Bizarro astronomy

OK, astronomers and physicists, get to work. This movie is supposed to be a refutation of modern science, but it’s full of bogus claims like, ‘Since 98% of the sun is hydrogen and helium, the earth ought to be 98% hydrogen and helium.’ There is a lot of similar trivially idiotic nonsense, all marshaled to support the false contention that if science can’t explain it, then god must have done it, but here’s the thing: almost none of it is in the Index to Creationist Claims. We need an update!

Let’s have a presidential science debate!

As Sheril hinted earlier, there is now a formal call for a science debate by the presidential candidates.

sciencedebate2008.jpg

A CALL FOR A PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we, the undersigned, call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their views on the issues of The Environment, Medicine and Health, and Science and Technology Policy.

I’ve expressed my opinion of such an effort before — I think it’s an excellent idea, but suspect that most of the candidates would refuse to submit to it. Not only is there the science test factor, in which we’re asking them to get evaluated on something most know nothing about, but the Republican slate in particular is full of astonishing idiots who hold beliefs contradicted by science. I just can’t believe they’ll step up on the podium for this one, unless they perhaps see an opportunity to hijack the discussion to promote their personal piety.

I still want it to happen: this is an opportunity to apply pressure to our candidates to have some minimal, basic science literacy. As I previously mentioned, though, those airheads with nice hairdos that populate the television media are even more dim than the candidates themselves, and must not be allowed anywhere near the event — I want wildlife biologists armed with tranquilizer guns at the doors, with orders to shoot Russert and Blitzer and anyone from Fox News on sight. How about if we put Natalie Angier, Carl Zimmer, John Horgan, Ira Flatow, John Tierney, and Cornelia Dean on a panel asking questions? How about if we ask Science and Nature to send representatives with questions? I would dearly love to see a debate on any subject where the candidates had to deal with issues of some substance.

So let’s all make a noise about this one, OK? Rattle the cages, and tell the candidates we want to hear opinions on topics that matter for the leader of a technological, 21st century society, rather than the usual tripe.

Books for the Spring 2008 semester

The Fall semester is winding down — this is the last week of classes — so it’s time to start thinking about the Spring term.

Ugh. I don’t want to. This term has been driving me sufficiently insane as it is.

But anyway, if you’re a student thinking about all the money you’ll have to be spending on textbooks, here’s a list of what you’ll need to get if you’re taking my courses. Feel free to order them from some other source than the university bookstore. I don’t get a penny from the U bookstore, but I have to confess, the links below do tie into affiliate programs that give me a few pennies in gift certificates to the various online sources.

  • Freshman biology majors will be taking Biology 1111, Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development (FunGenEvoDevo, for short), either in the fall or the spring term. This course is primarily a qualitative introduction to the basic concepts of the scientific method which will also give you an overview of the fields described in the title. It has three textbooks, but two of them are optional.

    • Science as a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by John A. Moore. This is the primary required text for the course; you may be surprised when you read it, since it doesn’t fit the usual expectations of an introductory biology textbook. We did tell you this was a liberal arts university when you enrolled, though, didn’t we?

    • Life: The Science of Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by David Sadava, H. Craig Heller , Gordon H. Orians, William K. Purves, David M. Hillis. This book is optional, but highly recommended, and will be used as a reference text throughout the course. You can get by using the copies in the reference section of the library, but since this book will also be used in our required biodiversity and cell biology courses, you might as well bite the expensive bullet and get a copy now. The links above are to the 8th and latest edition; it’s fine to use the 7th edition.

    • The Counter-Creationism Handbook(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Isaak. This book is an entirely optional resource; if you’re going to be a biologist, though, you’re going to have to argue with creationists sometime, and this text is invaluable. We will, however, only be using it for about a week, so if it breaks your budget, feel free to share another student’s copy.

  • I’ll also be teaching Genetics, Biology 4312.

    • Concepts of Genetics(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by William S. Klug, Michael R. Cummings, and Charlotte A Spencer. It’s a solid textbook of transmission genetics.

It all sounds so fun, doesn’t it?

Scienceblogs.de

Scienceblogs is expanding in a new direction — they’ve opened a new counterpart, Scienceblogs — Wissenschaft, Kultur, Politik. Take a look; it’s got the familiar Scienceblogs layout, and it’s got a new collection of bloggers, and it’s all in German. Very cool! I can only stumble through the titles and get the rough gist of what they’re talking about, but I think there are a few readers here who are much more comfortable with the language and can have a grand time over there.

And if you find anything especially good, let me know — I’d like to see some more international cross-linking going on.

In case you’ve been wondering about John A. Davison…

But you haven’t, have you?

He’s still around, and still occasionally trying to get comments past my filters here. He has a blog — Evolution Is Finished, with one article with no real content, and a few comments, mostly by John A. Davison. He’s still whining repetitively at ISCID. He was going on and on at a site called OneBlogADay, but that site seems to have disappeared; I hope it didn’t implode in disgust at the way it was hijacked by the preening duo of the obtuse JAD and his talking hemorrhoid, VMartin. But just in case you’ve missed him, he has discovered a brand new outlet, the Expelled blog. At last, he’s found an environment enriched with the feculent putridity of Ben Stein’s compost which allows his inanity to grow and flourish, reinforced by the ripe goofiness of swarms of other creationists.

Not recommended, but presented as a public notification of the whereabouts of one of the dumbest people on the internet.

Florida and Texas going at it

There are some rational people in Florida, as Robyn Blumner’s column makes clear. Not only does she mock Texas for their foolish harrassment of Christine Comer, but she goes on to point out the disastrous consequences of Republican religious meddling, and that Huckabee is going to be more of the same.

Here is something scary-ignorant. Last week, the Web site ChristiaNet.com, which bills itself as “the world’s largest Christian portal,” cheered the results of a survey it took finding that half of its 1,400 Christian respondents said that dinosaurs and man roamed the Earth at the same time.

Putting aside that the schoolteachers of these people should be slapped silly, these are Huckabee’s peeps. We can’t afford to put this kind of backward thinking and scientific illiteracy in the driver’s seat again.

That also highlights one of the sources of the problem: that these Christwits are proud of their ignorance.

And speaking of Chris Comer, the TEA education commissioner, Robert Scott, has spoken up. It’s nothing new, but is what you’d expect: denial. He claims there are no litmus tests for political ideology at the TEA, and that religion is irrelevant, and that Comer had a history of personnel problems that lead to her dismissal.

Here are the concluding questions of the interview, where it all gets very confusing.

Was her advocacy of evolution over creationism an element in her dismissal?

She wasn’t advocating anything. My understanding is that the e-mail she forwarded – let me rephrase that. She wasn’t advocating for evolution. But she may have given the impression that … we were taking a position as an agency – not as an individual but as an agency – on a matter.

She wasn’t advocating for evolution, OK. So why was she called into meetings to discuss the problem of forwarding this email, and why was she pressured by human resources to quit? And what “matter” caused the problem, then? I get the impression that Mr Scott is lying clumsily to obscure the actual issues involved.

And this, of course, is a good question:

Why shouldn’t the agency advocate the science of evolution? Texas students are required to study it.

I don’t think the impression was that we were taking a position in favor of evolution. We teach evolution in public schools. It’s part of our curriculum. But you can be in favor of a science without bashing people’s faith, too. I don’t know all the facts, but I think that may be the real issue here. I can’t speak to motivation but … we have standards of conduct and expect those standards of conduct to be followed.

I don’t get the impression that the TEA is favoring evolution, either, more shame to them. The rest — accusation of faith-bashing and violated standards of conduct — is simply more desperate floundering to cover what is turning into a major gaffe by the creationists.