jlynch
Posts by this author
February 22, 2007
A few days ago I mentioned the Conservapedia entry on evolution as being notably bad. Well, it has changed over the past few days (but not for the better).
Witness:
The Theory of Evolution, introduced by Charles Darwin in his book On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The…
February 22, 2007
February 22nd
1632 - Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.
1705 - Birth of Peter Artedi, Swedish naturalist
1731 - Death of Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist
1796 - Birth of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician
1817 - Birth of…
February 21, 2007
A couple of quick comments on this article:
Arizona State University is among the nation's top offenders when it comes to students illegally downloading music, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
The organization has sent ASU more than 300 notices identifying students…
February 21, 2007
February 21st
1554 - Death of Hieronymus Bock, German botanist
1721 - Birth of John McKinly, American physician
1895 - Birth of Carl Peter Henrik Dam Danish biochemist, Nobel laureate
1901 - Death of George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician
1918 - The last Carolina parakeet dies in…
February 20, 2007
Ed Brayton has introduced us to Conservapedia - a Conservative alternative to Wikipedia which is "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American" according to Conservapedia's founder Andrew Schlafly. The quality of work is best evidenced by the entry on evolution:
The Theory of Evolution, introduced…
February 20, 2007
February 20th
1762 - Death of Tobias Mayer, German astronomer
1771 - Death of Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist
1844 - Birth of Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist
1907 - Death of Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1937 - Birth of Robert Huber, German chemist,…
February 19, 2007
Yet another reason why John McCain is increasingly less deserving of any respect. from anyone who once thought he was a moderate Republican:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party's conservative voters, said Sunday that the court decision…
February 19, 2007
I had meant to pimp this earlier but neglected to (bad me!). Flyers at the AAAS reminded me that Evil Monkey recently announced an essay contest sponsored by the Alliance for Science:
2007 National High School Essay Contest
Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution? If you are a high…
February 19, 2007
The numbnut Republicans over at the Arizona State Legislature are at it again. Senate Bill 1542 passed the Senate Government Committee 4-3 along party lines and is headed for the Senate floor. Put simply, the bill would:
Forbid public K-12 and college instructors from giving their partisan…
February 19, 2007
February 19th
1473 - Birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, mathematician and astronomer
1526 - Birth of Charles de L'Ecluse, Flemish botanist
1553 - Death of Erasmus Reinhold, German astronomer and mathematician
1660 - Birth of Friedrich Hoffmann, German physician and chemist
1799 - Death of Jean-…
February 18, 2007
H. Allen Orr responds to Dennett's response to Orr's review of Dawkins' The God Delusion and basically captures my position on TGD:
Daniel Dennett's main complaint about my review is that I held Dawkins's book to too high a standard. The God Delusion was, he says, a popular work and, as such, one…
February 18, 2007
PZ lays a smackdown on a neurosurgeon who is one of the Discovery Institute's 700 who are "skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life" and claims:
I am asking a simple question: show me the evidence (journal, date, page) that…
February 18, 2007
February 18th
901 - Death of Thabit ibn Qurra, Arab astronomer and mathematician
1745 - Birth of Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist
1788 - Death of John Whitehurst, English clockmaker and scientist
1838 - Birth of Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist
1851 - Death of Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi, German…
February 17, 2007
This afternoon there was a symposium on "Science Literacy and Pseudoscience" that I had intended to attend but eventually missed. According to this AP story, it was revealed there that
"People in the U.S. know more about basic science today than they did two decades ago, good news that researchers…
February 17, 2007
The problem with the AAAS meeting is that so much is going on that it can be difficult to actually decide what to do. And much of what is good involves stuff happening outside of the sessions. I have run into (and dined with) people from Alliance for Science, the Clergy Letter Project, Evolution…
February 17, 2007
February 17th
1723 - Birth of Tobias Mayer, German astronomer
1792 - Birth of Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist
1796 - Birth of Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician
1874 - Death of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician
1888 - Birth of Otto Stern, German physicist,…
February 16, 2007
Things are very busy here at the AAAS Annual Meeting, so much so that I haven't had a chance to sit at a computer and write anything. Hopefully, if I get some time together tomorrow, I'll blog on a session on grassroots activism and science education. For now, I'll just note the following:
Eugenie…
February 16, 2007
February 16th
1531 - Death of Johannes Stöffler, German mathematician and astronomer
1698 - Birth of Pierre Bouguer, French mathematician
1727 - Birth of Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, Austrian scientist
1804 - Birth of Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold, German physiologist
1822 - Birth of Sir Francis…
February 16, 2007
For All
Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.
Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music,…
February 15, 2007
February 15th
1564 - Birth of Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist
1809 Birth of André Dumont, Belgian geologist
1847 - Death of Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician
1849 - Death of Pierre François Verhulst, Belgian mathematician
1861 - Birth of Charles Edouard Guillaume,…
February 14, 2007
This morning I'm heading off to the Science Fest To Beat All Science Fests - a.k.a. the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Francisco. There I hope to at least hook up with Tara, Janet and Chris Mooney and do some blogging along the way (time permitting).…
February 13, 2007
February 14th
1468 - Birth of Johann Werner, German mathematician
1848 - Birth of Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer
1869 - Birth of Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate
1894 - Death of Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian mathematician
1898 - Birth of Fritz Zwicky, Swiss-…
February 13, 2007
Reuters is reporting:
The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life. The board in the central U.S. state…
February 13, 2007
February 13th
1633 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
1672 - Birth of Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist
1743 - Birth of Joseph Banks, English botanist and naturalist
1787 - Death of RuÄer BoškoviÄ, Croatian scientist
1805 - Birth of Peter Gustav…
February 12, 2007
The New York Times has run a story about the young earth creationist (and ex-DI Fellow) Marcus Ross who received his PhD in geological sciences. Predictablly, the denizens of Uncommon Descent see this as some sort of victory. Cordova comments:
He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and…
February 11, 2007
February 12th
1612 - Death of Christopher Clavius, German astronomer
1637 - Birth of Jan Swammerdam, Dutch scientist
1665 - Birth of Rudolf Jakob Camerarius, German botanist and physician
1785 - Birth of Pierre Louis Dulong, French physicist
1788 - Birth of Carl Reichenbach, German chemist and…
February 11, 2007
Chis Allen is a weatherman for WKBO in Kentucky. He is also an idiot. Witness:
My biggest argument against putting the primary blame on humans for climate change is that it completely takes God out of the picture. It must have slipped these people's minds that God created the heavens and the earth…
February 11, 2007
As most readers are no doubt aware, Charles Robert Darwin, the discover of descent with modification by means of natural selection, was born on this day in 1809. It is probably safe to say that the science blogosphere will be jam packed with posts in Darwin and his ideas and meatspace will be…
February 11, 2007
Those wild and crazy guys over at SCQ have come up with the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique, an organization of which I am proud to be a member. Maybe the physique bit is a stretch, but what the heck. Members are:
not opposed to alcohol.
fond of IPCC…