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jrosenhouse | February 7, 2014Philosopher John Wilkins has responded to yesterday's post about conflicts between evolution and religion. Sadly, he so grossly distorts what I said that I don't think he has replied very effectively.
John quotes only a single short excerpt from my lengthy post:
So, after all, that, let us return to Plait’s argument. He tells us that the problem is too many people perceiving evolution as a threat to their religious beliefs. Indeed, but why do they perceive it that way? Is it a failure of messaging on the part of scientists? Is it because Richard Dawkins or P. Z. Myers make snide remarks…
gregladen | February 7, 2014I wrote this OpEd for MinnPost on science and Congress. Please go read it and comment!
gregladen | February 7, 2014It should have been a concern the day after Sochi won its bid for the Winter Olympic Games several years ago.
It is reported that authorities or private contractors are taking the street dogs off the streets in Sochi, in preparation for the Olympics, which start tonight. A friend of mine was living in Athens for the weeks before the Summer Olympics there, and she told me that authorities did the same, and that included summary executions, of the dogs, where they were found.
This has sparked outrage, of course.
I do have to wonder why the decision is made to remove these dogs, and in…
jrosenhouse | February 6, 2014Writing at Slate, Phil Plait has a post up about the big Ham vs. Nye debate. He gets off to a good start:
Last night, science advocate Bill Nye “debated” with creationist Ken Ham, the man who runs the Creation Museum in Kentucky. I was torn about the event; I think it's important that science get its advocacy, but I also worry that by even showing up to such a thing, Nye would elevate the idea of creationism as something worth debating.
But I've thought about it, and here's the important thing to remember: Roughly half the population of America does believe in some form of creationism or…
jrosenhouse | February 5, 2014In yesterday's post, I remarked that the clear loser in yesterday's debate was the intelligent design crowd. They've been trying for years to persuade people that anti-evolutionism has nothing--nothing--to do with blinkered religious obscurantism. And in one widely viewed, widely covered, debate Ken Ham went and messed it all up.
The Discovery Institute seems to agree with my assessment. In a blog post bearing the desperate title, “In the Ham-Nye Debate, Not So Much as a Glove Was Laid on Intelligent Design,” they write:
Here's an important point to register: Whatever you think of the Ham…
jrosenhouse | February 5, 2014Among the people unimpressed with Ken Ham's performance yesterday is televangelist, and former Republican Presidential candidate, Pat Robertson:
In a video of his appearance on the 700 Club TV program, captured by Right Wing Watch, Robertson reacted to the debate between Ham and Nye by reiterating his previously stated belief that Young Earth Creationism is false.
“There ain't no way that's possible,” he said, referring to the belief put forth by Bishop James Ussher that the earth is 6,000 years old.
“We have skeletons of dinosaurs that go back 65 million years,” Robertson stated. “To say it…
pgleick | February 5, 2014
It is time to recognize the serious California drought for what it is: a bellwether of things to come; a harbinger of even more serious challenges to California water resources allocation, management, and use.
The drought could end next month. It could go on for more years. But it will not be the last drought and it is vital that we take the opportunity -- amidst the serious problems farmers, cities, and the environment all face -- to rethink those aspects of California water policy created in the 1900s and 2000s that no longer make sense in the 21st century.
We must also consider this…
jrosenhouse | February 4, 2014The big debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham was tonight. Click here for the video. The whole thing is close to three hours, so get comfortable if you want to watch it all.
I was watching it live, but about two-thirds of the way through I kept losing the signal. I would reload the page, but then I'd get an error message twenty seconds later. So I gave up. They were just starting the “questions from the audience” phase, and I was not optimistic that that would be worth wading through. P. Z. Myers has the live blog if you want the abridged version. I mostly agree with his comments.…
jrosenhouse | February 3, 2014I had not intended to do another post on this topic so soon after the last one. But I have just read
an astonishingly bad post over at Uncommon Descent that discusses this issue, and I cannot resist responding.
The post is called, “Where Do We Get the Probabilities?” It was written by Winston Ewert, and it opens like this:
What is the probability of a structure like the bacterial flagellum evolving under Darwinian processes? This is the question on which the entire debate over Darwinian evolution turns. If the bacterial flagellum’s evolution is absurdly improbable, than Darwinism is false.…
gregladen | February 3, 2014This is an open letter to potential CD3 congressional candidate Sharon Sund. There is no declared candidate in this district at this time, but there is an increasing interest in recruiting Sharon to run against Erik Paulsen.
