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My baby was designed by god just like a banana

When my baby nurses from his mom, he can see her face and bond with her because he was designed to do so by god. Like how a banana is designed by god to fit comfortably in the hand for eating, or maybe just carrying around. What am I talking about? Imagine the following two alternative scenarios. Alternative Universe One The Scene: Visiting Nurses Inc. VNI contracts with health care providers to send trained visiting nurses around to check in on newly minted babies and their parents. This is standard procedure in many health care plans, and of course, VNI wants to develop and maintain…

The anatomy of conformity

In the wake of World War II, stunned by the German peoples adoption of Hitler's horrific vision of Aryan purity, psychologists set out to discover the mechanisms of social control. One of the most famous studies to emerge during this period was conducted by Gestalt Therapist Solomon Asch. In the early 1950s, Asch designed a series of studies, which became known as the Asch Conformity Experiments. Asch recruited a group of students to participate in what he called a "vision test." Each participant was seated in a classroom filled with what he presumed to be fellow test subjects. In reality,…

On the fundaments of fantasy

Fantasy-nerd in-chief at The New York Times, Ross Douthat points me to an essay, Why is there no Jewish Narnia? As others have pointed out there are plenty of Jewish fantasy writers, including perhaps the most prominent mainstream fantasist today, Neil Gaiman. But this part caught my attention: ...and whether it is called Perelandra, Earthsea, Amber, or Oz, this world must be a truly alien place. As Ursula K. Leguin says: "The point about Elfland is that you are not at home there. It's not Poughkeepsie." Amber refers to Roger Zelazny's Amber series. Roger Zelazny's father was an immigrant…

Memory is Fiction

Over at Slate, William Saletan has finished a wonderful series on the distortions and dishonesties of memory. Although our memories always feel true, they're extremely vulnerable to errant suggestions, clever manipulations and the old fashioned needs of storytelling. (The mind, it turns out, cares more about crafting a good narrative than staying close to the truth.) Needless to say, this research has profound implications for everything from eyewitness testimony to talk therapy. After opening with a clever mass experiment - Slate doctored a few political photos, and then demonstrated that a…

A Prak-tical guide to confrontationalism and accommodationism

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, considers the confrontationalist/accommodationalist disagreement: Hereâs the difference between the two sides: You know that courtroom phrase, âtell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truthâ? Both Mooney and PZ want to tell the truth about science and evolution. Only PZ is willing to tell the whole truth â that the logical conclusion of accepting science fully is that you must dismiss any notion of gods, miracles, and the supernatural. Mooney thinks itâs bad PR for us to admit that â and he may be right â but itâs wrong to let Christians keep…

Old spiders

Two short articles in this week's Science link the orb-weaving spiders back to a common ancestor in the Early Cretaceous, with both physical and molecular evidence. What we have is a 110-million-year-old piece of amber that preserves a piece of an orb web and some captured prey, and a new comparative study of spider silk proteins that ties together the two orb-weaving lineages, the Araneoidea and the Deinopoidea, and dates their last common ancestor to 136 million years ago. Araneoids and Deinopoids build similar looking webs—a radial frame supporting a sticky spiral—but they differ in how…

Five abandoned Olympic sports [SciencePunk]

There is only one truly kosher sport when it comes to the Olympics: athletics. All those ancient Greeks did was run around in the dirt butt naked. It took over fifty years for them to add a second sport: more running, but in a wild twist, a race over twice the distance as before. Over the years more sports were added, including one involving running in full armour, which much have provided much-needed advertising canvas for Classical games sponsors. After the revival of the games in 1894, various sports have been added, some successfully, whilst others fell by the wayside. Take a tour…

Swine flu: mini science primer on antivirals (geek alert)

CDC guidelines for antiviral therapy for swine flu infection: This swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is sensitive (susceptible) to the neuraminidase inhibitor antiviral medications zanamivir and oseltamivir. It is resistant to the adamantane antiviral medications, amantadine and rimantadine. (CDC) What are these antiviral drugs and how do they work? Over the years here we've discussed this pretty often, so I went back and retrieved one of our older posts (from 2007). I've done some editing but it's pretty much the same as when I wrote it about bird flu. Same principles. Oseltamivir (which we…

Precarious work arrangements deserves attention and action by new Secretary of Labor

