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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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Culture Wars:
Hilzoy quotes Steve Benen, quoting Roll Call:After months working behind the scenes, House Republican leaders this week will finally start rolling out their rebranding effort aimed at rallying the party around a comprehensive policy and message agenda. Titled “Reasons to Believe,” the plan is meant to provide House Republicans with a sales pitch to voters by focusing on four issue areas: the economy, energy, health care and security. And already we've got a list of 8 myths about it. Yes, the Republican party has named its brilliant new plan after a crackpot creationist group, but at least it's an old-earth...
Posted on May 13, 2008 3:03 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
NCSE wants your help: The National Center for Science Education, a non-profit organization that defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools, seeks candidates for a position in its Public Information Project. Staff members in the Public Information Project provide advice and support to local activists faced with threats to evolution education in their communities. They also provide information on evolution, evolution education, and related issues to the general public, the press, and allied organizations, and contribute as needed to NCSE's publications, both in print and on-line. Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, are necessary, as are a...
Posted on May 8, 2008 5:15 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is the third of four videos NCSE commissioned to help explain how evolution works, and to help people understand the threats posed to accurate science education. It's remarkable what you can fit into a brief video. It's also worth noting that a lot won't fit into a video. If the issue of eye evolution is of interest, check out this recent article from LifeScientist. The Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper they discuss is more technical, but is a really good review....
Posted on May 6, 2008 6:41 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm used to creationists. Every day, I get up, check my email, and get questions straight from the Index of Creationist Claims. Drawings of dinosaurs that prove people lived with dinosaurs, the young sun would have been too cold, the ocean has too much salt, etc. It's fun. I point people toward resources to clarify their scientific claims, then start digging into the real issue: their misunderstanding of the relation between science and religion. "No," I explain, "you don't have to give up your religious faith in order to accept the scientific evidence." And that sometimes leads to other discussions....
Posted on May 2, 2008 8:20 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted on April 29, 2008 5:05 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted on April 29, 2008 2:26 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted on April 24, 2008 4:32 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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:...
Posted on April 24, 2008 12:31 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted on April 23, 2008 3:07 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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....
Posted on April 22, 2008 6:11 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
