jlynch | April 26, 2008From Evolved and Rational:
You only start to feel insulted when Ben Stein decides that the Holocaust is his "personal" reason for "investigating" evolution, and trust me, you feel really insulted. No, Ben Stein, your movie is not a personal crusade on behalf of your lost ancestors. No, Ben Stein, periodically putting your head in your hands while walking around Dachau at inappropriate points in a conversation does not endear you to an audience that you’ve already openly belittled, bored, and been dishonest with. NO, Ben Stein, you’re not poignantly reflecting on the dangers of…
jlynch | April 26, 2008Below the fold because it’s a 250k image. But it’s worth it.
Via eclectech - I can’t wait to use it in a presentation.
jlynch | April 26, 2008I ran across this story covering Jeremy Hall’s case (PZ comments) and just want to quote the following:
[Hall’s atheism] eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.
"I said, ’No, but I believe in Plexiglas,’" Hall said.
Give that boy a promotion. In a firefight it is most definitely preferable to believe in Plexiglass over God.
jlynch | April 26, 2008Onias raises an interesting question (to which I have no answer) in another thread, namely:
I was wondering if any of you folks at science blogs can discuss the issue of LGBT people in science. Apart from Jim Pollack, Alan Turing and a few others, we seem to be underrepresented. Is it due to something essential or innate in queer people? Is it because there is cultural pressure for gay people to work in other disciplines like fashion etc.?
Have at it folks. Any thoughts?
jlynch | April 25, 2008Via BikeMonkey I see that DrugMonkey had a "106 Books of Pretension" meme going last October. Namely, "the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users." So here we go - what I’ve read is in italics, what I never finished is struck through:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns,…
jlynch | April 25, 2008
According to Expelled, this guy must be some kind of "Darwinist," right?
He’s Tony Zirkle and he’s seeking the Republican nomination for Congress in Indiana. Above he is addressing a bunch of like-minded individuals - at a birthday celebration for Hitler no less. Visiting his campaign site is like spending time in a sewer.
He graduated from Andrews University, a Seventh Day Adventist school in Michigan, where he has also been an adjunct faculty member. He attended Andrews University Theological Seminary (but didn’t graduate). He (and I’m guessing his little shaven-headed buddies) are as…
jlynch | April 25, 2008The Telegraph has a list up of the top fifty "best cult books," a category they describe as:
the sort of book that people wear like a leather jacket or carry around like a totem. The book that rewires your head: that turns you on to psychedelics; makes you want to move to Greece; makes you a pacifist; gives you a way of thinking about yourself as a woman, or a voice in your head that makes it feel okay to be a teenager; conjures into being a character who becomes a permanent inhabitant of your mental flophouse.
Below the fold are the top 50. I’ve indicated those (19) I’ve read with italics.…
jlynch | April 24, 2008
Riding the Ox Home
Riding the ox home, taking it easy,
The flute’s notes vanish in the evening haze.
Tapping time to a folk song, happy as can be -
It’s all too much for words.
K’uo-an (trans. Stanley Lombardo)
[image source]
jlynch | April 21, 2008Steve Matheson (a Reformed Christian biologist at Calvin College and occasional commenter here) has this to say about the Darwin/Hitler meme that is popular with the Expelled set:
If you’re a Christian who thinks that the Nazis are a useful polemical tool against evolution, then maybe you should read about some of Hitler’s best-known influences. In my view, if you can read Luther’s words and still think there’s any moral high ground surrounding the Holocaust that can be claimed by Christendom, then you’re crazy. The Holocaust is an unspeakably abhorrent stain on the Church, if you ask me, and…
jlynch | April 21, 2008I want to share one of my favorite quotes ever from an historian of science: George Sarton writing in his magisterial (and sadly unfinished) A History of Science:
The influence of Timaeus upon later times was enormous and essentially evil. A large portion of Timaeus had been translated into Latin by Chalcidius (IV-1), and that translation remained for over eight centuries the only Platonic text known to the Latin West. Yet the fame of Plato had reached them, and thus the Latin Timaeus became a kind of Platonic evangel which many scholars were ready to interpret literally. The scientific…
jlynch | April 21, 2008So maybe I'm missing something but ... Expelled took in $3 million over the weekend. With over 1000 theaters and three days, that comes to ~$1000 per theater per day. At approximately $5 a ticket, that means we're looking at roughly 200 people seeing the movie per day per theater. Maybe 50 people tops per showing. Doesn't seem like enough to have theaters retain the movie into next weekend.
Opines Dembski:
Expelled's impact will be felt immediately. But its long-term impact will be even greater. The film opens with documentary footage of the Berlin Wall going up and closes with it coming…
jlynch | April 20, 2008Wilkins has a little Aesopian fable that you may want to read.
Still grading, so your Monday Mustelid will be late ... i.e. not on Monday!
jlynch | April 18, 2008Some quickies ...
The University of Oklaholma has announced its year-long Darwin 2009 celebration: This View of Life. Apparently it is being launched on February 12th with a public lecture by some guy called Lynch. Yeah, that Lynch. More of that later, no doubt.
Set Ben Straight and win stuff. See here.
Ed Brayton revisits the Sternberg affair for E-skeptic.
The Pandas Thumb has been continually blogging reviews of Expelled as they roll in. Wander on over to witness the carnage (includes a bonus ’D’ grade from BeliefNet).
Jim Lippard has revisited his predictions for Expelled’s opening…
jlynch | April 17, 2008Today is the day when it will all come crashing down around us evil Darwinists. Expelled has been, uh, expelled from whence it came. Yes, the prophet Benjamin will speak and the scales will be lifted from the eyes of the public. Verily I say unto thee, repent now.
jlynch | April 17, 2008
Taming the Ox
Don’t lose the whip, hold onto the rope
Or he’ll buck away into the dirt.
Herded well, in perfect harmony
He’ll follow along without any constraint.
K’uo-an (trans. Stanley Lombardo)
[image source]
jlynch | April 17, 2008Hofstra University solicits submissions for an interdisciplinary conference titled "Darwin’s Reach: A Celebration of Darwin’s Legacy across Academic Disciplines," to be held March 12-14, 2009.
Primatologist Frans de Waal, paleontologist Niles Eldredge, and Judge John Jones (who wrote the Dover decision on teaching evolution) will be among the keynote speakers.
Darwin’s Reach examines the impact of Darwin and Darwinian evolution on science and society in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin’s On the…
jlynch | April 17, 2008From MartinC:
Is this stuff real science?Or is it just fantasy,That belongs in a place likeBob Jones University?Just close your eyes,Don’t think, just accept IDI’m a game show host,I don’t know biology,But this sleazy bunch, told me so,It could be lies, how would I know?So long as the check clears, it doesn’t really matter to me,To me.
Anyone? I just filmed a sham,Put some lies into your head,Libelled Darwin, coz’ he’s dead,Honor, you know I once had some,But now I’ve gone and blown it all away-Anyone? ooooohhhhhWas it mean to tell those lies?You’d learn more science by watching Rocky Horror…