In the weeks ahead, President Obama will announce his pick to replace Hilda Solis as the 26th Secretary of Labor.   It's the Cabinet-level position with the resources and best platform to promote strong policies for the benefit of U.S. workers----from fair, living wages and safe working conditions, to job training and family leave benefits.  I hope the President's nominee takes the time to read "At the company's mercy: Protecting contingent workers from unsafe working conditions," a new report by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR).  It describes how work arrangements that don't fit the…

OSHA adds 25 employers to Severe Violators list, 163 employers named in total

Tucked away on federal OSHA's website is a list of 163 employers with the dishonorable label "severe violator." The designation comes from an enforcement program launched in April 2010 to identify "recalcitrant employers who endanger workers by demonstrating indifference to their responsibilities under the law." The label is not easy to get. In any given year, less than 1% of U.S. worksites are subject to an OSHA inspection, and few violations (only about 4%) are classified as "willful," "repeat," or "failure-to-abate" ----one of the necessary criteria for the severe violator designation…

Report: House GOP health care bill would spark job losses, economic downturns across the country

Despite glowing reviews from the House GOP about their health care bill, the people that actually crunch the numbers say it’ll likely mean millions more uninsured and higher premiums for people in poorer health. Now comes more bad news: it’ll also result in more than 900,000 lost jobs and billions in lost state revenue. A new report from researchers at the Commonwealth Fund and George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health calculated the impact of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which House Republicans passed in May, on employment and economic activity in every…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At The Nation, leaders in the domestic workers movement write about what’s next in their efforts to improve conditions for the thousands who work in people’s homes, often with no rights or recourse. Authored by Ai-jen Poo and Andrea Cristina Mercado, both with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the article chronicles the “legacy of exclusion” that domestic workers have experienced, such as their exemption from federal labor protections, as well as the day-to-day conditions they often face in people’s homes — conditions that can result in serious and long-term injuries. The authors write…

Luskin, ID and Creationism, Take 2

This took place in the comments on a thread below, so I want to move it up to its own post so it doesn't get lost. Steve S, a frequent commenter both here and at the Panda's Thumb, dug something up that is both important and highly amusing given Casey Luskin's recent post at the DI blog proclaiming that a reporter who equated ID with creationism was demonstrating "bias" and that the reporter had become a "mouthpiece for ID's critics". And here's what Luskin had to say about the equation of ID and creationism: Despite Holden's editorializing, ID is not creationism because creationism always…

The Beginning of the End of the Republican Congress: Chaffetz vs. Allen

In Health Care Insurance Reform We See The History of the Republican Party Very few American policy initiatives have been as popular as Obamacare. The fact that several years of Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act did not result in any alternative policies or specific revisions to the law suggest that Republicans were aware of that. Touting opposition and threatening to repeal worked with their base, but actually doing something would lead to widespread outrage and loss of votes, possibly loss of actual elections. The worst nightmare of Republican members of the House and…

Guest Post: Choosing the Nobel Prize winners is not an exact science

Some time back, commenter HI won a guest post by predicting the Nobel laureates in Medicine. He sent me the text a little while ago, and I've finally gotten around to posting it (things have been crazy around here): Since Chad gave me the right to guest blog as a prize for correctly predicting the Nobel Prize winners, I thought it would be appropriate to write a post about the Nobel Prize. (It would have been more timely if I had written this sooner. This is why I'm not a real blogger.) It was fun to be able to predict some of the Nobel Prize winners this year and last year. It is more…

You Are What You Appear to Have Read

Scott McLemee writes about the shelving of books, spinning off Matt Selman's list of rules for shelving books RULE #1: THE PRIME DIRECTIVE -- It is unacceptable to display any book in a public space of your home if you have not read it. Therefore, to be placed on Matt Selman's living room bookshelves, a book must have been read cover to cover, every word, by Matt Selman. If you are in the home of Matt Selman and see a book on the living room shelves, you know FOR SURE it has been read by Matt Selman. (has anyone ever seen Selman and Mike Kozlowski in the same place?) and Ezra Klein's…

Four for Pharmboy: Thank you and a mission modification

The Preamble Four years ago today, I wrote my first post in the blogosphere over at the old Blogger version of Terra Sigillata. The post, entitled, "A Humble PharmBoy Begins to Sow," set out my mission to be an objective source for information on natural health remedies and drugs that come from nature, whether used as single agent prescription drugs or as botanical mixtures and supplements. I read blogs for about six months before setting off on my own, primarily because I wanted to be sure my efforts were not redundant with others. Because I am academic and paid by a combination of federal…

