Anti-Science

Via this press release I learned about this book: The Top Ten Myths About Evolution. The book deconstructs ten myths that creationists propagate while spreading misinformation. It also gives me an excuse to post cute pictures of furry primates. The official website lists the ten myths: 1) Survival of the Fittest; 2) It's Just a Theory; 3) The Ladder of Progress; 4) The Missing Link; 5) Evolution is Random; 6) People Come from Monkeys; 7) Nature's Perfect Balance; 8) Creationism Disproves Evolution; 9) Intelligent Design is Science; 10) Evolution is Immoral It sounds like a good treatment of…
My university has been hosting panel discussions on science, religion, and teaching. I missed the first installment, which consisted of faculty members from science and humanities departments and a local clergyman. The second discussion was led by four students from a course cross listed in Science and Technology Studies and Philosophy. The topic of this discussion was teaching science and religion, but the discussion often strayed to the intersection of science and religion in general. It would have been nice if they stayed on topic. I, however, can't hold much against them, as I once took a…
Last week I linked to Carl Zimmer's take down of Casey Luskin. Notice how the text containing the link to Carl's post says "Casey Luskin". It's called a Google bomb -- we're trying to make Carl's post the number one search result when one enters Casey Luskin as a query in Google. It only works if a bunch of people link to Carl's post like this: Casey Luskin. As of November 29, 2006, Carl's post is the 22nd result when you Google Casey Luskin. That puts him on the third page. In fact, Carl's post ranks behind a post from Afarensis and one from Migrations that both link to Carl's post (and both…
Remember Maciej Giertych? He's the Polish representative to the European Parliament who wants creationism taught in schools alongside evolution. And he's got a degree in tree physiology, but he claims to be a population geneticist. Anyway, his letter to Nature made it seem like Poland has this big problem with creationism. Boy was I mislead. It turns out the problem isn't just localized to Poland; it's spread throughout Europe. Nature reports that creationists in Great Britain, using the name Truth in Science, are trying to undermine the teaching of evolution. And Letizia Moratti, the former…
Colin Purrington, he of the great textbook disclaimer stickers (and whose website is a treasure trove of information), is looking for some prison statistics: A common theme in anti-evolution writings is that teaching kids about Darwin will cause them to lose all touch with morality, and will end up committing crimes. It might follow that evolutionary biologists themselves would be especially overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Therefore, I'd like to make a bar graph that shows the number of individuals with PhDs in evolutionary biology who are currently in prison. A possible…
The Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog neither reports news on evolution nor offers interesting views. One of their bloggers, Casey Luskin, is notorious for misunderstanding and misrepresenting science -- which is par for the course at the Disco. Casey recently decided to attack a piece published in National Geographic on the evolution of complex structures written by Carl Zimmer. Carl just so happens to be among the best science journalists writing today; his work is both accurate and easy to understand. Carl wasn't going to take Luskin's inanity lying down; he's responded…
Nature has published a correspondence from Maciej Giertych, a Polish biologist, defending his view that evolutionary biology is bullshit. He's actually striking back at Nature for this news item on creationism in Poland. Long story short, the League of Polish Families (LPR), a group led by Roman Giertych (Maciej Giertych's son), has been pushing for the inclusion of creationism in the science curriculum of Polish schools. Maciej Giertych did not like how he and his fellow creationists were portrayed in the Nature article. He decided to defend himself in a letter to Nature, despite the fact…
Sorry to beat a long-dead horse, but I thought I saw a leg twitch: Atlantic Books have begun to publish this year a series of texts titled 'Books that shook the world', which, rightly, includes a new biography of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species by Janet Browne. And some new shaking definitely seems to be in order. Darwinism appears under increasing challenge as 'creationism' and 'intelligent design' continue to creep into curricula, particularly in the US and the UK. That quote comes from Nigel Williams's review of Brown's book. Williams writes for Current Biology, a widely read journal…
Chuck Norris doesn't "believe" in evolution. And he's writing about it in the Wing Nut Daily. I won't link to the actual article, but you can read about it here. Thanks Bora for ruining my appreciation for the Texas Ranger. To make up for bringing you that bad piece of news, here are the first four minutes of Borat's movie:
Some biologist in Poland said this: "A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist." Apparently those dudes from the Geico commercials are practicing the sweet science. But there are Neanderthals among us. Razib knows about them . . . Big ups to whoever comes up with the best Polish invention for this item. (Via The Panda's Thumb.)
