communicating science
pharyngula | March 31, 2009The criticisms must have stung, because Matt Nisbet has put up short replies on Russell Blackford's and Jerry Coyne's blogs. Unfortunately, in response to the substantial criticisms of the idea of compatibility between faith and science, Nisbet only offers a feeble and wrong correction to a minor point.
A correction is in order on Blackford's post. Contrary to his framing, market research was not used to decide the position of the NAS, nor the 20 professional scientific organizations in the editorial at FASEB that endorsed the themes in the booklet. These organizations have had a long…
pharyngula | March 30, 2009It's heartwarming to see Dr Dr Russel Blackford rise to the occasion and pen a laudatory essay praising Matt Nisbet. Praise the lord!
Wait…is sarcasm ethical?
pharyngula | March 30, 2009At least, that's the message I'm getting. You-know-who is once again trying to insist that the ethics of scientists includes everything except speaking the truth, and I'm not going to get into it —let Greg Laden deal with the heat from the stupid 'framing' argument this time.
I will say that I'm damned tired of the vapid claim that "Science and religion are different ways of understanding the world.". It ignores the essential fact that one of those two is a useful, practical, and powerful way of understanding the world, and the other is silly, wrong, and misleading — if it is a way of…
laelaps | March 23, 2009You may recall that last December I shared a clip or two from Isabella Rossellini's delightful short film series on the mating habits of insects called "Green Porno." Some viewers were fascinated, others horrified, but regardless of your reaction you might be interested to know that on April 1st Rossellini will be back with a slew of new shorts for the second season of Green Porno.
Whereas the original run focused on insects the new season will feature sea creatures. (Among the episodes are "Why Vagina", "Whale", and "Angler".) Here is a promotional clip for the upcoming shorts;
I can't…
pharyngula | March 23, 2009Jerry Coyne says lots of basic (but well-stated) things about evolution, creationism, and education in an interview with American Scientist. Here's a taste:
Some creationists seem to feel that it's the scientists who are being dogmatic here--that you're somehow invested in this idea or want it to be true, or that your training has blinded you to other possibilities. How do you respond to that?
I think they're the ones who are dogmatic, because the difference between religion and science, which is the difference between religion and evolution, is that we question things. Nobody worships Darwin…
pharyngula | March 18, 2009John Timmer of Ars Technica gets a prominent write-up in Nature. It's good stuff wrapped around a slightly silly question — can blogging replace science journalism? The answer, of course, is no, but the two media can play complementary roles, I think.
pharyngula | March 18, 2009Even though my wife does think it makes our car a billboard for godless liberal scientism, I may have to add this one to the collection.
pharyngula | March 17, 2009He's going to be St Catherine's in St Paul on 8 April. I may have to make the trip out there myself, even though these mid-week round-trip drives are killers. Anyway, if you want to go, you need to reserve tickets (which are free) ahead of time — follow the link for more information.
laelaps | March 16, 2009
A visual summary of horse evolution published in 1921 (derived from an earlier diagram by W.D. Matthew). From An Introduction to the Study of Fossils.
When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 he faced a substantial problem. His evolutionary mechanism predicted that the fossil record would contain finely-graded transitions revealing what G.G. Simpson would later term the "tempo and mode" of evolution, yet such transitional creatures proved elusive. This was a major problem for paleontologists who believed that studies of European geology…
pharyngula | March 15, 2009
Hey, gang — help me out with this list of states with statewide grassroots organizations working to maintain and improve science education. I've found lists at Citizens for Science groups and NCSE, and here's the roster so far (all the states in blue above have something in place):
Alabama Citizens for Science Education
Alliance for Science (DC Area)
Colorado Citizens for Science
Colorado Evolution Response Team
Florida Citizens for Science
Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education
Iowa Citizens for Science
Kansas Citizens for Science
Louisiana Coalition for Science
Michigan…
laelaps | March 15, 2009
Ancestors are important. We like to know where we came from and what sort of legacy our forebears left, but it has only been recently that we have been able to trace the concept of "ancestor" through the depths of geological strata. I may not know the detailed history of my family during the last hundred years or so, but I do know that a number of hominins figure into my family tree.