Noise pollution drives away some birds, but benefits those that stay behind

Cities are noisy places. If you ever get annoyed by the constant din of traffic, machinery and increasingly belligerent inhabitants, think about what songbirds must think. Many birds rely on songs to demarcate their territories and make their advances known to mates. They listen out not just for the sounds of seduction or rivalry, but for approaching predators and alarm calls that signify danger. Hearing these vital notes may be the different between life and death. Last year, I wrote a feature for New Scientist about the effect that urban noise has on songbirds. Those that can't make…

Framing the Economic Crisis: Bailout or Rescue Plan?

How critical is framing to effectively communicating about complex policy problems, especially under conditions of uncertainty? Just take a look at the debate over the economic crisis. As I noted last week, the term "bailout" has locked in a specific framing of the issue that inflames populist anger and caters to House Republicans' efforts to exploit the situation for political gain. The "bailout" triggers thoughts of saving irresponsible wealthy bankers who got greedy, whereas economists view the problem more along the lines of jump starting an economy that is collectively a stuttering…

The ontology of biology 1 - What an ontology really is

It has become common in recent years for people to use terms of philosophy in distinct contexts, as it has terms of biology. Thus, ontology has gone the way of taxonomy, being dragooned into service of database techniques, to mean something quite the opposite of what it originally meant. I have noticed this tendency of computer technology for decades, ever since I got hopelessly muddled when doing database programming in the early 80s until I realised that they were using some terminology of formal logic in exactly the wrong way (I forget what it was now). A database ontology is not an…

The Little Fish That Could

I have often been teased for my habit of carrying a science book wherever I go. ("That's such a Brian thing," an acquaintance once remarked.) If I am going to be waiting for someone or have a few minutes to spare here or there I like to have something to read to fill up the time. It's either that or fiddle around with Tetris on my cell phone. Some people have told me that this manifestation of bibliophilia makes me seem antisocial,* but I cannot break the habit. I have been toting around science stuff wherever I go from a very young age. *[My favorite instance was when I was told to "Make…

Support the Troops

A recent study indicates that the lifetime cost of medical care for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be greater than the cost of the war to date.  We really have no choice, but it is going to cost us.  A lot.  Of course, the ones really paying are the troops themselves.  From Medscape (free registration required). href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565407">High Rate of PTSD in Returning Iraq War Veterans Bob Roehr November 6, 2007 (Washington, DC) — Estimates of the rate of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans returning from Iraq range from 12% to 20%. With…

Who's in the club? Why does it matter?

I'm recycling another post from the ancestor of this blog, but I'm adding value by adding some newish links to good stuff on other blogs. * * * * * How much does it matter that certain groups (like women) are under-represented in the tribe of science? I'm not, at the moment, taking up the causes (nor am I looking for any piss-poor "Barry Winters"-style theories as to the causes). At present, the bee in my bonnet is the effects. And this is not a hypothetical situation. This post at Thanks for Not Being a Zombie links to an article from the New York Times with some sobering statistics: Even…

Friday Sprog Blogging: the axolotl.

Dr. Free-Ride: What was it we were going to talk about today? Elder offspring: The axolotl. Dr. Free-Ride: Can you please spell that? Elder offspring: A-X-O-L-O- ... wait. A-X-O-T-O-L. Wait! A-X-O-L-O-T-O-L. I think. Dr. Free-Ride: Hmm. I shall do some checking on the spelling. And what is it? Elder offspring: It's a salamander that has achieved eternal youth! Dr. Free-Ride: Eternal youth? Elder offspring: At least, youth for the rest of its life. Dr. Free-Ride: Um, I guess that's eternal enough for that individual. So what does it mean for a salamander to achieve eternal youth? Does…

Mark Steyn digs himself deeper

After falling for an obvious hoax, Mark Steyn has refused to correct his error. Instead he just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole. (My previous posts on this topic: 1 2 3). In his latest effort Steyn complains about how the meanies at Media Watch asked him what checks he made to prove the validity of Bryant's unlikely tale: But Chantal explained that she'd checked out the show and that the Media Watch concept involves them accusing you of something, you emailing back your 15,000-word response and then they pick the infelicitously phrased seven-word throwaway subordinate…

