Evolution Humor

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics has to be one of the best nerdy/dorky type humor out there on the web. Today's dealt with evolution and what is known as Sexually Antagonistic Selection but I will let the comic tell the whole story.



Oh nerdy humor I love it.

Snow, Snow, Snow

The East Coast of the United States is currently getting buried under tons of snow I have seen the responses that I expected. These following two posts are from Conservapedia's news portion on the right hand side of their main page:

Atlanta will see its "first white Christmas since the Chester Arthur administration" in 1882. [20] Global warming???

and

Global warming? Many Europeans have been unable to get home for Christmas due to cold, severe weather. "Bitterly cold temperatures brought problems in Scandinavia" and "Britain's aviation regulator said it had written to several airlines about the 'unacceptable' failure to properly feed and accommodate stranded passengers." [23]

(See here and here)

I don't know how many times scientists will have to say it but global climate change has global in it for a reason. It will still be colder in winter than summer no matter what happens. With that said there are two posts over at the Climate Denial Crock of the Week blog that describe what is occurring. They are must reads and show that this "cold" is regional and has an explanation.

1) White Christmas in Southeast. Heatwave in Hudson Bay.
2) Why is the UK cold? The NAO is stuck.

Evolution or Climate Change?

Something that I am surprised that scientists do not hear the idea expressed in this article more often. I will try to break it down but the central concept is expressed in the headline:

Let the polar bears die, liberals: It's only your beloved evolution at work

The author sums up here feelings quite nicely a few paragraphs down:

But here's a question that's rarely asked: Why should we necessarily bother saving a species - any species - from extinction? And what's so gosh-darn special about the polar bear? Yes, animals are dying. But death - of a single animal or a whole species - is a part of life.

At least, that's what Darwinists tell us. In fact, if you think hard about it, animal conservation should actually be anathema to the Darwin-loving liberal agenda, which holds up evolution - and not altruistic compassion - as the final word on the survival of a species.

Sure, it's possible that we're crowding out the polar bear - but aren't we animals, too? And don't animals sometimes crowd each other out? Isn't it entirely possible that the polar bear is simply going extinct, like countless species before it?

These sentiments make sense until you dig deeper into the problem. Extinction is one of the most often overlooked parts of evolution but as recent papers have pointed out, and many people knew just based on common sense, is that we would not be here were it not for the extinction of the dinosaurs and mass extinctions give rise to new niches for species to fill (Smith et al., 2010). So extinctions in and of themselves are good and an important part of evolutionary theory. What is more is that there are always background levels of extinctions. So is the author of this piece right?

Well the answer is no not really. Eventually given enough time every species that is alive today would be extinct, yes even those that closely resemble their ancient ancestors are considered different species. The main problem is the rate and how species are going extinct. A recent paper argued that it may have taken upwards of 10 million years for species diversity to recover from the end-Permian mass extinction (Hu et al., 2010). While the end-Permian was an extreme mass extinction the time frame from the K-T extinction may have been similar.

But why am I referencing mass extinctions and not just the loss of a single individual? Simple, this extinction will not just involve the loss of one single species. If climate change continues it will threaten total ecological collapse in the arctic and antarctic. This means that not only will the polar bear die off but most if not all species of flora and fauna in these areas will as well. But it is not just the poles that are threatened but the entire planet. Temperature changes will push many flora away from where they currently live, with the loss of the base of the food chain a total collapse will likely follow. While less likely to occur elsewhere it is a possibility.

Another way of looking at it is by what I am calling the Yellowstone Wolf effect. In general the idea is this: As top predators when the wolves were all killed in Yellowstone it allowed the primary source of food to reproduce almost unchecked, there are other animals that will feed on elk but tend to do so less often than wolves. This damaged the amount of plant life present and hurt animals that will then have to compete with the elk for food. When the wolves were reintroduced this put stress on the elk as their numbers declined many different flora where able to better survive it also increased the amount of food available for scavengers and other predators such as Bear and Coyote (Smith, 2005; White et al., 2005).

The concern for the polar bears is therefore not just for the bears themselves but for the entire ecosystem. We have hurt it in ways we are not completely sure of yet but if we have the power to prevent a total collapse, which we likely do in some areas, shouldn't we?

Sources

Hu, S.-x., Q.-y. Zhang, Z.-Q. Chen, C.-y. Zhou, T. Lü, T. Xie, W. Wen, J.-y. Huang, and M.J. Benton. (2010). The Luoping biota: exceptional preservation, and new evidence on the Triassic recovery from end-Permian mass extinction. Proc. R. Soc. B published online before print December 23, 2010, doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2235

Smith, D.W. (2005). Ten Years of Yellowstone Wolves 1995–2005. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

Smith, F.A., A.G. Boyer, J.H. Brown, D.P. Costa, T. Dayan, S.K.M Ernest, A.R. Evans, M. Fortelius, J.L. Gittleman, M.J. Hamilton, L.E. Harding, K. Lintulaakso, S.K. Lyons, C. McCain, J.G. Okie, J.J. Saarinen, R.M. Sibly, P.R. Stephens, J. Theodor, and M.D. Uhen. (2010). The Evolution of Maximum Body Size of Terrestrial Mammals. Science; 330 (6008): 1216-1219 DOI: 10.1126/science.1194830

White, P.J., D.W. Smith, J.W. Duffield, M. Jimenez, T. McEneaney, G. Plumb. (2005) Yellowstone After Wolves: Environmental Impact Statement Predictions and Ten-Year Appraisals. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

I am a huge nerd

If you are like me you probably enjoy Star Wars and Indiana Jones, except the new ones for both of them come on, then you might get a kick out of this. The only known occurrence of Han Solo and Indiana Jones coming into even remote contact. Sorry to awesome not to post. I came across this during an Indiana Jones marathon when I was trying to figure out what happened to Short Round, apparently he becomes an archaeologist like Indy.

Anyway Enjoy.

Fun with impacts

This will just be a short post because I wanted to post this link. It goes to a website run by Purdue University that allows you to calculate the effects of a meteor impact on Earth. You do this by specifying the size the density and many other factors and then a set distance from the impact and seeing the damage that is caused. This is a fun thing to just play around with for a little while so enjoy.

