The very freshest, sweetest, neatest Tangled Bank is now online. It’s got links! To science!
P.S. A few people are worried that the Panda’s Thumb seems to be down right now. They’re having some server problems, it’s nothing to be too concerned about (it is not an external attack), and they’re in the midst of migrating to a new server anyway, so all should be well again soon without too much fuss.
These are some carnivals of science—read about invertebrates, genes, or genetics this morning.
Quick, read someone else’s blog and then come over to join in the open thread!
The Tangled Bank is coming up on Wednesday, 6 June, at the Behavioral Ecology Blog. Send those links in to me or host@tangledbank.net by Tuesday.
No, don’t hate me…but it’s more carnivals. I’m catching up on all this stuff that was sent to me.
Besides, it’s a holiday weekend, right? You’re going to be out there on the deck, tending the BBQ, with your laptop at hand for wireless browsing between the burger flipping, anyway, just like me. So sure, here’s lots more reading.
Well, I’m exhausted, how about you? Time for a cold one and a picnic.
This is an open thread, so go ahead, tell us how your Memorial Day Weekend is going. And no complaining that I’ve given you too much homework today!
This week, the creationist Ken Ham and his organization, Answers in Genesis, are practicing the Big Lie. They have spent tens of millions of dollars to create a glossy simulacrum of a museum, a slick imitation of a scientific enterprise veneered over long disproved religious fables, and they are gathering crowds and world-wide attention to the grand opening of their edifice of deceit. You can now take a photographic tour of the exhibits and see for yourself—it’s not science at all, but merely a series of Bible stories dolled up in dioramas.
The blogosphere is also giving them some attention — almost none of it favorable. What I’ve done here is collect recent reactions from all over to the Creation Museum, and compile them down into a link and a short and (I hope) representative extract. Browse through this long, long list, and when you find some quote that tickles your interest, follow the link to find the complete article. The National Center for Science Education has also compiled reactions from journalists, educators, scientists, and scientific organizations for yet more reading on the subject.
We’re up to a round two dozen submissions for the Ham Roast or Creation Museum Carnival or whatever we’re going to call it — keep ’em coming in, I’m planning on posting it early Sunday morning. At this rate, it’s going to be big, and it’s going to be good.
John McKay of archy has noted that Ken Ham’s fabulously low-rent sideshow attraction of pseudoscience (AKA his Creation “Science” “Museum”) opens next week, and has asked if there is going to be any coordinated response in the blogosphere — some kind of mini-carnival or something. I say, why not? Let’s!
It’s short notice, but I’ll organize it, and you all just have to contribute to it. The museum’s opening day is 28 May, so we should aim to have a one-stop page full of links to commentary the day before, on 27 May. If you’ve written something recently, or would like to put something together this week, on anything to do with Ham’s folly — everything from outright mockery to serious critical dissections of claims from Answers in Genesis is fair game — send it to me by Saturday and I’ll put up a media-ready digest of reactions on Sunday. We should aim on making it easy for people searching for the term “creation museum” to find the criticism.
Here are a few new carnivals:
The next Tangled Bank will be at geek counterpoint on Wednesday, 23 May — send those links in to me or host@tangledbank.net.
Here’s a slew of good stuff to entertain you on a pleasant Friday, the last day of finals week here at UMM. I have to give my genetics students their final exam in a short while—I fear they are not having a happy time right now. When they’re done, though, the sun will be shining, commencement awaits tomorrow … and I will be sitting in gloomy room somewhere, red pen in hand, grading.
