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Teaching More, Not Less
Any critically-thinking parent whose child has been forced to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth will sympathize with petitions to ban discussions of global warming in public school science classes. Apparently such petitions are starting to crop up around the US. But I think this impulse, while understandable, is deeply misguided, as Vincent Carroll argues in the Denver Post. While it might be easier just to avoid subjects like man-made global warming (or Darwinian evolution), it’s hard to see how scientific literacy will be improved by avoiding them altogether. It’s much better to separate the data from the propaganda (a tall task, to be sure) and to help students learn to analyze the issue. As Carroll argues: Climate change happens Read More ›
Is “Ardi” All Washed Up? (Updated)
In some ways, the career of a missing link mirrors the career of the celebutante. They break onto the scene with much fanfare and hype. Everyone is wowed–or at least, everyone pretends to be wowed so nobody can be accused of ruining the party. Besides, she’s useful for advancing lots of agendas. After a little while, people realize that the star doesn’t have all the talent everyone hoped for. Nobody wants to feign excitement anymore. Eventually, people are sickened of the original hype and become eager to see the celebutante fall. And then it’s the fallen celebutante that starts making headlines. Substitute the word “missing link” for “celebutante” and this is something like what we’re now seeing with “Ardi,” the Read More ›
Fossil Finds Show Cambrian Explosion Getting More Explosive
Cephalopods, which include marine mollusks like squid, octopus, and cuttlefish, are now being reported in the Cambrian explosion fossils. As a recent BBC news article reports: “We go from very simple pre-Cambrian life-forms to something as complex as a cephalopod in the geological blink of an eye, which illustrates just how quickly evolution can produce complexity,” said [evolutionary biologist Martin] Smith. Keep in mind here that “evolution” is a placeholder term for an as-of-yet uncovered mechanism that produces animals like Cephalopods in a “geological blink of an eye.” Darwin’s Dilemma is not solved by vague appeals “how quickly” evolution can operate. All this follows on the heels of recent fossil findings that push phylum Bryozoa back into the Cambrian period, Read More ›
“Artificial Life” Or Intelligently Designed Plagiarism?
As Jonathan Wells recently observed, it’s being widely reported on internet news sites that biotech guru Craig Venter and his team have created “artificial life.” BBC News has a good description of what was really done: How a Synthetic Cell Was Created: 1. The scientists “decoded” the chromosome of an existing bacterial cell – using a computer to read each of the letters of genetic code. 2. They copied this code and chemically constructed a new synthetic chromosome, piecing together blocks of DNA. 3. The team inserted this chromosome into a bacterial cell which replicated itself. Synthetic bacteria might be used to make new fuels and drugs. (See “‘Artificial life’ breakthrough announced by scientists,” BBC News, May 20, 2010.) To Read More ›
The Huffington Post Is so Aptly Named
Poor Alex Wilhelm huffs, and he puffs, and all he does is blow his credibility in his Huffington Post piece where he sputters up this laugher: “You will never meet a non-religious person who is a proponent of Intelligent Design.” Wilhelm, meet Bradley Monton. Meet Thomas Nagel. Meet Steve Fuller. Heck, meet me.It gets even better when he forgets the name of the person he’s attacking.