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67% of Children Left Behind

Via a EurekAlert release with the catchy headline "As graduation rates go down, school ratings go up", a new study of the Texas school system, which provided the inspiration for "No Child Left Behind". It's not pretty: A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin finds that Texas' public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-…

Archbishop of Canterbury, anti-creationist

Lots of people have been emailing me the story that the Archbishop of Canterbury backs evolution. I have to confess to mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's good to have a religious authority figure coming down on the side of sense. I applaud the sentiment of his statements, and hope they have some positive influence. On the other hand, I don't give a flying firkin what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks, and would question his authority to even make such a pronouncement. If people are going to accept things because someone who wears a funny hat on Sunday says so, where are they going to…

links for 2008-02-01

Songs for the Dumped: The Prelude | Popdose "[A] two-week anthology in which music nerds write about tracks they've attached to a particular crippling breakup, let you splash around in the stories behind them and hopefully, if we've done our jobs, make you feel slightly better about your own mi (tags: music culture society sex) Pictures Reveal Mercury's Tumultuous Past - New York Times ""Our little craft has returned a gold mine of exciting data," said Dr. Sean C. Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission's lead investigator." (tags: astronomy science news space)…

Gender Bias and Anne Conway

In discussing Soul Made Flesh this past Wednesday morning in PZ's neurobiology class, I brought up what I thought to be an interesting, though somewhat tangential, point. Zimmer mentioned Anne Conway and how ambitious she was in her studies despite not being allowed to attend a university. The fact that females were not given the same opportunities throughout history is something I remember learning about in grade school. But where did the ideology that females are inferior to males begin? One of my fellow students argued that because females give birth they were probably not expected to…

Georgetown 4, Syracuse 2 (OT)

Well, ok, the final score was really 64-62, but it was 4-2 in the five-minute overtime period after forty minutes of old-school Big East basketball failed to resolve anything. On paper, this shouldn't've been much of a game-- Georgetown is #9 in the country, while Syracuse dresses only eight scholarship players at the moment-- but that's what happens with rivalry games. The was fairly typical of Syracuse's season so far. They made a really good effort, and actually led by seven late in the game, but were undermined by inexperience and poor judgement. Jonny Flynn in particular forced a lot of…

True Lab Stories: Demolition Men

This is actually sort of a pre-lab story, as it happened before my lab in grad school was even established. It pre-dates my time at NIST, and happened long enough ago that the statute of limitations has surely run out, so I feel safe telling it. The lab I worked in in grad school was acquired by the group a couple of years before I got there. It had previously been used by a group doing something involving wet chemisty, so there were lots of benches and sinks and other things that we didn't need or want in a laser lab. They brought in the NIST facilities crew, and asked them how much it would…

Secrets of Academic Survival: The Secretary

I'm not going to explain exactly what prompted this, but I want to remind my readers of one of the absolute essential rules of life in academia: The most important person in any academic department is the secretary. Naive outsiders often think that the department chair is the most important person, or possibly the most senior faculty member, or maybe the professor with the most funding. That's wrong, though. If you want to be able to get things done in academia, the person you need on your side is the department secretary. I didn't really appreciate this until graduate school... I bombed my…

Synchronicity and "Administrative Bloat"

At Inside Higher Ed this morning, they have a news squib about a new report blaming the high cost of college on "administrative bloat." Coincidentally, the Dean Dad has a post pre-emptively responding to this in the course of arguing with a different group: In terms of administration, what would you cut? Should we stop trying to comply with the ADA? Should we stop evaluating faculty altogether, and just trust that everybody is perfect? Perhaps we should stop giving financial aid, since it requires so many staff. Who cares about accreditation? Who cares about IT? Who cares about payroll? (…

Links for 2010-08-15

YouTube - Beat It + epic Crazy Chinese Omnipotent China red army The Internet is a very silly place, but I'm glad we have it. (tags: video music world silly internet youtube) Why Does College Cost So Much? - Forbes.com "Instead of holding up a magnifying glass to the industry, we take an aerial view. The view from above shows us different things. Rising college costs are an important byproduct of broad economic forces that have reshaped the entire economy, and in particular of the technological progress that has so dramatically raised living standards over time. Our technology story rests…