I am not proud or ashamed of this deeper ancestry which I share with every other Homo sapiens on the planet. It is simply historical fact, but I have to wonder what my education would have been like if earlier…
laelaps | March 11, 2009I am not sure when it was recorded, but here is the audio (with pictures added by "CosmosFan1") from a lecture Stephen Jay Gould delivered at Wittenburg University in Ohio. There are a few unintentional flubs involving the dates Gould cites (that's 1859, not 1959...) but otherwise it's an interesting perspective on why Darwin's work was so important. Gould's take on Darwin's motivations for developing his theory get a bit speculative, but it is an interesting review all the same;
[My apologies, it seems that the remainder of this lecture has not been posted yet.]
pharyngula | March 9, 2009The inaugural meeting of Wisconsin Citizens for Science will be on 18 April at 2pm, in the Monona Public Library. You want to go. They are providing free cookies. Oh, yeah, and sciency information.
pharyngula | March 3, 2009They even titled the announcement "And now for something completely different…". I'm going to be doing a new monthly science column for the Guardian, so once again, I have blithely stacked another deadline on top of the groaning pile already on my desk. This should be fun, though, and one must constantly be building beachheads on other continents if one hopes to take over the world. Besides, I've also been promoted to "leading American evolutionary biologist", which will surprise leading American evolutionary biologist everywhere, but which will look wonderfully pretentious on my CV.
It's…
laelaps | February 25, 2009
The skull of Gomphotherium, from Barbour's paper.
Regular readers of this blog are well aware that the "March of Progress", a depiction of the single-file evolution of humans from an ape ancestor, is a biological bugbear that refuses to go away. Even though the Great Chain of Being ceased to be useful in explaining the natural world centuries ago vestiges of it still remain in illustrations that depict evolution as "onward and upward." We have long known that evolution is a branching process yet the straight-line version is frustratingly difficult to dig out.
I was reminded of this while…
pharyngula | February 23, 2009The Science Museum of Minnesota has a regular feature where they pick some local scientist and put them on the spot to answer questions — it's like the dunk tank at the carnival, I think, where someone becomes the target and everyone else gets the fun of flinging things at him. This time, it's my turn. Serious and sincere questions about biology only, please. Kids especially welcome. Trolls will meet an ignominious fate.
My colleague, Van Gooch, preceded me in this exercise. You can read his section to get an idea about what kinds of questions are appropriate…and you can also learn something…
laelaps | February 22, 2009
It would be fair to say that, until a week ago, I knew virtually nothing about J.B.S. Haldane. I knew he was a British biologist who helped form the subdiscipline of population genetics, but that was about it. Then, unexpectedly, Oxford University Press sent me a copy of What I Require From Life: Writings on Science and Life From J.B.S. Haldane.
What I Require From Life is neither an autobiography nor a comprehensive compilation of Haldane's writings. Instead it is a motley collection of Haldane's short essays written for the communist newspaper The Daily Worker (1937-1950) and pieces he…
pharyngula | February 21, 2009Have you ever gotten sucked into one of those endless "Teach the controversy!" or "You're afraid to look at both sides" kinds of arguments? You know, the ones people backing the most ridiculous positions always make? I need to make a copy of this cartoon to carry with me. It's a point I've often tried to make.
Unfortunately, the kinds of people who advance those arguments are exactly the kinds of people who won't be able to get it.
I'm never going to get to go to parties anymore, am I?
pharyngula | February 18, 2009I've never liked this stereotypical portrayal of evolution.
It implies that evolution is linear, that it is going somewhere, and of course, that it is all about people — all the wrong messages. Yet it is ubiquitous, and probably the most common rendering you'll find anywhere. Try googling for images of evolution, and you will turn it up, or variants on it, or jokes built on it…it's a bit annoying and trite.
(Although, when I googled to find that image — which was easy — I also found this one.
(Click for larger image)
Very nice. I like it.)
This is actually a problem. When we're trying to get…