A meteor that might be fun to play around with would the the Chicxulub Meteor:
Diameter: 10km (some say as big as 20km but this is where most estimates are)
Speed: ~16km/s
The impact occurred most likely in water
Play around with some of the other variables to see what all occurred
Animation

What happens when CO2 doubles

Potholer54 (for other posts discussing him and his other channel Potholer54debunks see here, here, here, here, and here) discusses in his newest video the myth that evapotransporation will actually help keep the earth cool while CO2 increases. This was one I hadn't heard before but I figured I would share it here just to get it out there before I start hearing it.



I have really been on a climate change kick as of late, sorry for that.

Climate Change the Comic

I stumbled across this comic yesterday, don't expect to laugh it isn't funny except on how true it is, so I figured I would share. It is a long comic so it might take some time to load it is also going to take a while to read through the whole thing so make sure you don't have anything to do soon, or maybe you do have something to do soon but want an excuse not to. This comic does a good job of getting both the science behind climate change as well as getting the political reaction, especially the negative reaction. Enjoy!

Dismal numbers on Education

While this is not surprising a friend on Facebook posted a link to this article that said this:

Add to this clear evidence that the U.S. education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sank to 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.

These numbers are bad, scary bad. As a country the United States rose to power behind the education system, it could be argued that the G.I. Bill which allowed US servicemen to get a college education made the United States a superpower. This allowed the U.S. to improve in technology, both military and civilian, and allowed us to reach for the stars, literally. Over the last few years there has been a backlash against education and against the educated population. This can be most drastically seen during the 2008 election cycle when Sarah Palin questioned why we need to continue funding certain levels of science research. While I can understand trying to cut wasteful spending, many times science research and education can appear to be wasteful but typically the results they produce can be used throughout the economy. Science is one of the best ways to teach people to think, we do after all use the scientific method daily even if you aren't a scientist, and it allows us to learn about ourselves and our surroundings. These numbers and the right's view of science are going to continue to put us behind in science and science education and very well might lead to the demise of the U.S. as a superpower.

The Front Lines of Climate Change

I have been sitting on this story for a little while till I actually had a chance to read through the whole thing. Often times when people think of climate change they only think of the changes occurring in far away places like the Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, or Siberia. While the most drastic changes are often seen in these areas according to this article major cities within the continental US are also experiencing the change. Norfolk, VA is experiencing major flooding in portions of the city. While some of this can be attributed to the land sinking, this is what happens when you build on a swamp, for another example of this see New Orleans, not all of the flooding can be because of that.

When Ms. Peck, now 75 and a caretaker to her husband, moved here 40 years ago, tidal flooding was an occasional hazard.

“Last month,” she said recently, “there were eight or nine days the tide was so doggone high it was difficult to drive.”

Norfolk is acting to try to limit the amount of damage that is done by the flood water. This includes raising roads 18 inches and changing storm water drainage to prevent it from backing up. While these are just temporary fixes and will not solve the overall problems associated with climate change they may limit the amount of damage to the city itself. These fixes being put into place now in Norfolk will become more and more common, as the climate continues to warm, throughout the east coast of the United States and in many other places around the world.

C0nc0rdance reads Asimov

People often accuse science of taking the beauty out of everything and they accuse scientists of being cold and not being able to see the beauty in the universe. Isaac Asimov disagrees and can be seen in the video below (read by C0nc0rdance (prior posts on him here, here, and here)).



If you want to read what he had to say go here and see it written out.

I have to agree with Asimov on this. The more I learn about the universe or even just our planet the more beauty and intrigue I see. I can look at a road cut and see the past, I can see rivers flowing through, I can see animals that are no long alive interacting in ways that are similar to modern organisms and in ways that none of us can imagine. The beauty of the universe and this planet is not the momentary one we see now but spans back billions of years from a singularity through a molten earth to one crawling with organisms that we can barely imagine. The beauty and complexity amaze me and capture my attention everyday.

And all of this vision- far beyond the scale of human imaginings -was made possible by the works of hundreds of "learn'd" astronomers. All of it; all of it was discovered after the death of Whitman in 1892, and most of it in the past twenty-five years, so that the poor poet never knew what a stultified and limited beauty he observed when he 'look'd up in perfect silence at the stars-"
Nor can we know or imagine now the limitless beauty yet to be revealed in the future - by science.

More on the beauty of this picture after I am done with finals

Antivax and Creationism

With the semester wrapping up I will be busy with finishing up work so don't expect much for the next few week, although I have a lot I want to do (damn inspiration coming during the busiest time of the year).

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has a great article about the tie between the antivax movement and those who want to teach creationism in Louisiana's science classrooms, in particular Dr. John W. Oller, Jr.

Such is the evidence for the quality of the scientific judgment of Prof. Oller, who, in his LinkedIn profile, specifies that his interests are “consulting offers” and “expertise requests.” He hangs out with not only the the disgraced (and disgraceful) Andrew Wakefield but also with young-earth creationists who have misinformed an untold number of innocent children. His association with ICR indicates that he believes that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Yet, according to Oller, the scientists with hard-earned, professional expertise in biology who wrote the proposed textbooks don’t know what they’re doing. Oh, and — lest we forget — evolution is causing the downfall of society.

It is a long read but it is good so I recommend everyone read it.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So here in the US today is the annual day when we all stuff our faces with turkey and other foods and give thanks to what we have so:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So I will try to find Thanksgiving related links (so expect a couple more to show up throughout the day)

Brian Switek at Dinosaur Tracking points out that turkeys are just SLIGHTLY modified theropods.

On the theropod tangent David Orr at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs shows his love for one living theropod.

In one of my favorite weekly posts by David Orr the Vintage Dinosaur Art focuses this week on Dinosaurs' Thanksgiving.

How about some science related food trivia on this big day?

Jeffrey Rowland's guest comic at xkcd today has an interesting theory as to why Thanksgiving was started.

Your Holiday Dinosaur!

Hoping to find some more throughout the day!

151 years ago

Today marks the 151st anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of the species. I do own a copy it is in an anthology called Darwin, the Indelible Stamp which is edited and has Commentary by James D. Watson, yes of DNA fame. I recommend the pick up because it includes The Voyage of the Beagle; On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex; The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.



