Culture Wars
tfk | September 7, 2006I didn't really say anything when scientists announced a potential new way to generate stem cell lines. The technique involves extracting one cell from a blastula, just as is done in normal in vitro fertilization for genetic testing, and then growing that one cell into a stem cell line, while the rest of the embryo could be allowed to develop normally, or get tossed in the incinerator if it isn't used.
People thought it might represent some sort of way around the objections raised by religious groups. I never really thought so because they aren't defining life in a way that's…
tfk | September 6, 2006The Panda's Thumb issues an Ohio Call to Action:
Please write the Board of Ed TODAY. Politely urge them to hold a vote of the entire Board –at their Tuesday Sept 12 meeting – establishing that additional language is NOT needed to replace the creationist nonsense removed at the Feb 06 mtg.
The Board should devote their energy to closing the achievement gap, solving the school funding crisis, and other genuine issues. They should resist religious extremists pressuring them to corrupt science education and co-opt the classroom for religious conversion.
Politely insist they stand up for freedom…
tfk | September 5, 2006I've never seen a train wreck. At least not outside of news reports and movies like The Fugitive. So I can't be certain if reading the commentary at Billy Dembski's blog is exactly like watching a train wreck, or if the right analogy is less bloody and more entertaining.
Today, PaV asks How Random is Random Mutation?, because he came across a study in which four different strains of yeast evolved the same solution to a resource shortage. Somehow, he spends a thousand words pondering this problem without using the only word that matters: selection (though he does dismiss "selective…
tfk | September 3, 2006While responding to the foolishness of IDolators has become increasingly dull business, there are occasional opportunities in it. The problem is that they offer nothing essentially new, which is why it isn't science. The advantage is that they give us insights into how they view the world, and by doing so, teach us what the misunderstand, and what other people might not understand either.
This is all by way of introduction to a comment at Billy Dembski's blog in which "BarryA" attempts to explain theology to Jesuit theology professor Father Edward Oakes. Oakes makes some quite sensible…
tfk | August 29, 2006My copy of the paperback of the Republican War on Science is en route, and until it arrives, I'll let you ponder a much shorter version.
Thanks to KS RINO for bringing it to my attention.
tfk | August 28, 2006Answers in Genesis or Hitler? One said:
In spite of all the variation that we find within the human race, they are all descendants of Adam and bear his resemblance. God also created other kinds of creatures, such as apes, which display significant variation within their kind. But there is an impassable gulf between the human kind and any other kind.
The other:
From where do we get the right to believe, that from the very beginning Man was not what he is today? Looking at Nature tells us that in the realm of plants and animals changes and developments happen. But nowhere inside a kind shows…
tfk | August 28, 2006
When I visited the emptied hole that dominates America's leading city several years ago, a policeman seemed unable to keep himself from describing how people had cast themselves from the upper floors to avoid being trapped and then burning. Though no one needed to be told the consequences, the officer was driven to remind us how the bodies of those people simply vaporized on impact. The sheer horror of the event compelled him to tell the tale, and a desire to make sure that those lives didn't vanish into the ether as well.
A year after Katrina struck New Orleans, it's necessary to remember…
tfk | August 27, 2006Via DefCon Blog and the 9th floor project comes this video of the fate of one embryo that could have been used for life-saving research. This is the choice: to destroy embryos (or as we've recently learned, not destroying them) in research, or to destroy them in the trash when there's no longer a need to keep the embryo in storage.
tfk | August 26, 2006Via the Salt Lake Tribune, we learn that Utah's "divine design" advocate has been watching too much HGTV, and not enough History Channel:
"I don't think there's a racial [sic] bone in my body," Buttars said in an interview on radio station KCPW Tuesday. "I don't see black and white. I see people. I always have." …
[Buttars] and host Tom Grover discussed the merits of Buttars' proposed legislation that could allow lawmakers to call in some judges at the end of their first terms for a second confirmation hearing. Grover noted that America's courts historically have been used by minority groups…
tfk | August 25, 2006I know that true Sciencebloggers don't link to Billy D's blog, but there's just too much amusement to be had there. His latest shows that not only did he clearly fail biology (and math), but literature isn't his thing either. Billy explains:
The Nazi emphasis on proper breeding, racial purity, and weeding out defectives come from taking Darwin’s theory seriously and applying it at the level of society.