Check out this gem from the London Times: Fraud may also be good for science, according to Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Since most scientific duplicity involves researchers "idealising" results that they probably would eventually have achieved anyway, such fact-fiddling actually oils the wheels of discovery. He even questions whether it should be labelled fraud at all. Fuller does draw the line at drug studies, where people could be physically harmed if researchers fudged data. But everything else is fair game. Take the recent discovery of the heaviest…
We're not a big fan of Francis Collins around these parts. He's done some good science and helped lead one of the most important research projects in history. He also has a habit of contradicting or ignoring science when he pontificates on his faith. We don't dig that. Over at Talk Reason, Gert Korthof takes Collins to task for arguing that Moral Law is a divine gift (scroll down to "The Irreducibly Complex Moral Law").
Busting my balls, indeed. Check out this headline: Intelligent design gets political Geoff Brumfiel Teaching creationism becomes an election issue in Michigan. Intelligent design didn't get political in Michigan. Intelligent design is politics. Intelligent design isn't science; it's a political movement. And they sure as hell ain't offering anything new in the philosophy front (Paley is so last millennium). And my religious friends tell me that it's not even satisfying for the faithful. Intelligent design is just a well funded campaign to destroy science education. Can't get any more…
Tara has been given the task of pointing out some of the flaws in Chapter 7 of Jonathan Wells's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. From what I can gather, this is the chapter in which Wells claims that biology does not need evolution because evolution has no applications in medicine or agriculture. In doing so, Wells reveals he does not understand the difference between natural and artificial selection: The clinical use of antibiotics creates a highly artificial situation. Antibiotic-producing microbes must be isolated from their natural surroundings and…
Scientific American has an online review of four books: God's Universe by Owen Gingerich, The Language of God by Francis Collins, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan. Here's a choice quote: "In my view," [evolgen's least favorite NIH director, Francis] Collins goes on to say, "DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God." Evolutionary explanations have been proffered…
Read this (via The Panda's Thumb). Here's a taste: TO THE CHAGRIN OF BAYLOR football fans, once steeped in the steady success of Grant Teaff during his Hall of Fame coaching career that concluded in 1992, their East-Central Texas school is now better known for its controversial role in the dubious effort to move the study of creationism, typically limited to philosophy and religion classes, into the arena of science. It's an article that rags on creationists in the context of college football. I think I need to change my underpants. P.S. Fight on!
ABC News has an article by mathematician John Allen Paulos on how creationists misuse probability in their anti-science arguments. This article is inspired by the Science article on public acceptance of evolution. I especially like how he distinguishes between a priori and a posteri probabilities: Now if we shuffle this deck of cards for a long time and then examine the particular ordering of the cards that happens to result, we would be justified in concluding that the probability of this particular ordering of the cards having occurred is approximately 1 chance in 10 to the 68th power. This…
The Panda's Thumb is compiling a chapter by chapter rebuttal of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. This book is part of a series of shoddy academic endeavors that includes The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History; they could remove the word "politically" from the cover and capture a more accurate representation of the contents within. PZ Myers has posted his reply to the chapter on embryology here, and he points out: "It really is a ghastly, badly done book, and unfortunately, while it only takes one dishonest fool to spin a lie, it takes a whole…
I gave Lawrence Krauss some shit regarding his double standard towards the tolerance of willful ignorance. He's cool with calling intelligent design proponents ignorant, but won't go all the way and say all religion is anti-knowledge. Judging by the letters in the NYTimes, there are some people who took umbrage at Krauss calling anyone ignorant: To the Editor: I disagree with Dr. Krauss's essay "How to Make Sure Children are Scientifically Illiterate." Darwinists are not advancing science by seeking federal court injunctions against criticism of Darwinism. Science is not a body of knowledge…
Pharyngula tells us that Francis "Human Genome" Collins is scheduled to appear in a TV special entitled Darwin's Deadly Legacy. You may remember Frank from such stories as humans have stopped evolving. The extremist religious zealots behind the program claim that "Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project will show why evolution is a bad idea that should be discarded into the dustbin of history." Let's assume that Frankie got duped into appearing in this special. Maybe the wack jobs evangelicals requested that he talk about his faith and his science. With the wonders of video…