And the actual book:

Buffalo Commons

This was something I was not aware of till recently due to a discussion and a project I have to do for a class this semester. The reason I probably hadn't heard of it is because I grew up on the east coast so I didn't experience these problems.

When people think of the Great Plains of the United States they probably think of miles and miles of flat terrain covered in corn and other similar crops. While this is true of much of the eastern portion, Iowa good parts of Oklahoma and Texas etc, the western portion, from Montana and North Dakota south, is typically not as lucky. The western portion sits in the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains and this produces a rain shadow effect. North American settlers have tried to conquer this area for close to 200 years with agriculture, this is one of the leading causes of dust bowl. Much of the agriculture in this area is reliant on an aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, for their water. This has resulted in a severe depletion of the aquifer since it has been strongly pumped starting in the 1950s. All of these problems have led to this area drastically losing population over the last few decades.

In 1987 Deborah and Frank Popper wrote an article, the full article can be read, in Planning Magazine arguing for the creation of what has been called a Buffalo Commons. This area would be a massive area of land that would be returned to the native grassland conditions. In these areas cattle and other domesticated animals would be removed and instead be replaced by native animals such as bison, pronghorn, and deer (The first two have been greatly reduced in number and range since settlement began as can be read in their respective articles); on a side note I would hope they would also allow replacement of predators such as wolves as well. This land would be treated as a National Park, since it would be bought up by the federal government. This would hopefully increase tourism to this area and may slow or stop the depopulation of the great plains, or at least give those who stay another industry to earn money from.

When the idea was originally proposed there was a huge backlash against the idea. This would make sense many of the farmers and ranchers in this area are hard working, they have to be, and they don't want outsiders telling them what to do. This land still produces a large amount of cattle and the land is still worth a lot of money. Over time, however, there has been a slow growing acceptance for this idea including an article written about a year ago, November 2009, advocating for the creation of the Buffalo Commons (I would link to this but the link is no longer active).

Now I am not trying to advocate, one way or another, about this idea I am just trying to draw attention to this and maybe start a discussion. As I said I wouldn't have known about it had it not been for a project I have to work on in one of my classes this semester and but I feel it is an idea that should be talked about. I can see benefits; no more withdraw on the aquifers, increase in native grasses to help prevent erosion, and tourism being brought to the area; but I can also see negatives; this land will not be available for use later, what do the owners of the land do when their land is bought from them, and the cost of tearing down all that has been built in the area will cost just as much as buying up the land. I only want to bring this idea to a larger population.

Read more on the Buffalo Commons:
Great Plains Restoration Council article on the Buffalo Commons
Wikipedia article

Global Climate Change Update

Another great video by Greenman3610 (prior posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) this time discussing the sea ice levels for this year. This year's levels were again low and this refutes the claim by the pseudo science blog Watts Up With That.



I also wanted to point everyone toward his website/blog for Climate Denial Crock of the Week.

Potholer54 (prior posts about him and his other channel potholer54debunks can be found here, here, here, and here) summarizes some other research in the scientific community dealing with climate change focusing on hurricanes, atolls, and coral. In general that models predict that we should see fewer hurricanes but those that do form are more likely to be stronger, atolls should continue to grow unless corals stop growing, due to purging of their algae or due to acidification. He mostly focuses on the overreaction of the media to all of these reports, both sides are guilty.


(he lists most of his sources for the hurricane portion in the video description and the rest of his sources are here)

Energy policy is sorely needed!

Pterosaurs Could Fly!

In response to a number of recent papers suggesting that heavy pterosaurs, such as Quetzalcoatlus, might not be able to fly (Chatterjee and Templin, 2004; Wilkinson, 2008; Sato et al., 2009; Henderson, 2010), a new paper was published last week by Dr. Mark Witton and Dr. Michael Habib stating that they could in fact launch themselves and were capable of flight(Witton and Habib, 2010). Most of the media attention focused on the launch part, even though the idea had been published in the past (Habib, 2008), and even some publications that refered to pterosaurs as dinosaurs (argh) I was glad to see the NPR report on the paper that included a few words with Dr. Habib.

Sources
Chatterjee S., and Templin R.J. (2004) Posture, Locomotion and Palaeoecology of Pterosaurs. Geological Society of America Special Publication 376: 1–64.

Habib M.B. (2008) Comparative evidence for quadrupedal launch in pterosaurs.
Zitteliana B28: 161–168.

Henderson D.M. (2010) Pterosaur body mass estimates from three-dimensional
mathematical slicing. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30: 768–785.

Sato K., Sakamoto K., Watanuki Y., Takahashi A., Katsumata N., et al. (2009)
Scaling of soaring seabirds and implications for flight abilities of giant
pterosaurs. PLoS ONE 4: e5400.

Wilkinson M.T. (2008) Three dimensional geometry of a pterosaur wing
skeleton, and its implications for aerial and terrestrial locomotion. Zoological
Journal of Linnaean Society 154: 27–69.

Witton MP, Habib MB (2010) On the Size and Flight Diversity of Giant Pterosaurs, the Use of Birds as Pterosaur Analogues and Comments on Pterosaur Flightlessness. PLoS ONE 5(11): e13982. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013982

GOP and Climate Change

Climate change is happening and we are steadily going to reach the peak production possible for oil, these are facts but they are facts which many, most common among those on the right (this does not exclude everyone on the left nor does it apply to everyone on the right), try to deny, see here. This is why I was glad to see this story late last night in which outgoing Republican Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, chided his colleagues and incoming chair of the committee, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), for denying climate change.

There are people who make a lot of money on talk radio and talk TV saying a lot of things. They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and they’re experts on climate change. They substitute their judgment for people who have Ph.D.s and work tirelessly.

I am glad that Rep. Inglis is supporting science but it is unfortunate that this support of actual science was probably one of the things that did not get him reelected, he lost his primary to a Tea Party candidate. It is sad what many people think about education in this country. The G.I. bill, which allowed vets from WWII to get a college education, is one of the reasons that we became a great country but now it has come to this:



Sometimes I worry about our future.

I am mildly supprised

So the way Louisiana has been I was surprised to see this published by the Louisiana Coalition for Science, for background on this story see my post here.

Readers will have to pardon the mixed metaphors in this post, but something happened today in Louisiana that is is about as common here as snowflakes at Christmas: the voice of reason prevailed at a meeting of public officials.