Dear Sharon,
Three years ago I decided to get involved in the Minnesota Third Congressional District election. I had been involved in previous races, supporting various DFL candidates through the caucus, primary, and election process. But this time I decided to explicitly seek out a candidate who was science oriented, who would make issues like climate change a…
jrosenhouse | February 1, 2014This week's problem was composed by Mircea Manolescu in 1956. In the position below, it is white to move and mate in two.
Remember that white is always moving up the board, while black is always moving down. Vertical files are labeled as a--h from left to right, while the horizontal ranks are labeled 1--8 from bottom to top. So in the diagram we see that the white king is on a6 while the black king is on c4. When we write down moves, an “x” indicates a capture.
This problem is our first example of a multi-phase problem. To understand what that means, have another look at last week's…
esiegel | January 31, 2014Do black holes exist? The world’s most famous scientist vs. the actual science.
“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the Universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” -Stephen Hawking
Here in our little corner of the Universe, the Earth is a pretty intense source of gravity for us. If we want to escape its gravitational pull, we’d need to accelerate ourselves up past the escape velocity, or the speed necessary to climb out of the gravitational potential well that Earth’s mass creates. We can (and have) accomplished this, in fact, but it would take a speed of around…
egrossman | January 31, 2014“Millions of Americans use antibacterial hand soap and body wash products. Although consumers generally view these products as effective tools to help prevent the spread of germs, there is currently no evidence that they are any more effective at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water,” wrote the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in issuing a proposed rule last month. “Further, some data suggest that long-term exposure to certain active ingredients used in antibacterial products—for example, triclosan (liquid soaps) and triclocarban (bar soaps)—could pose health risks,…
jrosenhouse | January 30, 2014California is running out of water:
California is dry as a bone, and the effects are like something out of an apocalyptic film.
Cities are running out of water. Communities are fighting over what little water there is. Local governments are imposing rationing coupled with steep fines. Fires are ravaging the state. Entire species and industries are threatened.
For California, 2013 was the driest year since the state started measuring rainfall in 1849. Paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram says that, according to the width of old tree rings, California hasn't been this dry for about 500 years.…
gregladen | January 30, 2014First, the conspiracy:
Then, the embarrassment:
And in case you are not freaked out enough ...
gregladen | January 30, 2014I've written a post I'd like you to read at Minnesota Progressive Project: Why Erik Paulsen Has To Be Replaced As Minnesota’s Third District Representative
jrosenhouse | January 28, 2014Here's a trailer for the HBO documentary about evolution and religion that I mentioned a while back:
The film was made by Antony Thomas, who is a very prominent documentary filmmaker from England. I was one of the talking heads interviewed for the film, and Antony wrote to tell me that some of my interview made it into the final cut. Yay me! I have not seen the finished film, but from our conversations I am confident it will not suggest that creationism has any scientific credibility whatsoever.
jrosenhouse | January 27, 2014When I finished graduate school in 2000, I interviewed with a large number of schools. One of them was Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. They are a pretty strong liberal arts school which, its name notwithstanding, has never had a religious affiliation. I was interviewed by the chair of the department, and at one point he asked me, after noting that I had lived in the Northeast for nearly my whole life, whether I thought I would be happy to moving to Texas. I waxed eloquent about how I could be happy living anywhere, regardless of the state or whether it was a big city or a small…
illconsidered | January 27, 2014(promotion alert)
I know most readers of this blog are godless scientific types, devoid of spirit and joy, unable to see the beauty in anything beyond a pile of numbers....(um, maybe that's not the start of a great sales pitch, let's try again :)
For all of AFTIC's or ScienceBlog's readers who find beauty not just in an elegant solution to a problem or an intricate model that captures the essence of some natural system, but also in art, nature and the human spirit, I would like to announce a project my brother and my sister-in-law, Aaron and Kristina Beck, are trying to launch. It is a…
gregladen | January 27, 2014I'll admit right away at being cynical about the chemical industry, so I look suspiciously at information sent to me by the American Chemical Society. (Something comes from them every day.) But chemistry is science, and you need to know more about it and to see how it relates to your day to day existence. In this case, "Without Chemistry The Middle Class Lifestyle Would Possibly Be A Little Less Good ..."
What am I talking about? Have a look at this interesting video, the first in a series of chemistry life hacks, from the American Chemical Association:
"Without chemicals, you are less…