Creationism/Intelligent Design
neurotopia | February 7, 2008Actually this is completely anticlimactic. The Regents rarely take a differing view on tenure decisions from the tenure committee itself. So sorry Tara, you got it wrong... the decision is already out:
The Iowa Board of Regents has denied Guillermo Gonzales', associate professor of physics and astronomy, appeal for tenure. After a private deliberation, the Board voted down the appeal which has already been denied by Iowa State University and ISU President Gregory Geoffroy.
No details at this point. But look for the Discovery Institute Spin Room to start kvetching at any moment, if they…
neurotopia | December 6, 2007Intelligent Design is a career-killer. There's just no two ways about it. And not because of how peers treat the ID supporter; they throw their own productivity under the bus, to use Casey Luskin's overworked cliche. We saw the same thing with Behe and Dembski. Behe has published ONE peer-reviewed paper in the last decade-ish. And Dembski... well, does anybody even know where he works these days?
All hyperbole aside, let's look at Gonzalez's publication track record while we keep in mind that tenure committees consider work that comes in after one joins the university to be of prime…
neurotopia | December 5, 2007Phil over at Bad Astronomy has it a bit backwards, but hey it's not his fault. He didn't have to sit through that nightmare of a press conference.
I still stick by my own conclusion too, that by trying to say that Gonzalez's religious freedom has been curtailed, they are admitting ID is religion and not science, which they vehemently denied with the Dover case. I think if this comes to court, that'll be a fun issue to grill them about.
From the press conference, the DI is clearly trying to distance religion from ID. The subject never really came up until a reporter asked about it. Even a…
neurotopia | December 4, 2007Yesterday the Discovery Institute held a press conference at the capitol building in Des Moines, to announce Guillermo Gonzalez's plans to sue Iowa State University over their decision to deny him tenure. Supposedly the lawsuit will be filed pending the rejection of an appeal to the Board of Regents, which is virtually guaranteed simply for the fact that the Regents typically uphold tenure decisions. Joining Casey Luskin, Rob Crowther, Gonzalez's attorneys, and a few other DI folk was state Senator David Hartsuch (R-District 41).
The core of the DI's assertion is that there were "secret…
neurotopia | November 14, 2007Here we see the consequences of social promotion; no, not the practice of advancing students who haven't demonstrated competency in their subject matter, but of inappropriately advancing a concept that hasn't attained scientific credibility.
When said concept, in this case Intelligent Design, is shown to be scientifically vacuous, we send it back to the drawing board. We don't push it along into textbooks and classrooms.
"All of us are smarter than one of us," Hamm said.
In the case of a schoolboard filled with creationists, clearly this does not hold.
neurotopia | September 5, 2007Ha ha, fooled you!
The Discovery Institute has just issued this on their blog, the inaccurately named Evolution News and Views:
According to CSC senior fellow and leading ID theorist William Dembski, what follows is:
"[A] big story, perhaps the biggest story yet of academic suppression relating to ID. Robert Marks is a world-class expert in the field of evolutionary computing, and yet the Baylor administration, without any consideration of the actual content of Marks's work at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, decided to shut it down simply because there were anonymous complaints linking…
neurotopia | July 11, 2007It looks like somebody either never heard of Dover, or refused to learn from their lesson. It seems the local ID supporters of Chesterfield County aren't happy:
So far, the official actions of the CCSB have been limited to issuing a rather vague and confusing statement. ID proponents had hoped to influence the selection of science textbooks, but they started their campaign too late, and the CCSB approved the selection of standard biology texts. But there is still much concern about the situation in Chesterfield. ID supporters, backed by a local conservative group called the Family…
neurotopia | July 10, 2007The Alliance for Science, a wonderful group of which I am a member, has a link about a survey that examines public perception of the new Creation Museum. Having recently visited the Propoganda Ministry Museum myself, I was very underwhelmed. I will report my experiences there in a future post replete with pictures. I feel bad because I haven't been keeping up on the evolution/science activism side of my life for a very long time now, aside from this post and pushing the Alliance for Science's Evolution Essay Contest, I have done very little this year to even address the issue. Might have…
neurotopia | November 2, 2006Looks like creationist paragon of moral fortitude Kent Hovind might be headed to the slammer.
Kent Hovind is charged with 58 federal counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes and withholdings.
If found guilty, he faces a maximum of 288 years in prison. His wife, Jo Hovind, faces up to 225 years. Her charges include aiding and abetting her husband with 44 counts of evading bank-reporting requirements.
