Stones & Bones
The book comes with a CD and there is a very useful accompanying web site, according to the publishers. The NCSE recommends it.
Monthly Archives: September 2010
Casey Luskin makes a reasonable argument that biology textbooks are biased and full of lies, on Fox News
NOT!!!!!!
Actually, I think we can make even better arguments about Luskin’s points than this fun video gives. Put them in the comment section please:
Just so you know … cdesign proponentsists
The blogosphere is structured like a bus of tourists heading into ever new territory being spoken to by a thousand guides with microphones in the front of the vehicle. Woe be it to any guide who points out something that the bus passed several blocks back. But sometimes it is appropriate to re-mention certain things else they fall into obscurity. Well, it’s great if certain things fall into obscurity, but not everything.
While doing a search for something else, I accidentally hit links to this particular issue, which played out quite some time ago. It is a wonderful story. Back in the Dover Trial days creationists had dropped their old label and tried to call themselves “Scientist” who proposed the new theory of life called “Intelligent Design.” In that trial, this actually became a critical issue: Is Intelligent Design a form of creationism or not? Evidence was put forth, and the judge eventually ruled that it was, and thus, since creationism was already considered by the courts to be a particular religious belief, not allowable as science content in public school classrooms.
One of the pieces of evidence was references to creationism in a will known creationist textbook called “Of Pandas and People.” The details are complicated, but suffice it to say that the ID proponents insisted that “creationism” did not have a role in Intelligent Design, as part of the theory, or as part of the community, or as part of the process of writing about it. But Barbara Forrest (author of Creationism’s trojan Horse) proved that there was a link by finding the phrase “cdesign proponentsists” in a version of the book, where someone had systematically gone through the text and replaced the term “cerationists” with the phrase “design proponents” but screwed up in this one place to get “cdesign proponentsists.”
That was actually used as evidence in the trial. One of the best descriptions of this event is by Nick Matzke at The Panda’s Thumb (click here) where he spoofs the creationists by describing “cdesign proponentsists” as a “missing link” between the era of “creationists” and “design proponents.”
So there you have it … an oldie but a goodie. Had you known about this already, I hope this reconstitutes a chuckle for you. If you had not heard of this before, well, you have now! Sometime it’s worth looking out the back of the bus to see what has been run over!
Blob 92 is already looking like a hurricane
I hereby withdraw my earlier prediction that a blob over Mali and Niger would be the next named Atlantic storm. Instead, I think it will be this one right here:
We shall name it Karl. If it forms into a tropical storm soon. Expect that by Thursday.
Science Education and Critical Thinking
I just want to remind returning teachers of this podcast:
How are today’s teachers sharing the wonders of science and critical thinking with the next generation of students?
With cognitive psychologist and university lecturer Barbara Drescher, and Mike McRae, former science teacher and current science writer for the education division of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
The Women Of Skepticism
…. the podcast of the recent Skeptically Speaking, is here. It’s a recorded live show!
This is not about women in skepticism. It is about skepticism, by women. Sort of. Anyway this episode includes:
Panelists: Kylie Sturgess of The Token Skeptic, Robynn “Swoopy” McCarthy of Skepticality, and Heidi Anderson and Jenna Marie Griffith of SheThought.
Field recordings: Donna Mugavero, Laurie Tarr, Dr. Pamela Gay, Dr. Rachie Dunlop, Jennifer Ouellette, Maria Walters, A Kovacs, Barbara Drescher
Dropbox is still good
I’ve been using Dropbox for several months now, and I still like it. I have it installed on two computers, a desktop and a laptop. I recently wiped the desktop’s hard drive and installed an entirety new drive and system, then I installed Dropbox, and all my files (which were stored on Dropbox) mysteriously appeared on the new installation. Not really quickly but not a lot slower than if I had used some kind of backup system, and with zero effort.
