jlynch
Posts by this author
January 3, 2009
Every position of permanent agreement or harmony between reason and life, between philosophy and religion, becomes impossible. And the tragic history of human thought is simply the history of a struggle between reason and life - reason bent on rationalizing life and forcing it to submit to the…
January 3, 2009
Some of you may already have seen this (for example, PZ has mentioned it), but Nature has put together a short PDF document that gives fifteen lines of "evidence for evolution by natural selection" [here]. Here's the list (stolen from PZ):
The discovery of Indohyus, an ancestor to whales.
The…
January 3, 2009
Carl Zimmer is presenting a series of posts by Ken Miller in which Miller takes on DI-flack Casey Luskin's attempt to claim that he misrepresented research regarding the evolution of clotting proteins when he gave testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover (way back in 2005).
See here and here. The…
January 3, 2009
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the landing of NASA's Spirit on Mars. Its sibling, Opportunity, will celebrate five years on January 24th. Expected to last 90 days on the hostile Mars surface, as this article reminds us, they are still going strong and have been awoken after their winter…
January 2, 2009
Over at the Panda's Thumb, Dave Wisker has (correctly) pointed out that members of the DI-funded Biologic Institute produced four papers in 2008:
D'Andrea-Winslow L, Novitski AK (2008) Active bleb formation is abated in Lytechinus variegatus red spherule coelomocytes after disruption of acto-myosin…
January 2, 2009
Last year saw me present a mustelid every Monday. This year, I'm going to feature a member of the Felidae every Friday. In so doing, I will follow the taxonomy given in Wilson & Reeder's Mammal Species of the World.
Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus Schreber 1775
Click for larger version. <source…
January 1, 2009
The coming year should be fairly productive. Here are what I hope to be the highlights for 2009:
Finish and submit three book reviews over the next few weeks
Finish some work for the History of Science Society's Committee on Education
Have a paper accepted by Pediatrics (more of that anon)
Teach my…
January 1, 2009
2009 is not just the Darwin Bicentennial, it is also the International Year of Astronomy. As APOD reminds us,
This year was picked by the International Astronomical Union and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization because it occurs 400 years after Galileo turned one…
January 1, 2009
It has become sort of a tradition for me to present an end-of-year roundup of the "achievements" of the intelligent design movement. Last year I noted that the IDists achieved even less than in the previous year, noting that they had achieved so little that I actually didn't blog much on ID. This…
December 31, 2008
Quoth Fuller:
But I happen to think that there is something more worth arguing about here, and a better way to think about the stakes is to ask, Suppose the matter of evidence remains unresolved or equally balanced: What difference does it make whether I endorse ID or Darwinism? Does it lead me to…
December 29, 2008
Well it's official, Steve Fuller (see here, here, here and here) has officially joined the ID echo-chamber that is Uncommon Descent. He will, apparently, be arguing that "Darwinism is an undead 19th century social theory" indeed
stripped of its current scientific scaffolding, Darwinism is a 19th…
December 28, 2008
I have a dislike of hip-hop and rap. But when it is mixed with ID, well, I'm speechless. Witness Atom tha Immortal's silken rhymes:
Apocalyptic G-d presence/ Feeling the fire of G-d's essence/ You need Rosetta Stones to unlock my poem's message/ Born in a body of sand since early…
December 22, 2008
This fashion maven and I wish all my readers a safe and peaceful holiday season. Be good to each other.
December 22, 2008
European polecat, Mustela putorius L.
And with that, we end our series of Monday Mustelids which we began back in January.
December 14, 2008
Siberian weasel, Mustela siberica Pallas 1773
There are no good available photos for the Malayan weasel (M. nudipes), the Black-striped weasel (M. strigidorsa) and the Egyptian weasel (M. subpalmata), so that's all you are getting on them. That means that next week's Monday Mustelid will be the…
December 12, 2008
AGRIPPA (A Book of The Dead) by William Gibson
I hesitated before untying the bow that bound this book together.
A black book: ALBUMS CA. AGRIPPA Order Extra Leaves By Letter and Name
A Kodak album of time-burned black construction paper
The string he tied Has been unravelled…
December 8, 2008
Black footed ferret, Mustela nigripes Audubon and Bachman, 1851
Least weasel, Mustela nivalis L.
Cute baby weasel under the fold ...
Least weasel pup, Mustela nivalis L.
I wasn't able to find a picture for the Indonesian mountain weasel (Mustela lutreolina Robinson and Thomas, 1917).
December 7, 2008
It's that time of the year again, the time to complete the end of year blog meme. Here is last year's entry. Rules are simple - post the first line of the first post for every month. I've omitted my Monday Mustelid, Today In Science and Friday Poem (semi-)regular posts, so it actually means this is…
December 1, 2008
Yellow-bellied weasel, Mustela kathiah Hodgson 1835
European mink, Mustela lutreola L.
November 23, 2008
According to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute "Americans fail a basic test on their history and institutions" with an average score of 49% (college educators apparently score 55%, and office-holders 44%).
I scored 88% (29 out of 33)... I put that down to not being a product of the American…
November 22, 2008
The Tyndall Correspondence Project (of which I am a participant) has now gone online. Our aim is to follow in the footsteps of the Darwin Correspondence Project and transcribe the letters of the Irish physicist, John Tyndall. The site is a little bare at the moment, but more information and…
November 22, 2008
O'Leary: "Behe is a working biochemist"
Me: "Funny definition of working you're using there, Denyse"
November 16, 2008
Long-tailed weasel, Mustela frenata Lichtenstein 1831
(source)
I was unable to find a good picture of Mustela felipei (Izor and de la Torre, 1978) so that, alas, will be left by the wayside.
November 9, 2008
Something a little different this week ...
Steppe Polecat, Mustela eversmanni Lesson 1827.
I spent three years of my life measuring mustelid skulls. I kind of miss it.
November 8, 2008
So I'm here in Pittsburgh for the History of Science Society annual meeting. Had a chance to catch up with Janet and Ben while meeting Michael Robinson (of Time to Eat the Dogs) for the first time. Congratulations to him for winning the HSS Forum for History of Science in America book prize for his…
November 1, 2008
ASU has a number of exciting graduate programs in history, philosophy and social studies of science (with particular emphasis on the biological sciences). I am a faculty member for three of these programs (Biology & Society, Philosophy & Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology…