tqa | September 25, 2007
Most of the readers of this blog are intelligent, interested, scientifically literate individuals, but I'm guessing that at least a few of you aren't familiar with one of the nouns in the title. Those of you who do know what a conodont is are probably wondering what it has to do with the others. If you bear with me for a little bit, the connection will be clear shortly. It has to do with fossils, fossilization, and the latest spectacular misunderstanding of those two things at Uncommon Descent.
Conodonts are (or, rather, were) an interesting group of animals. They were around from late in…
tqa | September 24, 2007
When I was a kid, baseball was very important to me. It was very important to most of the boys growing up in my neighborhood. Almost all of the boys (and a handful of the girls) at my school signed up for Little League most years. The season started with a parade - and what kid doesn't like to be in a parade - and ended with everyone getting a trophy. It was great.
The only problem was that I wasn't very good at baseball. That wasn't much of a handicap the first couple of years, but as games got more competitive I found myself spending less time playing, and more time sitting. And sitting…
tqa | September 24, 2007
If you love predictability, you've got to love the Discovery Institute. Whenever someone publishes a paper about human evolution, it's a pretty safe bet that someone there will soon take the time to explain how having learned something new means that we somehow know less than we did before. You can set your watch by it, almost.
The latest example comes from Casey Luskin. He "discusses" a paper that came out in Nature this week that reported on some fossils from Dmanisi, Georgia. Several skulls have been described from this site already, and the current paper focuses on post-cranial (less…
tqa | September 20, 2007
Gotta love it. The Senate today took a break from being paralyzed by Republican "No Up-Or-Down-Vote For You" obstructionists. They had to. You see, it's important for people to understand that the Senate isn't going to stand still when big mean Democrat netroots activists call a general a mean name. So they took time away from their busy schedule to pass a "sense of the Senate" resolution that reads:
To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks…
tqa | September 19, 2007
When a soldier enlists in the Army, he or she takes an oath:
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
For SPC Jeremy Hall, a soldier currently stationed in Iraq, defending the Constitution involves more than his Army…
tqa | September 19, 2007
Every time I read articles (like this one, this one, this one or this one) that talk about how the Democrats are having problems getting the 60 votes in the Senate that they need to move Iraq legislation forward, or how they won't be able to get the 2/3rds of both houses that they need to beat a veto, I get angrier. And not with the Republicans who are standing in the way.
The Democrats don't need more than a majority. The President can't spend money unless Congress lets him spend money. If Congress passes a spending bill and he vetoes it, he can't spend money. If Congress fails to pass a…
tqa | September 17, 2007
Once again, John "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain went and said something stupid at a campaign stop. And, once again, he got caught on video doing it. This time, he went just slightly overboard in his criticism of the now-infamous MoveOn.org "General Betray-us" ad. Holding a blown-up, laminated copy of the ad, McCain said:
"It's disgraceful, it's got to be retracted and condemned by the Democrats and MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country, my friends."
(And if you don't believe Time Magazine, CBS has the video footage.)
Unlike the "Bomb Iran" incident, this wasn't…
tqa | September 17, 2007
In "The Republican War on Science" Chris Mooney referred to the Newt Gingrich-led Congress' decision to eliminate the Office of Technology Assessment as "a stunning act of self-lobotomy." If anything, he was lowballing the effects. For those of you who aren't familiar with this agency (and don't feel bad if you're not; it's been dead for 12 years), the OTA was a nonpartisan Congressional agency. It's job was to provide Congress with an objective analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues relevant to various issues that were relevant to measures under consideration.
Ostensibly…
tqa | September 16, 2007
I've been continuing to put some time into criticizing Michael Behe's expert report on the creationist texts involved in the California Creationism Case. This is a slow process, partly because I'm also working on other projects and partly because it's difficult to read the Bob Jones "Biology for Christian Schools" text without encountering a range of unpleasant side effects. I've been fighting the increased blood pressure and the nausea, and soldiering on. Along the way, I've encountered some real gems that I thought I'd share with you.
Today, I'm going to give you two quotes: one on…
tqa | September 15, 2007
Yet another round of the unholy wars has broken out again here at Scienceblogs. Matt Nisbet and PZ Myers are at each others' throats. Again. If you read the other blogs here, you know that this isn't anything that's exactly novel. The two have some fundamental differences, and every so often those differences brush up against each other. When Matt and Paul's differences interact, we usually see something that chemists and science geeks like to refer to as a "highly exothermic" reaction. (In other words, things go "Boom!")