Crazy and Dishonest Physics Update

The problem with writing about fake physics is that once you start, it's hard to stop. And there's always something new and disreputable to find, such as this hideous bit of scammery. As I said in How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, if quantum physics really allowed you to amass vast wealth just by wanting it, Dave Wineland's publications wouldn't need to acknowledge funding from a handful of acronyms-- he'd be able to bankroll his own research out of his personal fortune.. Quantum physics is not magic. It allows many things that seem weird and counterintuitive, but those effects are very…

World Cup Wrap-Up

I missed the first 15 minutes of yesterday's World Cup final because it was inordinately difficult to find a tv showing the game at BWI airport. There are tvs all over the place, but they're all locked into playing a pre-recorded loop of CNN programs, without even a news ticker that could give score updates. I did eventually find a spot at the bar in a Mexican restaurant, and managed to watch the middle portion of the game. I missed the last 15 minutes of regular time and all over the extra time because I was on a plane back to Albany. I was planning to write up a recap of what I did see, but…

How to Decide Who to Root for in the World Cup?

Ethan Zuckerman has an excellent round-up of selection strategies for who to support in the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament. Options include strategic support, support through spite, non-FIFA support, and aesthetic considerations. A couple he left off: Flopping Artistry: To American eyes, one of the most notable features of international soccer is the way that players dive on the ground wailing at the slightest hint of contact. Inexplicable as this is, it is evidently an essential part of the sport, so why not select teams based on their players' ability to mimic a gut-shot Tim Roth in…

Links for 2010-06-01

OPERA Sees Tau Neutrino Appearance!! "It is official: the OPERA experiment (above, in a sketch) has found its first tau lepton in one of its bricks (a picture of a brick is shown below). What gives, I am hearing some of you ask. It means that a muon neutrino launched from the CERN laboratories in a 730 km course underground has oscillated into its brother, a tau neutrino, and that the latter has materialized into the charged partner, the tau lepton, inside the OPERA detector. In other words, the observation spells the direct detection of muon neutrino oscillations into tau neutrinos! This…

Ancient Aliens: Performance Art or Government Disinformation?

One of my many character weaknesses is a fondness for the kooky UFO programs run on the History Channel and other educational cable networks. The nuttier the better-- there's something about the credulity and self-delusion displayed by the "researchers" they trot out that I find really hilarious. I have to say, though, that they've outdone themselves with this new Ancient Aliens series. To the point where it almost has to be a put-on-- last week, they had a pudgy guy with wild eyes stating that stone obelisks around the world were really receivers in a global energy distribution network based…

Links for 2010-04-20

Ptahhotep "The Instruction of Ptahhotep to his son survives in papyrus copies. It is a collection of maxims (not all are given here) dealing with human relations. The maxims do not cover all aspects of Egyptian life. For the most part, they touch on the peaceful virtues of kindness, justice, truthfulness, moderation and self-control. A man by the name of Ptahhotep was a vizier under King Isesi of the Fifth Dynasty. If he authored the instruction under this name, then it dates from 2450-2300 BCE. On the other hand, Miriam Lichtheim argues that the style of the document puts its origin close…

Science at the Cinema

For some reason, I've been thoroughly exhausted all week, and being out late last night for a concert hasn't helped any. Thus, you're not going to get much in the way of substantive blogging from me today. I did want to note a weird example of synchronicity in the physics-related blogosphere, though, as both Clifford Johnson and Jennifer Ouellette have recent posts in praise of B movies. Clifford sings the praises of Jurassic Park, particularly: The fact that every time I am almost in tears when the scientists -not the annoying one played by Jeff Goldblum- see the dinosaurs for the first time…

Framing Physics

Over at Gene Expression, Razib is collecting ten-word summaries of evolutionary theory, with follow-up posts here and here. Because I'm completely shameless about this sort of thing, I'm going to swipe the idea, and apply it to physics. Of course, physics as a discipline covers a bit more conceptual territory than "evolutionary theory," so it's probably impossible to boil down to a single statement of ten or fewer words, but Razib had to cop out as well, settling on ten ten-word statements. So let's take that as a goal, and ask, following the original phrasing: If you had 10 words or less,…

