November 18, 2007
PBS’s ombudsman takes note of worries that Memphis did not get the NOVA program on the Dover, Pennsylvania trial of intelligent design. “Judgment Day” was not aired in the normal NOVA timeslot.
Station management pleads that they made no decision to censor, just a decision to run supporting program for Ken Burns’ massive film project, “The War,” instead. (HD viewers could see the NOVA program).
Let’s hope that’s accurate.
In the meantime, the letters to the ombudsman give a clear probe into the minds of viewers; favorable reactions were many; more numerous, unfavorable reactions seemed to come mostly from the reason-challenged side of humanity. It’s worth a read.
Sample of the unfavorable:
After tonight’s program on Intelligent Design it proves that PBS has a “design” of its own — it’s one that is driving the country to destruction — your bias is completely counter to history, to the very foundation of our nation and history of nations. Every part from beginning to end had its own objective; completely counter to the Truth which is proven in the rise and fall of nations.
Daryle Getting, Winter Park, FL
It doesn’t take a “Rocket Scientist” to figure out that if we, as humans, evolved from monkeys . . . THEN WHY? . . . Are there STILL Monkeys??? We were “Created” by God!!! Pull up AOL now and you’ll notice the Gov. of Georgia praying for rain, (No Doubt to GOD). When 9/11 happened what did every good neighbor do? PRAY. Not to monkeys . . . To our “Creator”!!! It shouldn’t take tragic and desperate circumstances for people to realize this fact!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!! In GOD We Trust!!!
Sonya L. Johnson, North Port, FL
Sample of the favorable:
I just watched your program “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.” Fantastic! I don’t remember recently watching such an informative and well put together program. PBS deserves to be awarded for this stellar program. Thank you so much for actually airing a program that was intelligent, well put together, and fun to watch. Superb. Atlanta, GA
Am I unfair in labeling some “reason-challenged?” Certainly fact challenged. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3 Comments | 
Biology, Darwin, Evolution, Famous trials, First Amendment, Jurisprudence, Law, Natural history, Religion, Science and faith, Separation of church and state, Voodoo science | Tagged: Darwin, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Kitzmiller, NOVA, PBS, Religion, Science | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 17, 2007
The Discovery Institute implicitly admitted that their concern about evolution is religious today. They named Michael Medved a fellow.
No, Bill Dembski cited the press release, Medved was not invited because of his acumen in urban planning, or even his experience fighting traffic in California. No, no one even thought Medved has any science chops.
It’s the religion, stupid!
“Michael Medved is an intellectual entrepreneur, a political and cultural polymath with great insights, judgment and wit. We are delighted to have this new relationship with him,” said Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman.
“Intellectual entrepreneur?”
The Seattle prayer tank suffered serious blows in 2005, 2006 and 2007, when their fellows abruptly dropped defense of intelligent design as presented by the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, a federal court ruled that ID is not science but is religion-based, and the respected science production NOVA produced a two-hour program highlighting and explaining that court decision.
So, the DI poobahs figured, what better to do than hire a nationally-syndicated culture-lamenting talk radio guy to front for the band? One wonders if Rush Limbaugh turned them down.
The research agenda for the intelligent design movement could have used the money, and appointing a research fellow would have helped establish that science remains a focus of Discovery Institute work.
Science won’t fill the pews, though. So they hired Medved.
See more comments at Panda’s Thumb. (Did I mention Bigfoot?) And a tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers, who will probably not much like my post on Ken Miller coming up, who pointed me to Amused Muse.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Discovery Institute, evolution denial, Intelligent Design, Michael Medved, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 17, 2007
Before new science textbooks will be approved by the Texas State Board of Education, the Board is engaging in a review and possible rewriting of science standards. In the wake of the Board’s voting to require Texas high school graduates to get an additional year of science education, this should be a good sign of concern for tough standards and high quality education.
Science standard rewrites in other states have been seen as open season on evolution in biology, however. Ohio and Kansas experiences in the since 1999 suggest advocates of science and education should be wary. Texas is not known for strong support of evolution by education officials (a reputation that serious education officials should think hard about changing).
Texas Citizens for Science, a group assembled in 2003 to defend good science and especially evolution, is watching the SBOE actions. TCS President Steven Schafersman has shared his views on actions in the past month, in an e-mail to TCS members and supporters of good textbooks. For the record, I reproduce his e-mail text completely below the fold. This material is also available in different form at the TCS website.
