jrosenhouse | August 13, 2007Meanwhile, just in case you were looking for something truly stupid, go gawk in amazement at this column by David Warren of The Ottawa Citizen. Here's the opening:
I get such apoplectic letters, whenever I write about “evolutionism,” that I really can't resist writing about it again. This is not, of course, because I have any desire to tease such correspondents. Perish the thought. Rather, when a writer finds he has hit such a nerve, he can also know that he is approaching a great truth.
Wow! That's total amatuer hour.
Anytime you're reading a columnist who boasts that the negative…
jrosenhouse | August 13, 2007As much as I despise the Republican Party and believe that Democrats do a vastly better job of running the government, there is one area where I think the Republicans have it all over the Dems. They are much more convincing on television. When I see Republican politicians on the various political chat shows, I am usually left with little doubt as to where they stand. They speak confidently, and they make their points with a certian amount of forcefulness. The Democrats usually look surprised by whatever question they were just asked and fumble around for some wimpy, half-baked and often…
jrosenhouse | August 13, 2007Via P.Z., I came across this article, from the Colorado Springs Gazette, about Christian teenagers abdoning their faith upon reaching college:
The trend is known as the “Great Evacuation,” and the statistics are startling to youth ministers.
Studies have shown at least 50 percent -- and possibly as much as 85 percent -- of kids involved in church groups will abandon their faith during their first year in college.
In an attempt to reverse those numbers, Focus on the Family on Saturday hosted “The Big Dig,” a conference aimed at teens and youth leaders. The goal was not just to celebrate…
jrosenhouse | August 10, 2007Sometimes I wonder what it is like to be a blogger for the Discovery Institute. Imagine the strain of getting up every morning, swallowing every ounce of pride and intellectual integrity you might possess, and searching desperately through the media for something, anything, you can present as hostile to evolution or favorable to ID. It's exhausting work. Yet somehow there are folks like Casey Luskin who seem not just able, but actually willing to do it.
On Wednesday I discussed the recent hominid fossils found in Africa, one belonging to Homo habilis, the other to Homo erectus. From the…
jrosenhouse | August 8, 2007Today's New York Times has this interesting article about some recent hominid fossil finds. Alas, it falls into the familiar trap of reporting every mundane find as if it is a scientific revolution:
Two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral line to Homo sapiens.
Scientists who dated and analyzed the specimens -- a 1.44 million-year-old Homo habilis and a 1.55 million-year-old Homo erectus -- said their findings challenged the conventional view that these species evolved one after the other. Instead…
jrosenhouse | August 8, 2007After yesterday's post suggesting that the Democrats hadn't caved on the FISA vote, a number of commenters and bloggers pointed out to me that the outrage was that the Democratic leadership allowed the bill to come to a vote at all. They could have blocked it, thereby giving more time to push for the more sensible FISA reform bill proposed by Senators Rockefeller and Levin.
After thinking it over last night, I've decided that they're correct. I hadn't paid adequate attention to the procedural issues behind the FISA vote, and was too focused instead on the outcome of the vote itself. So I'm…
jrosenhouse | August 7, 2007Several of my fellow Science Bloggers have come to a strange conclusion regarding the recent FISA vote in Congress. Ed Brayton titles his post on the subject “Democrats Cave on FISA Amendment.” P.Z. Myers concurs, writing, “It's a perfect example of the failure of the Democratic party: they allowed the FISA bill to pass, and essentially revealed that they don't give a damn about civil liberties.” Mike Dunford, writes, “Because every time the Republicans threaten them, they drop to their knees and beg for mercy - like they just did in the Senate, with this wiretap legislation. I swear,…
jrosenhouse | August 7, 2007Certain portions of the political blogosphere have erupted over the subject of teacher's unions. It started with this column, from July 3, by Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. Those of you who follow these things will recognize Cohen as one of the most odious skunks in the punditocracy. Any time his name comes up we really must recall the following incident, here described memorably by The Daily Howler:
In October 2000, things got better. Cohen savaged VP hopeful Joe Lieberman for something he said before B'nai B'rith. “I wonder what in the world he's talking about,” Cohen wrote.…
jrosenhouse | August 6, 2007Most people remember Sir Arthur Conan Doyle solely as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. But Doyle was actually quite prolific, and wrote a large number of novels and short stories in a variety of different genres. One of these novels was The Land of Mist, published in 1926.
The novel was one of several to feature Professor Challenger, a ferociously talented scientist whose arrogance and combative nature made him very difficult to get along with. In this particular story, Challenger's sidekick, a journalist named Malone, gets caught up in the Spiritualist movement. He witnesses various…
jrosenhouse | August 6, 2007Well, it's time to put my Monty Hall woes to one side for the moment and get back to some regular blogging. A heartfelt thnaks to everyone who left comments. I'm a bit behind in replying, but all have been read and pondered.
