Evolution:
Category: Creationism
A month ago, I posted a link to an op-ed in the LA Times which referred to as-yet unpublished research which purported to show no difference in science literacy between people who don't take part in religion and evangelical Christians. Then I did my own analysis of the data, which found significant differences between evangelicals and the nonreligious. Now, in a special issue of Social Science Quarterly, Darren Sherkat again shows that evangelicals are less science literate than other groups. The analysis I reported in my previous blog post is actually a bit more sophisticated, and Sherkat's graphs are heinous...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 3:41 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
A couple weeks ago, Fox News released a new poll asking about evolution and creationism. It didn't strike me as especially noteworthy, though it does show a statistically significant rise in acceptance of evolution (21% think "the theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientist" is "more likely to be the explanation for the origin of human life on earth") since they last asked the same question in 1999 (when it was just 15%). That matches the small but statistically significant rise in support for unguided evolution seen in the nearly 30 years that Gallup has been polling...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 9:33 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture Wars
In discussing the National Science Board's latest stand on whether to report evolution literacy, and how to do so, I didn't get into the details of Jon Miller's concerns. Chris Mooney quotes that passage from the Science report, and raises some concerns. Science reported that the NSB will, in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators, report results of two questions: the standard true/false "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals" and another version in which people are asked "according to evolutionary theory, human beings…." An experiment with that language in 2004 found substantially higher...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:20 AM • 37 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture Wars
A bit over a year ago, we reported on the removal of evolution from a report by the NSF's governing body, the National Science Board. The NSB is presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, and sets broad policy for the NSF. Every other year, it publishes a report on Science and Engineering Indicators for the nation, and Chapter 7's discussion of public science literacy is what I always look at first. I was surprised to find evolution absent from the 2010 edition, and sleuthing by NCSE and others resulted in a report in Science magazine, that revealed some disturbing attitudes. Most...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 8:31 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
Remember when I invited readers to take a survey on the Miss USA evolution answers? And I was kinda vague about why I was doing it? At last it can be told, I was working on a guest blog post at Scientific American. You should read the whole thing, but here's the bit about how I used the survey data: Watching the video and reading the transcript, it is obvious that many contestants were conflicted in their views, and quite a few had to discover their views on the spot. Instead of mocking these women for struggling with the issue,...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 11:07 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
I'm here in Las Vegas, and already my work is done. Genie Scott, Occidental College's Don Prothero, and I did a workshop at 9am today about Defending Evolution in Classrooms. Planning for this was complicated, because we wanted it to be a true workshop, i.e., to have interactive aspects, and time for people to work through exercises in small groups. But we didn't know what sort of crowd to expect for the first workshop of the first day. Chatting about our plan, we joked about how embarrassing it'd be if only 3 people showed up, but we planned for about...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:31 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
It was a hard job, but someone had to do it. A few days ago, I sat down and watched a 15 minute video of Miss USA pageant contestants as they pondered the question: Should evolution be taught in schools? Then I watched it again. And again. Until my eardrums bled I had a complete and accurate transcript. So that you don't have to do endure the same agony, I present the transcript below, as a service to the community, with timecodes relative to the video above. Enjoy. You can find the names and biographies of each state's contestant...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 6:00 PM • 35 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brain and Behavior
Via USA Today, we learn about a study showing that people who meditate frequently behave in a more rational manner than non-meditators, and they do so because different parts of their brain take charge of certain kinds of decisions. The study was based around a common test of rational behavior called the Ultimatum Game. Two people sit at a table. One of them is given a sum of money ($20 in this case), and is told to split that however she wants with the other. Before she makes that decision, the other subject is told that if he rejects the...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 1:36 PM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ecology
The vermin only teaze and pinch Their foes superior by an inch. So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.Jonathan Swift, "On Poetry: A Rhapsody"There's so much to love about this story from Nature News. While surveying genetic snippets from a hypersaline lake in Antarctica, an Australian research team found a virus that preys on other viruses. And they sorted out the ecology of the lake well enough to figure out that the virus infected by the virus-infecting virus is a major predator...
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 4:13 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
Mike the Mad Biologist weighs in on a debate Brad Delong has been curating, about the status of economics as a science. Noting that examples from biology are being introduced as comparisons for economics, Mike writes: It really does matter: if economists are going to use biology as a model for their discipline, we need them to understand ours, to help improve theirs. But I'm getting ahead of myself.Upon which, he administers a firm but gentle smackdown to Russ Roberts. Read it, enjoy it....
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Posted by Josh Rosenau at 12:42 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at 