What John Legend and Common Have in Common

May 12 was a glorious day for our graduates, some 2,730 students celebrating the completion of their undergraduate education. Our Commencement Speaker John Legend, a Grammy Award Winner, shared an important message in both speech and in song: equal access to quality education is a right, not a privilege. Mr. Legend acknowledged the recent brouhaha highlighted on FOX news about rapper Common, with whom he has performed. Common was recently invited to the White House to participate in a Poetry Jam, generating push back due to offensive lyrics in some of his songs. For example: ...the New…

Five abandoned Olympic sports

There is only one truly kosher sport when it comes to the Olympics: athletics. All those ancient Greeks did was run around in the dirt butt naked. It took over fifty years for them to add a second sport: more running, but in a wild twist, a race over twice the distance as before. Over the years more sports were added, including one involving running in full armour, which much have provided much-needed advertising canvas for Classical games sponsors. After the revival of the games in 1894, various sports have been added, some successfully, whilst others fell by the wayside. Take a tour…

More on serials

It's odd to wake up in the morning to discover that I've earned a new Nerd Merit Badge. I for one welcome our new Boing Boing overlords readers, and I thank the marvelous Jessamyn West for the shout-out. Now. To clear some things up. It was pointed out in a lengthy comment to the BoingBoinged post that publishers aren't doing this because they're evil; it's Just Bidness. Well, yes, it is. That doesn't require me to refrain from pointing out that Just Bidness in the monolithic-publisher toll-access serials industry is squeezing libraries, destroying university presses and responsible small…

My Friend Flugel: An Ode to an American Kestrel

A conversation with a fellow raptor fan and Kevin's recent entry pertaining to the injured bald eagle congealed and triggered a few of my geriatric neurons, prompting the following nostalgic reverie about a former pet: an American kestrel. I think I have mentioned that I grew up on a farm in east central Illinois, not far from Champaign-Urbana. Our yard consisted of an acre of land with a variety of mature trees - sugar, Norway and silver maples, American basswood, shingle oak, flowering crab apples, sweetgum and a few specimen trees - plus open areas where we set up the croquet set, the…

What is meant by "mosaic evolution" and other matters

A discussion of misconceptions in evolution ... about missing links, or great chains of being, or teleology (the idea that evolution is goal-directed) has got to be the most fun you can have with your pants on. Pursuant to this, let's sharpen and clarify our evolutionary theory mojo by considering the concept of "mosaic evolution" ... what is it, and what isn't it? Of course, the concept of mosaic evolution, meant to clarify how evolution works, is often itself misunderstood. From Wikipedia: "Mosaic Evolution is the concept that major evolutionary changes tend to take place in stages, not…

When religion goes berserk!

I guess it is unlikely you have not already heard about the big brouhaha that erupted when Bill Donohue targeted PZ Myers for showing disrespect towards a belief that made some religious nuts go crazy and violent against a child (yes, Eucharist is just a cracker, sorry, but that is just a factual statement about the world). If not, the entire story, and it is still evolving, can be found on PZ's blog so check out the numerous comments here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Also see what Greg Laden and Tristero say. [Update: see also John Wilkins and Mike Dunford for some good clear…

Day Three at SICB

The internet connection was down for nearly 24 hours at the hotel, so I was unable to update you all on the talks I attended yesterday afternoon, which caused me to express much crankiness. Hopefully, I will be able to get that done sometime within the next 24 hours (i.e.; before I return to NYC). Today is the third day of the conference and I am getting tired and overwhelmed by the intense flood of presentations and posters, so now I am attending only presentations that focus explicitly on evolutionary biology or ornithology. Below the fold are the bird presentations that I attended; Beck…

More on Science/Religion Disputes

My post about science/religion disputes has prompted responses from my SciBlings Bora Zivkovic and Mike Dunford (here and here respectively. Since they are among my favorite bloggers, it pains me to have to disagree with them. Alas, disagree I must. I will begin with Bora, since I fear he has misunderstood my central point. The starting point of my post was my disagreement with this statement from Thomas Dixon: Historians have shown that the Galileo affair, remembered by some as a clash between science and religion, was primarily about the enduring political question of who was authorized…

How "they" view "us": A woman dies of measles, and antivaccinationists think it's a conspiracy

Dammit. I had planned on posting something else tomorrow that, because it had been posted elsewhere, would be minimal work. The reason, of course, is because it's the 4th of July weekend and today is a federal holiday. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen that I cannot ignore, even though all sorts of other bloggers are writing about the same thing, because, well, it's something that goes to the very core of what this blog stands for. As you know, one of the most frequently addressed topics (certainly in the top three, if not number one) is the antivaccine movement, its pseudoscience, and…

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Can somebody get me some frickin' laser beams with my Reiki?