The Louisiana Textbook/Media/Library Advisory Council met today, Friday, November 12, at 9 a.m. at the Claiborne Building in downtown Baton Rouge. The council voted 8-4 to recommend approval of the biology books that had already been approved by the Textbook Review Committee. Teachers, scientists, and students showed up at this meeting to support the earlier decision of the Textbook Review Committee and to protest the attempt by the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) to commandeer yet another aspect of Louisiana science education policy.

This is a big win for Louisiana students and I am happy to see that a lot of people showed up in support of science education, although it isn't completely supp rising. I don't have much to say so I will let Barbara Forrest carry us out on this one.

Well, gosh, let’s hope this decision paves the way for BESE’s approval of the textbooks. Regardless of what happens next month, all of us owe a big “thank you” to the good citizens who showed up at that meeting today.

Thank you Baton Rouge Advocate

So after my post last night I was delighted to see this short opinion piece by the Baton Rouge Advocate's opinion staff earlier this afternoon. They argue, and rightly so, that evolution is a science supported by the facts and that Louisiana doesn't want to turn into the next Texas or Kansas and be the laughing stock of the U.S. and even the world.

But it is the duty of the committee members not to be politicians — a couple of the members are state legislators — or representatives of public opinion. The committee members have a duty to reject intrusion of pseudo-science, such as creationism or its offshoot “intelligent design,” into science classrooms.

[...]It’s one thing to be different culturally, as Louisiana is in so many ways. But the facts of science and biology do not change. For Louisiana to be different in the direction of ignorance would be a humiliation in the eyes of the nation and the world.

Let me just say this, thank you Baton Rouge Advocate for supporting true science education!

Louisiana wants to Warn you about Evolution

I first noticed this yesterday as a post by the NCSE on Facebook and then saw today's post over at Louisiana Coalition for Science. The second post give a pretty good summary of the whole history of the attempts to teach creationism in Louisiana. Pretty much this story boils down to there are forces within the Louisiana state education board to put warning stickers on the textbooks teaching about evolution in that it isn't completely true. This isn't the way science works as I have said many times before science is supported by evidence that has been found and experimented on over multiple trials, just because you don't believe it doesn't make it not true. You don't want to learn the science that is fine you just need to find the evidence that supports your claim. Anyway read the second post up above to find out more.

Prior posts on the problems of science in Louisiana
The state wants to cut the Louisiana Geological Survey
Creationism Lives on in US Public Schools
An attempt to get Creationism in one Parish's schools
Warning about Creationist materials being handed out in schools

Expelled

Creationists often accuse scientists of preventing those with dissenting opinions from being able to publish or hold positions in science departments etc. The movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was exceptionally guilty of this, among several other classic creationist claims. Well it turns out that one of the main people in that film, William Dembski, was almost fired from his job for saying that the earth was 4.5 billion years old and the universe was ~14 billion. Dr. Michael Zimmerman has a good break down of the whole incident over at the HuffPo and his article is worth the read.

I find the whole incident mildly ironic. Accusing scientists of doing something and then doing the same thing yourself come on now. Also let me point out one thing if creationists were to submit papers that presented evidence that supported their claims then they might get published. The fact that they haven't yet is telling after all science is the search for the truth as to how the universe works if you present facts most scientists will tend to accept them, yes I know this is a little simplified.

Theology and Science = Oil and Water

I typically try to avoid posting about topics dealing with politics, unfortunately this isn't always possible sometimes science and politics mix. As seen in this video and posted about here and here a GOP leader, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), basically says that we don't have to worry about climate change because God promised Noah that he wouldn't flood the world again.



Now I have no problem with people believing what they want as far as religion is concerned but when you put these people in positions of power I feel that I must say something. What makes this worse is that Rep. Shimkus is trying to head up the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is the committee that will be in charge of climate policy and his influence could set back support for alternative energy policy by years.

Al Gore Invented Climate Change?

How long have we had evidence supporting global climate change? A video by Greenman3610 (prior posts here, here, here, here, here, and here) show that it has been at least since 1956 and not the new ice age that so many climate change denialists say scientists supported in the 70s, note there were not even very many of those.



So maybe that was an isolated situation right? Well apparently it was a big enough deal to have make it to the Bell Telephone Hour.



While I am posting video's I might as well post Greenman3610's newest video as well dealing with how Hollywood has viewed climate change over the years.

Embedding was disabled so follow the link to here.

Are GMOs Evil?

This is a question that C0nc0rdance (previous posts showing his videos, here and here) takes up in his newest YouTube video.



This is an important topic because I know plenty of people who are skeptical about many crazy claims but accept that GMOs are always bad. Yes they can be bad but they are not always bad and in the long run we as a moral species have a duty to our fellow humans and when millions of people go to bed hungry or die of starvation every year we have a problem that needs to be fixed.

GSA Position on Climate Change

I have been looking for this for a little while now because I knew one had been published but I was finally able to locate the Geological Society of America's stance on global climate change.

Position Statement. Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twenty-first century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.

It is worth taking the time to look through the whole thing which includes recommendations for what governments need to do to help slow or limit the change.

Religion forces evolution?

The answer is yes at least to some fish in Southern Mexico at least according to a study published recently in Biology Letters. Apparently a religion that predated Columbus' discovery of North America used to more or less create a poison to the fish while praying for a good year rain wise. Well this apparently has created some fish that have become immune to the poison. An article about the paper in ScienceDaily also had this to say:

"The cool thing is that this ceremony has gone on a long time and that the fish responded to it evolutionarily," Tobler says. "Lots of species couldn't live with these changes. It highlights how nature is affected by human activity."

Rosenthal contends that the idea of imposing evolutionary divergence on a species at an extremely localized spatial scale is not a new concept. In fact, he says, it's been happening since the beginning of humankind and that the idea of the "noble savage" is passé.

"We tend to have this wonderful Pocahontas idea that before Europeans came in, everything was pristine and in harmony with nature and that all of the changes in our environment have been post-industrialization," he explains. "No. People have been changing the environment forever."

Whether we want to admit it or not we are part of this planet and we can effect it in many different ways. This is something we must all understand because too often we look at ourselves as better than other animals when we are in fact just another animal. This gets forgotten about especially when it comes to climate change.

