If Jackson Wheat hadn’t talked me into following @TakeThatDarwin, this headline would be a serious contender for the dumbest thing I’ve heard this week:

Oh, really?

Image from Joe Felsenstein’s list of 392 software packages and 54 web servers for phylogenetic inference.

Nearly every evolutionary biologist I know writes programs of some sort. Most graduate programs in evolutionary biology offer at least one coding class, and students are strongly encouraged to take them. I’m at least conversant in Python, Perl, R, Processing, and Mathematica, all of which I’ve learned because I had a problem to solve in grad school or after.

Anyone want to bet against me if I say that postdocs in EEB departments know more programming languages, on average, than fellows of the Discovery Institute?

As a side note, the quote above is somewhat dishonest in suggesting that “biologists who have read Michael Behe” have reason to doubt “the Darwinian mechanism,” since Michael Behe has been clear that he does not doubt that natural selection works:

…there’s also great evidence that random mutation paired with natural selection can modify life in important ways. —The Edge of Evolution, p. 15

Also, did you notice that the Uncommon Descent masthead no longer includes a bacterial flagellum? I’m not sure when it disappeared, but it was some time after Michael Behe bizarrely suggested that critics were crazy for associating arguments about the bacterial flagellum with intelligent design.