So, while I was busy moping last week Slate posted this interesting article about Scientology. The basic point is that while Scientologists claim to believe some odd assertions of dubious validity, the whole thing isn't really any sillier than what more mainstream religions claim to believe:
Some Americans may consider Scientology perhaps a cult, maybe a violent sect…
jrosenhouse | August 1, 2007Sorry for the sporadic blogging. For the past week I've been working on the Progressive Monty Hall problem, and it has proven to be considerably more complicated than I at first realized. I had expected to polish it off with a few hours work. Instead I have thought about little else for the past several days, and have grown very unhappy with my inability to prove certain statements that are obviously true. Adding to my frustration is the nagging feeling that I am overlooking something simple and conclusive. So, I figured, why not turn it over to my readers?
I blogged about this…
jrosenhouse | July 25, 2007There are many reasons, of course. But here's an especially compelling one:
DON'T jump to conclusions now. Just because Wendy Bullard of Raleigh, N.C., isn't allowed to walk her dog through the Streets at Southpoint, an outdoor mall in Durham, doesn't mean that when she visits New York she can't walk little Mick Dundee, an Australian silky terrier, down Fifth Avenue and strut right into Tiffany, Saks and Bergdorf Goodman.
“I can't bring him anywhere in North Carolina,” said Ms. Bullard, who, by the way, didn't go to all those stores. “I love coming up here.”
If bringing a dog to New York…
jrosenhouse | July 24, 2007Here's Discovery Institute flak Casey Luskin commenting on an article about evolution posted at MSNBC's website. The MSNBC article is available here.:
Question: What do you do when a theory logically predicts both (a) and not (a)?Answer: Apparently you heavily promote it.
MSNBC recently published two articles promoting Darwinian just-so stories to the public. The first article about the evolution of Waterfowl genitalia contends, “Scientists had speculated that male waterfowl evolved longer phalluses to give them a competitive edge over those not as well-endowed when it came to successfully…
jrosenhouse | July 24, 2007Here is one of the questions from last night's bizarre CNN/You Tube debate with the Democratic candidates:
QUESTION: Hi, I'm Zenne Abraham in Oakland, California. The cathedral behind me is the perfect backdrop for this question. This quarter reads “United States of America.” And when I turn it over, you find that it reads “liberty, in God we trust.” What do those words mean to you? Thank you.
And here's how Senator Biden responded:
COOPER: Senator Biden.
BIDEN: Religion informs my values.
BIDEN: My reason dictates outcomes. My religion taught me about abuse of power. That's why I moved to…
jrosenhouse | July 24, 2007Have you seen that show Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel? I first saw it a few months ago and was hooked after one episode. I quickly placed it in the pantheon of all-time great non-fiction series, right alongside Good Eats and Mythbusters.
In each episode former British Special Forces soldier Bear Grylls gets dumped into the middle of some uninviting wilderness; the Amazon jungle one week, the Australian Outback the next; armed with only a water bottle, a knife and a flint. He begins each episode by telling us about all the tourists who get lost in these areas and need rescue, and by…
jrosenhouse | July 23, 2007Incidentally, I think Kevin Padian gets things just about right in his review of the three books on the Dover trial. For the record, the three books are Monkey Girl, by Edward Humes, 40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman, and The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything, by Gordy Slack.
Here's Padian's summary:
All three books are entertaining and informative reads; on balance the nod goes to Humes for his comprehensive account, although Slack is concise and readable. Another book on the trial, by local reporter Lauri Lebo, is due out next year. It promises even more lively details of this…
jrosenhouse | July 23, 2007Here's William Dembski protesting a recent book review in the journal Nature:
Indeed, the review and its inclusion in NATURE are emblematic of the new low to which the scientific community has sunk in discussing ID. Bigotry, cluelessness, and misrepresentation don't matter so long as the case against ID is made with sufficient vigor and vitriol.
Goodness! Sounds bad. What could have brought that on?
The review in question was written by paleontologist Kevin Padian. He was addressing three recent books on the big Dover trial. You remember that one, right? That was the one where ID, the…
jrosenhouse | July 23, 2007One of the sillier myths to have widespread acceptance in our culture is that the mainstream media, especially The New York Times, has a liberal bias. Anyone who actually reads the Times knows better. After all, these are the folks who kept the worthless Whitewater story alive during the Clinton administration, who published every phony anti-Gore story the Republicans fed them in the 2000 campaign, and who shamelessly parroted the Bush Administration's completely fallacious talking points in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Completely unchastened by this recent history, the Times has now taken…
jrosenhouse | July 19, 2007Via David Heddle, I came across this announcement for a conference in Texas entitled “Intelligent Design in Business Practice.” From the announcement:
Successful business leaders are intelligent designers, guiding organizations along innovative paths to achieve ends otherwise unattainable. Intelligent designers are not micromanagers, who short-circuit the freedom and creativity that organizations need to thrive. At the same time, intelligent designers do not encourage unbridled autonomy, which sets organizations adrift, causing them to lose focus and discipline. By striking a proper balance…
jrosenhouse | July 19, 2007In a brief essay describing renewed efforts to raise the profile of science in the national discourse, Time magazine writer Michael Lemonick offers the following (see the original for links):
What I'm talking about is the growing drumbeat of amply justified fear that America is fast losing its edge over the rest of the world in science and technology--something I wrote about in this TIME cover story.
Figuring out why, and what to do about it, has become a cottage industry. So when I was asked to come to a two-day meeting sponsored by the Aspen Science Center, I was kind of dubious. Even…