Citizens still carry a lot of clout in government in this nation. Good science standards in textbooks require vigilance of such people. We thank them.
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Education quality, Evolution, Science and faith, Texas, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Education, Evolution, Science, Texas State Board of Education, Textbooks | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 15, 2007
Day in and day out, this cartoon of a poor African kid getting hit by a tsunami of drought is among the most popular posts on this blog, and one of the most popular cartoon images on the web. I think the cartoonist Alberto Sabat was trying to make a point, that kids in SubSaharan Africa were (are) being clobbered by a disaster as great as the great tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean after Christmas 2005.
In other words, there were other disasters, other victims, and we ignore them.
If Al Gore had a lot of media clout and enjoyed bias from media in his favor, you’d hear about a great storm ready to smash one of the poorest, lowest countries on the planet, where recent increases in povery-struck populations has put millions of people in a great river’s delta, in a most dangerous place to be in a cyclone. But you’re not hearing the story.
If our news media were biased to the liberal side, a story about such a pending disaster would be on the front page of every liberal newspaper, and leading every liberal television news broadcast.
If our private charity groups were groveling to the climate change Cassandras, they’d be begging for money to evacuate people from the path of a category 5 cyclone, now.
If Katrina’s aftermath alerted us to the dangers of powerful storms hitting areas of great poverty, we’d be glued to our television sets if there were another such drama unfolding anywhere on Earth.
If the Bush administration were concerned about preventing the growth of al Quaeda and similar movements, it would be doing what it could to help out a nominally friendly government of an Islamic nation in the path of a great storm.
Right?
The photos are spectacular. The news is . . . eerily quiet.
This is Cyclone Sidr. It’s a category 5, and it keeps defying predictions that it will weaken as it moves north, oddly acting as if it has targeted the low river delta regions of Bengla Desh. Chris Mooney calls it “beautiful but deadly.” P. Z. Myers raises an alarm about our ignorance of the storm. More details from Mooney. Lamentations from Mooney’s co-blogger Kirshenbaum (are they playing the role of Jeremiah or Cassandra? Rather depends on your reaction, no?)
Do any high school geography, world history, government or economics courses still do current events? Here’s the raw material for a good, consciousness-raising warm-up. Prelude to a disaster, we hope not. The lack of news coverage is disturbing.
Resources:
Horrible thought: Is the dearth of reaction partly because broadcasters don’t know how to pronounce the name of the storm?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Climate change, Disasters, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Politics, Poverty | Tagged: Cyclone Sidr, natural disaster, political disaster, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 14, 2007
A much more pernicious loss of choice and control is brought about by repeated failure. After a number of experiences in which our efforts are futile, many of us will give up. Well-known research by psychologist Martin Seligman and others shows that this learned helplessness then generalizes to situations where the person can, in fact, exercise control. Even when solutions are available, a mindless sense of futility prevents a person from reconsidering the situation. The person remains passive in the face of situations that could easily be handled without undue difficulty. Past experience determines present reactions and robs the individual of control. . . .
Learned helplessness was originally demonstrated in rats. When placed in ice water, they have no difficulty swimming around for forty to sixty hours. However, if, instead of being put immediately into the water, the rats are held until they stop struggling, something very different happens. Instead of swimming, these rats give up immediately and drown.
Ellen J. Langer (b. 1947), Harvard University psychologist, Mindfulness, 1989, pp. 53-54
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Brain development, Brain learning, Education, Education success, Teaching | Tagged: business management, Education, learned helplessness, psychology, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 13, 2007
For the next couple of hours, I’ll be watching instead of blogging, mostly (“Judgment Day: Evolution on Trial”). PZ is liveblogging, he says. I’d go for the popcorn, but we just finished dinner.
These issues are still very much alive. Texas science standards are up for rewriting now (a bunch to come on that here, from Texas Citizens for Science, soon). Texas biology books will be updated in the near future. Creationists have flocked to Texas in anticipation.
Judge Jones was featured on The News Hour tonight — the man is a statesman of great stature, refusing to denigrate either side, but carefully explaining the law and the judge’s duty.
Stay tuned to PBS tonight. You will not see anything like this program on any commercial outlet, broadcast or cable. PBS remains one of the shining lights of our government, a wonderful idea executed with flair.
_______________________________
7:56 p.m.: The guy playing Kenneth Miller in the trial reenactment is good, but he’s nowhere near as engaging as Miller is. This NOVA is a good deal: I wish someone had a good video of Miller’s presentation to the Texas State Board of Education in the 1990s (1999? 1997? I’ll have to look that up). It was a stellar performance before a hostile crowd, and it was one of the big rocks that stopped the anti-evolution tide.