Paper Reference
M. Tobler, Z. W. Culumber, M. Plath, K. O. Winemiller, G. G. Rosenthal. An indigenous religious ritual selects for resistance to a toxicant in a livebearing fish. Biology Letters, 2010; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0663

Another, Sometimes, Asexual Vertebrate

When most people think about asexual reproduction they typically think about single celled organism. While rare it has been observed in some more complex animals as well but seems to get even more rare as we get to more derived forms with an occasional appearance in some lizards. Science Daily has an article today about a new paper that discusses asexual reproduction in a Boa constrictor. But there are some weird things about this as well.

Snake sex chromosomes are a bit different from those in mammals -- male snakes' cells have two Z chromosomes, while female snakes' cells have a Z and a W chromosome. Yet in the study, all the female babies produced by asexual reproduction had WW chromosomes, a phenomenon Booth says had not been seen before and was believed to be impossible. Only through complex manipulation in lab settings could such WW females be produced -- and even then only in fish and amphibians, Booth says.

Adding to the oddity is the fact that within two years, the same boa mother produced not one, but two different snake broods of all-female, WW-chromosome babies that had the mother's rare color mutation. One brood contained 12 babies and the second contained 10 babies. And it wasn't because she lacked options: Male snakes were present and courted the female before she gave birth to the rare babies. And the versatile super-mom had previously had babies the "old-fashioned way" by mating with a male well before her two asexual reproduction experiences.

So for some odd reason she choose not to mate with the available males so obviously this is something that needs to be studied more in depth. I would like to see if more cases can be documented and if a reason for her choosing not to mate with the males can be found.

Social Media and Compiling Data

We all know that social media has changed the way much of the world interacts with each other and, as we saw a couple of years ago with the protests in Iran, it can put a human face on countries and events all over the world. It has also changed the way that human behavior can be looked at. While this article from CNN focuses on the when I want to take a quick look at the how.

Worried about when you might get dumped? Facebook knows.

That's according to a graphic making the rounds online that uses Facebook status updates to chart what time of year people are splitting up.

British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless, who specializes in showcasing data in visual ways, compiled the chart. He showed off the graphic at a TED conference last July in Oxford, England.

In the talk, McCandless said he and a colleague scraped 10,000 Facebook status updates for the phrases "breakup" and "broken up."

Facebook provides the ability to keep track of all of this data and to be able to see trends through times. So not only can we compile data from those who we can physically contact, which will typically lead to one country and possibly just one region of that country but from around the world. Now of course you run into the problem of people lying online or just not posting data but these are difficulties that you have in a typical study anyway and those outliers will tend to be more hidden when you have more data. This is interesting and if people continue to use this idea and developing studies who knows what future trends we might be able to see in the long run.

One last thing, don't be that asshole who breaks up with your significant other on Christmas come on people.

VOTE!!!!

This is a repost of this post from October 6th but I just wanted to make sure that everyone who hasn't voted does.

Coming up in November the U.S. is holding our annual elections. This year is as important as every year to make sure you get out and vote. Now some of you may be asking yourself, why is he posting this so early? Well the answer is quite simple, I know there are a lot of people out there who will be away from their permanent residents on election day due to being at school and what not. I wanted to remind all of these that there is a way to go about voting. One option is to declare your residency in the area where you are currently going to school but for many of you this just will not be possible for any number of reasons. The other option, and the one that inspired me to write this post, is the absentee ballot. Every state has an option to fill out an application form for an absentee ballot but you need to make sure that you do so shortly. I received my ballot in the mail on Monday and this will allow me to participate in the voting process even though I will be attending school over a thousand miles away. So no matter who you vote for or if you have to vote absentee make sure that you do.

UPDATE: It is too late to submit your absentee ballot but make sure you vote my absentee ballot has long since be submitted.

The Hockey League No One Wants To Be In

By now I am sure most people are aware of what is known as the hockey stick graph, the one showing a much lower temperature for the planet till the early 20th century and there has been a huge increase in temperature since. It is easy enough to pass of one line of evidence by saying correlation does not equal causation, and this is how science should work. But science also works by pulling together multiple lines of independent evidence in support of a hypothesis. Skeptical Science has a great post showing that the more famous hockey stick graph is not the only one showing this type of trend.

The original 1998 hockey stick by Mann, Bradley and Hughes didn't prove that humans are causing global warming. The evidence for man-made global warming lies in the multiple lines of empirical evidence finding human fingerprints throughout climate change. But the multitude of hockey sticks (or hockey league) do tell a story - humans have caused a profound disturbance to our climate system. To say "the hockey stick is broken" is to ignore the full body of evidence of hockey sticks throughout climate change.

The article is worth your attention as it shows that it is not just one but many lines of evidence that support the idea that we are in fact changing our own climate.

THE END OF ACSI V. STEARNS

So I was catching up on some of my unread e-mails and while reading the NCSE's weekly e-mail, from 2 weeks ago, keeping up to date on the Creation vs Evolution debate (sign up here) and came across the article with the same title as mine. For those of you who don't know what this case is about here is an update (from the NCSE's webpage on the case).

On August 25, 2005, the Association of Christian Schools International, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California, and six students at the school filed a lawsuit against the University of California. The plaintiffs objected to the UC policy of rejecting certain high school biology classes from Christian schools as "inconsistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community;" they claimed that this policy violated applicants' rights to "freedom of speech, freedom from viewpoint discrimination, freedom of religion and association, freedom from arbitrary discretion, equal protection of the laws, and freedom from hostility toward religion."

On August 8, 2006, Judge S. James Otero dismissed the claims against individual UC officials, but allowed the claims against the university system as a whole to proceed. On March 28, 2008, Judge Otero ruled in favor of UC's motion for partial summary judgment, which established that the university system's admissions policies were constitutional; on August 8 of that year, he further ruled that these policies were properly and constitutionally applied in the case of the applicants in question.

The Supreme Court is not going to hear the case (see their order here) so that means that the case will stand as it was last called. This is a victory for science education and should make it harder for creationists to be able to insist that their science education is the same as true science education.

Boo!!

I scared you I know don't pretend I didn't but let me just say:

Happy Halloween

So this post will be Halloween related links and may be updated with new links throughout the day.

We will start with a scientific explanation for ghost encounters.