Evolution vs. Creationism: The Book
A life science teacher should not have to know about creationism to teach evolution, other than to the extent that you may cover the history of evolutionary biology, and begin in the days before science took center stage and natural philosophy was dragged off with one of those big vaudeville hooks. But, unfortunately, you do have to know something about it, about how to recognize it, how to argue with it, and about the legal and professional context of managing creationism among your students, your peers, and your bosses. One of the most important resources a life science teacher or an administrator overseeing science teaching, or for that matter a parent with a kid in school, can use is Eugenie Scott’s book, Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction Second Edition
Continue reading Evolution vs. Creationism: The Book
Facebooking Moose Busted for Bombing Conspiracy
Justin Carl Moose used his Facebook page to advocate violence against health care clinics where abortions are preformed, and urged violent attacks on people who work in such facilities. But, just like if you get stone drunk and photographs of you half naked wearing a lampshade on your head in some dive appear on Facebook then you can get in trouble, Moose’s Facebook activities have come back to haunt him. A secret undercover FBI agent approached Moose and asked for help building a bomb to blow up a clinic. Moose complied, and is now under arrest for conspiracy. I wonder how many other people (not informants or agents) Moose taught to make bombs, and I wonder if is bombs even work?
Continue reading Facebooking Moose Busted for Bombing Conspiracy
Three Tropical Energy Blobs
Tropical storms and hurricanes are eddies in the massive current of solar energy transiting from the equator, where there is lots of it, to the poles, where there is less. And when I say equator, I mean the ITCZ.
Anyway, there are three such concentration of energy in the Atlantic worthy of a close look. Igor is a hurricane of Category Four strength that will probably turn north and avoid land, but maybe not. Julia is a tropical storm that is expected to come close to hurricane strength in about two days, but will most likely not become a full scale hurricane. Julia is likely to turn north even farther out to sea than Igor.
The third blob of energy is a bunch of showers and thunderstorms linked to a large low pressure system in the west-central Caribbean that has an almost (but not quite) fifty-fifty chance of developing into a tropical storm.
There is a fourth blog that is currently located on the Mali-Niger border that I’m betting on to be the next named Atlantic storm. Karl with a K.
Bad Research
Cognitive psychologist Barbara Drescher joins us to discuss the common mistakes scientists make, and what happens to the science when their research goes wrong.
… and ….
Journalist David Dobbs explains the case against Marc Hauser, a prominent Harvard evolutionary biologist who was recently found guilty of scientific misconduct.
How do we judge those who act in an immoral or unethical manner?
I dunno…. let’s ask a expert!
Continue reading How do we judge those who act in an immoral or unethical manner?
The Great Highway of Insects
If you haven’t seen this, you should:
Hat Tip: Bug Girl
New in Paperback Book on Permian Mass Extinction
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half of all species then living.
Far less well-known is a much bigger catastrophe – the greatest mass extinction of all time – which occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. In this cataclysm, at least ninety per cent of life was destroyed, both on land, including sabre-toothed reptiles and their rhinoceros-sized prey, and in the sea.
After the event the Earth was a cold, airless place, with only one or two species eking out a poor existence. What caused destruction on such an unimaginable scale, and how did life recover?
Michael Benton’s book about this catastrophe – When Life Nearly Died: the greatest mass extinction of all time – has been published in paperback this week. Michael Benton is Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol.
James Lovelock said of the book: “Michael Benton’s book brings back to Earth Science a sense of adventure … it is both a wonderfully good read and a valued reference”.
When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened 251 million years ago, but also the recent rekindling of the idea of catastrophism, after it was seemingly extinguished in a great battle of ideas in the early nineteenth century. Scientists have at last come to accept that the world has been subject to huge cataclysms in the past. For the end-Permian event the killing models are controversial – was the agent the impact of a huge meteorite or comet over ten kilometres in diameter, or prolonged volcanic eruption in Siberia? The evidence has been accumulating through the 1990s and into the new millennium, and Michael Benton gives his verdict at the very end of this book.
~ A repost for Back to School Special ~
Teachers Gone Wild
My wife, a biology teacher, gets crazy in the biology classroom. She is famous for her interpretive dance renditions of numerous cellular processes. The students in the first class of the day reportedly stare in disbelief and roll their eyes, but the students in the other classes throughout the day seem to love it. Several of her students have taken to filming her pedagogical paroxysms, and you know that some day, Amanda will be a YouTube Star.
Continue reading Teachers Gone Wild