservative).Except that...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 10:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 24, 2009
Category: Policy and Politics
Shorter Longer Martin Cothran: If you ignore all the comments Pat Buchanan has made claiming that the Jews (not just Israel, but the Jews per se) are a shadowy force secretly controlling world affairs, geofinance, and Hollywood, and if you ignore his invocation of the blood libel, and you ignore his denials that the Holocaust happened, and if you ignore that he blames Churchill (not Hitler) for what Jewish deaths one must acknowledge having happened during World War II, and if you ignore that he defends every Nazi war criminal he can find, and if you ignore his hiring of...
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:30 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Policy and Politics
We don't torture. Or at least, we shouldn't, and anyone who did, or who authorized it, or constructed elaborate legal fictions to justify it, should have the courage of their convictions to stand trial. They broke the law: laws of this nation, and moral laws that precede the Bill of Rights, let alone the Torture Convention and the Uniform Code of Military Justice....
Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:27 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neurophilosophy 11.19.2009
The Island of Doubt 11.20.2009
Greg Laden's Blog 11.20.2009
The World's Fair 11.19.2009
Laelaps 11.20.2009
