Month: December 2009
Does Donald Prothero Know Intelligent Design Arguments Better than Steve Meyer?
You can often tell who won a debate by the plausibility of an account. In that regard, Donald Prothero made many dubious claims about his debate yesterday with Michael Shermer against Steve Meyer and Richard Sternberg. Let’s hone in on a couple short comments. Prothero writes: “I know I caught [Meyer] off-guard, since I have degrees in both biology and geology, and know most of their arguments better than they do.” Prothero later felt it was appropriate to boast about his following question: “I asked Meyer if he needed the ‘Designer’ to make every glop of mud.” Of course anyone with a cursory knowledge of ID would be aware that ID fully allows for the action of natural processes, and Read More ›
Ouch. Intelligent Design Guys Put the Sleeperhold on Darwin’s Defenders
The great debate over the adequacy of evolution continues. Sort of. The latest head to head meeting had Dr. Stephen Meyer and Dr. Richard Sternberg debating Dr. Michael Shermer and Dr. Donald Prothero. Heading into the debate I was quite excited; these aren’t lightweights, after all. The defenders of evolution are well known in science circles and to followers of the overall debate. Indeed, we’ve blogged a fair amount on Dr. Prothero who has, shall we say, a colorful and cavalier way with the facts. He is known more for polemical bromides and spurious personal attacks than for any serious science. Waiting for the event to start, I was wondering if Prothero would be better behaved in person than he Read More ›
Global Warming Will “Wipe Out Billions”
This is not a parody. I swear this is not a parody. From the NEWS.scotsman.com; date November 30, 2009 (post-ClimateGate): Warming will ‘wipe out billions’ MOST of the world’s population will be wiped out if political leaders fail to agree a method of stopping current rates of global warming, one of the UK’s most senior climate scientists has warned. Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, believes only around 10 per cent of the planet’s population — around half a billion people — will survive if global temperatures rise by 4C. I’m speechless. I’m really trying to think of something to say.
Oops. They Dumped the Original Data. You’ll Just Have to Take Their Word for It.
From the Sunday Times in London: SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.