How about 7 Urban Legends that happen to be true?

Yes I know that cracked is a mainly comedic site but they at least cite their sources. So now that that is cleared up lets move on to 6 creepy real life places.

Moving right along 6 of the most strangely convincing real world curses.

Devil's footprints have been found for centuries in Italy proving that he exists, they couldn't possibly have been something that can be explained scientifically.

The Witmer Lab has some fun with Halloween, as I was always told you work hard but you also have to play hard.

The Paleochick's Digs have featured paleontology inspired Jack-o-Lanterns all month (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

PHD Comics unveils their Halloween inspired comic, Trick or T.A. That reminds me I have some grading I need to get to. :-\

P.Z. shows off Jack-O-Lanterns sent to him by readers in his honor

I Expected Better!

There was a paper published within the last few days makes the claim that anthropoid
primates diversified initially in Asia and then moved into Africa from there instead of the other way around (Jaeger et al., 2010). I don't really feel the ability to comment on this since monkeys, as well as the Eocene, are outside of my area of expertise. No, I wanted to compare the way two different blog posts on this same paper covered this paper, I am going to focus mainly on the headlines because this is where the two articles are the most different.

This first headline says this:

Instead Of Originating In Africa, Human Ancestors Colonized There From Asia, Says Study

This headline, from here, seems to imply that early relatives to humans, such as the hominids (yes I know I am pushing this back to the great apes), evolved in Asia. While this headline is not incorrect but perception is the key. My initial thought when I saw this was that it was about a paper that was going to claim that humans evolved in Asia and moved to Africa where we found them later. If I can make this mistake and I am a scientist who, mostly, understands human evolution imagine what a non-scientist would think. Part of what makes this worse is probably the fact that this post is part of a blogging community known as Scientific Blogging.

The other headline/article title reads:

Where did all these monkeys come from? – Fossil teeth may hint at an Asian origin for anthropoid primates

This title, from this article, leaves very little to the imagination, and if you want a good summary of the paper I recommend this article, and doesn't confuse you into thinking that humans evolved in Asia and then migrated to Africa. This particular article was written by Brian Switek who maybe one of the best science bloggers out there. I follow both of his blogs Laelaps and Dinosaur Tracking, and now the author of Written in Stone, and if you want to keep up on paleontology related papers I highly recommend both of them.

Ironically enough the Laelaps article ended like this:

Given how often news about fossil primates gets hyped and framed with “missing link” imagery, it is also worth considering how this story has hit the headlines. [...] Nevertheless, the Daily Mail gets off to a terribly start by pulling out that old bit of bullshit boilerplate “The human family tree may have to be rewritten” in the first line of their coverage before confusing themselves by trying to tie this discovery to the later origin of hominins over 30 million years later. In contrast, Dan Vergano of USA Today presents the story well, as does Ann Gibbons at Science NOW and Ewen Callaway at the Nature “Great Beyond” blog. For once, I don’t have very much to complain about!

You win some, you lose some I guess.

Reference

Jaeger, J., Beard, K., Chaimanee, Y., Salem, M., Benammi, M., Hlal, O., Coster, P., Bilal, A., Duringer, P., Schuster, M., Valentin, X., Marandat, B., Marivaux, L., Métais, E., Hammuda, O., & Brunet, M. (2010). Late middle Eocene epoch of Libya yields earliest known radiation of African anthropoids Nature, 467 (7319), 1095-1098 DOI: 10.1038/nature09425

Golden Crocoduck awards 2010

Potholer54 maybe one of my favorite pro-science YouTube channels, if you have a YouTube account I recommend you subscribe to him, but he also does an excellent job on his second channel Potholer54debunks. Recently he brought us the 3rd annual Golden Crocoduck award, named after the crocoduck of creationist fame. And the winner is...



surprise, surprise NephilimFree. I have so many gripes with Neph that I don't even know where to being but at least Potholer does a decent job of refuting some of the claims.

Falsifying Phylogeny IV

This is a really good series by AronRa so I am going to keep posting the series (Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part V).

Taking on Creationist Books

Today's Vintage Dinosaur Art post over at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs featured images from Duane T. Gish's, the creator (although maybe not the perfecter) of the Gish Gallop, Dinosaurs by Design. As I read through the article I found this:

Update: Check out the comments below to links for the Stupid Dinosaur Lies posts on this title and others. Also added excerpt from the book on Michael Barton's kind suggestion.

I had to check out the site, I will admit I had not read the comments so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. What I found made me excited the author of the articles on the webpage takes time and, in most cases, goes page by page through creationist books and refutes the lies and misinformation that is often found within them. Take this excerpt from Ken Ham's kids book The Dinosaurs of Eden (here):

Ham's Hypocritical Accusation

Ham, on page 52, falsely and hypocritically accuses 'evolutionists' of being "willfully ignorant" of the truth, like what II Peter 3:5 tells us. Creationists have long asserted that the verse in II Peter was warning the reader about evolution and the people who advocate it according to the passage. This is false. Peter is not referring to evolution when he wrote that passage. He never knew what evolution is, let alone what is science back then. The verse when put in full context warns the reader against those living in the End Times who refused to believed that Jesus was coming back to earth soon. They acknowledged that the earth was created by God, but thinks everything have stayed entirely the same since then. Peter, on the other hand, objects to this. Peter wrote that in the beginning, the same water that God cause land to rise from was the same water that brought along the Flood to the world, the known world, not the global world mind you, to punished mankind for his sins.

The bible is not only neutral of evolution (meaning "unfolding"), it's entirely irrelevant to it. Although I admit I get real mad when people at church claims that evolution didn't occurred when God created everything, in a way they're right. Evolution has zero to do with origins. Instead, it has only everything to do with after god created everything. Evolution simply means "to unfold and change." When God made the Heavens and the Earth, He made all things possible for all things to change over time. Just because an animal, plant, or human is fully formed to perfection doesn't mean they can't change and modify over a period of time. All around us we see evidence of evolution at work in the past as well as in the present. The nylon bug is the best example of evolution being witnessed at work.

I fully support this site and will probably be coming back there on multiple occasions.

