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What's the cause of bar fights? Well... in addition to alcohol

Peter Giancola & Michelle Corman of the University of Kentucky have determined why drunks at the bar get into fights. Here's how they did it and the pretty nifty results: The scientists tested this idea on a group of young Kentucky men. Some of the men drank three to four screwdrivers before the experiment, while others stayed sober. Then they had them all compete against another person in a somewhat stressful game that required very quick responses. Every time they lost a round, they received a shock varying in intensity. Likewise, when they won a round they gave their opponent a shock…

Lomborg is a hack

Oh, here's a good takedown of that shill for the petroleum industry, Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg’s message to the newspaper readers has thus nothing to do with a fair portrayal of how much sea-level rise the scientific community expects. Rather it is a distortion and blatant attempt at downplaying future sea-level rise. Looking at Lomborg’s many other Project Syndicate columns shows that this is not a singular case but a regular pattern in his columns. This is all the more irresponsible given that Project Syndicate opinion pieces are widely reprinted by newspapers in developing nations, where…

Google, Stupidity, and A Very Accurate Article

The world has changed. Sometimes its hard to notice. This is what "shifting baselines" is about. And this is also what an excellent article this month's Atlantic Monthly titled Is Google Making Us Stupid is about. Much more than just the idea of getting lazy and using Google to remember things for you, the article talks about the entire shift of ability to focus and experience deep emotions that has taken place. I love this article. For over twenty years I have felt what this article has to say. Since way back in the eighties when Beavis and Butthead introduced a new way of maintaining…

Penguins on the Equator? On Purpose?

There are 19 species of seabirds that spend a portion of their lives in the Galapagos Islands and one seems a very unlikely resident. The Galapagos penguin, Speniscus mendiculus, is the only penguin to live as far north as the equator. Speniscus mendiculus is most likely a descendant of the Humboldt penguin, brought north to the islands on the Humboldt current that travels from Antarctic waters up South America's west coast. The Humboldt Current converges with two other warmer currents making Galapagos the epicenter of the underwater confluence. The third smallest of the penguin family, the…

Darwin's Contributions to Marine Science

In honor of Darwin Day, I'd like to give a little shout out to some of Charles Darwin's contributions to marine science. Theory of Coral Reef Formation: Onboard the Beagle, Darwin composed the theory of coral reef formation. He described three types of reefs: fringe, barrier, and atoll. His illustrations of reef formation and global reef locations are beautifully detailed. Most impressive is that Darwin came up with the theory without ever having seen a coral reef (though he would eventually see one during the Beagle's voyage through the Pacific). And remember, back then there were no…

From Randy Olson: It's the Visuals, Stupid

That's one thing they ground into our little brains in film school. Film is a visual medium. A good test of how well you understand that is to show your film with the volume off and see if the viewer gets the same basic story. And that would be a good test for the 60 Minutes segment on bluefin tuna. Take a look at it with the volume off. All you see is bountiful boatloads of happy fishermen with mountains of tuna. If you didn't hear the host say the tuna stocks were running out, you'd never know it. Why would they do that? Because its a visual medium, and the producers select the shots…

Shifting Canoes

Archeological records show that outrigger canoes have been used in Fiji since at least the early 1800s but perhaps as early as the 1440s. It's possible that they have been around even longer. In this photo (ca. 1880), the Camakau, or traditional Fijian canoe, is in full sail. Such canoes were commonly seen in the outer islands in the Fiji group. But boat-building, at least in the canoe sense, is an endangered profession here in Fiji. According to Leon Zann's 1980 publication, Traditional and Introduced Fishing Boats in the South Pacific: Rafts and crude dugouts are still used on some…

Shifting Baselines in Wakulla Springs, FL

Chuck Hesse wrote to the Tallahassee Democrat this past weekend about shifting baselines and Wakulla Springs, FL. Here is what he wrote: Shifting baselines erase natural beauty Each individual has a baseline, or initial image, which is set the first time an area is seen; so your first visit to Wakulla springs, your first trip to the woods, your first fishing trip to the gulf, etc. sets your personal baseline. As time passes small changes occur. These small changes are usually accepted as the cost of progress or for the good of the community. However, when changes are accumulated over time…

Politics Tuesday: We Put the Party in Bi-Partisan

Posted by Dave Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org Throughout last week in Washington, DC members of Congress, philanthropists and ocean advocates emphasized the importance of bipartisanship when it comes to protecting the oceans (and commended Ocean Champions for leading the way). I didn't necessarily expect it. You don't have to be a political insider to know that Washington, DC is many things but bipartisan isn't one of them. Yet, while our bipartisan approach is rare today, it may come as a surprise to some that the current polarized alignment, especially in the House of Representatives,…

Did Hemingway Hurt Fish Stocks?

