August 24, 2006
That's the title of this article from the August 2006 issue of GeoTimes. The article is by Kathryn Hansen. The article details some of the difficulties faced by national parks and museums in communicating science to the public.
It begins as follows:
STOP: This exhibit is about animal thinking.…
August 23, 2006
The cable news channels have been falling all over themselves for the last few days, desperate to find something new to say about the JonBenet Ramsey fracas. Meanwhile, what do you suppose the lead story was on yesterday's edition of The Colbert Report? Grigory Perelman's refusal of the Fields…
August 23, 2006
The Daily Howler has this disturbing report about the Q&A session from a recent presentation by Ann Coulter. Try to believe that a sentient human being actually asked the following question:
QUESTION FROM SOMEONE EZRA KLEIN DOESN'T KNOW (7/28/06): Hi. My name is --, I'm a sophomore at…
August 23, 2006
Anyone familiar with D. James Kennedy, leader of Coral Ridge Ministries, knows that he is one of the vilest ignorance peddlers in the business. When I lived in Kansas I listened frequently to his sermons on the local Christian radio station. He managed to stand out even on a station where lies…
August 22, 2006
My latest essay for CSICOP's Creation Watch site is now up. This time: Why you should be suspicious of creationist and ID arguments even if you know very little of the science involved. Enjoy!
August 22, 2006
A few weeks ago, Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary joined the team over at William Dembski's blog Uncommon Descent. This presented her with a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, she is surely aware that she knows nothing at all about science. But here she was expected to write regularly on…
August 21, 2006
I'm afraid I have to blog and run today. I have to scamper off to Dulles Airport an hour from now to retrieve a friend. (Don't worry, I've already set the VCR to tape the premiere of Prison Break!) So why not have a look at Slate's take on the Poincare conjecture. It includes this memorable…
August 18, 2006
A reader asked me, in response to yesterday's post, why I failed to make any mention of the Mobius Strip. Addressing that topic seemed like a good way to close the week's blogging.
Imagine that you take a long thin strip of newspaper. Hold it at the top with your thumb and index finger, and let…
August 17, 2006
Tuesday's New York Times had this lengthy article about progress on one of the great open problems in mathematics: Poincare's conjecture. Actually, it looks increasingly likely that the problem is no longer open:
Three years ago, a Russian mathematician by the name of Grigory Perelman, a k a…
August 16, 2006
While I was away, William Dembski offered up this revealing post. He describes how he met philosopher Barbara Forrest and asked her to autograph his copy of Creationism's Trojan Horse. She signed it, “To Bill, With Thanks.” Dembski writes:
Indeed, what is she thanking me for? If ID is such a…
August 15, 2006
Prior to my break, there was some discussion, in the comments to this post, about the Day-Age Theory. This refers to the idea that the “Days” in the first chapter of Genesis actually refer to very long periods of time. This is a desperation move made by Biblical literalists who are uneasy…
August 15, 2006
Things have settled down a bit here in Harrisonburg. The JMU Math Department has now nestled in to its new digs in the appallingly named, but otherwise attractive, Roop Hall. Sadly, my office currently has no shelves on the walls, a state affairs I expect to persist for several more weeks. So…
August 3, 2006
Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I'm in the process of buying my first house, which means most of my time lately has been spent either dealing with that, or sitting around worrying that I'm making some terrible mistake. Making matters worse, the math department here at JMU is about to move…
July 28, 2006
Following up on yesterday's post, the July 21 issue of Science also contained this review article, entitled “Evolution of the Molecular Machines for Protein Import into Mitochondria.” The authors write:
Here we look at how protein import pathways were established to create mitochondria. The…
July 27, 2006
While the blathering know-nothings of ID pound their chests and predict the imminent demise of Darwin, real scientists are look to the future. A recent conference at Trinity College in England explored the future of Darwinian thinking in biology. Eors Szathmary (coauthor, with John Maynard Smith…
July 26, 2006
During those rare moments when I am not doing mathematics or blogging, I am usually reading. I read a lot of nonfiction, mostly books related in some way to science or mathematics. I also read a lot of fiction, and here I generally stick to a steady diet of mysteries, horror, science fiction and…
July 25, 2006
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made the following statement on the floor of the Senate last Tuesday. He was speaking in support of federal funding for stem cell research:
Substantively, there is no doubt this is the right thing to do. But I put it in a broader context. There is a group of people…
July 24, 2006
Michael Ruse has this interesting op-ed in the Florida newspaper The Tallahassee Democrat. He begins:
This has been a good year for evolutionists. First, at the end of 2005, a judge in Pennsylvania - a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush - decreed that so-called Intelligent Design…
July 24, 2006
You be the judge.
July 22, 2006
In my recent post criticizing John McCain for his remarks about teaching ID, I quoted the following remark, from the article in the New York Sun reporting on McCain's speech:
Responding to a question about a report that he thinks “intelligent design” should be taught in schools, the senator mocked…
July 22, 2006
Well, it's amazing what a link from Kos can do. EvolutionBlog has received over 7000 hits today. And the day is young! Greetings to all the new readers.
July 21, 2006
How bad have things gotten for the ID side? Completely unable to make good on their promise to generate any ID based research, they have now taken to outright lying about the work done by real scientists. Okay, so maybe they've been doing that for quite some time. Still, William Dembski's latest…
July 19, 2006
As incredible as it seems, there are still those among us who think it clever and above it all to say that in America there is only the Republicrat Party. If you're one of those people who persist in saying that there is no difference between the parties, I would urge you to read this article from…
July 19, 2006
Almost as if to confirm what I wrote in yesterday's post, President Bush vetoed the stem-cell bill. The New York Times has the basic facts.
I won't rehash here the utter vacuity of the arguments made by the anti-stem cell crowd. I would like to point out, however, that after the Presidetn made…
July 18, 2006
One of the more annoying fictions promoted by the media is the one about John McCain being a moderate. A plain-speaking independent who states it plain and calls it the way he sees it. Of course, it's long been obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that he's a staunch right-winger, but…
July 18, 2006
Recemtly there was a bit of a kerfuffle over at Virginia Commonwealth University regarding the bioogy textbook Essentials of Biology, Sylvia Mader. An adjunct biology professor at VCU protested that the book gave short shrift to evolution and was soft on creationism.
I've not managed to locate a…
July 17, 2006
Like all sensible people, I'm a huge fan of George Carlin. I regard him as the very best stand-up comedian, ever. Not only are his routines funny and insightful, but they are delivered so skillfully that you can learn a lot about good public speaking simply by studying his technique. I often…
July 17, 2006
Mark Chu-Carroll joins the discussion with this interesting post.
But if you look at my writing on this blog, what I've mainly done is critiques of the IDists and creationists who attempt to argue against evolution. And here's the important thing: the math that they do - the kind of arguments…
July 15, 2006
In Part One of this essay I discussed my answer to the question of whether mathematicians were qualified to discuss evolution. The inspiration for these musings was this post, from Discovery Institute blogger Casey Luskin.
We now pick up the action in the second paragraph of Luskin's post:
The…
July 14, 2006
Via Gene Expression I came across this post, at the Discovery Institute's blog, from erstwhile ID lackey Casey Luskin. It's title: Mathematicians and Evolution. Hmmmm. Sounds like something I should read.
Luskin writes:
As recently highlighted here, mathematics is an academic locale where…
