Creation science fair report

I missed the science fair (I might get a shot at it later today), but a reader did send in a quick report on what you’ll find there.

I stopped by the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair Saturday night at the Har Mar mall. I am not a science educator so I may not be a fair judge and I don’t know how the various ages should relate to their various projects. I did not take a close look at all of them but there were some that seemed fairly decent, effects on plant growth, measuring impurities and contaminants in well vs tap water, air rifle velocity measurement, measuring wood hardness, color blindness in dogs. There seemed to be a number experiments on dogs. It seems house pets make convenient experimental animal subjects. There was also a simple spectrometer made from a music CD that I had seen of before.

One experiment looked at the affect of gum chewing on memory which I thought was questionable until I googled it. Apparently it has been studied and there is supposedly some beneficial effect.

However, there were a some displays that were not much of anything. One display essentially said nothing more than “we don’t fall of the Earth because of Earth’s gravity”. (I wonder what kind of force would otherwise make us fall off the Earth. Perhaps the idea of drifting off was intended.) Other displays were simplistic models of human digestive system, circulatory systems and such. Some of the writing on the display boards were rather poor as were some of the experimental procedures and controls. Displays also had their Bible quotes describing the connection to their science project.

There wasn’t much creation science in the fair this year. There seemed to be fewer creation/anti-evolution displays than past years. I spotted only one this time which might be considered an improvement. There was a display that made a very simplistic comparison of airplanes and helicopters with flying animals (bird, bat, dragonfly) and concluded that since the animals fly better than designed flying machines, they must also be designed. Irreducibility was also mentioned.

One experiment I thought was noteworthy looked at the time it takes for different brands of vitamin tablets to dissolve in water to counter the claim that some vitamin tablets are passed undissolved, even through sewer systems. (for more info, search: undigested vitamin.) I became familiar with this false claim when I did some research of my own after some people I know tried to sell me vitamins in gel form (agel.com). Supposedly they can be absorbed so much faster. (Why is it better for vitamins to be absorbed quickly anyway?) I did the same experiment myself with the vitamin brand I take. This experiment explicitly challenged a false claim for which I give the student credit.

Overall, the displays were not too different from what I have seen in previous years. Some are decent, but the rest can range from fairly mediocre to quit poor. But there are a few here and there that can stand out. One year a student did experiments on people on the unreliability of eye witness testimony which I thought was quite good, but a bit ironic coming from a Bible based science fair. I wish I could remember his Bible verse. Maybe if I had only been chewing gum at the time.

It sounds like a fairly typical science fair, made just a little sadder by the compulsion to insert biblical apologetics into everything.

Louisiana boycotts science; scientists boycott Louisiana

One of my favorite meetings is the annual Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meetings. One of my favorite cities to visit is New Orleans, Louisiana. The two pleasures will not be coinciding at any time in the near future because of the ineptitude and inanity of Louisiana’s legislature and governor, Bobby Jindal. Here’s the press release from the LA Science Coalition:

National Scientific Society to Boycott Louisiana over LA Science Education Act

The first tangible results of the Louisiana legislature’s passage and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s signing of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act have materialized, and these results are negative both for the state’s economy and national reputation. The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, a national scientific society with more than 2300 members, has put Gov. Bobby Jindal on notice that the society will not hold its annual meetings in Louisiana as long as the LA Science Education Act is on the books. In a February 5, 2009,letter to the governor that is posted on the SICB website under the headline, “No Thanks, New Orleans,” SICB Executive Committee President Richard Satterlie tells Jindal that “The SICB executive committee voted to hold its 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City because of legislation SB 561, which you signed into law in June 2008. It is the firm opinion of SICB’s leadership that this law undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana.” [NOTE: Although the legislation was introduced as SB 561, it was renumbered during the legislative process and passed as SB 733.]

Pointing out that SICB had joined with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) in urging Jindal to veto the legislation last year, Satterlie goes on to say that “The SICB leadership could not support New Orleans as our meeting venue because of the official position of the state in weakening science education and specifically attacking evolution in science curricula.” Salt Lake City was chosen as the site of the 2011 meeting in light of the fact that “Utah, in contrast, passed a resolution that states that evolution is central to any science curriculum.”

Noting that SICB’s recent 2009 meeting in Boston attracted “over 1850 scientists and graduate students to the city for five days,” Satterlie pointedly tells Jindal that “As you might imagine, a professional meeting with nearly 2000 participants can contribute to the economic engine of any community.” The implication of SICB’s decision for both New Orleans, which is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, and the entire state of Louisiana is clear. With Gov. Jindal threatening draconian budget cuts to the state’s universities, the loss of such a significant scientific convention will only add to the state’s deepening fiscal crisis.

Satterlie closes by telling Jindal that SICB will join with other groups “in suggesting [that] professional scientific societies reconsider any plans to host meetings in Louisiana.” However, SICB is not the first national scientific society to bring up the subject of boycotting Louisiana. Gregory Petsko, president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), has already called for a boycott not only of Louisiana but of any state that passes such legislation: “As scientists, we need to join such protests with our feet and wallets. . . . I think we need to see to it that no future meeting of our society [after the ASBMB’s already contracted 2009 meeting in New Orleans] will take place in Louisiana as long as that law stands.” (See“It’s Alive,” ASBMB Today, August 2008.)

After the Louisiana legislature passed the LA Science Education Act, a total of nine national scientific societies publicly called on Jindal to veto it. He ignored them, as well as everyone else who contacted him requesting that he veto the bill, choosing instead to help execute the agenda of the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), the Religious Right organization on whose behalf Louisiana Sen. Ben Nevers introduced the bill and on whose behalf Jindal signed it. Jindal is a staunch ally of the LFF. The citizens of Louisiana, whose educational well-being the governor claims to be so concerned about, are now paying the price–literally–for his loyalty to his conservative Christian base.

Sorry, Louisiana. You are a lovely state, but scientists won’t be supporting you as long as you’re going to be dedicated to anti-scientific foolishness.

Other states don’t have cause for complacency, though — creationism is not exclusively a Southern problem. If this keeps up, we may be having all of our scientific meetings in Canada.

Luskin flaunts his persecution complex, again

Shorter Casey Luskin: Waa, waa — they call me mean names!

Really, that’s the whole of his extended whine in US News & World Report, a long complaint that “darwinists” aren’t nice to him. It’s pathetic, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from Mr Squeaky. You really only need two pieces of information. 1) His opening paragraph:

Most Darwinists involved in the public debate today have one, and only one goal: To stifle free debate on this subject and thereby discourage you, the public, from scrutinizing the scientific evidence for yourself.

And 2) the knowledge that he wrote a 6800 word opinion piece that never once mentions any of that hypothetical scientific evidence for ID. Not one tiny scrap. You know, if I had 6800 words that I began with the assertion that I had scientific evidence for an idea that a shadowy cabal was keeping from the public, I think I’d take advantage of that opportunity to reveal the hidden wisdom that had been suppressed. Funny how they never manage to do that.

For some perspective: my Seed column is about 1500 words. A newspaper column might be 6 or 700 words. Luskin took the opportunity to run off his mouth at extravagant length, and said absolutely nothing.

Neandertal genome? Or a premature announcement?

In a potentially exciting development, researchers have announced the completion of a rough draft of the Neandertal genome in a talk at the AAAS, and in a press conference, and the latest issue of Science has a number of news articles on the subject. And that is a reason for having some reservations. There is no paper yet, and science by press release raises my hackles, and has done so ever since the cold fusion debacle. Not that I think this is a hoax or error by any means, but it’s not a good way to present a scientific observation.

Also, the work has some major limitations right now. They’ve got about 60% of the genome so far, and it’s all entirely from one specimen. From the age of these bones, degradation is inevitable, so there are almost certainly corrupted sequences in there — more coverage would give me much more confidence.

With those caveats, though, there are some tantalizing hints, and the subject is so exciting that it’s understandable why there’d be rush to announce. So far, they’ve identified approximately 1000-2000 amino acid differences in the coding part of the genome (human-chimp differences are about 50,000 amino acids), but there’s no report of any detectable regulatory differences.

I’m withholding judgement until I see a real paper; for now, you have to settle for a podcast with a science journalist, which just isn’t meaty enough yet.