National Review Online has posted this article, entitled "Evolving Double Standards: Establishing a state-funded church of Darwin". Its author, John West, claims that the NCSE is using religion to promote evolution, and using federal tax dollars to do it! Here's a representative quote:

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is on the front lines of the battle to keep religion out of the nation's science classrooms. A group whose self-described mission is "Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools," the NCSE routinely condemns anyone who wants to teach faith-based criticisms of evolutionary theory for trying to unconstitutionally mix church and state.

But in an ironic twist, it now turns out that the NCSE itself is using federal tax dollars to insert religion into biology classrooms. Earlier this year, the NCSE and the University of California Museum of Paleontology unveiled a website for teachers entitled "Understanding Evolution." Funded in part by a nearly half-million-dollar federal grant, the website encourages teachers to use religion to promote evolution. Apparently the NCSE thinks mixing science and religion is okay after all — as long as religion is used to support evolution.

The website in question can be found here.

Is the NRO right? Of course not. I have posted some comments in reply to Mr. West over at EvolutionBlog. Enjoy!

Posted by Jason Rosenhouse on Apr 1 at 02:27 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Jason South of Borneo Chela has posted an account of an 'Intelligent Design' lecture by a Dr Gunnar Dieckmann. It was basically the standard creationist jabber: microevolution, not macroevolution; quote-mining; straw men; polls; faulty definitions; and of course, the new weapon in the creationist armamentarium, Intelligent Design handwaving.

I've been to a few of these kinds of little talks by creationists, which are usually held in local churches before a friendly crowd, and they are something to experience, just to see what kind of crap is getting peddled. If you've never been to one, try it sometime—they are common, and there seems to be a whole crop of these guys on the low-budget church picnic circuit. If you don't think you could stomach it, read Jason's article to find out what they are like.

Posted by PZ Myers on Apr 1 at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

I received notice through the MARMAM listserve of two upcoming meetings open to the public on marine mammals and public policy. I will append the announcements.

The U.S. Marine Mammal Commission will host a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Acoustic Impacts on Marine Mammals, to be held April 28-30, 2004, in Arlington, VA. See this page for the meeting agenda and instructions for public comment.

The U.S. Marine Mammal Commission will host a workshop on the vulnerability of beaked whales to anthropogenic sound, to be held April 13-16, 2004, in Baltimore, MD. The public may attend as observers to this technical meeting. An agenda and information page will be posted for the meeting.

The schedule of upcoming meetings of the Marine Mammal Commission.

Continue reading "Marine Mammals and Public Policy - Two Meetings"

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on Apr 1 at 03:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

It's April Fool's Day, and our thoughts turn lightly to some memorable April Fool's jokes of years past. The antievolution crowd have proved good targets, primarily because of the general willingness to accept any argument, no matter how lame, if it seems to give them something against evolutionary biology.

I'm going to highlight three stories from the files:

The "Institute for Creation Research" and the Case of the Tuba-Playing Neanderthal

This tale starts with the April 1997 issue of Discover magazine, which contained an article about work on Neanderthals by German paleontologist Oscar Todkopf. It talked about apparent musical instruments (the "tuba" being made from a 6' piece of mammoth tusk) and a cave painting showing marching musicians. It continues with the Institute for Creation Research claiming in a radio show in 2000 that there is overwhelming evidence for Neanderthals being musically inclined. Enjoy.

"Dr." Kent Hovind and the Case of "Onyate Man"

The P. T. Barnum "One Born Every Minute" Award goes to "Dr. Dino" himself, creationist speaker Kent Hovind, who on May 7th, 1999, in a packed room in Philadelphia, urged his audience to study convincing new evidence of humans living with dinosaurs. Hovind's evidence, a web site at http://www.darwindisproved.com/Archive.html, turned out to be the annual NMSR April Fool's prank.

http://www.nmsr.org/hovind.htm

The Case of the Coso Artifact

A mysterious find from the depths of time proves our distant ancestors had high technology! Or does it? The Coso Artifact did baffle a number of people, including a laundry list of creationists. Its metallic components and suggestive X-ray analysis kept them guessing... until a collector of vintage spark plugs stepped in and resolved the mystery. This one's a Champion...