Coleman has little chance of pulling nuts out of the fire

Legal experts are largely undivided in the opinion that Norm Coleman's Minnesota Supreme Court bid to overturn a lower judicial panel's decisions regarding the vote count in the Minnesota Senate race is senseless and has no chance whatsoever of winning. This opinion was widely held prior to the presentation of arguments by Coleman, but now, with some real face time in the high court behind us, in which we see the arguments for real, and see the reaction by the judges, it is confirmed and certain that Coleman's fate is sealed. But what is not known at this time is the fate of Governor Pawlenty…

Genie Scott, Two-Three Other Guys, Honored by Scientific American

Scientific American names the 10 most important leaders in science and technology ... a press release from the National Center for Science Education OAKLAND, CA May 18, 2009 Barack Obama and Bill Gates are in good company. The NCSE's Dr. Eugenie C. Scott joins Obama and Gates as members of the Scientific American 10 honor roll. This honor roll pays tribute to the ten people in the last year who have "demonstrated exceptional leadership and accomplishment in guaranteeing that future technologies will be applied to the benefit of humanity". Past honorees include Al Gore, stem cell…

Dave Mabus in my Email Box

I just received a very threatening email from Dave Mabus. Dave is a christian who is rabidly anti atheist. As a person he is about as pleasant as a bad rash and as an intellect he makes a walnut look smart. Very few people send me truly threatening emails and get away with it for long. Remember the Turkish Spammers? I took care of them right good, didn't I. (Details will not be forthcoming ... just notice that they are not around here any more.) And I'd take care of Dave as well, except for one very important detail. He wasn't threatening me, he was threatening my friend and colleague…

Oops. That complaint backfired.

I am deeply amused. I'm no fan of "faith & religion" sections of newspapers—axe them and expand the funny pages, I say—but here's one editor with smarts who gets the thumbs up from me. He gets lots of complaints that those dang non-Christians are being over-represented on the religion page; some of them are typical bigotry of the dominant delusion: A couple of critics wanted to know why we were wasting ink on these "false" beliefs when Christ is the only path to salvation. Another caller said he was tired of having "that Islam religion … shoved in my face." Now here's what I like: the…

The Franken Coleman Recount: What next?

All but one precinct has been counted (and I understand that will be done momentarily). However, there is a box (or bag or envelope) of ballots missing in Minneapolis. The Secretary of State has indicated that the recount deadline is extended to allow these missing 130 or so votes to be found and included. (Coleman's lawyer is objecting to this, naturally.) In a television interview earlier today, Richie also indicated that the state will be looking at a number of absentee ballots as well. The current difference between Coleman and Franken is probably about 192 votes, with Coleman ahead…

More education is always a wonderful idea

Some might be surprised to hear that I'm actually in favor of this change in the British school standards: Teenagers will be asked to debate intelligent design (ID) in their religious education classes and read texts by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins under new government guidelines. In a move that is likely to spark controversy, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has for the first time recommended that pupils be taught about atheism and creationism in RE classes. The all-important qualifying phrase is "in their religious education classes". It's not science, so I'll always…

Colin Powell Endorses US Presidential Candidate

General Colin Powell, the African American former Secretary of State famous for winning the First Gulf War as Chief of the Amy and, later, for being duped by Dick Cheney and George Bush to convince the world that Iraq was harboring illegal weapons of mass destruction, oft considered to be a presidential candidate, running mate, or some other important thing, has endorsed a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. This is a man who knows George Bush and worked for years in Republican Administrations. He is a man people listen to. He is a man most believe does not play…

Kent Hovind: 10 years!

Shelley the Republican says: We conservatives have grown accustomed to liberal activist judges perverting justice for their own evil ends. Last year Judge Jones betrayed us all when he passed his verdict in the Dover school-book case. Shortly afterwards, our dear friend Kent was convicted of tax evasion. U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers will sentence the Hovinds at 9 a.m for the alleged crime of tax evasion. They claim that he and his lovely wife Jo owe the state almost one million dollars in unpaid taxes. A quick review of the case show that the federal court unfairly denied Hovind's…

Good morning!

Good morning! I have important news, and COOKIES! First, the cookies: These are serious cookies. These are Ana cookies. If you want one, you better hurry, because they are NOT going to last long. Now on to the important news: Melanie Reap has dropped something in my inbox indicating that the Rochester meeting to discuss the science standards went pretty well, and that this bit about biology being part of Middle School and not High School is not real. We are to read the standards thusly: If you see a "9" read it as "9-12." The coding system they used requires a single number in that…

What is the sound of one hypothesis clapping?