For that matter, I wish we had copies of the testimony of Andy Ellington and Stephen Weinberg from 2003. I understand a video may still exist (Discovery Institute taped the whole thing, but don’t expect to see them ever let this stuff out for others to see — it’s too powerful). Ellington was afire, and Weinberg was as statesmanlike as anyone will ever see him. It was great.
Nick Matzke got a little camera time earlier. He’s a hero in this story, and he was grand earlier in other states.
Watch this stuff carefully. The scientists and policy defenders of evolution are almost to a person, wonderful people. You’d enjoy a dinner with Eugenie Scott. You’d love to spend an afternoon with Andrew Ellington. There are scientific, political and religious differences galore, but very few really disagreeable people defending evolution. Funny: The pro-evolution side demonstrates the virtues of Christian charity better than the self-proclaimed Christian side. (And as if on cue, just after 8:00 p.m. Bill Buckingham shows up to attack the teachers as non-Christian, or not good Christians, even the ministers’ kids — and he looks crabby, if not downright bothered.)
8:07 p.m.: The actor playing Michael Behe has his voice and delivery down pretty well, but without the usual smirk. I wonder if Behe smirked through his testimony — anybody know? Maybe the ID folks would have been better off to hire an actor to play Behe.
8:10 p.m.: Behe’s irreducibly complex stuff, and bacterial flagella: Has anybody ever asked Behe why an intelligent designer wouldn’t have used a screw propeller, which would be more efficient than a flagellum? Is the designer irreducibly dense, too?
8:55 p.m.: IDists and other creationists won’t like the program. It was fair. In two hours, NOVA offers clear understanding of what happened at the trial, and to people who listen, it tells why evolution came out on top.
Great program. How many will it sway?
In the interim comes word that Kenneth Miller will be in Dallas day-after-tomorrow from something called “Pegasus News Service.” Since Pegasus is the flying horse logo of the old Magnolia Petroleum Company, which was adopted by Dallas-based Mobil (before Exxon-Mobil), it’s clearly a Dallas-based news group. Maybe SMU related. Here are the details of Miller’s visit:
On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Kenneth R. Miller will lecture on the subject of science and faith in America, and how the falling out of favor of “intelligent design” will affect our understanding of science as a tool for understanding our world. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Only one Scout meeting conflicting . . . can I make it?
___________________________
Resources
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Jurisprudence, Law, Public education, Voodoo science | Tagged: education standards, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, Separation of church and state | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 11, 2007
Evolution denier Ray Bohlin is in Liberia telling the Liberians their salvation lies with DDT, at least in fighting malaria. Wholly apart from the theological problems of elevating a chlorinated hydrocarbon killer to the level of idolic deity, DDT can’t solve the many problems that conspire to keep Liberia in the grip of DDT as a killer of children and pregnant women.
What an odd conflict of faith and science. Bohlin is a Christian. His strong faith in DDT is a double puzzle.
[And, what is it with all this denial? Creationist/IDist/evolution deniers tend heavily to be HIV deniers as well, and global warming deniers — now DDT deniers? Have they all had close encounters of the third kind, too? Is it a virus? Is it a cult?]
Fighting malaria in Africa requires a concentrated, integrated plan that provides appropriate medical care to cure any human who contracts malaria, thus breaking a key link in the malaria cycle. Malaria kills children under 5 and pregnant women in larger percentages than other people. Bohlin correctly notes that malaria kills, and that the disease disrupts the nation’s economy. But his recommendation that Liberians increase DDT use, in the absence of an integrated pest management plan, is a prescription for dashed hopes at best, and disaster at worst.
Bohlin seems to urge junk science. DDT offers significant dangers, which Bohlin seems blithely to ignore.
Why won’t DDT help much in the fight against malaria?
Wholly apart from the inherent problems of DDT — mosquitoes develop immunity, or already are immune; DDT kills beneficial insect and arachnid predators of malaria vectors, so the mosquitoes come back in geometrically increased numbers; DDT kills the food fish of people who live on fish; DDT kills reptile, mammal and bird predators of mosquitoes, so the mosquito population roars back with increased killing efficiency — DDT cannot solve the other problems that play a greater role in frustrating the fight against malaria. DDT doesn’t treat the disease once humans catch it; DDT is just one, small tool to prevent infection, and perhaps not the most effective. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
13 Comments | Africa, DDT, History, Junk science, Malaria, Voodoo science | Tagged: DDT, DDT denial, evolution denial, HIV denial, Junk science, Malaria, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 11, 2007
He did it to expose the climate change skeptics.
