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 formerly a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not battling creationists or modeling species ranges, 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.
Disco. president Bruce Chapman wonders: It is not clear why the number of academic freedom cases seem to be increasing. Is it because the iron hand of ideological conformity is squeezing professors more tightly? Or is it because more subjects of attack are fighting back in court?Or is it because he's making numbers up from thin air? Might it be not clear that the number of academic freedom cases is increasing? Could Chapman's staff be ginning up meritless claims of academic freedom violations so he has things to blog about?...
Convention centers and convention center hotels should offer free internet access. There's no excuse not to do so. And no, Louisville Convention Center, it does not cost $100/day to provide access in your exhibit hall. Hell will freeze over before I or any sane person would pay anything like that. Frankly, hotel-near-the-Louisville-Convention-Center, $12.95 is too much to spend per day. Charge a dollar a day if it makes you feel better....
An interesting new article today at the Skeptic's Dictionary, explaining the backfire effect. Several recent papers have found that information contradicting people's initial beliefs can actually increase their acceptance of those beliefs. This is true in political contexts and in religious context. In one example, people given false information about a Supreme Court nominee (which played to their biases) wound up retaining their heightened negative views of the nominee after having the negative claims refuted. Skeptic's Dictionary author Robert Carroll concludes: The backfire effect should be distinguished from the continued influence effect, whereby one learns "facts" about an event that...
I spent the last few days at the 5th Netroots Nation, in Las Vegas. As always, the conference has been a whirlwind of political geekery and good, clean fun. This year featured a video address by the President, and Q&A sessions with the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate, not to mention two panels on the use of snark in politics. My obligations here finished early. I'd been involved with three panel submissions, of which two were approved: one about politicized sciences and the other on politicized education. My colleague Steve Newton took over...
Calitics has the story about that whooping cough epidemic: With whooping cough now at epidemic levels, it's becoming clear that one of the primary culprits is the idiotic trend over the last 10 years of parents, mostly affluent whites, opting out of vaccination out of a baseless fear that the vaccines are unsafe....
Yesterday, Bora Zivkovic announced he was leaving ScienceBlogs. This is kinda huge. Bora is as close to a scienceblogging god as any scienceblogger will admit to believing in. He gives every evidence of omnipresence and omniscience about the interplay of science and the internet. He's created many of the ideas that keep the scienceblogging community together, not least the Science Online conferences. And his Sb farewell shows why he's so beloved. He seems to have taken the two weeks since Pepsiblog was announced and decided to go out with a bang. He analyzes what Scienceblogs did well, how it created...
In February, at the AAAS meetings in San Diego, Stephen Schneider gave a gangbuster talk about climate change denial. Schneider was energetic, feisty, and absolutely right about the challenges faced by scientists trying to talk to the media. NCSE's Genie Scott, a fellow panelist, came away deeply impressed, and she knows more than most about giving a good presentation on how scientists should react to science denial. Little wonder, since Schneider has been at the heart of research on global warming since the early 1970s, and has recognized for just as long that the science is not enough. His scientific...
Sensuous Curmudgeon and PZ are both having fun poking through the background of Kansas gubernatorial candidate Joan Heffington. Heffington forthrightly calls for creationism to be taught in public schools, and pledged to demand advocates offer a “biblical and constitutional reason exist for the passage of any new law." Yeesh. PZ responds to this development: Quick, somebody reassure me that she's a fringe candidate without a prayer of getting into office. Please. It's Monday, the day is painful enough.Yes, she's a fringe candidate without a prayer of getting into public office. But that's not good news, because Sam Brownback (Sam Brownback!)...
Shorter PZ Myers: Backlash? Harming the cause? Where?: Simplicity is preferable to science.Let us accept, arguendo that this post is poorly written. So what? Does that mean it's wrong? When did PZ Myers – the scourge of framing – come to defend the notion that science discussions are best evaluated based on their presentation rather than their content? Jason's post was simpler because he skipped over obvious complications to the story he was trying to tell, along the way ignoring well-known sources of bias, skipping basic steps in polls interpretation, cherrypicking a cutoff for the data, and ignoring any number...
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
