June 8, 2006
I've been travelling for the last two weeks, which explains the lack of blogging. I had intended to try to keep up with things while I was out of town, but that has proven more difficultthan I had intended. Sorry about that. Regular blogging will resume on Tuesday.
When I return: Some thoughts…
June 1, 2006
I recently received an e-mail Ken Parejko, a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Stout. He described his experiences in taking the PRAXIS II Content Exam in science. He points out that the exam is overwhelmingly based on the facts of science, with no attention paid to science as a…
May 31, 2006
Thanks to alejandro for directing me to his own take on Dembski's theodicy, discussed in the previous post. You can find his thoughts here. I liked his summary of the problem of evil:
This article discusses that old chestnut, the problem of evil. My own opinion on the problem of evil is simple…
May 31, 2006
I have written before that I regard the problem of evil as essentially a decisive refutation of Christianity. It's not quite logically impossible to reconcile an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God with the sheer quantity of evil and suffering in the world, but it's pretty close. So when William…
May 25, 2006
A three judge panel for the eleventh circuit court of appeals has vacated the decision of the lower court in the Cobb County sticker case. At issue here was the decision by the Cobb County School Board to include the following stickers in its high school biology textbooks:
This textbook contains…
May 24, 2006
Over at Telic Thoughts, macht has posted this reply to some of my earlier posts on the nature of science. I believe he is still missing most of the important points. But in the interest of making this into something constructive I will eschew a point-by-point rebuttal. Instead let me emphasize…
May 23, 2006
I'm a bit pressed for time today, so why not just have a look at this insightful op-ed by Jay Ingram in The Toronto Star. He begins:
Scientists are absolutely correct to argue that intelligent design -- the claim that a designer, not evolution, created life on Earth -- is not science and does not…
May 22, 2006
After writing that last post, I decided to have a look at the comments to macht's essay. I found another delightful instance of macht being clueless.
Commenter Daniel wrote:
“if some modern scientist happened to introduce something supernatural into science and it was testable”
See, I don't get…
May 22, 2006
My essay on the nature of science has provoked this limp response from macht, over at Telic Thoughts.
My essay emphasized the fact that science has a specific goal in mind: To understand the workings of nature. Understanding is measured via predictability and control. Investigative methods are…
May 21, 2006
Seed's ScienceBlogger Question of the week is the following:
If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
My knee-jerk response was pretty obvious: “Evolution!” Sadly, John Lynch got there first.
Then I figured since I was the only mathematician…
May 19, 2006
I have a new essay up at CSICOP's Creation Watch site. The subject: What is Science? Figured it was high time to polish off that little question once and for all. Enjoy!
May 19, 2006
Who was the guest on yesterday's episode of The Colbert Report? It was Ted Daeschler, a paleontologist at The Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia. He was part of the team that discovered the fish-tetrapod transitional form Tiktaalik roseae. Not only did he appear with Colbert, but he was…
May 18, 2006
With the Bush administration, and Repbulicans generally, tanking in the polls, the time has come to do some serious pandering to the right-wing base. Expect to see a lot more articles like this one, from The Washington Post:
A U.S. Senate panel advanced a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage…
May 18, 2006
As a follow-up to yesterday's post, have a look at Carl Zimmer's post on the subject. He provides a lot of the scientific specifics:
But that's not what has emerged from the new study. The Broad Institute scientists lined up millions of bases of DNA in humans and chimps and measured their…
May 17, 2006
The New York Times is reporting on new data concerning the date of the evolutionary split between the human and chimapnzee lineages:
Scientists are re-evaluating a pivotal event in human evolution, the split between the human and chimpanzee lineages, in light of a startling new comparison of the…
May 17, 2006
The last six months have been hard ones for ID folks. First, there was the big Dover decision. Then came several new transitional forms (see here and here, for example). The evolution of complex biochemical systems gets less mysterious every day. Likewise for the evolution of of cooperative…
May 16, 2006
As a coda to the previous post, consider this article, from yesterday's The New York Times. It's headline is the title of this entry.
Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that…
May 16, 2006
In Sunday's post I wrote the following:
People like [Kevin] Shapiro, George Will, or Charles Krauthammer are lonely voices in the conservative wilderness, accorded about as much respect in the Republican party as pro-lifers are in the Democratic party. Every conservative politican of any…
May 15, 2006
The New York Times is reporting that President Bush has chosen Larry Faulkner, a chemist and a former President of the University of Texas at Austin to head the National Math Panel:
The former president, Larry R. Faulkner, who led the university from 1998 until early this year, will be chairman of…
May 15, 2006
Many thanks to Dave of Cognitive Daily for pointing out to me that my “comments moderation” feature was turned on, meaning that I had to personally approve of each comment before having it appear. Until he pointed it out to me, I didn't realize I had such a feature.
So let me apologize to the…
May 15, 2006
Many thanks to Afarensis for the kind welcome and the lovely virtual chess set.
Also thanks to Orac at Respectful Insolence and to Razib at Gene Expression for their kind greetings. It's nice to feel welcome.
Actually, Razib has already taken issue with some of my remarks. But that is a…
May 15, 2006
In just two short seasons Prison Break has earned its place among the best television shows of all time. Granted, the story has gotten increasingly absurd with each passing week. The fact remains that it is relentlessly suspenseful and has as interesting a cast of characters as any show in recent…
May 14, 2006
I used to be a big fan of The Simpsons, but like a lot of people I started losing interest a few years ago. After more than a decade on the air the show seemed to have lost its spark. Well, maybe it's time to start watching regularly again. Tonight episode was first rate. The following synopsis…
May 14, 2006
I've been on blog vacation for about three weeks now, and a number of things have happened in that time. So let me get a few things off my chest.
Stephen Colbert was brilliant at the White House Correspondent's dinner. That is a fact, not an opinion. Frankly, the whole idea of the…
May 14, 2006
Let me begin by thanking the good folks at Science Blogs for inviting me to join their party. The move seems to have gone smoothly. Still settling in, kicking the tires, testing the foundation and all that. Expect the links list to grow precipitously over the next few weeks. And, no, that small…