Read the following text. As you read it, try to empty your mind. When you encounter grammatical errors or jargon that is impossible to understand, do not try to translate what you are reading. Rather, become one with the obscurity. Read slowly, thoughtlessly, with emptiness of purpose, as though the words were entering your eyes, traveling through your head, and leaving through your ears. The ultimate understanding will be achieved when you reach the end of the abstract and have understood nothing: Recent neuroimaging studies have identified a set of brain regions that are metabolically…

Gustav May Hit New Orleans as a Category 2 Hurricane on Monday

The current track places the storm dead on New Orleans. But this is many, many days in advance so you can't expect this to be accurate. But, this is worth keeping an eye on. Speculation: RNC opens on September 1st. Gustav hits the Gulf Coast September 1st. RNC second and third day play out with the Republicans following tradition, which involves making stark and insensitive statements about people in need, landing bloody punches, or at least trying to, on their competition. As typically happens, the Republicans are seen as insensitive. This insensitivity is underscored by the choice of…

The Eighth Harry Potter Book?

You can't have it until December, but you can pre-order it now (in case they run out!). Click the picture. Maybe. Probably, this is more properly thought of as the Zeroth Harry Potter Book. Do you know about the Tales of Beedle the Bard? According to Julia (I didn't know) it has to do with these three brothers who encounter a river previously uncrossed by mortal men. They fool death or build a bridge or something and survive and get wishes. One asks for a powerful wand, one wants to bring back the dead, and one asks that Death not be able to follow him. This results in the existence…

Creationist Science Teacher Who Burned Crosses Into Students Flesh: More Information

"At a contentious public meeting in Mount Vernon, Ohio, the district school board scheduled a hearing on whether to fire teacher John Freshwater. Freshwater has been accused of teaching intelligent design in his biology classes, and of using a piece of lab equipment to brand a cross on a student's arm." .... from an NCSE press release. More: The Columbus Dispatch reports (July 7, 2008) "The Mount Vernon eighth-grade science teacher who has been under scrutiny for focusing on creationism and intelligent design in his classes will contest his planned firing at an Aug. 26 hearing. The date…

NASA's Got a New Web Site

NASA's JPL has a new web site which focuses on surface conditions on one specific planet: The Earth. It has a Sea Level Viewer which is basically a very fancy menu for a number of multi-media presentations, and a list of current or proposed missions. I am not overly impressed with this, but it may be a good resource for the kiddies. Much more interesting, and in fact, quite impressive, is the "Climate Time Machine" ... This shows ice melting, sea level change, CO2 emissions, and average global temperature. The CO2 emissions is fascinating, because CO2 emissions are an assay of…

Sunday Chess Problem

Many years ago, as a middle-schooler, I attended a one-week summer chess camp in New York state. There were many excellent instructors at the camp, but my favorite was Aviv Friedman, a FIDE master originally from Israel. He had a real knack for finding interesting and instructive positions to show us, and he always presented things with clarity and humor. So I was delighted to discover recently that he has become a regular lecturer at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, and that many of those lectures are available on YouTube. I've been dutifully working my way through them…

Sunday Chess Problem

I have been terribly remiss in my Sunday Chess Problem responsibilities. So how about a charming little amuse bouche from the greatest of all endgame composers: Alexey Troitzky. The position below was composed in 1898 and calls for white to play and win. A natural first reaction would be to give check with 1. Rc2 or 1. Qh1 or something like that. You're welcome to give that a try, but I think you'll find that white quickly runs out of checks. So we need to find something a bit more subtle. The only way to win is the shocking 1. Re6+! For what purpose is white sacrificing the rook?…

Great Moments in Evolution Debates

I'm in the mood for something light-hearted today, so here's a YouTube clip for you: It's from the Firing Line debate in 1997 about evolution and creationism. Representing darkness and obscurantism were William F. Buckley, Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and David Berlinski. Sunshine and goodness were represented by Barry Lynn, Eugenie Scott, Michael Ruse, and Kenneth Miller. Back in 1997 I had not yet developed an interest in evolution and creationism, so I paid no attention to this debate at the time. Years later I read a transcript, but that's never the same as seeing it live. So,…