In today's New York Times, Paul Greenberg has a marvelous article with a marvelous lede about a sportfishing trip he took to Kona, HI: A few months ago I took the most expensive nap of my life, and when it was over I decided it was all Hemingway's fault. Hemingway was an avid sportfisher and Greenberg loosely calculates that Hemingway's personal kills have resulted in the absence of 78,000 blue marlin and 18,000 bluefin tuna today. The essay is playful in tone but does not quite let Hemingway off the hook--delving into not only the author's fishing records, but his tendency to overstate his…

The Lightning Rod - The Atlantic (November 2008)

Michelle Rhee photo by David Deal, from Atlantic Monthly To my surprise, one of the most-read posts on this mostly-science blog is "Are Teachers Profesionals of Public-Service Workers?", which looked at a NY Times Magazine piece on school reforms by Paul Tough. Tough now has Now there is a piece by Clay Risen* in the current Atlantic Monthly about perhaps the country's most notable school reformer, Washington D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who is aggressively pushing reforms -- higher-paid, non-tenured teacher contracts among them -- on the D.C. school district. The nut graf is below.…

Left-Hand-Turn Elimination - New York Times

There were a mess of interesting items in the New York Times Magazine annual "Ideas" issue last December 9, but I keep thinking of this one every time a) I wait to make a left-hand turn or b) see a UPS truck. Short v: Avoid left turns and save ... Here's the whole thing: Left-Hand-Turn Elimination By JOEL LOVELL Published: December 9, 2007 It seems that sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful -- of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money. Not a ton…

Funding to prevent homegrown terror? No go.

I'm not speaking of political terrorists but of the terror that spreading "ordinary" violence brings to communities. Amid the rash of school violence over the last few weeks, the town just next to my own placid, lovely Vermont town, Barre, was recently shaken when three teenagers got involved in a grisly murder of a down-and-out drifter and drug dealer. A friend of mine teaches at the Barre High School, and he said the entire student body is shaken up. Kids are edgy; fights are breaking out for no reason; the school teams are getting into scraps on the field. So it was depressing and…

The Speed of Nascar's Fred Lorenzen, the Brains of Fred Flintstone

The month to maim marine mammal legislation... A symposium at the United Nations in New York last Friday opened discussions about whether the Japanese should resume whaling of humpback whales that travel off the coast of Australia. Daniel Pauly was at the meeting and refuted the Japanese argument that humpbacks have been pushing minke whales (currently hunted) to poorer feeding grounds. Pauly also dismissed the Japanese argument that whales are the cause for fish collapses. The Japanese case to resume whaling was later dropped. Also last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service leaked an…

24 hours and counting.

So I've spent almost a day now on the H'i'ialakai, and I've learned a couple things. 1. I do not have my sea legs yet, Have you ever seen that episode of Family Guy where the whole family, including Brian is in the back of a van, and everyone is making fun of Brian because he can't seem to stand up without sliding around and falling over? Yeah, that's me. 2. While the rocking might be difficult for walking, it's fantastic for sleeping. I was gently rolled to sleep like a baby in my mother's arms. Today we arrive at our first stop, Nihoa. Nihoa is an interesting island because while it's…

Umm.....

OK. Someone has to explain what this means. This is a comment I got on my World Environment Day 2010 post. If you can decipher it, please explain... Let me show you the FATE OF TRAITORS... loiterink.com/photos/products/182_3424_500x500.jpg they are incapable of telling the difference between SCIENTIFIC *FACT* AND RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL *TRUTH*... FATAL ERROR! they also preach a *VALUE FREE SCIENCE* called *POSITIVISM* that ignores the inequalities of wealth and power in capitalist civilization... for a sample taste of PZ Myers' GARBAGE... scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/…