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on Apr 1 at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Previous entries at this blog have mentioned the cover story of the current issue of World magazine. The premise was that by the year 2025 the long-promised triumph of ID over Darwin will have happened. The magazine asked four leading design proponents to write "future histories" about how that triumph occurred.

On Monday I wrote a point-by-point reply to Phillip Johnson's contribution. I have now done likewise for William Dembski. His essay is available here. You can find my comments over at EvolutionBlog. Enjoy!

I have decided that I will not post a specific reply to Jeffrey Schwartz's essay. It is the least insane of the four (very faint praise), and should be replied to by someone who knows more about cognitive science than I do.

Posted by Jason Rosenhouse on Mar 31 at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Royal Truman, an organic chemist and ID proponent, continues his critique of the Lenski, et al., demonstration that irreducibly complex systems can evolve. Rather than cross-posting, my reply is here. From that reply:

Irreducible complexity is at the core of of the Intelligent Design movement’s claims about the unevolvability of certain kinds of systems, and is interpreted by ID proponents to be a signature of design by an Intelligent Agency. But if systems meeting the definition of irreducible complexity can evolve in a context that instantiates the general properties of evolutionary systems, then that claim is weakened, and indeed, is falsified with respect to the claim about evolutionary processes in general. And that’s what the Lenski, et al., paper does: it demonstrates that systems meeting the definition of IC can evolve in a context that instantiates the general properties and processes of evolutionary systems.

Read the whole posting on ISCID

Posted by Richard B. Hoppe on Mar 31 at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

An essay by Wesley R. Elsberry and Dave E. Thomas

The phrase "dogmatic Darwinists" has become a commonplace in antievolutionary writings. We are going to examine what is meant by the use of this phrase and why it is simply a dismissive rhetorical tactic employed by the antievolutionists, who otherwise would actually have to address the substantive arguments and persuasive evidence presented by biologists.

The following examples show the actual use of the charge of "dogmatic Darwinism" being made by various anti-evolutionists.

Continue reading ""Dogmatic Darwinists" - An Instance of the Misleading Rhetoric of the Anti-Evolutionists"

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on Mar 31 at 02:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Chris Mooney is an indispensable source for the examination of the effects of political policy on science, and his latest piece in his series on "sound" science is great reading. The issues he discusses, which are largely on environmental science in this case, are also highly relevant to the evolution creation debate. He quotes from a scathing report by George Brown that has the following sections:

• Peer Review is Suspect and the Unconventional Scientific Fringe is Probably Right
• Sound Science is Empirical Science
• The Trial Can Follow the Hanging

Boy, but that sounds familiar. The Intelligent Design movement practically has those written down as bylaws: uncritically accept whatever kooky minority supports your views, present a misleadingly simplistic view of science, and work from the desired result to the data you want, rather than drawing your conclusions from the data.

I've also made a few more comments on this subject at Pharyngula.

Posted by PZ Myers on Mar 31 at 09:45 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

A common charge of anti-evolutionists is to say “but what are the chances of this all happening by mechanistic and unguided processes?” Well, in this article (which I saw on Arts & Letters Daily), Freeman Dyson explains “Littlewood’s Law of Miracles,” which “states that in the course of any normal person’s life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month.” Reminds me of how Richard Feynman used to put it. “Today on the freeway, I drove behind a car whose license plate was 3SVD543. Can you imagine how small the chances are of that happening?”

For more on the unremarkability of extremely rare coincidences, see chapter 7 of Richard Dawkins’ magnificent Unweaving The Rainbow.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on Mar 31 at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Thrift is a virtue, right? No. Not when you see it in a member of a minority group. Then it is not thrift but stinginess.

