Thanks to a reader commenting in yesterday's post, I've been made aware of a truly brilliant summation of creationism of both the young earth and intelligent design variety:
Exactly.
More like this
Newsweek has a summation of the recent Neandertal papers. Nothing special, but a good reading of the public Zeitgeist.
So Deutsch has resigned. Best summation comes from Jim Hansen: "He's only a bit player. The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."
Today is Charles Darwin's 199th birthday. Aussie blogger John Wilkins provides an eloquent summation of Darwin's significance:
In response to a few reflective posts of mine in regards to the "big picture" of evolutionary dynamics Brown Gaucho has
I have a feeling I'm going to be linking to that quite a lot.
Unfortunately, I'm on a connection too slow for You Tube, but I'd expect it's pretty funny.
I'm not a scientist, though I did do more math than is normal for a music major. The "framing" issue is what brought me here since it astounds me how the side with all the arguments, the evolution side, is so incredibly stupid about the simple necessity of selling your message to the general public. It's very simple, evolution is science, the idea of a designer isn't. There isn't any reason for science to have to deal with it unless some try to foist the phony science onto 1. the schools, 2. the public funding system. 3. misc.
Mixing the message for evolution with other misc. such as the war against belief is too big a burden for science to carry. If you doubt that might be true, look at the mewling when you just suggest to scientists that scientists are the best people to make the case and that if they want to explain themselves to non-scientists they are going to have to speak the language that the voting public will understand. All the nonsense accusing people with a realistic view of what will be effective with the public "you want us to support creationism" is just nonsense UNLESS that has actually been proposed.
If the goal is actually to protect the teaching and funding of science then that should be the matter or most importance. Snark will not help, it has been and is counter-productive.
Let me suggest to you, friends, that you will find more useful material to plan your battles with from Ogilvy on Advertising than the pseudo-skeptical literature so much in vogue at present. I assure you that even if the present course wins you something, better and clearer explainations to the people you want ot win over to science are not only a good idea, they are the only one that will work.
Creationists in a NUTshell? Where else would you keep them? It is when they come out of their shells that they cause problems.
"A magic man done it!"