Harris on Collins

I get the impression that Sam Harris didn't like Francis Collins' book: If one wonders how beguiled, self-deceived and carefree in the service of fallacy a scientist can be in the United States in the 21st century, "The Language of God" provides the answer. The only thing that mitigates the harm this book will do to the stature of science in the United States is that it will be mostly read by people for whom science has little stature already. Viewed from abroad, "The Language of God" will be seen as another reason to wonder about the fate of American society. Indeed, it is rare that one sees…

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite: Leucochloridium paradoxum

Ah, the parasitic flatworms called trematodes. There's a lot of them, and many have very strange and impressive life cycles involving many specific hosts. Just about any of them is sci-fi worthy, but this one, in particular, is a real eye-catcher. Meet Leucochloridium paradoxum, also known as the green-banded broodsac. Like similar flatworms, its lifecycle involves two hosts. The adults, found in the guts of birds, lay eggs which land on the ground in the bird's droppings. The unfortunate host to follow, a snail (Succinea or Oxyloma), then eats the eggs, which hatch in its digestive system…

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

Now that I've grossed most of you out with my last week's pick, I think I'll go ahead and make this week's pest a little easier to look at. The image looks like a mustard plant with nice, yellow flowers. But alas! It is actually the product of this week's parasite, the rust fungus Puccinia monoica. The fungus infects mustard plants and completely changes their 'behavior' to facilitate its own reproduction. Firstly, the fungus infects the plant as a whole, stealing nutrients and generally acting like a parasite. But Puccinia is a sexual fungus - to reproduce it must combine genes with another…

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

Happy Valentine's Day! Though, I doubt this post fits well into your lovely romantic images of the day... I promised another vertebrate, so here it is, a parasite so cruel it's sure to make you cringe: The Candiru. It looks innocent enough. It's a little catfish. Heck, it's so little it's known as the "toothpick fish", and yet it's more feared in the Amazon River than the fierce Piranha. To understand why, you have to understand what this parasitic catfish does. It's intended hosts are other fish. When it finds a host, it burrows its head in to its gills and eats the blood, tissues, or mucus…

Here We Go...

For those of you that don't know, I live in Florida. Specifically, I live near Tampa - so right now life is getting a lot more difficult. That's because the Steelers and Cardinals are in town for the Super Bowl. And, amidst all this chaos, amusingly, I open my Google Reader this morning to see headlines like this: "Football Players Are Not The Only Ones Who Get Hurt On Super Bowl Sunday". The claim? The players are hardly the most at-risk on Sunday. The Fans are really the ones who are getting hurt - literally. Apparently, hospitals in the area are having to brace themselves for all kinds of…

"We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."

I applauded Keith Olbermann in this space two weeks ago. I finally got around tonight to reading his commentary presented Monday night at Ground Zero. Apologies to my readers who may be overwhelmed by all of the 9/11 attention this week but, as Olbermann said, "I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal." Some choice excerpts if you haven't the time to read it all or watch the eight-minute oratory: History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered…

No Mickey Mouse operation

The Burnham Institute chooses Orlando. First, some big health systems like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic established satellite hospitals and clinics across north and south Florida. Now we learn that one of the top non-profit research institutes in the US is setting up shop in Orlando. The article brought to my attention that this is not the first of such moves by the San Diego/La Jolla contigent: The Scripps Institute recently announced plans to set up a research institute in Jupiter, FL. I have always been deeply impressed with the quality of research and training at Florida universities…

Plan B OTC approval - no guts, no glory

The wimpy approval of OTC status today for Plan B emergency contraception only for women 18 and older has me nonplussed. I've been disgusted by the intrusion of politics into science and medicine on this issue for quite some time. As some Terra Sig readers know, a major network news outlet keeps the real Dr Pharmboy on their experts list for commentary on pharmacotherapy issues but my exact comments rarely make it on-air. Perhaps these will be inflammatory enough to get a call to be on this time, and then you'll all know who I am. (No, I am not Dr Raymond Woosley, but I wish I were.) So here…

Anti-depressant/migraine drug interaction recognized...finally!

