jrosenhouse | June 23, 2007Along with the rest of my crew, I entered the theater. Not just any theater, mind you, but a special effects theater. This meant that at certain points during the film your seat would vibrate ominously and a small spritz of water would shoot out from the seat in front of you. More on that later.
The film was Men in White, a light-hearted romp in which Satan's minion's, i.e. scientists and college professors, receive their comeuppance from a couple of well-informed, clear-thinking, super-cool angels, named Michael and Gabriel. It was the familiar creationist story -- the one where they're…
jrosenhouse | June 22, 2007Due to some conflicts between MapQuest's directions and my map of Kentucky, I was nervous during the final leg of my drive to The Creation Museum. After all those hours of driving, the only thing that would have been worse than actually having to walk through that pathetic monument to human ignorance and credulity would have been not getting to see it at all. I needn't have worried, however. There were clear signs to the museum along I-275.
Those signs eventually led me into a field in the middle of nowhere. The entrance bore a nondescript sign in front of a large metal gate fitting for…
jrosenhouse | June 21, 2007A new ID book, a new selection of yummy delicious quote mines. Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution (EoE) offers quite the smorgasbord
I'm not surprised that Jerry Coyne would have such a visceral negative reaction to anything Michael Behe writes. He was the victim of one of the more egregious ID quote-mines of recent memory. In Darwin's Black Box (DBB), Behe quotes Coyne as follows:
Jerry Coyne, of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, arrives at an unexpected verdict:
We conclude -- unexpectedly -- that there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian…
jrosenhouse | June 15, 2007From tomorrow through next Wednesday I will be on the road. First up: A trip to the big creationism museum. Then, a visit to a friend and collaborator who live in Bowling Green, KY to talk about math and whatever else it occurs to us to discuss.
Alas, I will be away from a computer for most of this time, so I won't be responding to comments. See you when I get back!
jrosenhouse | June 15, 2007So after writing that last post and fretting that Coyne had provided the ID bloggers with ample fodder for demonstrating the intemperance of their critics, I decided to look around to see if any of the ID blogs had responded. And sure enough, William Dembski has already weighed in on the subject.
The title of his entry: “Jerry Coyne -- The Herman Munster of Evolutionary Theory.”
And just below the headline are side-by-side photographs of Coyne and the 1960's television character. That's right -- his lead point, his main argument, the thing he fancied so clever he just needed to put it on…
jrosenhouse | June 15, 2007Ronald Reagan famously defined the eleventh commandment to be, “Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican.” I'm a big fan of the spirit, if not the substance, of that statement. Generally speaking, I try to avoid criticizing my own side. The way I see it, there are dozens of bloggable items that come across my desk every day, and I can only write about a tiny fraction of them. So why should I waste time on some obscure commentator or blogger who defends something I believe in with somethng less than complete rigor? There are plenty of other bloggers on the other side perfectly happy…
jrosenhouse | June 15, 2007This past Wednesday I saw Michael Behe's talk at the Washington D.C. offices of the Discovery Institute. The talk, alas, was staggeringly dull, and I frequently found my attention wandering. Unlike Thomas Woodward, who was lying through his teeth at almost every turn and plainly knew next to nothng about science, Behe confined things pretty much to biochemistry. It was all malaria this and binding sites that.
So I won't give him the full treatment the way I did with Woodward. If I did it would basically look like just a straight summary of his book, and you can get that from any of a…
jrosenhouse | June 10, 2007Woodward closed by gushing about Ralph Seelke, who is a biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Superior. His web page carries a large disclaimer that his views do not represent the views of the university. That's never a good sign. The site also has various pro-ID articles and links. He mentions three of his favorite books: Reason in the Balance and Darwin on Trial, both by Phillip Johnson, and The Creator and the Cosmos by Hugh Ross. Get the idea?
Woodward was very excited about Seelke's work on tryptophan, which he described as an experimental test of evolution. It was a bright…
jrosenhouse | June 10, 2007We left off with Woodward about to launch into his favorite talking points. Let's have a look.
Number One: Haeckel's Embryos. Woodward spent a few minutes gushing about how Icons of Evolution author Jonathan Wells represented a “great success story” of ID. He referred everyone to an essay over at the DI (which I refuse to link to) in which he responded to all of his critics, at least according to Woodward.
He gave the familiar patter about how Haeckel's inaccurate embryo drawings are nonetheless used routinely in textbooks right up to the present day. The most interesting element here…
jrosenhouse | June 7, 2007As so often happens, this write-up requires more space than I expected it to when I sat down to begin writing it. I had intended this to be the last part of my write-up on Woodward's presentation, but, having written steadily for the last two hours and seeing no end in sight, it is clear to me that I will need at least one more installment after this. So I apologize for not getting to either of the teasers I mentioned at the end of part one. They are coming, I promise.
In Part One of this report, we discussed Woodward's blatant misrperesentation of some remarks by Niall Shanks in his book…
jrosenhouse | June 6, 2007Thomas Woodward, author of the new book Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelliigent Design turned up at the Washington D.C. offices of the Discovery Intstitute last night. Since it's alays nice to have an excuse to hang out in the big city, I decided to check it out. There's rather a lot to report, so I'll break it up into two pieces.
According to the bio read at the start of his talk, Woodward holds a PhD from the University of South Florida in the rhetoric of science. He is a professor at Trinity College in Florida, where he teaches history of science, communication, and…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Let us end the day's blogging by noting this happy story from The Australian:
AN unholy war has erupted between a star of the US evangelical movement and his Australian flock, with claims of bullying and unbiblical behaviour.
Former NSW chief magistrate Clarrie Briese, who nearly brought down former High Court judge Lionel Murphy, has led a confidential investigation into the international dispute being fought out among the international arms of "creationist" ministries.
Break out the popcorn, folks.
The article has quite a lot of choice nuggets, but I especially liked the ending:
The…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Meanwhile, the Gonzalez case continues. The President of ISU has turned down Gonzalez's appeal:
Because the issue of tenure is a personnel matter, I am not able to share the detailed rationale for the decision, although that has been provided to Dr. Gonzalez. But I can outline the areas of focus of my review where I gave special attention to his overall record of scientific accomplishment while an assistant professor at Iowa State, since that gives the best indication of future achievement. I specifically considered refereed publications, his level of success in attracting research funding…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Meanwhile, writing in The New York Times, Senator Sam Brownback clarifies his views on evolution. Recall that Brownback was one of three Republican candidates to admit to rejecting evolution in a recent debate. He writes:
The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Meanwhile, the reviews of Michael Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution are starting to appear. Michael Ruse weighs in with a short review for The Globe and Mail. His verdict:
Although I am a hard-line Darwinian evolutionist and loathe and detest IDT, I have a grudging admiration for Darwin's Black Box. It's wrong through and through, but has a certain style - it is a brilliantly written piece of advocacy, powerful because (generally) it seems so modest.
I am afraid, though, that The Edge of Evolution is a bit of a sad sack. Nothing very much new, old arguments repeated, opposition ignored…
jrosenhouse | June 4, 2007Sorry for the light blogging lately. I'm furiously trying to finish up some writing projects that have been festering for a while. I'm a painfully slow writer, and there's a limit to how many hours a day I can stand pecking away at the computer. Alas, this state of affairs is likely to continue for a while.
But, incredibly, the world has not stopped turning during my brief break. So here are a few items for your consideration.
First, have a look at this article by John Farrell, about Wikipedia:
A car that runs on water, a new form of energy derived from 'hydrinos', a 'cognitive-theoretic…
jrosenhouse | May 28, 2007Tonight's edition of The O'Reilly Factor featured a discussion of the brand new creation museum outside Cincinnati. Guest host John Kasich was sitting in for Bill O'Reilly. Representing darkness and ignorance was creationist impresario Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis. On the side of sunshine and puppies was Case Western physics professor Lawrence Krauss. Here's how it went down:
KASICH: In the back of the book segment tonight, the twenty-seven million dollar creation museum opens today in Kentucky. The museum is designed to convince visitors that the Biblical story of life on…
jrosenhouse | May 24, 2007Alexander Shabalov took clear first place in the just completed U.S. Championship. He scored seven points out of nine (six wins, two draws, one loss) in a field of 36 players.
For a while Shabalov seemed on course to match Bobby Fischer's mind-boggling 11 wins, no losses, no draws performance in the 1963-1964 editiion of the event. Shabalov won his first five games, beating tournament heavyweights like Nakamura and Kaidanov along the way. Sadly, the streak was broken when Shabalov lost in round six to defending champion Alexander Onischuk.
Shabalov has long been a fan favorite for his…
jrosenhouse | May 24, 2007From last night's Hardball:
MATTHEWS: OK. I want to get to your issue about mine-resistant equipment over there and armage (ph) equipment over there. But let me ask you this, first of all. Rudy Giuliani--he seems to get away with a lot of factual mistakes. He was on David Letterman the other night. And I know David Letterman's not a newsman. It's not his job to fact check. But listen to this. Let's take a look at--here's the former mayor of New York, the most respected man in the Republican Part right now, if you look at the polls, and here's what he's saying about the Iraq…
jrosenhouse | May 23, 2007And speaking of bad science journalism, here's Nature's take on the Gonzalez situation:
He's a young astronomer with dozens of articles in top journals; he has made an important discovery in the field of extrasolar planets; and he is a proponent of intelligent design, the idea that an intelligent force has shaped the Universe. It's that last fact that Guillermo Gonzalez thinks has cost him his tenure at Iowa State University.
Gonzalez, who has been at Iowa State in Ames since 2001, was denied tenure on 9 March. He is now appealing the decision on the grounds that his religious belief, not…