Those of you who do remember high school will remember quotes like these from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice:
He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners,…
tfk | August 23, 2006A repost from a year ago today.
Intelligent Design decision boon to other states | LJWorld.com:
Dear Members of the Kansas State School Board,
I am the Welsh Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have a number of colleagues at Kansas State and the University of Kansas and had the chance to present a seminar there a few years ago and see the vibrant scientific community that had grown up there.
Your current discussion of what to include in your curriculum is an interesting one to all who teach at State Universities. One of the great things…
tfk | August 22, 2006Catholic World News : Controversial Jesuit astronomer replaced at Vatican observatory:
Pope Benedict XVI has named a new director for the Vatican Observatory. Father José Gabriel Funes will succeed a controversial American, Father George Coyne.
Father Funes, an Argentine Jesuit, is already a member of the Vatican Observatory team. The outgoing Father Coyne, also a Jesuit, has been director of the Observatory for more than 25 years, and now steps down at the age of 73.
Last year Father Coyne drew worldwide attention for his public comments on the topics of evolution and the theory of…
tfk | August 22, 2006Fellow Sber Shelley Dpicks up on a discussion of billionaires stepping up to fund basic research originally from Forbes. The most unfortunate passage reads:
(Dr.) Melton landed enough money to start a separate lab, and he works on turning his stem line into insulin-producing cells to study where they go wrong in diabetics. But half his budget goes to redundant lab gear and overhead he wouldn't need if it weren't for the NIH rules against stem-cell funding. His stem-cell colleague at Harvard, M. Wiliam Lensch, uses only private funding from Harvard but worries about getting in trouble if he…
tfk | August 21, 2006A judge refused to toss out a suit over inadequate curricula at some religious schools in California. The schools claim that the University of California shouldn't be allowed to reject certain courses as adequate preparation for college. Or, as a lawyer for the schools explains,
The lawsuit is about theological content in "every major area in high school except for mathematics," says Wendell Bird, a lawyer for Calvary Chapel.
Bird previously lost Edwards v. Aguillard, thus ending the "equal time" rules for creationism and evolution.
The University asserts a 1st amendment right to speak…
sb admin | August 20, 2006
Welcome to the new Thoughts from Kansas. I've moved a few of the posts I'm most proud of across from the old Blogger site, and I encourage you to check them out, that's probably the easiest way to get to know me, and don't be afraid to dig into all the archives back there.
By way of quick introduction, I'm a graduate student finishing my dissertation at the University of Kansas. That explains the second part of the title. I am not a native Kansan and never claimed to be, but this is where my thoughts originate.
My research is on the spatial distributions of species, and the ways that…
tfk | August 16, 2006Reposted from the old TfK.
Part of the reason Harry McDonald lost a his Board of Ed. race against incumbent John Bacon was the 10% of the vote that David Oliphant siphoned off. Suggestions that Oliphant's run was intended to weaken McDonald's showing have swirled since Oliphant entered the race, and the Pitch Weekly asked Oliphant some tough questions. I put the whole exchange below, but let's just pull out a few choice quotes.
First, he demonstrates his innumeracy and total lack of interest in the race by getting a simple inequality wrong, and being unable to either add two numbers or…
tfk | August 1, 2006Reposted from the old TfK, where it was picked up by the Dailykos, MSNBC, and many others.
For the Board of Ed:
Waugh won re-election. There's no Republican challenge, so that seat remains safe.
Cauble appears to have beat Morris! Only 68% of the precincts have reported (with several urban centers that will back Cauble experiencing technical problems), but the trend seems to be holding. If so (keynehore) a lightning rod on the conservative side got burned. Apparently it doesn't cut it to badmouth your colleagues and use government money to fund a Florida vacation. Tim Cruz will still…
tfk | August 10, 2004This was the first post ever on Thoughts from Kansas.
On the third anniversary of the decision to limit stem cell research, Laura Bush endorsed the existing stem cell policy. Lots of bloggers, especially Chris Mooney, have been pushing this as a wedge issue that the Democrats can win on, and rightly so. Even the Bushes seem to think so.
But there are just some fascinating philosophical issues in this that get glossed over too fast as this has been politicized. The debate, for those joining us recently, is to what extent stem cells obtained from human embryos ought to be accessible to…