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging, preventing the creation of fresh Insolence, at least Insolence of the quality that you've come to expect. This is one of those times. I happen to be sitting here in Palm Beach, Florida, but I'm not chilling at the beach or pool. Rather, I'm attending "leadership training." Yes, be very, very afraid! In any case, I never saw the point of having these sorts of training seminars at beautiful oceanfront locations if they're going to pack the entire day with, you know, actual training! Worse (for purposes of blogging), I really have to fine tune my…

OAS Wednesday - Semen Boosts the Immune System! Helps HIV

One of the things that bugs me most in pop-sci and woo-woo science is the obsession with "boosting" the immune system. The immune system is in a constant balancing act - tip it too far one way and even normally harmless bacteria become life-threatening. But tilt it too far in the other direction, and you can end up with things like allergies and autoimmunity. And some pathogens have learned to take advantage of your normal immune responses, meaning that "boosting" your immune system can sometimes do more harm than good. A good case-in-point is a recent paper published in PLoS Pathogens: IL-7…

Let the War on Christmas Begin. Atheist style.

This week is Thanksgiving in the United States. This means that over the coming weekend many Americans will be putting up Christmas decorations in and outside their houses. Many children will be putting finishing touches on their letters to Santa. The shopping malls will start to fill and while economists examine and measure the retail sales bump for signs that the world will not end, we, as a nation, will come together to incrementally crank up the material contents stored in our homes and the corresponding mass of our public landfills. But what do Atheists do on Christmas? We declare…

Zero Sum Games

In game theory, perhaps the most important category of simple games is something called zero sum games. It's also one of those mathematical things that are widely abused by the clueless - you constantly hear references to the term "zero-sum game" in all sorts of contexts, and they're almost always wrong. A zero-sum game is a game in which the players are competing for resources, and the set of resources is fixed. The fixed resources means that any gain by one player is necessarily offset by a loss by another player. The reason that this is called zero-sum is because you can take any result…

Beverage of your choice and at your own risk

I don't fly as much as I used to but I still fly too often for my likes and when the cart comes around for the free beverages it's either orange juice "with no ice" or a bloody mary mix "with no ice." I rarely drink water, but if I did, I would never drink the water out of a pitcher, as offered to me a couple of weeks ago on Air Canada. From a bottle, maybe, but since bottled water isn't as well regulated as tap water, I usually don't partake. I know a fair amount about public drinking water, but one day I was seated on a plane next to somebody who knew a lot about airplanes and he said he'd…

Safety Awards Gone Bad

Pork plant in illness probe wins worker safety award Safety award to Massey mine where two miners were killed   First, I thought these were bad April Fools' jokes or maybe an article from the ONION.  But no, these headlines are no joke.  A pork packing house in Austin, MN, a worksite where at least 12 workers have developed an autoimmune disorder, is receiving the Award of Honor from the American Meat Institute for its worker safety and health program.  (This is the plant with the "blowing brains" table," where workers used compressed air on pig skulls to harvest the…

Salon Investigates the Dark Side of Coming Home

Last week, Salon.com published a disturbing in-depth series, called âComing Home,â about the tragic consequences of the Armyâs inability to provide adequate care to soldiers returning from Iraq. Focusing on just one base â Fort Carson, Colorado â they found the following: Salon put together a sample of 25 suicides, prescription overdoses and murders among soldiers at Colorado's Fort Carson since 2004. Intensive study of 10 of those cases exposed a pattern of preventable deaths, meaning a suicide or murder might have been avoided if the Army had better handled the predictable, well-known…

