Read this: wherever Obama has proposed stimulus spending for science, conservative senators propose chopping back massively. The increase in support for NSF? Gone completely. NASA’s boost? Cut in half. And on and on.
These cuts have not passed yet, but they will soon if you don’t howl at your senators.
When a blogger named Zeno proudly announces that his blog, Halfway There, is about to reach the landmark of 250,000 hits, doesn’t that imply that he’ll never ever reach 500,000 hits?
Herbert West for HHS is a truly inspired choice.
I was just sent this slightly retouched photo of Titanoboa, and it bothers me. There’s something missing.
No, not a caption, although that might help. What it really needs is…a second panel! What will happen in this scene just a few minutes later? I can picture it in my mind’s eye, no problem.
Just ask Richard Mullens, who has not said he is an atheist, but was suspected of being one…and lost his job as a teacher for that reason.
Then on January 7th, a student in my classroom in second period left my class, went to the Principal’s office, and told him that there was an inappropriate discussion in my classroom. I was informed by the principal, Richard Turner, that I needed to talk to her mother because she was very upset. Her mother came to class on January 7th, came to the school January 7th, very upset. She made some threats to me in the hallway. And then on January 8th, Mr. Turner informed me that I needed to call the parent, Mrs. Lowe. On January 9th, I had Vicki Smith, the school secretary, call “REDACTED” on my behalf to arrange a conference at 10:35 Monday, January 12th. Monday the 12th, I met with REDACTED and School Principal Richard Turner in his office. REDACTED was very angry. She accused me of being an atheist, saying I was too liberal, and that I allowed the students to talk about inappropriate things in the classroom. I told her that occasionally students would get on topics and say things, but I was unable to censor them before they were able to say them. She said that I called her daughter a name and I denied the accusation. But then she said that I didn’t believe in god and shouldn’t be teaching. She also said that she had spoken to 3 other board members who agreed with her that I shouldn’t be teaching because I was too liberal and I was an atheist.
On January 15th, there was a board meeting. Nothing was on the agenda concerning me. During the open forum, several audience members spoke to their concerns that I was an atheist and I was too liberal. On January 16th, I was called to Mr. Richard Turner’s office (my principal), and he informed me that I had been put on administrative leave with pay. The reasons, as stated to me by Mr. Turner at the time, were that I was accused of being an atheist and teaching atheism in the classroom, and I was too liberal. On January 23rd, Mr. Turner and members of the board met behind closed doors concerning my suspension and allegations that were directed at me. On January 24th, I received a certified letter from Mr. Turner that stated that the causes for my suspension apparently had been changed to inappropriate contact with students and comments.
He should count himself lucky. If the parents had accused him of being a witch, he might have been hanged by now.
Here’s a subjective list of the top 30 atheist/agnostic blogs. There are a few oddities in there, though: Fred Clark is going to be surprised to learn that he has left the Christian faith, and The Panda’s Thumb tries to avoid the theist/atheist wars altogether.
Still, the list can’t be all bad since it puts me at #1.
Just wait — this one will be featured in some cheesy Sci-Fi channel creature feature in a few months. Paleontologists have dug up a fossil boa that lived 58-60 million years ago. They haven’t found a complete skeleton, but there’s enough to get an estimate of the size. Look at these vertebrae!
Just to put it in perspective, the small pale blob between a and b in the photo above is an equivalent vertebra from an extant boa, which was 3.4 meters long. The extinct beast is estimated to have been about 13 meters long, weighing over 1100 kg (for us Americans, that’s 42 feet and 2500 pounds). This is a very big snake, the largest ever found.
The authors used the size of this snake to estimate the temperature of this region of South America 60 million years ago. Snakes are poikilotherms, depending on external sources of heat to maintain a given level of metabolic activity, and so available temperature means are limiting factors on how large they can grow. By comparing this animal’s size to that of modern tropical snakes, and extrapolating from a measured curve of size to mean annual temperature, they were able to calculate that the average ambient temperature was 30-34°C (American cluestick: about 90°F); less than that, and this snake would have died.
From other data, they know that the atmospheric CO2 concentration at this time was about 2000 parts per million, and that the forests it lived in were thick, wet, and rainy. They also estimate that slightly later, about 56 million years ago, mean tropical temperatures would have soared to 38-40°C (102°F), and would have killed off many species.
So there you go…this is one place I think I’d avoid if I had a time machine. It was a thick-aired, muggy, sweltering oven, with giant snakes crawling about. They were likely to have eaten large crocodilians, so I suspect a time-traveling human would be nothing but a quick hors d’ouevre. They’re still interesting, though, especially as an example of evolution and climate science meeting in a mutually revealing fashion.
Head JJ, Block JI, Hastings AK, Bourque JR, Cadena EA, Herrera FA, Polly D, Jaramillo CA (2009) Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics
reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures. Nature 457(7230):715-718.
Sometimes these kooks reveal that they even read the blog…somewhat obsessively and angrily. This one seems to be a follow-up to yesterday’s email, and I think he’s unhappy that I put up that other crank’s letter and not his. I’m sorry, but I don’t even remember what his previous letter’s point was, and if this one is any indication, it was another spittle-flecked disjointed ramble, and I’m afraid I don’t read those with much attention. However, since he really wants to join the pantheon (a very crowded pantheon) of irate readers, I’m happy to oblige.
Don’t get any ideas, though, all you other crackpots! This guy got away with it, but if you all start demanding your tirades be posted, I’m not going to be accommodating.
Well sir,
I hesitate to believe that your silence is some kind of assent to the truth of what I tried to express in my previous e-mail message yesterday. I notice in your “blog” today—somewhat amazingly considering the typical time constraints on an associate professor—that you graciously acknowledged receiving
“11 weird harangues . . . in my mailbox this morning.” Perhaps my harangue was one of these? Well mister you need to get a few harangues in your mailbox in the morning, if you don’t mind my saying so. You opened up this silly door by being a “public figure” with an exceptionally big mouth who likes to put down other people—seemingly every day of his life—so take it like a man, would you please? Go ahead, dismiss me all you want, laugh at me, lump me in with all the other people you marginalize and stereotype. Oh I know, you probably feel so useful in your roles as atheist “blog-meister,”
small-town scientist, condemner of “inferior people,” Lord over ALL “creationists” and defender of truth (as you seem to perceive it anyway), and you probably don’t have time for my little rants. So be it. I don’t care, I will write my rants anyway. Really, I am not trying to be clever or to persuade you of anything. Why would I do that? What would be the point? You’ve obviously heard it all before and you obviously know everything you need to know for your own personal fulfillment. So be it. What I am doing, in fact, is condemning you, as best I can. Why? Because in my estimation your actions reflect something that is fundamentally wrong and disgraceful, and I feel that it is my duty to write whether you read it or not—whether you butcher up my comments in your silly “blog” or not. Since we will probably never meet in person, this is the best I can do. It is, for me, a matter of principle or I would not feel or speak so strongly about it. Like you, I will not remain silent when I am offended by something or someone, especially something or someone in the public eye. This is not an attempt to offend you, rather, it is me telling you what I think about you since you have chosen to enter my world with your public presence. How is that you say? When, as of late, I have often to read about a certain person named “PZ Myers,” often just in my ordinary non-specific reading, and when this person often does ridiculous bizarre things, apparently to gain attention to himself in furtherance of what appears to be a
self-perceived “cause,” it becomes a nuisance to me, and to many others who don’t take the time to write you. Since you are a “public” person, I am entitled to tell you what I think and feel, whether you care or not. I am not writing depending on whether you care or not, obviously. Why do you think so many people write these “harangues” anyway, professor? Or perhaps you ONLY prefer to listen to the people who react favorably to you as a public entity? Wouldn’t that be nice, if everyone thought you were peaches and cream? Think about it, would you please? To pretend to worship you, as others might, for sharing some superior insight you believe you have into the nature of things, would be lying on my part to say the least. I don’t think that in much of any way, obviously quite the opposite is what I think: I think that you offer NO insight into the nature of things of any real or lasting value, and the only reason that you persist is most probably because you enjoy being a nuisance for its own sake. I think that if you actually did value getting at the true nature of our planet and the cosmos of which it is part, it wouldn’t be so important for you to have daily opportunity to belittle others in a public forum like the internet—you would instead, as most decent people have in ages past, offer your particular contribution to knowledge humbly and with respect for others. You have earned my disrespect with your actions and words against others, and you do no service to humanity with such behaviour, no matter how strongly you feel about your scientific insights—they are not worth the pain you cause to others. Of course, you probably don’t care to hear this.Think about these two statements for a nanosecond:
What do you know that I don’t know? What do you know that I need to know?
I don’t believe that you can answer these questions at all. “Ahhh”, you might say, (just to give a random example I picked up from your so-called “blog” today. You might say: (imagine a real arrogant guy with a beard for a second saying this)
“You need to know that whales had babies on land at one time, and what a profound revelation that is!”
This is an example of what you daily worry about? This is what I, therefore, need to worry about? I need to worry and think about how scientists think whales used to reproduce in the past? Or, I need to overly concern myself the fact that scientists believe that whales may have changed over millions of years? That’s IT? That is an example of the kind of earth-shattering insight that you would share with humanity as a scientist? This is why you are so incessantly noisy and bothersome and offensive to others who don’t happen to be scientists? This is why God is dead for you? Because whales like everything else in this incredible universe, have changed over time? That’s just wonderful. Great. Do you think it is then justifiable to condemn other people because (for whatever reason) they may not believe just as you do as a professional scientist, (and who gives a fig whether it’s about whales, it could be anything, that’s just my example). Should we condemn the “common” people if they do not subscribe to certain ideas in other academic areas as well? Should this be the calling of all practitioners of academic subjects, to condemn others in an offensive manner, oh yes . . . in the name of truth? I honestly don’t think you really care a bling for any brand of truth, but unfortunately that seems to have made you especially vociferous, and miracle or miracles the internet allows you to fully vent.
Probably you protest that we are strangers, and you object to receiving this kind of e-mail where I ask these kinds of questions and make these kind of observations. Perhaps we are strangers, but only in the sense that I have never met you in person as a fellow human being, that is to say, as a flesh and blood person; but your persona, which is to say, your social facade via the internet, and your actions as a person in the public forum are regrettably there for all to see, and this is what I know about PZ Myers; and it is this public persona that offends me that I am addressing. You are a professor at a university, but that of itself engenders nothing special to me, nor does it earn my automatic respect. You went to college and majored in biology. Would you like a medal or something? You seem to equate the noble profession of science, and particularly the subject of biology with atheism? My question is, why? And by what authority do you speak for scientists? Do you have a right to speak for all scientists? Or even all atheists? Can you see how your arrogant, dismissive attitude towards others might be offensive and an embarrassment to many, if not most scientists? Or, to many if not most atheists? Do you think scientists or atheists want to be thought of as being like that “communion-wafer maniac.” Based on your example, should all scientists crusade against people of religious faith in the most offensive possible manner? I may have majored in biology myself, for all you know, I may have more degrees than you, but that is not the point. I have known and worked with many fine professors, and you sir, are not one. Not because of what you do or do not know, but because of your actions as a public figure and your lack of comportment as a supposedly learned man in the public eye. You undoubtedly believe that you are in some sense “saving the world” by condemning others, but what in God’s name do you hope it will accomplish ? In the hope that there will be more “intellectual”, sarcastic, blow-hards such as yourself? How liberating! What a positive boon for thinking people everywhere! What a vision for the future well-being of the human race! La-de-dah-de-dah-de-da. I have looked hard for a while now to find some redeeming qualities in all your brouhaha, but from one intellectual and humanist to another, they just ain’t there.