Nature‘s blog has the interview, here.
Why did you decide to construct the fake website? Was it purely a joke or did you set out to make people taking your paper at face value look foolish?
Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of scepticism.
Are you surprised at the pick up your coverage has generated?
Not really. Equally ridiculous claims – like those in the paper attached to the “Oregon Petition” or David Bellamy’s dodgy glacier figures – have been widely circulated and taken up by the ‘sceptic’ community. But you can explain this until you are blue in the face. To get people to sit up and listen, you have to demonstrate it. This is what I set out to do.
Still waiting for someone to back up junk science purveyor Steve Milloy’s claim that the hoax was exposed by the skeptics it was aimed at. The hoaxer doesn’t think so.
[Yeah, I know — Nature is a British publication, and they use the British spelling for “skeptic.”]
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, Global warming, Hoaxes, Reason, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Climate change, Global warming, hoax, lazy reporters, Rush Limbaugh, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 8, 2007
This is another in an occasional series of posts dissecting the claims made by JunkScience purveyor Steven Milloy’s “100 things you should know about DDT.” What I find in this list is a lot of deception, misleading claims, and general unjustified vitriol. In this post I’m looking at Milloy’s point #10.
Milloy said:
10. Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote “Dr. DeWitt’s now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched.” DeWitt’s 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the “control”” birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt’s report that “control” pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.
Considering Carson’s careful citing of studies on all sides of the issue, and her use of sources dating back 30 years and more, it would be difficult for her to have “represented the science of DDT erroneously.” Carson got the science right. Milloy doesn’t even get the quote of Carson right, however, deleting her main point, and editing it to set up a straw man argument which misleads unwary readers.
Carson represented the science faithfully. Milloy simply dissembles in his accusation that she got it wrong.
In fact, Carson offered more than 50 pages of citations to studies, virtually everything available on DDT and the other chemicals she wrote about, up to the time of publication. Carson had started working on the issue in 1948, and worked almost solely on the work that became Silent Spring between 1959 and the book’s publication. None of the studies she cited has been retracted. Most of the studies were determined to be accurate in follow-up studies.
I discuss this at some length, below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
17 Comments | Accuracy, Cost of Green, DDT, Environmental protection, Green Politics, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Cost of Green, DDT, Eggshell Thinning, Green Politics, James B. DeWitt, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Silent Spring, Steve Milloy, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 7, 2007
Mario Capecchi’s story of his mother’s arrest by the Gestapo, and his life on the streets of Italy as a young boy, only piqued interest in the story of his winning a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, earlier this year.
It is such a great story, people set out to write it down in detail. Some of the details discovered, however, don’t quite square with historical records.
A group of reporters with the Associated Press uncovered the discrepancies. Realizing that the story comes from the memory of a very young child, so far the headlines and the stories have been corrective, but gently and adoringly so.
The story Capecchi has told repeatedly over the years in speeches and interviews begins when he is 3 and the Gestapo, Adolf Hitler’s secret police, snatch his mother before his very eyes and dispatch her to Dachau concentration camp. The peasant family that takes him in abandons him and he spends four years wandering about northern Italy – a street urchin, alone and begging for food.
At war’s end – on the boy’s ninth birthday – mother and son are reunited in the hospital ward where he is being treated for malnutrition and typhoid. They set sail for America where he flourishes, embarks on a brilliant research career – and goes on to win the Nobel Prize for medicine.
But The Associated Press, which set out to chronicle his extraordinary story in greater detail, has uncovered several inconsistencies and unanswered questions, chief among them whether his mother was in Dachau, and whether he really was for a long time a homeless street child.
You can read the full story at The Salt Lake Tribune.
This is a classic case. Memory differs from the facts. Human minds fill in details that would otherwise leave a mystery, and the details filled in differ from the details that can be corroborated.
This is part of what keeps history lively.
We see here also a demonstration that there is much we can never really know for sure. Historians work from imperfect records in the best of circumstances.
The director of the Dachau Memorial, Barbara Distel, said women weren’t imprisoned at Dachau until September 1943 – more than two years after Capecchi says his mother was arrested. She also said only Jewish women from eastern Europe were held in Dachau’s satellite camps.