Being part of a family with a high penetrance for both depression/anxiety and migraines, I can't tell you how many times I've asked docs and pharmacists whether it is safe to take a "triptan" class migraine drug (e.g. Imitrex, Zomig) while taking maintenance doses of a SSRI or SNRI class antidepressant (e.g. Prozac, Lexapro, Effexor). Well, the US Food and Drug Administration today released a warning on the potential for interaction between these two classes of agents. This risks are real, although very, very low for a condition called "serotonin syndrome." The FDA statement would scare the…

Oh, look what will be happening in my backyard

A representative from Answers in Genesis will be speaking here in Morris, Minnesota! And none of the scheduled talks conflict with any of my classes! Not that I'll go to them all — I do have limits on how much BS I can be served before gakking up chunks — but I'll go to some, and will live-tweet the foolishness and blog up the events afterwards. My introductory biology students will also get some extra credit for attending. Sunday, February 27, 2011 to Monday, February 28, 2011 Dr. Terry Mortenson Schedule Note: Any overlapping times indicate multiple, simultaneous sessions Sunday,…

Goodbye

UPDATE: I have a new blog home! The Questionable Authority can now be found at Scientopia. When Pepsigate first erupted, I was extremely unhappy both with that situation and with how Seed had been treating its bloggers. I did not join the large (and still growing) group of departing ScienceBloggers at that time. I've invested a great deal of time and effort here, and felt that - despite the credibility that we all lost as a result of Seed's amazingly idiotic decision to sell Pepsi a blog - there was still a lot of potential for ScienceBlogs to be a force for positive change. You might…

Remembering Megan

If it takes a village to raise a child, I was particularly lucky to grow up in the middle of a wonderful little village in the middle of the Bronx. All things considered, the village did a pretty good job with a whole bunch of kids, who have since spread out all over the place. Some have gone on to really cool editing gigs, occasional appearances with Keith Olbermann, and our own Wikipedia pages. Others have wound up working as lifeguards in Lower Alabama. But pretty much all of us came away from the village we were raised in with at least three things: a strong understanding of the…

An interesting parallel between Intelligent Design and Birtherism

As I wrote that title, I realized that it's probably insufficiently informative - there are, after all, multiple parallels between Intelligent Design proponents and the crackpots dedicated defenders of the Constitution who continue to insist that Barack Obama is not eligible to be the President. Both groups, for example, have a blind devotion to a concept that has no actual basis in reality. Both appear to be remarkably skeptical toward the enormous amounts of evidence challenging their views while simultaneously demonstrating a remarkable credulity toward any evidence that might possibly be…

NIMBY

Not in my backyard! I wouldn't want a hog farm to be built upwind of me, because of the stench. I wouldn't want an airport built next door, because of the noise. I don't want a church in my neighborhood, because of the traffic in stupidity (but too bad, I'm stuck with several of them). There are lots of reasons some kinds of properties are incompatible with residential living, but here's a new one. Tenants in a pricey Vancouver highrise are protesting the construction of a hospice nearby. I'd love to have a hospice go up next door; they tend to be quiet, tasteful, well-maintained, and good…

Science Advisor and NOAA Administrator Confirmation Update - Mon, 9 March

As many of you know, I've been closely following the complex situation involving President Obama's nominees for Science Advisor and NOAA Administrator. Early last week, we learned that both John Holdren (the Science Advisor designate) and Jane Lubchenco (the NOAA Administrator nominee) were stuck in Senate limbo, with no confirmation votes scheduled as a result of one or more "anonymous holds" that were placed on the nominations. Initial reports indicated that holds had been placed by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), in an attempt to gain leverage for an unrelated issue. Later in the week,…

Earth Science, With Kids

Late last month the Chronicle ran a neat piece in its Careers section, titled Mothers in the Field. It's not behind a paywall - yay! Joan Ramage Macdonald, assistant professor of geology at Lehigh University, and Maura E. Sullivan, PhD candidate in ecology at the same university, write about their experiences taking their young children with them into the field. And I do mean into the field! Joan took her infant with her into the Yukon Territory to do her research on the evolving snowpack. Maura does research in permanently saturated wetland environments, and first took her daughter with…

We Want Your Questions/Input For Our Panel!

Karen Ventii of Science to Life and I are hosting a panel next weekend at the NC Science Blogging Conference, and we'd like your input. The title of the panel is "Gender and Race in Science". I think it was supposed to be "Gender and Race in Science Blogging" but oh well. We can make the conversation a little broader if that's what you want! We are planning to webcast the panel so it will be possible for you to participate even if you aren't attending. Even before the panel, you can participate at the conference wiki. Our panel consists of Sciencewoman, Pat Campbell of Fairer Science,…

The Importance of Leadership

Since I don't work I have a lot of time in the morning to listen to talk radio. One of my favorite shows is Radio Times With Marty Moss-Coane. Marty, you rock, girl! She can wrangle arguing guests or a too-chatty caller like nobody's business. Today's show was all about the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal. In the second hour she had historian Edmund Russell on the show to talk about the history of dog-fighting, and a sad tale it was. At one point he spoke about having encountered a man somewhere in the south who was involved in the related "sport" of cock-fighting; he asked him if he…

A Pox on "Cathy"

I have never been a huge fan of the comic strip "Cathy". In the comic strip office world, I had Dilbert on one hand, as exemplar for engineers, and Cathy on the other hand, as the model for professional working women. Neither was particularly appealing to me. Dilbert personifies all the negative geekoid engineering stereotypes, but seems to be taken by the masses as a hipsterish anti-hero. Cathy, much of the time, seems to be a blithering idiot who is way too fixated on her appearance, the need to cram the body she doesn't love into the latest skinny-minny fashions, and the desire to eat…

The screaming of the lambs

Scientists are often accused of cruelty towards animals, and there are some experiments that do cause pain…but at the same time, what we can do is very tightly regulated and scrutinized, with every experiment requiring rather thorough justification, and in every case that I know of, the investigators themselves are greatly concerned about minimizing suffering, even without the watchdogs of animal care and use committees hovering over them. And need I mention that scientists actually accomplish something useful in their animal work? If animal rightists want to focus right now on a widespread…

McCain: "MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country, my friends."

Once again, John "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain went and said something stupid at a campaign stop. And, once again, he got caught on video doing it. This time, he went just slightly overboard in his criticism of the now-infamous MoveOn.org "General Betray-us" ad. Holding a blown-up, laminated copy of the ad, McCain said: "It's disgraceful, it's got to be retracted and condemned by the Democrats and MoveOn.org ought to be thrown out of this country, my friends." (And if you don't believe Time Magazine, CBS has the video footage.) Unlike the "Bomb Iran" incident, this wasn't…

Still more "Conservapedia" humor

Quite a few of the others here at Scienceblogs have already taken a few minutes to poke fun at the new radical right attempt at creating an encyclopedia - Conservapedia. (See, for example, here, here, here, here, and here for just a few.) I sort of feel bad about joining in, in a way - the site is so pathetic that it's almost more sad than funny - but the key word there is "almost." Conservapedia is worthless as an intellectual resource, but it's a fantastic repository of accidental humor. There's enough there that if I ever find myself at a loss for a source of stupidity to blog about, I…

The role of religion in the delivery of medical care

In an article made available today on the New England Journal of Medicine's website, University of Chicago researchers report on the results of a study that assessed how the moral beliefs of physicians affect their advice to patients. There is good news and bad news in this study. The good news is that most physicians believe that they have an ethical obligation to inform their patients of all possible courses of action, including those that they believe are morally objectionable. The bad news is that there is a substantial minority who do not think that they need to tell the patient about…

An Open Letter to John Kerry

Dear Senator Kerry: Last week, I received your letter requesting donations to support the campaigns of Ned Lamont, Bob Menendez, and Dan Akaka. I am gratified to note that you are taking a stand in support of Lamont, and I think that supporting Menendez is also a good idea. I do, however, have a question for you regarding your decision to raise funds for Senator Akaka: have you lost what little remained of your mind? Although it is true that Senator Akaka currently faces a strong challenger, it is a primary challenge, not a general election challenge. He is, despite having about six times as…

We have met the enemy...

...and he is us. Once again, it apears that someone in the service has used the incredibly stupid "don't ask, don't tell" policy as a weapon against another service memeber, resulting in the army forcing out someone that they need. In this instance, the victim was a gay military intelligence [feel free to insert comments about oxymoronity here] sergeant, schooled by the army at great expense as an Arabic linguist. According to the Chicago Tribune/AP article cited in Ed's post, some 800 individuals with critically needed skills have been discharged as a result of "don't ask, don't tell" in…

Book "meme"

