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Josh Rosenau

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.

Posts by this author

December 3, 2009
Or it would if the Senate actually represented the American public. According to a Thomson Reuters poll: Sixty percent of survey respondents said they believe a public option should be included in final healthcare reform legislation. Despite overwhelming support, wankers like erstwhile healthcare…
December 2, 2009
Last night's speech wasn't one of Obama's greatest hits. Kevin Drum's assessment seems basically right quoting Adam Serwer's line that "It was a speech that reflected the president deciding on what is maybe the least crappy of a number of crappy options â without convincingly explaining how it…
December 2, 2009
It's honestly hard to know what to make of Ray Comfort. First he says bananas are proof of intelligent design because of how well they fit in your hand. Then he retracts the claim, accepting that the domestic banana is, in fact, a product of extensive artificial selection. Then he backs off and…
November 29, 2009
A week or so ago, someone broke into a server at the University of East Anglia and made off with a range of emails and other data from the university's Climate Research Unit. This excited lots of climate change deniers, as they've long claimed that CRU had secret evidence that global warming wasn'…
November 28, 2009
Not to delve into the accommodationism wars again, but this claim is just silly. Ophelia Benson comments on Michael Shermer commenting on Jerry Coyne commenting on Michael Shermer, and objects to Shermer's claim that "the right way to respond to theists and/or theism⦠is simple: there is no one '…
November 23, 2009
Just back from Egypt, and still not ready for craziness. So please no one steal a lot of emails from climate scientists and try to dishonestly present a few snippets from them as evidence of a global conspiracy, OK? Also, could everyone stop blogging for a day or two, just until I catch up?…
November 15, 2009
Alexandria, actually, but still. I'm here at the British Council's conference on Darwin's Living Legacy. It's really a remarkable event, bringing together brilliant biologists from around the world to talk about how the research program begun by Darwin continues today, as well as historians and…
November 11, 2009
We truly are ruled by the worst in society. Proposition 13, the supermajority requirement for tax increases, and the state's inane proposition system more generally, are destroying California. But what can you do about it?: Backers of an overhaul of California's government, who hope to leverage…
November 11, 2009
Sorry for minimal blogging lately, which will continue for the next week or so, most likely. Last Friday I headed off to Kansas, where I helped celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of Kansas Citizens for Science. It was a great time, and a great thing to celebrate. Marvelous to see the…
November 5, 2009
Francisco Ayala is dead, long live Francisco Ayala.
November 3, 2009
Todd Wood is a creationist. He is a professor at Bryan College, named for William Jennings Bryan, who prosecuted John Scopes in 1925. He is, in particular, a professor of baraminology, the creationist notion that his particular Christian God created the "kinds" in the first week, and that by…
November 3, 2009
Afarensis and John Hawks bid farewell to a giant.
November 3, 2009
Martin Cothran â fellow traveler with the Disco. 'Tute, shill for James Dobson's crew, and generally unpleasant person â thinks the dissent of 162 members of American Physical Society disproves a scientific consensus. Alas for Cothran, the APS has 47,189 members, so the dissent of 162 hardly…
October 31, 2009
For some reason, people are only now realizing Christopher Hitchens' distaste for Mother Teresa. It's like they started paying attention to the world a week ago.
October 29, 2009
There's been much ink spilled lately about the latest work from the authors of Freakonomics. I should say before getting into this that I haven't read their last book, and don't plan to read the sequel. I also haven't read any of Malcolm Gladwell's books, for largely the same reasons (note that…
October 28, 2009
Norman Levitt was a great man, a leonine defender of science against the trendy pablum advanced under the guise of post-modern critique. This defense was most famously advanced in Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, co-authored with the indomitable Paul Gross. He…
October 27, 2009
Jason Rosenhouse, criticizing Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's reply to Jerry Coyne's review of their book in Science, ends with this thought: You can not consistently argue that one side hurts the cause every time they open their mouths, but then object that you are not telling them to keep…
October 27, 2009
I'll be back in Kansas to take part in the celebration of KCFS's tenth anniversary, and I hope to see you all there
October 27, 2009
You may recall Martin Cothran from our fight over whether Pat Buchanan is a racist and a Holocaust denier, and from his guest-blogging gigs at the Discovery Institute, and through his other attempts to abuse logic for partisan purposes. Not content to push creationism with the Disco. 'Tute and…
October 22, 2009
Slacktivist is talking sense. He notes a common problem in dealing with creationists: I find I'm unable to communicate with them -- not just because I'm less fluent in the language of science, but because when they start talking about science then words no longer seem to mean what they mean for…
October 20, 2009
In a radio interview today, George Herbert Walker Bush complains about the "lack of civility in politics": The Republican elder statesman said, "It's not just the right." He complained, "there are plenty of people on the left." While he said he does not believe in personal name-calling, he singled…
October 20, 2009
Don McLeroy, erstwhile head of the Texas Board of Education, doesn't like the National Academy of Sciences. At least not on even-numbered days. During the science standards fight, he praised the NAS definition of science. Then again, he endorsed a crazy, self-published pamphlet declaring that the…
October 15, 2009
At least in the movies. Michael Moore's Capitalism has passed Expelled as the fifth-top-grossing political documentary EVAR! It's showing on fewer screens and has earned over 2 million dollars more, to date, than Ben Stein's crapfest. This makes total sense. Michael Moore's movie is quite good, is…
October 14, 2009
Saying "creationism suck" insults black holes. Discuss.
October 13, 2009
I'm not a cognitive scientist, so I'll be curious to see what the blog commentary on this paper might say, but apparently people get smarter when they think about things that don't make sense. Whether or not irrational beliefs are epistemically compatible with science, this would suggest that they…
October 13, 2009
A co-worker of mine recently visited Canada for a wedding. The day she arrived in her preferred unpopulated stretch of tundra, President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was announced. Now, my first reaction upon hearing about the award was that it was too soon, at least. Then again, it wasn't until 8…
October 12, 2009
Massachusetts has a Sacred Cod. What are the establishment clause implications?
October 9, 2009
It seems like a better hypothesis than that religion is epistemically incompatible with science. (Trying to replace political science with CNN? Really?) Consider. Roughly half of scientists are religious, but fewer than 10% are conservatives. John McCain, the leader of the Republican party,…
October 8, 2009
I have 1193 unread items in the Politics section of my feedreader. I have 1249 unread items in my "toys" section (BoingBoing, funny blogs like Jesus' General, etc.). The News section, with NYT and WaPo feeds (but not my local news feeds from Bay area and Kansas papers) has 2503 unread items. I…
October 8, 2009
I haven't been following it closely because of blog drama, but it looks like health care reform with a public option has a good shot. That doesn't mean you should stop calling your congresscritters to tell them you're watching, of course. It's a moral imperative. Buncha stuff going on today, but if…