Don't drop the soap, Kent.
neurotopia | October 6, 2006The Alliance for Science, in an effort to further dialogue between the science, religious,and business communities, is committed to bringing in a diverse network of speakers to its public meetings in the DC Metro area. Last year we had Dr. Peter Folger from the American Geophysical Union, Reverend Henry Green, ScienceBlog's own Chris Mooney, NCSE's Eugenie Scott, and AfS co-chair Paul Forbes to name a few. Now we're looking to a whole new year of fun with evolution education (yes, we're on an academic calendar...).
Next Thursday, October 12th, is speaker Michael Shermer. He will also have…
neurotopia | August 26, 2006The takedown intro has been posted at The Panda's Thumb. If the server's down, keep checking in. Over the next week or two, various bloggers will pick apart the different chapters and expose this trash for what it is; a coffee table book for the sycophantic zombies among us. While I predict it will have a very limited audience, that audience consists primarily of so-called "family values" politicians who will buy into this vapid PR campaign.
Yours truly will pick a Chapter apart midway through next week, so check back here around Wednesday. In the meantime, Tara has already trashed one…
neurotopia | July 22, 2006I just don't get it. On one hand, Francis Collins is clearly a bright guy and an established researcher. He headed the Human Genome Project, for cryin' out loud. He's an evangelical Christian, which I personally don't care about one way or the other, as long as his beliefs remain his personal beliefs. An article in the Washington Post, however, has me wondering what he's thinking.
Certainly Dr. Collins is one of the more prominent advocates for the compatibility of science and religion. On one hand I admire that. Many of the extreme religious conservative persuasion have set up a…
neurotopia | July 17, 2006A new website in the fight against the ID movement's attempted takeover of the Kansas state science standards. Check it out. Nick Matzke has more here.
neurotopia | July 15, 2006Kent, the gift that keeps on giving. Man, is anybody affiliated with Hovind NOT a crook?
neurotopia | July 15, 2006One of my readers (kewl, I have readers!) informed me that Kent Hovind's lawyer might also be in a bit of legal trouble. It seems that Glen Stoll of Washington state is in a pickle as well. Stoll is Hovind's lawyer, and has ownership of the embroiled Dinosaur Adventure Land House of Lies creationist theme park ever since a property dispute involving a lack of building permits.
It looks like this guy is a total scam artist. Emphasis mine.
The court found that Stoll, who falsely claimed to be a lawyer, and his businesses sell a fraudulent "corporation sole" and "ministerial trust" scheme,…
neurotopia | July 14, 2006Last weekend there was an article in the Wichita Eagle on the situation with the Kansas BoE. Since creationists can't get their tripe published in real science journals, but instead have to rely on popularity contests elections in order to pass their shit off as reality to our kids, I thought I'd dig up one of my old posts.
Here's the a grand example of why science is not determined by consensus.
If you live in Kansas, The TruthTM which your children are taught in school is decided based upon the ideology of the current Board of Elections. This coming year, for example, Intelligent Design…
neurotopia | July 14, 2006Jackass creationist, theme-park owner and professional lunatic Kent Hovind was arrested on 58 federal charges.
Hovind, a.k.a. Dr. Dino, is best known for claiming to have obtained a level of education that puts him on par with professional scientists. He is also no stranger to the inside of a courtroom:
In April, Circuit Judge Michael Allen ordered the buildings at Dinosaur Adventure Land closed because Hovind failed to obtain a building permit during the 2002 construction. The outdoor theme park was allowed to stay open.
That's right, our good Christian friend apparently doesn't care about…
neurotopia | June 15, 2006PZ recently brought up Ann Coulter's new book. A couple other Seed bloggers have mentioned Dembski's association with Coulter, and his pride at having assisted her with writing the evolution chapter of her new pustule book entitled "Godless". Recent events lead me to wonder whether that was a good idea on his part. But I'm not referring to the asinine nature of her rhetoric....
Now to be sure, some of the following examples might be a bit overreaching, but it appears that Ms Mr. Coulter may have engaged in some unseemly literary behavior. Specifically, she very well might have taken…
neurotopia | June 9, 2006...you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sittin' in your little room
--The White Stripes
Welcome to the second incarnation of Neurotopia! The old incarnation can be found here, although lately it has just been a collection of posts where I complain about how Blogger stinks. But no more! Now I'm here on this slick new platform! The SEED overlords pulled a mean trick on me: they set up the new blog launch mere hours before I'm supposed to hit the road and celebrate my 8th anniversary by accompanying Mrs. Evil Monkey to Fallingwater for the weekend.…