A Lesson in Applied Probability

Nate Silver provides the antidote to some dubious statistical reasoning on the part of certain conservatives. He was replying in particular to this column from Peggy Noonan. A column, mind you, that opens with, “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.” Goodness! Then she presents evidence like this: The second part of the scandal is the auditing of political activists who have opposed the administration. The Journal's Kim Strassel reported an Idaho businessman named Frank VanderSloot, who'd donated more than a million dollars to groups supporting Mitt Romney…

Someone's Been Reading Too Many Left Behind Novels

Let's get the week started off right: Moss Bluff Elementary School in Louisiana is looking to streamline lunch payments by implementing a palm vein scanner program, but some parents aren't pleased. A letter to parents this week informed them of the new scanner that will allow the school's nearly 1,000 students to move through the lunch line faster and with fewer payment mistakes -- an issue that had arisen in the past, KPLC-TV reports. While the letter notes that parents can opt their children out of the program, parent Mamie Sonnier told KPLC-TV that she was angry and disappointed by the…

The Victims in the Republican War on Women

This article is so powerful that it pretty much defies comment. It is a first-person account of a pregnant woman in Texas who learned that her son would be born with horrible, painful birth defects, if he survived long enough to be born at all. Thanks to the vile misogynists who run the state, she was made to suffer several further rounds of emotional torture before she could avail herself of the only viable option, an abortion. All I can say is that the Republicans who support these laws are monsters. If you vote for them, then you're a monster too. Here's the opening, but no excerpt can…

Powassan virus: Why did no one tell me about this???

[fear mongering post for the year. I really hate ticks, and I cant believe no one has told me about this virus before] I love making exclamations like that. First time I had Indian food: WHY ARE WE NOT EATING THIS ALL THE TIME?? When I learned hand-to-hand combat: WHY ARE WE NOT TEACHING THIS TO EVERY FEMALE?? When I learned about Powassan virus (like, yesterday): WHY HAVENT I LEARNED ABOUT THIS BEFORE?? Powassan virus is rare, but TERRIFYING, and its becoming less rare. AHHH! Heres the deal-- you all have heard of flaviviruses before. West Nile, Dengue, Yellow Fever, etc. All these guys…

XMRV: Not in spooge

Lack of Detection of XMRV in Seminal Plasma from HIV-1 Infected Men in The Netherlands These folks looked in the semen of HIV-1(+) men for XMRV-- because of XMRVs association with prostate cancer, and retroviruses as STDs, and because HIV+ people are more susceptible to infections than HIV- people. 29 homosexual men (not on any antiretrovirals), 25 heterosexual men (most, not all on antiretrovirals)-- no XMRV in 93 semen samples. Even though some of the men were on antiretrovirals, the number shouldnt have been zero. They had a built in control: HIV-1. HIV-1 was found in most of the…

ARTIFICIAL LIFE WARBLGARBLE!!!

Okay, Ive been trying to figure out what I can add to the OMFGTHEYMADEABACTERIAFROMSCRATCH hysteria. I cant come up with much more than 'WARBLEGARBLE!!!!!!!', but luckily, many others in the blagosphere didnt totally lose their heads and have some great posts up (leave links to your favorites in the comments, I missed some, I know). I just think its funny that a week ago I was bitching about how this group didnt explain how they synthesized their artificial genes (a few hundred nucleotides for each HIV-1 gene), cause it is really hard to go from "DNA sequence on a computer" to "DNA sequence…

Creationists are *WEIRD*

Look, I like weird people. Goth kids. Sci-fi geeks. Language nerds. Weird people are far more interesting than, say, the 'normal' people that get cast for shows like 'The Bachelor': Generic Human #231975, Generic Human #576930, Generic Human #750193, bleh. But theres a whole different level of weird, and that level is 'Creationist'. Example: Remember that guy, that Creationist that branded kids in his Ohio classroom? Had a whole system of weird signals and words and stuff he was brainwashing kids with? Yes, that was weird, but now weve reached a level of weird only Creationists can hope…

Tulsa Mayor Hopeful: Her #1 Priority

Because Christian politicians have nothing else to worry about: Republican mayoral candidate Anna Falling said Tuesday that putting a Christian creationism display in the Tulsa Zoo is No. 1 in importance among city issues that include violent crime, budget woes and bumpy streets. "It's first," she said to calls of "hallelujah" at a rally outside the zoo. "If we can't come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city." Falling, who has founded several Christian nonprofits…