Science is not a Democracy

After my post yesterday and coming across this post yesterday as well I figured I would point this out, science is not a democracy. Science is based on evidence and in order for an idea to be accepted by other scientists it must be supported by the evidence. Evolution is one of those ideas. At one time it was not largely supported by other scientists but as more and more evidence was combined to support it the idea became a theory. So Glenn Beck may not think that humans are related to monkeys and he is entitled to that opinion but the genetic and fossil evidence suggest otherwise. Likewise Rep. Barton (R-TX) and others like him are allowed to think that global warming is not happening but the evidence would suggest otherwise. Now there is a difference between these two men, however. While Glenn does have a loyal following he does not make policy. Rep. Barton is a member of the House of Representatives and as so his opinions effect all of us here in the U.S. This means that I will say that what Glenn said was wrong and a misunderstanding but allow him his opinion. To Rep. Barton, however, you need to read and understand the actual science and stop letting the money that you get from the oil companies speak louder than the truth. Also while we all may not want to be related to monkeys or even want to live in a world that is warming but that does not make these false also we don't take a vote to decide the truth. Let me end this post the same way the post about Rep. Barton ended.

Congressman Barton, if you read this — and I certainly hope you do — I will point you to your own words in your editorial: "I think Mr. Mann is entitled to make up his own mind, but not his own truth." That is ironic indeed, given that this is precisely what you have been doing for a long, long time. The actual truth is clear: the climate is changing, the globe is warming, and all the denying, all the noise, all the letter writing you can do will not change those simple facts.

You are not fighting a political battle, you are fighting against reality itself. And if you win, we will all lose.

Creationism lives on in US public schools

5 years ago this week was the start of the Dover trial (Kizmiller v. Dover) and to remember it New Scientist published an article on creationism still existing in U.S. public schools.

Chemistry teacher Robert Eschbach, who was also a plaintiff, says the trial has made teachers less afraid to step on people's toes when it comes to evolution. It "forced me to be a better educator", he says. "I went back and read more of the history around Darwin and how he came to his conclusions."

None of this means that the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based think tank that promotes intelligent design, has been idle. The institute helped the conservative Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), headed by Christian minister Gene Mills, to pass a state education act in 2008 that allows local boards to teach intelligent design alongside evolution under the guise of "academic freedom".

Philosopher Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University, another key witness for the Dover plaintiffs in 2005, testified against the Louisiana education act. "Louisiana is the only state to pass a state education bill based on the Discovery Institute's template," she says. Similar measures considered in 10 other states were all defeated

I think the article has too broad a focus and needed to pick either talking about the Dover trial itself or about the current brand of creationism taking place in the U.S. right now and why it gets so much support. I have covered the controversy in Livingston Parish in a couple of earlier posts but I feel the Dover trial forced a major change in the way that creationists operate and in fact has made it more difficult for them to try to force their religion into science class.

Great Summary of Cave Fossil Preservation

Expect me to reference this post by David Bressan over at History of Geology regarding cave taphonomy anytime I am talking about fossils found in caves. It is so well done here read a paragraph or two.

A peculiar bone bed formation found in caves is under sinkholes. Fissures, hidden under vegetation, snow cover or a thin soil layer can act like a pitfall trap - animals fell trough them and die on the impact or later by starvation. Under these natural traps a talus of rubble accumulates that contains a chaotic assemblage of bones from animals died at different times.

In parts of the cave accessible by animals, and used as shelter or resting place, animals that die of natural causes, get lost or become entrapped can became accumulated. Many carnivorous animals, mammals and birds, carry their prey or parts of it in their shelter, were the bones later are found (a prominent recent example is the den of the man-eaters of Tsavo).

This is a great read as is most of the stuff over at History of Geology so if you are a huge dork (me a dork, what?) I recommend you subscribe to the feed and keep on reading the other excellent posts that will come in the future. Also expect another post from me soon where I will reference this particular article.

This does not supprise me

It turns out Glenn Beck does not "believe" in the Theory of Evolution.


If the video doesn't show up go to the Media Matters site here.

Glenn science is a democracy it doesn't matter how many people "believe" in evolution for it to be true, sorry. Also if you don't think evolution has happened to the populations that eventually gave rise to humans were monkey like, no you were not ever a monkey but you share a common ancestor with them evolution works on populations not individuals (my students have this drilled into their heads), I recommend reading the Wikipedia article on Human Evolution and then maybe move on to some of the sources at the bottom of the article.

XKCD for the win

I am sure that this image will circulate the internet a lot over the next few days, example here. Another line of evidence that supports true science and goes against pseudoscience, ok not really evidence but an evidence based comic.



This should serve as a pretty good response to Conservapedia's anti-relativity stance lately. I highly recommend xkcd for all of your nerdy comic needs, I am subscribed to the feed.

A Child's Science Experiment Shows CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas

So I just got back home yesterday from the 70th annual SVP meeting in Pittsburgh so I haven't really had much time to put together real blog posts yet but in case there was anyone out there who didn't realize that CO2 was a greenhouse gas the experiments in this video support that hypothesis.



Another great video from Greenman3610 (see prior videos here, here, here, here, and here).

Falsifying Phylogeny III

So I am going to leave to get on an airplane to head up to the 70th anniversary meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Pittsburgh, PA but I figured I would leave you all with part 3 of AronRa's on going series Falsifying Phylogeny. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, and Part 5)



Expect posting to be a little quite for a little while around here.

Fossils to Kitty Litter?

So I was sad to see this posted on a friend's facebook page yesterday.

Harvard-trained Archibald, an expert in the 50-million-year-old Eocene period, said one of his prime exploration sites near Cache Creek, B.C. called the McAbee fossil site allows commercial fossil hunting, roadbuilding and mining for cat litter.

"There are two claims on the McAbee, one by the fossil dealers and one by the miners who are grinding up the fossil-bearing shale," he said.

Archibald is calling on the government to assume ownership of the site, including the areas claimed by the fossil dealers and cat-litter miners.

"The province has ignored paleontology to a great degree (and) other jurisdictions have embraced it," he said.

At least with the story about the Allosaurus from yesterday we at least have an idea of what we are losing but with this operation who knows what we are losing.

