jlynch | July 12, 2006It is a truism that creationists such as Jonathan Wells can't get enough of Haeckel's embryos, pictures they see as conclusive evidence that evolutionary biology is a fraud foisted on innocents by liberal, godless, evilutionists. "Informed" commentators on the right such as Ann Coulter hew to that party line. Reading Wells or Coulter one would imagine that it was modern creationists who discovered the fraud. Sadly for their revisionist history, that is not the case. Nick Hopwood has just published a paper in Isis (the premier journal in history of science) that examines the history of the…
jlynch | July 10, 2006Remember the good old days when being a conservative meant arguing that government should stay out of peoples lives? Those days are long gone.
On Tuesday, the House plans to vote on a bill that would ban credit cards for paying online bets and could padlock gambling Web sites. The legislation would clarify existing law to spell out that it is illegal to gamble online.
To enforce that ban, the bill would prohibit credit cards and other payment forms, such as electronic transfers, from being used to settle online wagers. It also would give law enforcement officials the authority to work with…
jlynch | July 10, 2006Which mammal embarks on the longest remaining overland migration in the continental United States?
The pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana)), which travels more than 400 miles between fawning grounds in Yellowstone and wintering areas. Second only to caribou in the Arctic for long distance migration in the Western Hemisphere, this isolated population (of 200 to 300 animals) and its ancient migration route could disappear because of continued development and human disturbance outside the parks according to a study which appears in Biology Letters.
See Berger, Cain & Berger (2006) "…
jlynch | July 9, 2006What did Materazzi say to Zidane that set him off?
My guess is that it was something about Zidane's arab background.
Not that it justifies, by the way, Zidane's actions.
jlynch | July 9, 2006Only thirty minutes to go before the start of the World Cup Final. My prediction is 1-0 for France. We'll see ...
00:00 - France win the battle of the anthems. Obvious.
01:00 - First blood to the Italians. Henry goes down, is shaky getting up. Wont be good if he goes off.
05:13 - Penalty for France! Zidane scores! The foul seemed a little dubious, but there's nothing that can be done about it now. Teams that score first are 41-8-7 in the competition. May have to change my prediction to 2-1.
15:00 - France seem to be settling back a little and the Italians are doing all the attacking. Could…
jlynch | July 8, 2006Seen via Boing Boing:
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
If these statistics indeed represent the state of reading in this country, they go a ways to explaining why anti-evolutionism and ID have gotten a toe-hold.
jlynch | July 7, 2006We've made some changes here at ScienceBlogs. What it means for you, gentle reader, is that TypeKey has been kicked to the curb and commenting should be easier (just requiring an e-mail address). Let's see how it goes ..
jlynch | July 7, 2006Andrew Greeley in today's Chicago Sun Times:
The United States is caught up in a new campaign for a military dictatorship -- rule by a military chief with absolute power. The White House, inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney, has argued that in time of great danger, the president has unlimited powers as commander in chief. ... Many, perhaps most Americans, don't mind. The president is "tough on terrorists" and that's all that matters. What is the Bill of Rights anyway? George W. Bush, his supporters will argue, is a good man, even a godly man. He won't misuse the powers, even if the power…
jlynch | July 7, 2006The New York Times is running a story about white supremacist groups infiltrating the US military in preparation for the "coming race war". Says Steven Barry, a former Special Forces officer and National Alliance "military unit coordinator":
Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war. It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' ... As a professional…
jlynch | July 7, 2006Commenting over at the Panda's Thumb, "steve s" offers a Pythonesque take on ID. Well, it made me laugh.
jlynch | July 6, 2006Back in January I discussed a review of Rodney Stark's triumphalist The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Lead to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Alan Wolfe who describes the book as "the worst book by a social scientist that I have ever read." The current issue of Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society offers three similar indictments of Stark's foray into history.
Jack Goldstone (George Mason School of Public Policy:
It pains me to say that the results [of Stark's investigations] are a tissue of gross historical errors and illogical conclusions. It is…
jlynch | July 5, 2006One of the twenty-year goals of the Discovery Institute's Wedge was to see the influence of "design theory" in the fine arts. I've often wondered what that could possible mean. And now, thanks to Access Research Network's "ID Arts Initiative" I now know.
In today's ARN Announce (it's not online yet), Dennis Wagner presents his vision of "the Right-Brain approach to intelligent design":
Our worldview impacts all areas of life including the arts. The arts also reflect philosophical and cultural trends in human societies. If intelligent design philosophical and scientific concepts are valid, we…
jlynch | July 5, 2006Radical Islamic militia fighters in Somalia shot and killed two people who were watching a banned World Cup soccer broadcast, a radio station reported Wednesday.
The hard-line Muslim fighters, who have banned watching television, opened fire after a crowd of teenagers defied their orders to leave a hall where a businessman was showing Tuesday's Germany-Italy match on satellite television, according to Shabelle Radio, an independent local station. It said the businessman and a teenage girl were killed.
Hard-line Muslim fighters, who wrested control of the Somali capital from warlords in June,…
jlynch | July 5, 2006According to this table over at Nature, this blog is the 18th most popular blog written by a scientist (according to Technorati). Out of the top twenty, twelve are here at ScienceBlogs. Congrats to one and all!
jlynch | July 5, 2006Over at the Panda's Thumb, Dave Thomas has an enlightening piece on his experiments with genetic algorithms in which he takes on claims by Dembski, John Bracht and others. Thomas shows (contra claims by ID supporters) that GAs can successfully evolve solutions using random mutation and selection without specifiying a target, just like in biological evolution. I predict much smoke and mirrors by Dembski and friends.
[tags: intelligent design | anti-evolution | genetic algorithms ]
jlynch | July 5, 2006I had a longish post on Phillip Henry Gosse (as requested by John Wilkins awhile back), but the gods of the internet were displeased and consigned it to the aether. I'll try and reconstruct it later.
In other news, that Germany / Italy was quite good wasn't it? Have to say, I wanted Germany to win and those two quick goals were nice (though brutal). Here's hoping France move on today (prediction: 2-0) and we get a reasonable final out off all of this.
Woke up this morning and it's raining here ... in Tempe ... in July ... during the day. What's going on?
And a day late ...
jlynch | July 3, 2006Anti-evolutionists seem to have a special ability to foul up arguments using probability theory and pseudo-mathematicians theologians such as Dembski like to cloak their drivel in the trappings of such theory. So it's always good to refresh yourself on the material covered in those probability classes that you may have forgotten from college. Here, Grinstead and Snell make freely available a copy of their introductory textbook Introduction to Probability. Grab a copy and email one to your favorite creationist.
[Tags: probability | mathematics ]
jlynch | July 3, 2006
In November 1920, the celebrated author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle announced the beginning of a new "epoch in human thought." He believed that he was presenting "a strong prima-facie case" for the existence of fairies, based on photographs taken by two pseudonymous young girls in July and September 1917. Noting that "in a matter involving so tremendous a new departure one needs overpowering evidence before one can say that there is no conceivable loophole for error," he laid out the case for the existence of fairies in the village of Cottingley, Yorkshire. Some have seen this announcement in The…
jlynch | July 3, 2006Rob Hood over at the Conservative Voice gives the nine key things that conservatives and Christians believe.
Evolution is a myth. Creation is real. God is real. It is still legal to say the word Jesus.
The Earth is only around 6000 years old. Noah built an ark and the world was flooded which created the Grand Canyon. Millions of years is absurd.
Global Warming is a myth and is totally junk science that should be trashed.
Jesus was resurrected from the dead and will one day return to judge the world and create a new one while the one we live in now will be destroyed.
Merry Christmas! Yes, it…