stcynic
Posts by this author
Freespace, the blog of Timothy Sandefur, is celebrating its 1 year anniversary tomorrow. Tim is one of the reasons I'm glad I started blogging. In the early days of my blog, I found his and we hit it off right away. We share a love of James Madison and Daniel Dennett. I also recruited him to write…
Following in the footsteps of John Scalzi, I have been chosen to contribute to the Detroit News Weblog for the next month. I will be posting there on a daily or near-daily basis, just brief entries about the political campaign and politics in general. Feel free to drop by and tell me I'm full of it…
John Baez from UCal-Riverside, in addition to his many contributions to the field of mathematical physics, has given to us the enormously useful Crackpot Index. His index, which awards varying point values based upon the attributes of the claims being made, gives a fairly reliable indication of…
I posted on who I thought was the funniest comedian a few days ago, now it's time for who I think is the funniest writer of our day. The award goes to Joe Queenan. Queenan is a freelance writer who has written in dozens and dozens of magazines as diverse as Spy and Forbes. He has also authored…
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has an interesting debate on the subject of the pledge of allegiance and the case before the Supreme Court right now. The participants are Douglas Laycock and Jay Sekulow, names familiar to anyone who follows constitutional law and religious liberty cases.…
This is my favorite time of the year. The beginning of springtime, with the temperatures going up and the birds chirping and the longer days, coincides with the one sporting event I really go crazy for - the NCAA basketball tournament. I'm a huge college basketball fan, one of those people who…
As a former stand up comic, I get asked a lot who my favorite comedians are. I tend to like dark, edgy humor more than anything else, and if it's got a real identifiable view of the world attached to it, so much the better. I think the best comic working today is Doug Stanhope. Whether you agree…
I have been so unbelievably swamped with everything going on at The Panda's Thumb, the new group science blog, that I haven't posted anything here. I'm not letting this blog go by the wayside, I promise. Things have absolutely exploded with the new blog though. We got mentioned by a couple big…
Announcing the formation of a new group blog, The Panda's Thumb. Like a father with a new baby, I'm excited about this project and I'm telling everyone about it.
The Panda's Thumb is a group blog that will focus primarily on explaining the theory of evolution, critiquing the claims of the anti-…
From my ever-slovenly but impishly charming pal Skip Evans comes the news that this past Saturday was National Corn Dog Day. For anyone out there who doesn't know what a corndog is, this webpage explains it:
Corn dogs are hot dogs dipped in corn batter, deep fried and served on a stick. Corn dogs…
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies were last night and I got to watch the immortal Bob Seger get inducted. I generally have little use for Kid Rock, who gave the induction speech for Seger, but he was actually funny. and dead on accurate when he said that Seger had paid more dues…
When we talk about evolution, we almost always talk about animals or microbes, with only a rare mention of plants. The reality, though, is that evolution is a powerful theory in explaining the natural history of flora as well as fauna. The study of plants is called botany. Last summer, the…
Is there anything scarier than watching C-Span when they have live call-in shows? There are apparently a lot of insane people sitting in their apartments with C-Span on speed dial, just praying for an opportunity to spew their personal pet peeves at the world for 30 seconds. There appears to be…
The first is Stranger Fruit, a blog by John Lynch, a professor at Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. Looks like it will be a very valuable resource for information about evolution.
The second is the Evolution Blog. This blog is actually older than mine, but I just found it. It's…
Rusty of the New Covenant Blog put up a post that included a link to this article by James Hitchcock, entitled "The Enemies of Religious Liberty". In this article, Hitchcock argues that numerous academics, including such prominent legal scholars as Cass Sunstein and Kathleen Sullivan, are opposed…
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has issued a memorandum in which he answers the request that he recuse himself from an upcoming case involving claims of executive privelege for Vice President Dick Cheney as it regards meetings he held in formulating the administration's energy policy, because…
Via Brian Leiter, the wonderful Strange Doctrines blog by Tadlow Windsor II (read the "about me" link for an explanation). Evolution, constitutional law, culture war stuff - it's like reading me! He also provided Brian with this quote from Bertrand Russell that is absolutely perfect:
"A stupid man…
Well this was predictable. Say something in defense of evolution and one thing you can count on is Batman The Lone Ranger The Cisco Kid Inspector Cluseau Joseph Mastrapaolo and his faithful assistant Tonto Cato Poncho Robin Karl Priest showing up to issue the "Life Science Challenge". Brian Leiter…
Goes to Rhea County, Tennessee:
Rhea County commissioners unanimously voted to ask state lawmakers to introduce legislation amending Tennessee's criminal code so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.
"We need to keep them out of here," said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who…
Please welcome Reed Cartwright's De Rerum Natura to the blogosphere. Reed is currently finishing his PhD in genetics at the University of Georgia and is involved with the Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education. A few weeks ago I cited his analysis of the proposed Georgia science…
After reading this, I just have to ask....where's my hate mail?
By the way, the Discovery Institute copied Hunter Baker's article on their website today with no mention of the replies that were made to it. They also listed Hunter Baker as a "freelance writer in Texas". Not as the grad assistant of…
One of the most powerful lines of evidence for common descent (the theory of evolution) is often referred to as molecular phylogenetics. In brief, it's the use of protein sequences to discern how closely two species are related. As the National Center for Biotechnology Information explains it,…
Found on another blog:
I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of those that threaten them.
Here here. Or "Hear, hear", as Jim Foley just reminded me. Take your pick. :)
One of the main arguments that Lawrence VanDyke makes, both in his Harvard Law Review book note and in the ongoing exchange over Brian Leiter's criticism of that note, is that ID is not creationist. His evidence for this is that the two largest Young Earth Creationist (YEC) organizations have said…
Here is an excellent example of a scientist taking on the claims of an ID advocate and pretty much leveling them. The University of Rochester biologist Allen Orr takes on Dembski's No Free Lunch, a book that attempts two basic tasks - to apply the No Free Lunch theorems to biological evolution, and…
Lawrence VanDyke has posted a response to me on the Exparte blog, the blog of the Harvard Federalist Society. I will reply to that as well as a comment he made to my first post on this subject.
VanDyke's response begins with Adam White saying:
Lawrence VanDyke continues to defend himself against…
Lawrence VanDyke has left a comment below, which I would like to bring up here to address in more detail. Lawrence wrote:
I left out the "in support of ID" because I assumed that much was obvious in context. You make it sound like I was trying to make Leiter say ID proponents haven't published any…
One of the best blogs to read on both legal issues and evolution is that of Brian Leiter, director of the Law and Philosophy Program at the University of Texas Law School. He writes fairly extensively on evolution and the ongoing controversy of Intelligent Design. Recently, he took to task a young…
One of the things I find disturbing lately is how many Americans have lumped all Muslims together into one monolithic group labeled "terrorists". You hear a lot of tsk tsking over this from those of us who are inclined to try not to demonize an entire group based on the most extreme among them, but…