Contrary to popular myth, I do not sit around instructing my family in the fine points of evolutionary biology, nor do I subject them to tirades against creationists. In fact, I almost never discuss those subjects at home. So why is my daughter giving competent discussions of Intelligent Design creationism? I know it's because her facebook pals have been babbling about creationism, but still…
I wish she'd absorb genetics and developmental biology out of the atmosphere around here, so she could go off and give my lectures for me instead.
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You better watch out PZ, she's almost got a blog following larger than your own. This science stuff just might be the final bit to push her blog above Pharyngula.
PZ: "So why is my daughter giving competent discussions of Intelligent Design creationism? "
Sheesh - Haven't you read your Lamarck? She was raised in an anti-ID/pro-evo household; this stuck. She will, of course, have many anti-ID/pro-evo children, from that acquired characteristic.
Luckily you had her young; otherwise she'd have grown up balding, with a grey beard. OTOH, she'd have been born with tenure.
CALL FOR PREDICTIONS
The Design Paradigm, a blog run by members of the Cornell IDEA Club, is asking for predictions of "Darwinism" (i.e. evolution via natural selection). Your contributions welcome.
For some discussion of the alleged predictions of ID, check out Dan Rhoades' blog Migrations. Here's an example of a prediction from ResearchID.org:
Where do you suppose they're going to find unrelated organisms to check that prediction?
Wouldn't she then be entitled to your wages though?
Okay, I give up. How do you pronounce her name?
Skaht-yeh
Where do you suppose they're going to find unrelated organisms to check that prediction?
better yet; when do you suppose they will stop co-opting actual terms used in biology and giving them nonsensical definitions?
Mars?
Impressive; there is hope for the future, after all. Biology savvy and cool enough for Scandinavian studies...damn, you should be writing a parental advice blog!
Both for you and Skatje, here is a site with a humongous list of links to various scientific subjects.
http://www.hbes.com/links.htm
Hours of fun.
jorg (#9) said:
As a father of two young kids growing up in a red part of California, I second jorg's suggestion - you should offer a parental advice blog! How did you do it, PZ?
If your offspring became such a good person, it is undoubtedly because she was spared exposure to the following scandalous literature.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/153619/single_word_causes_upro…
"It's rare to hear the word "scrotum," in polite conversation. Seeing it on the first page of a children's book has some parents and teachers up in arms.
On the first page of The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, this year's recipient of the Newbery Medal, Lucky Trimble, a scrappy ten-year-old orphan, hears the word through a hole in the wall. This happens when another character s explaining that a rattlesnake bit his dog on the scrotum.
Some school librarians, after hearing about the word being in The Higher Power of Lucky," have vowed to ban the book from their libraries. This has reopened the debate over what is acceptable for children to read."
If there is an intelligent designer (a.k.a. God), who made the eye, etc., then why in heck would he make procreation?
Why not just BING! people into existence, like popcorn?
Why in heck would the Designer make two prototypes (male and female, Adam and Eve) and leave it to them to make more of themselves?
I like the fact that she asked those questiosn at the end:
Why are they doing this? I reason that it's for two reasons. The obvious one being that they're trying to push other people towards Christianity by having it taught in schools. The second reason is because they're trying to find a way to make their religion compatible with the modern world.
That's what I want to know. Why are they doing this?
It's like they are sleepwalking through their intellectual lives, unable to wake up from a dream.
It amazes me. It angers me. It appalls me.
Off-topic:
Mitt Romney:
"We need to have a person of faith lead the country."
He was too cowardly to stand up to the heckler in the audience who called Romney a fake Christian.
Sickening.
http://blip.tv/file/151254
Hi Skatje - I'm also a member of the name-never-pronounced-correctly club, as my first name has a couple of alternate choices, and my last name is Polish. Just wanted to say that Skatje is a very cool name, and I'm happy to learn that my default pronounciation (as if it were Polish) turns out to be correct. And that you are a very cool young woman, too, of course.
Gee, all this time I thought genetics and developmental biology was absorbed through the roots, not from the atmosphere (not unlike nitrogen). I guess you do learn something new every day.