New in: Open Access and Science 2.0

The complexity of sharing scientific databases: Under US law, pretty much anything you write down is copyrighted. Scrawl an original note on a napkin and it's protected until 70 years after your death. Facts, however, are another matter - they can't be copyrighted. So while trivial but creative scribblings are copyrighted, unless you choose to release them into the public domain, the information painstakingly discovered about the human genome - DNA sequences, for instance - aren't. But the containers they're stored in - the databases they're held in - can be copyrighted. Breaking News: Open…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Center for Public Integrity, Talia Buford and Maryam Jameel investigate federal contractors that receive billions in public funds despite committing wage violations against their workers. In analyzing Department of Labor data on more than 1,100 egregious violators, the reporters found that federal agencies modified or granted contracts totaling $18 billion to 68 contractors with proven wage violations. The Department of Defense contracted with the most wage violators. Under Obama, labor officials had attempted to address the problem with the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which…

The Omnipotence of Homosexuality

It always amuses me just how powerful the anti-gay loonies think homosexuality is. It's so powerful that it causes the very tectonic plates to crash together, causing earthquakes in San Francisco. It causes the weather patterns to change, causing hurricanes in Florida and New Orleans. And all of this, of course, accompanied by lots and lots of death and suffering for innocent (i.e. straight) people. One half expects to see a gay superhero who takes his heroic form by yelling "By the power of Garland!" at the top of his lungs. Bartholomew, as usual, is on top of the latest developments in the…

ID Experts Withdraw from Dover Trial

This story has finally been made public so I can talk about it. Within the last couple weeks, three of the main experts for the defense in the Dover ID trial - William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and John Campbell - have all been withdrawn as expert witnesses in the case. The York Daily Record reports: Dembski, a mathematician and scientific philosopher, said the Thomas More Law Center, which is defending the school board, basically fired him because he wanted to have his own attorney present during the depositions. He said he's puzzled and frustrated by Thomas More's refusal to let him…

Thinking about money soothes sting of social rejection and physical pain

Money has subtler benefits beyond the ability to buy lavish goods or luxurious services - it's also a psychological and physical salve. According to research by Xinyue Zhou from Sun Yat-Sen University, handling money can soothe the sting of social rejection and appease the physical pain of hot water. Even bringing up the mere thought of money can have these effects. Popularity matters to social animals like humans, who rely on each other for our wants and needs. Our dependence on each other makes it important to get along with our peers. But in many societies, money can bypass that need,…

Swordfishtrombones (Warming to the nuclear argument)

Well he came home from the war With a party in his head And an idea for a fireworks display ;;;; Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones I spent much of the Solstice/Christmas/New Year's break thinking about the future of this blog. I am happy to report that more a few lurkers broke their silence to urge me to continue the good fight against the forces of ignorance. Thank you for the vote of confidence. I'm going to try to make the Island a more entertaining and provocative place, while still focusing on the science of climatology, and the policy implications that come with it. So let's get right to it…

Psychiatrists of old, never gave advice. But here's some advice:

Psychiatrists of old, never gave advice.  But here's some advice: And never trust with your money anyone making a potential bonus. From href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fa89be08-02aa-11de-b58b-000077b07658.html">Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan; HT: href="http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2009/02/february-25-2009-put-it-all-on-red.html">Automatic Earth. How bank bonuses let us all down By Nassim Nicholas Taleb Published: February 24 2009 19:53 One of the arguments one hears in the compensation debate is that the bonus system used by Wall Street - as John Thain,…

On Evolutionary Monographs [repost]

For some years now, we have been hearing about Paul Nelson's forthcoming monograph On Common Descent, which one assumes will stem from his now [eight] year old PhD in philosophy Common Descent, Generative Entrenchment, and the Epistemology in Evolutionary Inference. As the DI/CSC website notes, "[h]is forthcoming monograph, On Common Descent, critically evaulates the theory of common descent, and is being edited for the series Evolutionary Monographs." The Wedge document notes: William Dembski and Paul Nelson, two CRSC Fellows, will very soon have books published by major secular university…

Survivor Pharyngula: The Audition

Lately, we've had a number of threads blow up into furious arguments, which is fine and normal, except that they've also been fueled by contributions from an assortment of new (Yay! We like new people!) noisemakers who don't seem to respond well to argument themselves (Boo!), and there's been a great deal of non-productive turmoil going on. It may be time to purge a few of the more poisonous commenters. This is stage 1 of our Survivor Pharyngula competition, in which we'll determine if we really do have an infestation of pests that need to be culled. After all, I'm not going to invest in…