January 2, 2009
Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Chait states a central truth regarding the situation in Gaza. He was replying to this standard bit of lazy moral relativism from Ezra Klein:
The point is simple: You can argue, as Israel is arguing, that their air strikes are a response to Hamas's missiles. But…
December 22, 2008
Here's your quiz for the day. Who wrote this?
There is no theistic God who exists to take care of you or me. There is no God who stands ready to set aside the laws by which this universe operates to come to our aid in time of need. There are no everlasting arms underneath us to catch us when we…
December 21, 2008
As you have probably noticed, I haven't been blogging lately. This is because ever since the semester ended I've been gradually slogging through all of the annoying little work-related tasks that have been put on the back-burner for the last six weeks or so. And since many of these tasks entail…
December 9, 2008
I've been a bit derelict in my blog reading lately, so I overlooked this post by Wesley Elsberry. His subject is a comment left by William Dembski at his (Dembski's) blog, in response to this post.
Dembski, it seems, now admits that he has been wasting everyone's time for quite a while.
Dembski's…
December 8, 2008
Here's the latest:
More than 500 people from throughout Western Washington turned out Sunday at the Capitol steps to protest a sign a group of atheists erected as part of the holiday display inside the building.
The protest -- organized late last week by a Federal Way man who said he was offended…
December 7, 2008
As a companion piece to my post a few days ago regarding Christiane Amanpour's remarks about blogging, have a look at Andrew Sullivan's latest column for The Times Online. Lot's of interesting statistics:
Between March and September the 500 biggest newspapers in America reported an average…
December 5, 2008
As I write this, Bill O'Reilly has devoted a major chunk of his show to how “out of control” the situation in Washington is. He dug up some troll of a preacher to declare that Christmas is the most sacred of Christian holidays (which is absurd). And he's lambasting Governor Gregoire for her…
December 4, 2008
CNN foreign affairs correspondent Christiane Amanpour offers a few thoughts on the merits, or lack thereof, of blogging:
Sometimes it is incredibly useful, for instance, in closed societies such as Burma. Some of the images, some of the stories that have come out have been by the Internet and by…
December 3, 2008
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has won the right to post an anti-religion display next to a Christmas tree and a naticity scene in the Capitol rotunda in Washington State:
An atheist group has unveiled an anti-religion placard in the state Capitol, joining a Christian Nativity scene and “…
December 2, 2008
My main intellectual activity today was to rotate curves around various axes, and then explain how to find the volumes of the solids that resulted. Doesn't put me in the mood for heavy, thought-provoking blogging. But I did recently come across this interesting bit of movie news. Why am I not…
November 21, 2008
I will be visiting the 'rents in my New Jersey office tomorrow, and I will be there through the Thanksgiving holiday. EvolutionBlog will make a triumphant return in December. See you then!
November 19, 2008
This is cool. From Wired:
When the Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was announced at the international supercomputing conference in Austin, Texas, on Monday, IBM had barely managed to cling to the top spot, fending off a challenge from Cray. But both competitors broke petaflop…
November 18, 2008
Have you ever seen George Will do his schtick on some chat show or other and then start wondering if maybe he's just making stuff up? Wonder no more!
On This Week this past Sunday Will was on with New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. The following exchange took place:…
November 18, 2008
As part of my daily diet of news sites and blog reading I keep an eye on various creationist websites. This is done partly as opposition research. It's always good to know what the crazy people are getting excited about. But it is also because they frequently link to interesting articles I might…
November 14, 2008
Remember that big apologetics conference in North Carolina to which I made jeering reference a while back? Well, I didn't go.
Happily, Timothy Yedder did, and to judge from his account it doesn't sound like I missed anything:
We arrived to a scene of total chaos, scores of people trying to park…
November 13, 2008
This is an exciting time for chessplayers. First the big Anand-Kramnik match, which certianly exceeded expectations. Possibly a Kamsky-Topalov match later this month. And now the big olympiad in Dresden, Germany. The U.S. is represented by a strong team consisting of Onischuk, Shulman, Nakamura…
November 13, 2008
As I am sure you are aware, there are still three Senate elections that have yet to be resolved. The Democrats need all three of them to get to the magic sixty. On November 4 I would have considered that very unlikely indeed. But now I'm not so sure.
The big one, from my perspective, is the…
November 12, 2008
Christopher Hitchens can be infuriating, but he certainly has a way with words. I laughed out loud while reading the first paragraph of his new column for Slate:
Yes, yes, yes. I, too, took pleasure in standing in line and in exchanging pleasantries and greetings with the amazingly courteous…
November 12, 2008
Ever wonder if anyone responds to those spam marketing e-mails? Wonder no more:
The researchers used two of the most popular ploys currently used by spammers - firstly offering a fake pharmacy site and, secondly, offering a herbal Viagra-style remedy to boost libido.
“After 26 days, and almost…
November 11, 2008
Discover Magazine has an interesting article up discussing a perennial favorite: the fine-tuning of the universe for life. I got a bit nervous when I saw the title:
Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory
That makes it sound like scientists devised the multiverse…
November 10, 2008
One of the great frustrations in responding to creationist literature is their penchant for using technical sounding jargon in ways no scientist would recognize. A good example is their use of the word “information.” This word has a variety of meanings within mathematics, but creationists usually…
November 9, 2008
I just had an interesting weekend.
On Thursday I found out that one of my favorite political organizations, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, was having a little meet-up for bloggers in Washington D.C. Washington? Gosh, that's just a short ride from my digs in Harrisonburg…
November 6, 2008
Now that the big election is over, it's time to get away from political blogging for a while and return to what this blog was created to do: bash creationists. So have a look at this article from The New Scientist:
“You cannot overestimate,” thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, “how…
November 5, 2008
From The Onion, of course:
Although polls going into the final weeks of October showed Sen. Obama in the lead, it remained unclear whether the failing economy, dilapidated housing market, crumbling national infrastructure, health care crisis, energy crisis, and five-year-long disastrous war in…
November 5, 2008
President Obama it is. Cool. I wanted Hillary Clinton, but I'll take what I can get. And even though I'm one of those people who says things like, “If you're not cynical, you're not paying attention,” I confess to being moved by Obama's victory speech.
Can he lead? Who knows? The braying…
November 4, 2008
Now that Obama has scored a very convincing win in the big election, I am reminded of a column written by Michael Kinsley in 1992, celebrating the victory of Bill Clinton. It's eerie how much of it is still relevant today. Couldn't find it online, so here are a few excerpts. Alas, just as with…
November 4, 2008
Earlier today I puttered on down to the delightfuly named W. H. Kiester Elementary School, conveninetly located right along the shortest route between my house and the big JMU Parking Deck, and cast my vote for Barack Obama. Fearing long lines I brought with me the new issue of Magic magazine,…
October 30, 2008
Not really, of course. But I like his zombie analogy:
When the distinguished philosopher Philip Kitcher recently addressed the creationist movement in his Living With Darwin, he judiciously assessed creationism in its latest incarnation as historically respectable but currently bankrupt, and…
October 29, 2008
I know, I know. The candidates can't be held responsible for the acts of a few crazy supporters. But does anyone doubt that this sort of thing is far more common among McCain supporters than among Obama supporters? Can anyone deny that this sort of thing arises naturally when you run a campaign…
October 29, 2008
The big chess match is over. Anand is the victor. He won three games to Kramnik's one, with seven draws.
The final game saw Anand, playing white, opening with his e-pawn. This is Anand's usual choice, but he had avoided it in this match. This is likely owing to the success Kramnik has had in…
