Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is formerly a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not battling creationists or modeling species ranges, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of the NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.
Disco. 'tute "research" director Casey Luskin is sad. Congressional Quarterly wrote about creationism and didn't say nice things about "intelligent design" creationism. Casey insists that ID shouldn't be lumped in with young earth creationism or geocentrism, asserting:
the vast majority of…
In the poll on conspiracy theories I mentioned a few days ago, I mostly focused on the item about vaccines, mentioning in passing the fact that Democrats (and liberals) bought into far fewer conspiracy theories than Republicans (or conservatives). I didn't point out that, of the "conspiracy…
Ever since Chris Mooney's Republican War on Science was published in 2005, folks have been looking for a way to argue that Democrats are just as bad. The standard example for this counternarrative, one which Mooney even offered in his book, was vaccine denial – the claim that vaccines cause…
"The president says that the jury's out on evolution. Here in New Jersey, we're counting on it."
–Bruce Springsteen, May 21, 2005
"Folks in Dover [PA] aren't sure about evolution. Here in New Jersey, we're counting on it."
–Bruce Springsteen, August, 2005
"This issue [marriage equality] is in…
The University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Social Movements is hosting a dialogue on science and politics, and I'm rather pleased with my contribution: "Will Climate Change Denial Inherit the Wind?" Do check out the other essays in the dialogue, especially Jeffrey Guhin's…
A month ago, I had a bit of fun at Senator Marco Rubio's expense over his "I'm not a scientist, man" response to GQ's question about the age of the earth.
I brought up his comments again in my talk last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting, to much audience amusement. It served as a…
ThinkProgress reports on an interview with Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage [sic]. The explain:
Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute has been particularly vocal over the past few months, promoting ex-gay therapy…
M.K. Hobson describes a very happy Thanksgiving:
I want to share the story of a very interesting Thanksgiving had by 46 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Washington State. Having been arrested in North Yakima during a large street meeting intended to persuade apple pickers to…
Slate's Daniel Engber is upset. People are making fun of Marco Rubio's "I'm not a scientist, man" response to a question about the age of the earth, and he wants to insist that "Willful ignorance of science is a bipartisan value." As evidence for this claim, he contrasts Rubio:
Q: How…
After their thrashing in the 2012 elections, Republicans are casting about for a new standardbearer, and Marco Rubio is a leading candidate for that post. One consequence of that attention is this GQ interview with Rubio, which includes this awesome exchange:
GQ: How old do you think the…
At today's presidential press conference, New York Times reporter Mark Landler broke a trend that ran through the presidential campaign, a trend of silence about climate change. From the transcript:
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. In his endorsement of you a few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg said…
The excellent Slacktivist notes, once more, that Ken Ham’s biblical exegesis is just as sound as his science. But there's a twist. He writes, "For decades I’ve been having this argument:"
YOUNG-EARTH CREATIONIST: The Bible clearly says that God created the universe in six days, 6,000…
America is a very religious country, and has been for a long time. Regardless of broad cultural revolutions and trends in the culture wars, about the same number of people say religion is "very important" in their lives today as 35 years ago.
Other measure of religiosity shift, as Gallup…
The AP reports a dude went to the headquarters of hate group based in Washington, DC, and shot a security guard:
Federal authorities say Floyd Lee Corkins II told a guard at the Family Research Council, "I don't like your politics" before shooting him in the arm. The guard and others helped…
Many cruel things can be said about the mendacity of David Horowitz. Few of them were not already said by the brilliant Michael Bérubé, but he-of-the-accents doesn't seem to blog any more, while D. Ho. remains as prolific as ever in his search for Reds in the Ivory Tower. RightWingWatch…
"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’…
Shorter Martin Cothran, spokesman for Kentucky's Focus on the Family affiliate: Is Romney chicken on the same-sex marriage issue?:
Mitt Romney doesn't deserve conservative support because didn't eat a chicken sandwich to demonstrate his anti-gay bigotry.
But really, here's Cothran's argument:…
A conservative columnist writes at Townhall: Bloomberg to New Mothers: You Really Should Be Breastfeeding, You Know:
Apparently, carrying a baby for nine months just isn't hard enough. Don't you think new mothers deserve a lecture about how to feed their baby.....just hours after they endure…
There's a tale told about grandparents who refused to take the grandkids to see a classical orchestra perform. Asked why, they explained that it was a bad influence. Too much sax and violins.
I was reminded of that joke by fantasy author George R. R. Martin's reply to those…
Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener: We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, He Folded, and Now He's a Darwinist Hero:
We called out Carl Zimmer, he kicked our asses, and now we're butthurt about it.
Klinghoffer is peeved that when knowledgeable people are asked to abandon…
Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener, We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, and He Folded:
Why won't anyone play my game?
Klinghoffer is upset that no one will come to the Disco. blog, let Disco. staff ban any outside comment, and debate the merits of the book which…
As Steve Benen notes at Rachel Maddow's blog, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker draws his governing lessons from interesting sources:
Just imagine. Then imagine that Noah had to build his ark in a capitalist market economy, and had to be able to turn a profit on the deal simply in order to…
Slacktivist observes that Bryan Fischer is an AIDS denier:
Tweet from Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association:
“New pill stops HIV virus. But won’t stop AIDS since caused by extensive inhalant drug use, not HIV.”
So there it is. Bryan Fischer is an AIDS denier. The chief spokesman of…
Sometimes someone tricks me into reading Jerry Coyne's blog. He tends to trot out the same bad arguments, sometimes it's worth pushing back. For instance, he recently set out to demonstrate that science and religion are incompatible, in part because of:
the well known data on…
Shorter Disco. 'tute's David Klinghoffer: Paul McBride, Darwinist Hero of the Hour:
Why don't real scientists take our book seeking to throw out all of paleoanthropology – self-published by a lawyer, an insect geneticist, and a bacterium geneticist – seriously? That paleoanthropologist who…
Disco. 'tute blogger Ann Gauger wants to make something clear:
There seems to be an idea on the part of some critics that my analysis in Science and Human Origins means that humans arose four million years ago. That is not the case.
The very idea that anyone would think Gauger agrees with the…
At his blog Still Monkeys, Paul McBride has done yeoman work examining the shoddy claims of the latest book from the Disco. 'tute Press. This book, barely more than a pamphlet, really, purports to show that the last century of research on the roots of the human race are wrong, that evolution…
Justice Antonin Scalia is known for forcefully advocating his view that Constitutional questions before the Supreme Court should be decided on the basis of the original intent of the Constitution's authors, or by considering the way society in 1789 would have viewed the language at issue.
Scalia is…
At the time of YHWH, God's making of earth and heaven, no bush of the field was yet on earth,no plant of the field had yet sprung up,for YHWH, God, had not made it rain upon the earth,and there was no human/adam to till the soil/adama–but a surge would well up from the ground and water all the…