”I do remember – I remember the Gestapo coming to the Wolfsgruben chalet,” Capecchi told AP in the interview, conducted days after his Nobel Prize was announced. ”It’s sort of like a photograph. I can tell you how many people were in the room, which ones were in uniform and which ones weren’t. Just boom. It’s there.”
Pressed to explain how he could be certain he was just 3 1/2 at the time and remember it so clearly, he stood by his account.
The big question we want answered here is this: How can we get more great people like Mario Capecchi? Can we get a few Nobelists out of the current generation of children?
No one proposes revisiting war to make kids great, so the fascination with Capecchi’s childhood is more academic, if still for inspiration.
In the end, we have a mystery. How did Capecchi get to be such a great man? There remains that great chapter near the end of the book; early chapters are missing.
Perhaps AP could put a team of reporters on a story to explain exactly how Capecchi’ s research explains what it does, and what it means down the road. That’s a story that needs to be told, too.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
2 Comments | Accuracy, Capturing history, Heroes, Historic documents, History, Research, Science, World War II | Tagged: Biography, History, Mario Capecchi, Nobel Prize in Medicine, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 31, 2007
News reports and a syndicated radio program, “Evolution Minute,” talk about the efforts to upgrade science education in Florida. Florida worries that without high science standards in education, their kids will be left behind.
High standards? That’s right: Evolution’s in, intelligent design is not. High quality education, not high feely education.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Education quality, Evolution, Intelligent Design | Tagged: Education, Evolution, high standards, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 20, 2007
Panorama of the Mountains noted the 60th anniversary of the first known faster-than-sound flight by a human — October 14, 1947. Test pilot and all-around good guy Chuck Yeager did it.
This is a great post-World War II, Cold War story of technology that should pique interest in the time and the events for many students. For a 90 minute class, a solid lesson plan could be developed around the science and technology of the flight (yes, even in history — this is key stuff in the development of economics, too). The physics of sound, a brief history of flight and aircraft, the reasons for post-war development of such technologies, the political situation: There are a dozen hooks to get into the topic. Fair use would cover showing a clip from “The Right Stuff” about the flight, and there are some dramatic clips there. (The movie is 3 hours and 13 minutes; great stuff in a format too long for classroom use. Is there any possibility your kids would read the Tom Wolfe book?)
When will someone – the Air Force? NASA? an aircraft company? — put together a DVD with authorized film clips from the newsreels and the movie, and suggested warm ups and quiz questions?
Back in the bad old days one of my elementary school teachers did an entire morning on the speed of sound, aircraft engineering, and the history of faster-than-sound flight. I learned the accurate way to measure the distance to lightning by counting seconds to the thunder (it’s about a mile for every 5 seconds, not a mile for every second, as our school-yard lore had it).
- Image at right: Brig. Gen. Charles E. Yeager today, with image of Bell X-1; U.S. Air Force image
This program, to fly at the speed of sound, at what is now Edwards Air Force Base changed the way science of flight is done in the U.S. Yeager led the group of Air Force pilots who proved that military pilots could do the testing of aircraft; the project proved the value of conducting research with experimental aircraft on military time. The methods developed for testing, evaluating, redesigning and retesting are still used today. The drive for safety for the pilots also grew out of these early efforts at supersonic flight.
Yeager’s flight came when technology was cool, not just for the virtual reality role playing games (RPGs), which were still decades in the future, but because it was new, interesting, and it opened a world of possibilities. We all wanted to fly airplanes, especially small, fast airplanes. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Airplanes, Cold War, Heroes, History, Physics, Science, Technology | Tagged: Chuck Yeager, faster than sound, Science, supersonic flight, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 18, 2007
. . . and then other people who are expert in the field kick their butts.
No, I’m not talking about Al Gore. James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, recently insulted the entire continent of Africa, and a good bunch of North and South America, and western Europe. No, Dr. Watson, race is not a predictor of intelligence.
Greg Laden provides the boot action at his blog, Evolution. Bookmark it. As certain as your heritage is passed to your children by a double-helix structure in the structure of your cells, some fool will repeat Watson’s argument. Veterans of quote-mine wars warn that creationists right now are filing the statement away for use in some future debate, where they will claim falsely that “the science of genetics is evil because it promotes racism.”
So keep that Laden piece handy.
And if all of this is news to you as a social studies teacher? Read the piece thoroughly. Check out Laden’s links, ask questions if you’re unclear on anything he says. Laden takes questions. P. Z. Myers takes questions (and a tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula for point out Laden’s post). Comments are open here.