I just want to start out saying 1. Everybody has been tagged with this one, and 2. These aren't really "memes", although these days I think that term is otiose. A meme spreads itself. Anyway, now I'm back from such non-English speaking places as Bristol, Exeter, London and Chicago (Paris and Bloomington IN were fine), I thought I'd answer this before I catch up on several weeks' sleep and blog on the second half of my trip (be patient, little ones). 1. One book that changed your life? Well, I could start with 1984, which I read at the tender age of 8 (in 1963, ergo), but I think that David…

Liveblogging the conference: Piotrowski

Monica Piotrowski (Utah) also is talking about DNA Barcoding. She starts with a child's coin sorter. Imagine that it's a bug-sorter, sorting by DNA samples. What does the child now have? She claims Barcoders must have a species concept to measure the success of their practice. They have none, and so they are in a two-horned dilemma neither option of which is a good option. COI is claimed to be 99.75% identical within, and <97.5% between species. Hence it can delimit, but not describe, species, according to Hebert and Strauss, the founders and promoters of Barcoding. So, what's the…

In England's green and wet land

So, I finally have access to the internet. For the past few days I've been either in London, on planes, trains or in Exeter, where I am now for the ISHPSSB biennial conference of philosophers and historians (and some sociologists) of science. In London I walked myself silly (getting the worst blister I have had since I was a teenager back in the late Pliocene), visiting, among other things, Jim Mallet at the University College London. This was where the Galton Lab was, which means it's where Pearson Fisher, Haldane and various others worked. For those who do not know, these are Great Names…

Jeez, you go away for a while...

All I did was get my beloved Powerbook 12" serviced, and what happens? The Interlub goes wild with great stuff. Or was it always, and I only noticed because I was unable to blog? So, here is a rough and ready roundup of interesting things. Before I do, I'd like to note that Paul Griffiths and I had a wonderful time last night talking to the Philosophy Students Association about Dawkins' The God Delusion. You, my loyal readers, already know my views on this, so I won't rehearse them here. But Paul made a comment I had to think about overnight. He does that. It was basically about religious…

The turtle cometh

The election last night wasn't as bad as it could have been — the teabaggers who'd received much ridicule, Angle and O'Donnell and probably Miller, were defeated (there's a lesson there, I think) — but sanity did not win out, and the Republicans have taken over the US House, and here in Minnesota, they've taken control of both the state house and senate — Democrats have probably won the governorship, but it's so close that there's going to be a recount. These next few years are going to be extraordinarily painful. Personally, I'm going to take a hit: the Republicans will do their best to gut…

Robots: First tumors, then the world!!!

When I first read this it summoned immediate images of the robot from Lost in Space. Fortunately, these X-ray wielding robots seem decidedly less sinister. Instead, it is a better way to deliver X-rays to lung tumors, accounting for motion of the lungs during breathing: Super-intense radiation delivered by a robotic arm eradicated lung tumors in some human patients just 3-4 months after treatment, medical physicist Cihat Ozhasoglu, Ph.D. of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (ozhasogluc@upmc.edu) will report in early August at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Association of…

Secularism as protection for religion

As some of you may have figured out by now, my overarching Evil Plan is to get people thinking about their basic assumptions. Even when those people are the "good guys" and free thinkers. So in service of that I am giving a public talk for the Secular Freethinkers society on Tuesday next (details below the fold) on why secularism does not require the end of religion, and in fact why the religious ought to support it to protect their future standing in society. Anyone who's in Brisbane is free to attend and heckle, and if anyone asks "What about the workers!?" I have a Sellarsian response…

Spencer was no social Darwinian

For a while now, and in particular since I read Robert Bannister's Social Darwinism and then actually read Herbert Spencer's own work, I have been unable to reconcile the mythology about social Darwinism with the actual writings of Spencer himself. Supposedly the founder of the justification for robber baron capitalism, Spencer actually proposes feminism, liberal protection of the poor and weak, and other ideas that are more redolent of Mill than Malthus (who is also the subject of similar demonisation, as Flew showed). Now someone has affirmed my unease: Damon Root, writing in Reason…

On ID and the public awareness of evolution

Imagine a scientific theory that very few people know or understand. Let's call it "valency theory". Now suppose someone objects to valency theory because it undercuts their view of a particular religious doctrine, such as transubstantiation. So they gather money from rich members of their faith community and start a public relations and political campaign to have the form-substance dichotomy (hylomorphism) taught as chemical science. What would be the outcome? Well, for most people they would remain as uneducated on the topic as before. They may know, vaguely, there is a dispute of some…