Chicks: Anorexia, Obesity, and ERVs

WEIRD COOL EXPERIMENT ALERT! Proviral integrations and expression of endogenous Avian leukosis virus during long term selection for high and low body weight in two chicken lines For some reason, I have no idea why (Im sure they have a good reason-- obesity research, farming research), scientists were playing a selection game with chickens. Select the skinniest chickens. Breed them. Select the skinniest chickens. Repeat. Select the fattest chickens. Breed them. Select the fattest chickens. Repeat. Keep doing that until you get a population of skinny chickies and another population of fat…

Lentiviruses: Me, and you, and Zaboomafoo

Ive been *patiently* waiting two damn weeks for this paper to come out: A transitional endogenous lentivirus from the genome of a basal primate and implications for lentivirus evolution. Gifford and Katzourakis are the same folks who found RELIK a while back-- a lentiviral ERV in a species of European rabbit. This time, after screening the available sequences of 21 primates (including humans and chimpanzees) they found two in the genome of gray mouse lemurs (Zaboomafoos cousin :P). The gray mouse lemurs genome isnt totally sequenced yet, so they think there might be up to six lentiviral ERVs…

HBV RTs 2!

I found out through Google News yesterday that the FDA approved a new drug for the treatment of Hepatitis B. Now, normally, I would have ignored a story like that. Im not really all that interested in antivirals-- pharm research is on the opposite end of the research-spectrum of me. And theyre coming out with new drugs all the time (and pulling drugs off the market all the time...). Drugs arent my thing. Plus, Hepatitis B is a DNA virus, not a retrovirus... so, I mean "YAY! New therapy!" but this news story just isnt my cup of tea. ... Or is it? hehehehehe!! The drug the FDA approved isnt…

Crossword News, Crossword Blues

News first: The New York Times has reached dizzying new heights with today's magnificent crossword puzzle. Sadly, finding a New York Times here in Harrisonburg is rather like finding two identical snowflakes. Hard to do. So I haven't actually seen the puzzle yet. But I know it is excellent because it was constructed by my cousin Barry. This is his second puzzle for the Times. Now for the Blues: How badly are things going for the McCain campaign? Even the crossword puzzles are out to get them: On Jan. 8, 2005, I purposefully and unapologetically became the first person to ever…

On Hanging Out With Creationists

Some of the comments to my posts on the creationism conference reminded me of a scene from the movie Heat, released in 1995. Al Pacino played Vincent Hannah, a detective for the LAPD investigating a crew of professional bank robbers. Robert DeNiro played Neil McCauley, the leader of the crew. (Short review: Pretty good movie, but marred somewhat by being too long and by Pacino's occasionally cartoonish overacting. Better the second time through, since you know when you have to pay attention.) Roughly two-thirds of the way through the film Hannah knows everything about McCauley, but does…

Darwin the Writer

In a pleasant change from the ordinary, Slate has been posting a lot of good stuff lately. Today they have this review of a new book by Janet Browne entitled Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography. The review is by Jonathan Weiner: In 2009, On the Origin of Species will be 150 years old. On Feb. 12, 2009, its author would have turned 200.* Dozens of new books will be published to mark this double anniversary, and at last, Darwin the writer will receive the attention he deserves. Darwin the scientist is beyond famous. Darwin the scribbler is comparatively obscure. But I think he should be…

It Just Isn't Fair!

Via P.Z. Myers, I came across this post, from George Shollenberger. He is the author of a book entitled The First Scientific Proof of God, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him. He seems vexed by the number of atheists here at ScienceBlogs. He writes: I am a retired electrical engineer and the author of “The First Scientific Proof of God.” Last summer, Mark Chu-Carroll, the blogger of the Good Math, Bad Math website, began to attack me and my book. He continued to attack the book this spring and continued to assassinate my character. He never evaluated this…

Two Quick Thoughts About the Prop Eight Ruling

By now you have no doubt heard that a federal judge in California has struck down Proposition Eight, a voter referendum that outlawed gay marriage. Go here for a quick summary of the basic facts. I have not had a chance yet to read the entire decision, and I do not intend to attempt a legal analysis of its merits. I am very happy about it, of course, as should anyone who cares about basic justice and the rights of homosexuals. There were two things that struck me, however, upon hearing the news of the judge's decision. First, as I mentioned in this post, a few weeks ago I spent an…