At least that’s the way many prejudiced people see it. An attribute that they consider a virtue in themselves is miraculously transformed into an evil in people they dislike. Thus, “I spend my money wisely; Jews [or whoever] are stingy.” “I have a large circle of friends, and we all belong to the same church; Jews are cliquish.” “I like to relax and enjoy my coffee breaks; blacks are lazy.”

According to William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and others, supporters of evolution know full well that the theory is in tatters, but they support it because of dogmatic adherence to naturalism. I argue, to the contrary, that Dembski and Johnson are in fact projecting their own dogmatism onto “Darwinists.” Specifically, they see dogmatism as a virtue in themselves but not in their opponents.

Continue reading "I am firm, thou art stubborn, he is pigheaded"

Posted by Matt Young on Mar 31 at 08:08 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

There are certain resources out there known to those of us who keep tabs on the antievolution movement, day in, day out, that deserve a wider readership. Brian Poindexter's The Horse's Mouth is one of these. Brian has collected in this two-page PDF a number of quotations from leading antievolution figures where they explicitly invoke God and religious purposes as their reason for doing what they do. The PDF format means that it makes a great way to print off a number of these as needed for taking along to school board meetings, public comment periods, and the like.

Here's the introductory paragraph and first example from Brian's file.

Intelligent Design (ID) proponents deny any hidden creationist agendas, but rather claim they are only trying to promote good solid science in our public schools. To clear up any confusion over this matter, let’s hear about it straight from the mouths of those leading the Intelligent Design movement.

"We are taking an intuition most people have [the belief in God] and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator."

- Phillip Johnson quoted, Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator, The LA Times, 3/25/2001.

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on Mar 31 at 07:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

The current champion in the effort to mock that which is beyond parody, the ID articles in World magazine: Chun the Unavoidable.

Posted by PZ Myers on Mar 30 at 09:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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 whether what is being offered is a genuinely useful new idea in science and what is simply crank science.

14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.

Continue reading "The Passion of the IDalogue"

Posted by Ed Brayton on Mar 30 at 06:39 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

This is an essay I wrote a few years ago when Jonathan Wells published the execrable Icons of Evolution. It was to be published in a book that never came to fruition, so I put it on my website. It is appropriate for The Panda's Thumb, I think. Read it, and weep, seriously...

Continue reading "Mything the point: Jonathan Wells' bad faith"

Posted by johnw on Mar 30 at 05:40 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

On my way to the Thumb for an afternoon break, my collegue Alan Gishlick passed to me his booknote on The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Life. Although many Thumb patrons work (more or less) at University of Ediacara, we maintain an interest in the Cambrian even though the Cambrian critters are Johnnies-come-lately from our perspective.

Continue reading "The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Life"

Posted by Nick Matzke on Mar 30 at 04:33 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

[Disclaimer: I am a co-author of the research discussed below, but I felt it would be of interest to the community particularly as it may help clarify hominid relationships]

A paper by Charlie Lockwood (of University College London), Bill Kimbel (of Arizona State University) and I (also of ASU) just published in this weeks Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies," finds a strong agreement beween morphological and genetic variation among great apes when using a specific bone of the skull (the temporal) and a specific set of techniques (geometric morphometrics and distance-based tree generation). As the temporal bone is often well preserved in fossil hominids, we suggest that this combination of techniques may allow the inference of accurate phylogenies (i.e. congruent with genetic data) from such material. All very exciting, as it re-affirms the importance of morphological data in the phylogentic analysis of extinct hominids and opens up a range of possibilities for future studies, in that we feel reasonably confident that morphological trees thus derived using fossil material have a strong relationship to the patterns we would get if genetic data were available from the fossils.