See, this is how science and free discussion work: People get awards for the good ideas they have, and they pay the price for stupid ideas. Discussion, among the experts, is based on real data, real research. Ideas win when they have the data to back them up, not on the word of some authority, regardless whether the authority is well schooled, of the right or far-right political party, or supernatural.
It’s a model for our students.
__________________________
Update: Even more from Mr. Laden, as he notes in comments. You have plenty of bookmarks available, right?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Brain development, Brain learning, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Ethics, Evolution, Learning, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Teaching | Tagged: Africa, intelligence, Racism, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 9, 2007
Having a brand new canyon is sort of a once in a lifetime experience. It might even be more rare than that.
Texas’s Canyon Lake Gorge opened to the public last week — a gorge, a canyon, that was carved out over a couple of days in 2002 when flood waters charging over an overtaxed dam cut through soft soils and soft rock to expose millions of years of sediments. Dinosaur footprints were exposed by the flood, too.
A torrent of water from an overflowing lake sliced open the earth in 2002, exposing rock formations, fossils and even dinosaur footprints in just three days. Since then, the canyon has been accessible only to researchers to protect it from vandals, but on Saturday it opens to its first public tour.
“It exposed these rocks so quickly and it dug so deeply, there wasn’t a blade of grass or a layer of algae,” said Bill Ward, a retired geology professor from the University of New Orleans who started cataloging the gorge almost immediately after the flood.
The mile-and-a-half-long gorge, up to 80 feet deep, was dug out from what had been a nondescript valley covered in mesquite and oak trees. It sits behind a spillway built as a safety valve for Canyon Lake, a popular recreation spot in the Texas Hill Country between San Antonio and Austin.
The reservoir was built in the 1960s to prevent flash flooding along the Guadalupe River and to assure the water supply for central Texas. The spillway had never been overrun until July 4, 2002, when 70,000 cubic feet of water gushed downhill toward the Guadalupe River for three days, scraping off vegetation and topsoil and leaving only limestone walls.
Canyon Lake is southwest of Austin, almost due west from San Marcos about 20 miles. The lake backed up from a 1960 flood control project dam built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the new Canyon Lake Gorge is managed jointly by the Corps and the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.
Watch carefully, dear reader: Creationists will soon start to claim that the rapid cutting of this canyon verifies a young age for all canyons, and shows that the Earth’s geology can indeed be very young. But that claim will gloss over the fact that while the gorge was cut quickly, it was cut through sediments that took millions or billions of years to lay down. The Associated Press reports problems with such a hypothesis:
The sudden exposure of such canyons is rare but not unprecedented. Flooding in Iowa in 1993 opened a limestone gorge behind a spillway at Corvalville Lake north of Iowa City, but that chasm, Devonian Fossil Gorge, is narrower and shallower than Canyon Lake Gorge.
Neither compares to the world’s most famous canyon. It took water around 5 million to 6 million years to carve the Grand Canyon, which plunges 6,000 feet at its deepest point and stretches 15 miles at its widest.
The more modest Canyon Lake Gorge still displays a fault line and rock formations carved by water that seeped down and bubbled up for millions of years before the flooding.
Some of the canyon’s rocks are punched with holes like Swiss cheese, and the fossils of worms and other ancient wildlife are everywhere. The rocks, typical of the limestone buried throughout central Texas, date back “111 million years, plus or minus a few hundred thousand years,” Ward said.
Six three-toed dinosaur footprints offer evidence of a two-legged carnivore strolling along the water. The footprints were temporarily covered with sand to protect them as workers reinforced the spillway, but they’ll be uncovered again eventually, Rhoad said.
Tours for the new gorge are booked for the next six months. Details on how to reserve space can be found at the website of the Gorge Preservation Society (GPS).
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Geography - Physical, geology, History, Natural history, Science, Texas, Travel | Tagged: Canyon Lake Gorge, Floods, geography, geology, History, Natural history, Science, Texas, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 1, 2007
Encore Post
On the road for a day and a half. Here is an encore post from last October, an issue that remains salient, sadly, as creationists have stepped up their presence in Texas before the next round of biology textbook approvals before the Texas State Board of Education. I discuss why intelligent design should not be in science books.
Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Everett, Washington. (Late brewery? Has it closed?)
[From October 2006]: We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.
I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.
Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.
Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)
Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover.
Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
58 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Biology, Creationism, Curricula, Evolution, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 