You are a curiosity to me, as I find curious anyone—and forgive me here but I think that you yourself have made this a fact—as I find curious anyone who holds themselves in the public spotlight as possessing “special revelations” that we all need to know about as educated human beings. For those who daily “blog-in” to praise you for your “special insights,” it seems perfectly natural to them in their eagerness to identify with you, and you become a kind of (forgive me) messiah to some of them undoubtedly in their zeal. I repeat: What do you know that I don’t know? What do you know that I need to know? Answer: you don’t know anything that I need to know. You think you know something profound about the way the world works? So what. Many people have this same delusion. You think evolution explains the world. So what, could be. I don’t object to your science, I object to your arrogance in the public forum. I have known and admired some wonderful iconoclasts who had some genuine insights worth considering, but my God, they knew when to shut up! You are an embarrassment to the academic world. With all your knowledge, your are in my estimation a failure as an educator, at least as far as one can judge from your public utterances and actions. You educate others in the false way to behave. You are doing more damage than good. You are a negative karma engine. As an atheist, perhaps the idea of doing damage while you can is for you a point of personal pride, but not everyone on the planet really gives a rat’s behind about how you inject your personal vengeance against faith into your professional career, or how good you are at pretending to be superior to others. It would be a hoot, I am sure, to sit in on one of your classes. Who cares what the “truth” might be if it comes from some arrogant, prattle-mouth such as yourself. God forbid that one of your students may not think as you do! Do you really think you are doing scientists, your students, and the general public a favor by pretending to be some kind of lunatic, defacto “defender of the scientific cause”? Even the other atheist scientists of the world find you obnoxious, and wish you would be quiet. Probably never happen.
Don’t let all the insipid praise that you may receive on your “blog” go to your head. Do something surprising and print this e-mail in your little internet newspaper, I would love to read 500 tons of criticism of what I have just written by your fellow maniacs.
just another human being,
David Hartmann
Man, this guy really needs to learn that if I put something on the web, he is not required to read it, especially since he has declared that I don’t know anything he needs to know. I’m very concerned for his blood pressure.
The Darwin Day website has a calendar of events, and you can search for cool things that might be happening near you next week. Except…well, apparently the site organizers aren’t very discriminating about who and what can be posted there. Like this…
Darwin Conference (Free)
Location: 3800 S. Fairview St
Santa Ana/CA 92704Activities: Saturday, February 07, 2009 8:30 AM to 8:55 AM Video (All Ages) 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM Ken Ham: Answers for Racism – Darwin & Evolution`s Racist Roots. (Ages 11 & Up) 10:20 AM to 11:10 AM Dr. Andrew Snelling:Answers from Geology – The Catastrophe of Noah`s Flood (Ages 11 & Up) 11:25 AM to 12:15 PM Dr. David Menton: Answers about the “Ape-Men” (Ages 11 & Up) 12:15 PM to 1:25 PM Lunch Break (All Ages) 1:30 PM to 2:40 PM Ken Ham: Answers for Effective Evangelism in the 21st Century (Ages 11 & Up) 3:00 PM to 3:50 PM Dr. Andrew Snelling:Answers from Science and Scripture on the Real Age of the Earth (Ages 11 & Up) 4:05 PM to 4:55 PM Dr. David Menton: Answers from Design – Intelligent Design vs. Darwinian Evolution (Ages 11 & Up) 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM Ken Ham: Genesis: Key to Reaching Today`s World (All Ages)
So if you want to celebrate Darwin’s birthday by listening to some cranks and crackpots make up stuff about the science, preach about jebus, and teach your children a hodge-podge of lies, there you go, have fun.
I think it’s a bit inappropriate, myself. Although I am looking forward to a fun summer when I can reciprocate and crash Vacation Bible School to tell the little kiddies about the fallacies and inconsistencies of the bible, and how the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and life evolved upon it.
Don’t tell me that would be rude. They started it!
P.S. Shame on you, DarwinDay.org. Could we maybe have a little quality control?