I don't always get involved when these disputes come up, and when I…
tqa | September 14, 2007
I'm making a few changes to the left-hand sidebar for the blog this weekend. One of them is already in place - if you look to the left, you'll see a presidential election poll. It's linked to Newsvine's ElectionVine project. You can vote once a month, and if you play around with the widget, you can pull up different sets of results based on the entire project, not just this one site. (I cheerfully stole this idea from Joseph.) Later on this weekend, I'll be changing my blogroll a bit. I'm also in the process of re-working my categories, so expect to see some changes there, too.
tqa | September 13, 2007
I've been paying a little more attention to Hurricane Humburto than I do to most hurricanes, mostly because the thing came out of nowhere, and got really strong, really fast. I'm not a hurricane-pundit type, but I thought it was a little strange that the storm developed so quickly. Turns out I'm not the only one wondering how that happened. Here's a bit from the latest National Hurricane Center forecast discussion for the storm:
BASED ON OPERATIONAL ESTIMATES...HUMBERTO STRENGTHENED FROM A 30 KT
DEPRESSION AT 15Z YESTERDAY TO A 75 KT HURRICANE AT 09Z THIS
MORNING...AN INCREASE OF 45 KT IN…
tqa | September 12, 2007
Staff Sergeant Yance T. Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora died on Monday in a vehicle crash in Baghdad on Monday, along with six other American soldiers and two "detainees." During their time in Iraq, both Gray and Mora displayed more than just the courage needed to face the enemy. They also displayed the courage needed to stand up, to face the country, and to say that the strategy in Iraq isn't working, and never will. They had the courage to say this, knowing that their opinion would not be well received by many of their superiors. And, ultimately, they had the courage and civic responsibility…
tqa | September 12, 2007
The New York Times/CBS News poll that was released on Monday got a fair bit of media attention. Most of the attention focused on the revelation that Americans, by an overwhelming margin, trust the military leadership to resolve the war in Iraq (68%), rather than Congress (21%) or the White House (5%). The remainder of the attention went to the poll's finding that most Americans don't think the surge has made a heck of a lot of progress.
There's one question buried way in the middle of the poll - 15 pages into the pdf - that I think deserves a lot more attention. Respondents were asked the…
tqa | September 12, 2007
This is a continuation of a post I wrote (and updated a couple of times) earlier today. Since the tsunami is no longer a possibility - it's an actual event - I thought a new title was probably a good idea. Here's the situation as it currently stands:
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a final watch statement for the event at 11:05 am Eastern time. They report that a tsunami was generated, and is currently traveling across the Indian Ocean. Based on the data that they have - currently, they have readings from three near-shore tide gauges and one deep-ocean gauge - the tsunami is…
tqa | September 12, 2007
A very large, shallow earthquake occurred at 11:10 UTC today. The earthquake epicenter is located in the Indian Ocean, about 375 miles from Jakarta, Indonesia, and is currently estimated at magnitude 7.9. The magnitude of the earthquake and the shallow depth of the quake have lead the Pacific Tsunami Warning center to put a tsunami watch into effect for the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, there are still not a lot of sea level gauges in the area, so it's not yet known if a tsunami occurred.
Our thoughts are with those who have been affected by the quake, and with those who might be affected…
tqa | September 11, 2007
We can never forget the pain, the terror, the anguish that a few twisted individuals were able to cause in just a few short hours. We must never forget the strength, the hope, and the love that thousands upon thousands of people demonstrated in response over the days, weeks, and months that followed. September 11th, 2001 was a day that was filled with tragedy, and we should remember that. But we should also remember the unbridled human decency that so many thousands of nameless people expressed through words and deeds in response.
I will cite but one tiny story, among so many, to begin the…
tqa | September 11, 2007
I was out walking yesterday morning when I saw several very large spiders sitting on webs. I had my camera with me, so I shot a bunch of pictures, and got a couple of really nice ones. I think I've managed to identify the species for a couple of the spiders, but there's one that I'm not quite sure of.
I'm pretty sure that three of the spiders are golden orb spiders (Nephila clavipes). The body shape is right, the markings are right, the site (League City, TX) is within the known range of the species, the habitat (marshy scrub along the bank of Clear Creek) is right, and the behavior (head…
tqa | September 5, 2007
From an article in the Baptist Press, linked from the Uncommon Descent homepage:
"You have to understand, in the current academic climate, Intelligent Design is like leprosy or heresy in times past," [Dembski] said. "To be tagged as an ID supporter is to become an academic pariah, and this holds even at so-called Christian institutions that place a premium on respectability at the expense of truth and the offense of the Gospel."
Good job, Bill.
tqa | September 5, 2007
Last week, I reposted four old articles that I wrote back in 2005, when a group representing a number of Christian schools in California filed a lawsuit against the University of California claiming that UC's rejection of several of their courses was illegal "viewpoint discrimination." In a more recent post, I mentioned that there's a hearing on motions for summary judgement scheduled for later this month. I also mentioned that the Christian schools claim that all they are doing is "adding a religious viewpoint" to "standard course material." It doesn't take a genius to see that the "…