Continue reading "Reconstructing Human Origins"

Posted by John M. Lynch on Mar 30 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Creationists often pretend that getting criticism that points out their ideas are completely invalid is a validation. It's enough that they can get a scientist into a debate; even if they are hopelessly outclassed, babble and lie and treat a scientific debate as if it were a tent revival, they will afterwards strut and preen and pretend that their participation alone makes them a legitimate member of the scientific community. Dawkins made this point in his essay, "Why I won't debate creationists",

Sometime in the 1980s when I was on a visit to the United States, a television station wanted to stage a debate between me and a prominent creationist called, I think, Duane P Gish. I telephoned Stephen Gould for advice. He was friendly and decisive: "Don't do it." The point is not, he said, whether or not you would "win" the debate. Winning is not what the creationists realistically aspire to. For them, it is sufficient that the debate happens at all. They need the publicity. We don't. To the gullible public that is their natural constituency, it is enough that their man is seen sharing a platform with a real scientist. "There must be something in creationism, or Dr. So-and-So would not have agreed to debate it on equal terms." Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation, you will be accused of cowardice or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science.

Well, now Francis Beckwith has now fallen squarely into that good ol' creationist tradition of crowing triumph where there is none.

Contine reading "What's that whining noise?" (on Pharyngula)

Posted by PZ Myers on Mar 30 at 06:23 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1)

Following Pharyngula's lead I have read the current cover story of World magazine. In it, the editors asked four contributors to imagine a future time, 2025 to be exact, when ID has replaced evolution. They are to write essays explaining how this change took place.

Pharyngula has already written an admirable dissection of Jonathan Wells' fantasies. Over at EvolutionBlog I offer my thoughts on Phillip Johnson's contribution.

In next few days I will have a look at Dembski's and Schwartz's contributions, unless other bloggers beat me to it, of course.

Posted by Jason Rosenhouse on Mar 29 at 10:17 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

I've written a few articles in the past about the evolution of human brain size: Big brains, big genes (which followed up on an essay by Zimmer on The Genes Behind Big Brains), Brain size and allometry, More on ASPM and the evolution of brain size, and Adaptive evolution of ASPM. These describe a gene, ASPM, identified as causing human microcephaly. ASPM is interesting for several reasons; it's homologous to a gene in Drosophila that also regulates the amount of neural tissue in that animal, and it seems to operate by controlling the pattern of mitoses, regulating the number of cells allocated in early development of the brain for commitment to the formation of the cortex. This is pretty cool stuff—genes that define how much brain tissue we have are likely to be important in human evolution. As I mentioned then, though, there is much more to building a good brain than raw bulk.

Now, in a recent article in Science, Piao et al. (2004) have identified another gene important in building brains, GPR56, which plays a role in organizing the distribution of cells within the cortex.

Continue reading "A very groovy brain gene" (on Pharyngula)

Posted by PZ Myers on Mar 29 at 08:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Here’s a nice news story about the new Teaching Evolution site from UC Berkeley.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on Mar 29 at 05:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

The Institute for Creation Research is a well known young-earth creationist outfit in California, which describes itself as a “Christ-Focused Creation Ministry.” But it also operates a graduate school which awards advanced degrees in biology, geology, and geophysics. That’s not a shocker—anyone who wants to can legally set up a “school” and award “degrees” (although some states do prohibit schools from using words like “degree” without state authorization). What’s troublesome is the ICR’s school is actually accredited by a nationally recognized accreditation agency.

Continue reading "How the ICR got its accreditation"

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on Mar 29 at 05:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Oh dear, it's happening again. We scientists are usually rather mellow, undemanding folk. Give us a cyclotron or an electron microscope and we will happily stay out of peoples way (pausing only to invent Plasma TV screens, or some such frippery). But what really gets our goat is when people decide to tell us what science is. It's bad enough when philosophers or sociologists do it, but now lawyers want to get in on the act. Yes, lawyers (see Is Beckwith Right? Does MN entail PN?) have decided that since science uses Methodological Naturalism, it automatically means we are all dedicated to Philosophical Naturalism. Well, that gets an entire heard of caprine organisms! Well, we scientists have bad news for you lawyer buckos, we don't do isms. We test things. And sometimes we test things that everyone widely accepts as "supernatural" that our lawyer friends would have us believe that dread Methodological/Philosophical whatever-it-is-ism will not allow us to test.

Continue reading "We don't need no steenking Philosophical Naturalism"

Posted by Ian Musgrave on Mar 29 at 04:06 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)