Albert Einstein once said:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Read the rest of this entry »

Sam Harris recently wrote an article for the LA Times entitled, God's dupes: Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics — and are every bit as delusional. Harris continues his attack on religious moderates by asking the reader to envision a series of “concentric circles of diminishing reasonableness.” In the center, we find the the Muslim jihadis and the Dominionist Christians and as we proceed outward, the religious believers become increasing less extreme. Harris then argues that the moderates function as shields for the extremists:

The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism.

The fatal flaw in Harris’s argument is that there is no reason to single out religious moderates for such criticism as it can be applied to just about any position.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here

This is a bad week for established views. First it was the settled view on dinosaur extinction that got a shake-up, and now the old story that Darwin waited to publish Origin of the Species because of concerns over religious reactions is getting some scrutiny. From Nature (registration required):

Did Darwin delay publishing his theory of evolution by natural selection because he feared an outcry from the establishment? This has been a popular belief, and has been stoked by the fact that although Darwin began formulating the theory in 1837, he did not publish On the Origin of Species until 1859.

Now John van Wyhe, a science historian at the University of Cambridge, UK, says that after a painstaking trawl through the letters, notes and books written by, to or about Darwin, he can rule out the idea once and for all. … To carry out his study, Van Wyhe searched for the word "delay" in primary and secondary sources covering the period in which Darwin was working on Origin of Species. He says Darwin and those who knew him never unambiguously referred to a delay in publishing, or gave any explanation for the 20-year 'gap'. … The historian further argues that in letters to friends, family and colleagues, Darwin continually communicated his belief that species could change, and that this is inconsistent with the notion that he was keeping his heretical ideas secret during this period. He even paid copiers on at least two occasions to produce early drafts of his species theory. By documenting exactly what he was doing during the 'gap years', van Wyhe makes the case that Darwin just didn't get down to writing Origin of Species until he had completed other work in hand, including an eight-year study of barnacles. … But several Darwin scholars are not convinced. [Editor of the Darwin Digital Library of Evolution, David] Kohn and others agree that the way in which cultural and social pressures influenced Darwin's decisions may have been overplayed, particularly in the public arena, with less attention being paid to the involved process of scientific discovery. But the consensus in the field is likely to remain that a multitude of factors underpinned Darwin's delay.

Once upon a time, the world was ruled by the dinosaurs, with mammals being confined to cracks and crevices. But the fortuitous impact of an asteroid caused the dinosaurs to go extinct, paving the way for the advance of mammals and, ultimately, us. That, plus some philosophical bon mots about the randomness of evolution, has been the traditional story of mammalian evolution. But this view has been challenged in the last couple of years, and now, a new study joins the chorus.

In a study published in the scientific journal of Nature, a group of researchers built a family tree of nearly every living mammal, which showed that the extinction of the dinosaurs had no effect on the diversity of mammals: The main groups of mammals arose millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct, and they did not become dominant until millions of years after they disappeared. From the Nature press release:

The wipe-out of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago opened up room and resources for others. But it did not specifically clear a path for the diversity of animals that would evolve into today's mammals, including humans, says evolutionary biologist Olaf Bininda-Emonds of the Technical University of Munich, Germany: "After the dinosaurs went extinct, they still didn't diversify."

It's possible that had that asteroid not hit Earth, mammals would still have diversified, giving rise to bats, cows, and intelligent primates. If so, then it looks like evolution isn't that random after all.

Remember Intelligent Thought: Science Versus The Intelligent Design Movement? This was the book where leading scientists all over the world dropped what they were doing in order to help Save Civilization:

There are examples in history of the collapse of great civilizations. There is no particular reason that the United States should be exempt from historical forces. The Visigoths are at the gates. Will we let them in?

Well, it looks like they failed, as evidenced by the need for a new book. Another crop of scientists have risen to the challenge in Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism:

Moreover, in a time when creationist textbooks continue to appear in classrooms and the president encourages educators to "teach both sides" of the argument, the book presents a blueprint for improving science education in this country to ensure that every student understands the science that grounds our understanding of evolution.

Creationist textbooks continue to appear in classrooms? Can anyone provide the names of the schools where creationist textbooks continue to appear in their classrooms?

Ever since meeting Mike Gene online I've been determined to find out as much information about him as possible. This past weekend I hit jackpot, and ended up in front of his house. Here's the photo I took.

What surprised me most of all was the Gene family car. A green 1978 VW Rabbit. Now, I know Mike talks all about having kids, but isn't it tantamount to child abuse to neglect the safety of your children in favor of a rabbit fetish?

BTW, for those of you who are on the same trail. Mike's license plate number is visible in this picture which should give you plenty of information. If you have photoshop, you can zoom in on the mailbox to make out his street address too.

When I first made this post, I thought that Zimmerman was a peer reviewer himself. I made a mistake. He's just a singer. But he sings songs to peer reviewers. That makes him a BuzzBot just like Nick Matzke. And it's the Buzzbots who give many of the peer reviewers their primary ideas about ID. And, according to people like Agent BuzzBot Nick Matzke, it's ducky all the way down. There's no difference between creation science and ID. So this song is about everyone who embraces ID.

It's a song about Mike Gene and Krauze.

This week some new high-res photographs of Saturn were released as part of JPL's ongoing Cassini Mission to the ringed planet, along with some strange revelations about the tiny moon Enceladus' anomalous manipulations of the huge planet's magnetic system, which apparently make our previous hypotheses about Saturn's rotational period obsolete. These findings were mentioned in passing on the What am I supposed to tell the kids? open thread.

One series of infrared photos shows the north polar region of Saturn, which is shrouded in darkness during this mission. There at the top of the enigmatic planet there is a startling hexagon shaped cloud formation nearly 4 times the size of Earth, which extends at least 60 miles below the cloud tops. This formation was seen during the Voyager 1 and 2 missions more than two decades ago, but the anomaly was not reported in the popular press. It is still there, so they reported it yesterday.

Read the rest of this entry »