State of Education in America

So last night was apparently focus on education night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report it all started with a typical Back in Black segment with Lewis Black

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Education Crisis
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Funny yes but do we really learn much? No not really. But the guest segment from the Colbert Report was actually involved someone doing something that might be helpful.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Leon Botstein
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

His point about needing to educate people about what their rights are is very true. People know that they have freedom of speech and religion but far too many feel that this freedom doesn't mean that other's get to criticize their views. Not true if your views are wrong or I think they are crazy I have a right to say so, just like you do right back to me. I'm not going to reiterate his views on science he did a good enough job himself but I would like to point out Colbert's state of what the truth scientifically being what feels right is a view accepted by far to many people in the US today. This is not true, I may want to be better than the rest of the animal kingdom and not just a species of ape, but this isn't the way it works we are just a species of ape no matter how you look at it.

Who knew you could actually learn something from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

Also don't forget if you are going to be in the D.C. area on October 30th to attend either The Rally to Restore Sanity or The March to Keep Fear Alive, and let me know how it goes.

VOTE!!!!

Coming up in November the U.S. is holding our annual elections. This year is as important as every year to make sure you get out and vote. Now some of you may be asking yourself, why is he posting this so early? Well the answer is quite simple, I know there are a lot of people out there who will be away from their permanent residents on election day due to being at school and what not. I wanted to remind all of these that there is a way to go about voting. One option is to declare your residency in the area where you are currently going to school but for many of you this just will not be possible for any number of reasons. The other option, and the one that inspired me to write this post, is the absentee ballot. Every state has an option to fill out an application form for an absentee ballot but you need to make sure that you do so shortly. I received my ballot in the mail on Monday and this will allow me to participate in the voting process even though I will be attending school over a thousand miles away. So no matter who you vote for or if you have to vote absentee make sure that you do.

Allosaurus for Sale

In an auction at Sotheby’s France yesterday there were many paleontological specimens for sale but the highlight was an Allosaurus that was supposed to fetch around €800,000–1 million ($1.09-1.36 million). That is a lot of money, and in fact it ended up getting more than that according to some sources €1,296,750 ($1,805,743.73). A BBC report said this.

Found in Wyoming in the US, the 33-ft long skeleton is the most complete of its species, with 70% of its bones.

This of course brings up the question of if this is good paleontology (you can probably guess how I feel) which gets good coverage in the BBC article.

"I see so many things being lost to commercial dealers, who sell them on to rich buyers," says Dr [Darren] Naish.

"We have so much trouble finding money for research of any kind. But then there seems to be people with limitless money to buy for their private collection.

"They are used as if they are expensive pieces of art," he says.

[...]

Prof Kevin Padian, a palaeontologist and curator from the University of California in Berkeley, says the "problem is that it robs us of our patrimony".

"Not every specimen is priceless in scientific or educational terms, but who should make this decision - auctioneers?"

In general, he says: "There's no guarantee that the skeleton you're buying is correctly identified, you don't know what has been restored or reconstructed (often from very different animals).

"So they are not good investments, except in the minds of other people who want to impress their friends."

But Dr [David] Martill disagrees, saying he does not believe scientists have "some God-given right" to fossils.

Both sides bring up good arguments and overall the BBC article does a good job not favoring either side. This article by ArtInfo.com shows that many people just view them as pieces of art.

Although institutions are a natural market for such an enormous object, Mickeler said that “for several years now in France you have important collectors who actually have the space to put such items in their home, not just natural history collectors but also modern and contemporary art collectors.” The dinosaur, he added, is “perfectly suited for a contemporary interior.” According to the specialist, “there has been demand, a real interest” since the sale was announced, with certain French entrepreneurs indicating that they may be interested in acquiring the dinosaur to give or loan it to a museum.

They also go on to mention what else is being sold.

Other top dinosaur lots in tomorrow's sale include the skeleton of a Plesiosaurus, a 190-million-year-old aquatic reptile that is one of the most complete specimens in existence (est. €320-370,000, or $436-504,000), and a rare fossil of a Dorygnathus, a flying reptile that resembles a Pterodactyl (est. €162-200,000, or $221-272,000). Geological marvels are also featured, including a citrine crystal nicknamed “The Magic Flower,” and a large tourmaline crystal on a base of white albite (each est. €320-350,000 or $436-477,000).

But if mammals are your thing, don’t despair: also galloping onto the auction block are a complete woolly rhinoceros skeleton from Pleistocene-era Siberia (est. €70-90,000, or $95-123,000) and a European cave bear displayed in a setting of moss and tree trunks, a relative bargain at €20-25,000 ($27-34,000).

Argh, they say other animals in the dinosaur lot and then don't list a dinosaur must..resist...urge...to...rant...about...how...this...shows...we...need...more...education.

Looking at ID by religious studies professor

How do you tell that I think something is a hot button issue? Three posts on it in less than a week. The issue is the Discovery Institute's event at SMU last week. When we last left the issue a group of professors had written a letter to the SMU school paper. This morning another article was published in the same paper, this one by the chair of the Department of Religious Studies a Dr. Mark A. Chancey. Dr. Chancey does not say what one might expect from a professor of religious studies he says that evolution is a scientific theory and ID is at its heart a religious theory.

Intelligent Design (ID) has not gained much traction in the scientific community. It originated within certain religious circles and has credibility only within those same circles-mostly theologically conservative Christian groups that find aspects of evolutionary theory threatening.

This is true ID is a religious idea a court case can attest to this fact, see Kitzmiller v. Dover. Dr. Chancey then brings up something that I really thought was important and did not know prior to this, and it helps explain why there was so much backlash against the DI at SMU.

Why the sensitivity over IDers' appearance at SMU? Here, historical context is important.

Unfortunately, the Discovery Institute has a track record of using SMU's prestige and academic reputation to bolster its own claims to legitimacy. Consider this quote from Phillip E. Johnson, a chief ID architect: "The movement we now call the Wedge made its public debut at a conference of scientists and philosophers held at Southern Methodist University in March 1992."

Johnson goes on to characterize that conference as "a respectable academic gathering." This language implies that SMU sponsored an academic conference in which ID proponents participated as full-fledged scholars. In fact, the 1992 event, too, was sponsored not by any academic unit of the university but by a campus ministry-a detail conspicuously absent from Johnson's description.

He goes on to describe the "Wedge Document", another interesting read if you haven't seen it. Read the rest of the article and learn but also learn why there should be a separation between science and religion.