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Josh Rosenau

Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is formerly a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not battling creationists or modeling species ranges, 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.

Posts by this author

February 8, 2011
Ophelia Benson doesnât see how the ontological argument for the existence of a perfect god even begins. The ontological argument basically argues that we imagine god to be perfect, and that something that doesn't exist can't be perfect, thus by imagining a perfect deity, we show that such a thing…
February 8, 2011
John Pieret notes some Coyneian hubris.
February 7, 2011
Jason Rosenhouse takes a level-headed look at a brewing coynetreversy (a coynetroversy, like the verb, to coyne, involves adding heat, not light, while casting maximal aspersions, ideally to create a controversy where none need exist). Jason explains the situation: Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers (…
February 7, 2011
Hey, when's the Superbowl this year?
February 6, 2011
For the last 13 days, Tahrir Square has been the seed of a free Egypt. Within that square, which I recall filled 7 lanes deep with honking cars even late at night, the architects of Egypt's democratic revolution have created their own democratic nation. The protesters police themselves, maintain…
February 6, 2011
Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo. Totally awesome. Via BoingBoing.
February 6, 2011
Martin Cothran, the bigoted, anti-semite defending, Holocaust-denial whitewashing, misogynistic, homophobic, creationist, authoritarian, logic-impaired mouthpiece for the Kentucky theocracy movement wonders Is Internet access a human right?: In what sense is Internet access as a "right"? I listened…
February 5, 2011
Popular Mechanics asks Bill Nye about anti-evolution efforts in schools: It's horrible. Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in…
February 4, 2011
Via BRAD BLOG, a transcript of Rush Limbaugh mocking attacks on journalists in Egypt on Thursday: LIMBAUGH: Ladies and gentlemen, it is being breathlessly reported that the Egyptian army --- Snerdley, have you heard this? The Egyptian army is rounding up foreign journalists. I mean, even two New…
February 2, 2011
Dear Archie McPhee, Please send me 20 finger tentacles (fingers AND toes). This is all I want for Christmas, except maybe tentacle prostheses. And if you know Morehouse Farm, please ask them to send along these adorable Hedgehog Mittens. Because hedgehogs are as adorable as cephalopods are…
February 2, 2011
The violence in Cairo â violence instigated by agents provocateurs hired by the Mubarak regime, is shocking and dismaying. After the people took to the streets en masse, and quietly and peacefully forced Mubarak to announce his eventual exit from power, to see those same protesters shot at,…
February 2, 2011
John Pieret â who is to blame for the recent kerfuffles here â surveys the trouble he started: As usual, there is much talking past each other. I think Russell Blackford has, perhaps unintentionally, hit on the problem that we "accommodationists" see with the "incompatibleists." In defending Coyne…
February 2, 2011
Daniel Davies offers The How-To of Fascism: A Guide for Aspiring Dictators: There is always a level of civil unrest that outstrips the capability of even the most loyal and largest regular armed forces to deal with. In all likelihood, as a medium sized emerging market, you will have a capital city…
February 1, 2011
Anyone know of archeologists reading the tea leaves on the implications for Zahi Hawass being made a cabinet minister in Egypt? Hawass is the telegenic spokesman for Egypt's rich trove of antiquities, regularly featuring in TV shows about mummies and pyramids, and undoubtedly helping keep tourists…
February 1, 2011
Jerry Coyne â president of the Society for the Study of Evolution, self-styled "internationally famous defender of evolution", and professor â is miffed at my snarky comments a couple days ago. So he did what anyone would do, he made a cartoon making fun of my profile photo. I'd call it childish…
February 1, 2011
PZ has decided he hasn't peeved enough people, and made a list of atheist arguments he dislikes. And he's right. For instance, he's down on: Dictionary Atheists. Boy, I really do hate these guys. You've got a discussion going, talking about why you're an atheist, or what atheism should mean to…
January 31, 2011
Sean Carroll reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. His summary of Jerry Coyne's post about his talk at the First United Methodist Church of Chicago is decidedly kinder than John Pieret's, or my own last post, and so it serves as a good starting point for the promised kinder, gentler reaction to…
January 31, 2011
From the Guardian's liveblog of Friday's protests in Egypt. Earlier in the day, police were sent to attack protesters after Friday prayers, but the crowd pushed back, apparently taking control of the streets in Alexandria, Suez, and at least parts of Cairo. In response: Mubarak has sent in the…
January 31, 2011
John Pieret reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. He notes that Coyne's experience at a moderate church reading group sounds awfully accommodationist, and it does! Of course, "accommodationist" is a highly mutable term, so I'm sure Jerry will say he isn't really, and the label doesn't really…
January 29, 2011
Shorter Sam Harris: A Response to Critics: People are saying mean things about my bad book and I don't know what to say. [6600 words later] If I pretend morality is just like health, then all the objections are wrong.
January 27, 2011
A year ago, I was at a conference in Alexandria, Egypt, and then spent a few days in Cairo. I got to experience the Egyptian culture, to see antiquities, and to meet some amazing people. It was my first trip outside the bubble of Western developed democracies, and was an eye-opening experience.…
January 21, 2011
I started writing this post hoping to craft an argument that Ayaan Hirsi Ali â a Somali-born atheist (formerly Muslim), a former member of the Dutch Parliament, a screenwriter threatened with assassination for helpng Theo van Gogh (who was assassinated) criticize Islam's treatment of women, a…
January 18, 2011
The other day I laid out a bit of my position on the importance of being self-consciously political, and Amanda Marcotte has a great post on a related issue: Nowadays, however, the verb âto politicizeâ is used, 90% of the time, to suggest that politics and government are silly little trifles that…
January 10, 2011
I'm off today for North Carolina, where I'll be doing some library research, some talks at UNC and at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and then a couple of sessions at Science Online. Expect blogging to be spotty, and I hope to see you at #scio11.
January 10, 2011
Eve Conant and Claire Martin dig into Jared Loughner's background, trying to explain his mass murder. I think the first half the piece is weak, alas, but the second half is dynamite. The first builds on interviews with his neighbors, who say that the 22 year-old liked to walk the streets in a…
January 9, 2011
Daniel Hernandez, intern, stays by Gabrielle Giffords' side: Daniel Hernandez had been U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' intern for five days when she was shot Saturday outside Tucson. The junior at the University of Arizona was helping check people in at the "Congress on Your Corner" event when he…
January 9, 2011
In my post yesterday about the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords, I tried hard not to say that Loughner's mass murder was caused by insanity, or by violent political rhetoric. We don't know anything about that, and we'll know more once he goes to trial. What we'll find at trial is surely that his…
January 8, 2011
President Josiah Bartlet: The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we…
January 7, 2011
This week's Nature has a great report on efforts to get scientists more active in policy discussions. It starts with an ecologist who got some media training, which gave her the courage to go on the Colbert Report and defend a paper she co-authored about the dangers of mountaintop removal. From…
January 7, 2011
Wonk Room reports that Wichita-based Koch Industries is suing. Someone sent out a spoof press release in Koch's name, claiming they were going to stop funding climate change denial groups, and now: Pollution machine Koch Industries is taking to court to defend its reputation as a cesspool of…