(via indexed)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
If you’ve got the 29 August issue of Chemical & Engineering News, there’s an interesting editorial inside. It seems there has been a flurry of activity on C&EN on the issue of evolution; the editor dismissed the whole idea of intelligent design creationism back in February, saying that it was not an acceptable alternative to the theory of evolution and should not be taught in the schools. He got hammered with forceful complaints from pro-ID engineers, and many letters were published in the April issue. Uh-oh, I hear all the engineers out there groaning, here comes the Salem hypothesis again…
However, here’s the cool thing: those pro-creationism letters spurred an even greater response from the C&EN readership, a wonderful colossal roar of disapproval against the vocal subset who were endorsing ID, and a small fraction of the letters are published in the latest issue (I’ve got the print copy; the online edition is a bit behind, but keep an eye open for it.)
It’s reassuring. A noisy few cranks in engineering occasionally get all the news, but give them a chance and a voice and the majority do favor good science.
You may recall that some whackaloons going to pray for rain in Denver to ruin Obama’s acceptance speech. It didn’t work — no surprise there — but there was an incident, a small selective event. A defective sprinkler went off, flooding a skybox booth.
Omens and portents!
Another willing victim has been absorbed into the empire: Blake Stacey, the guy I want by my side in a gunfight (we’re still waiting for Ben Goldacre to release the embarrassing photos of that incident), has brought his blog into the SciencBlogs fold. Check out the new Science After Sunclipse.
The Democratic National Convention is going on in Denver, and I’m really not at all interested in what’s going on inside the convention center: it’s a bunch of people saying feel-good platitudes to get themselves elected, all studiously avoiding saying anything substantial that might annoy a voter. It’s much more interesting to see what’s going on outside the convention, where people are trying to make their real opinions heard. That is actually a bit troubling.
Bless their sacrilegious little hearts, the students are trickling back onto campuses everywhere, and doing their part to stir up freethinking mischief. Skatje and Collin are going to be recruiting for the UMM Freethinkers tonight, offering the incoming freshman cookies for their souls and handing out pamphlets. They’re going to have to work harder to top the latest godless scandal at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, where students put up a provocative poster. People were very upset, for some reason, and the poster has since been taken down.
There are lots of comments from students who simply don’t get it.
“You can’t portray Jesus like that. He believes in matrimony, that relationships like that should be done inside matrimony,” sophomore Brianna Holland said.
She said she believes homosexuality is wrong because she is a Christian, but she also said she is proud that her religion teaches tolerance and acceptance.
Why can’t you portray Jesus like that? Were there no gay people in the Middle East in the first century? I’m neither Christian nor homosexual, but I think the poster actually flatters their diety, making him out to be both human and hot. The story behind this encounter is terribly apocryphal, and about as reliable as the stories of loaves and fishes, but it doesn’t say anything bad about Christianity.
The remarks from Ms Holland do, though. So she’s proud of her tolerance and acceptance, and she just thinks homosexuality is wrong, eh? It’s commendable that she doesn’t spout hellfire at them, but there’s something wrong here…
Since Tom Willis wants to slap warning labels on all scientists, one of our commenters obliged by designing one you can get on a t-shirt.
It’s probably not exactly what Willis intended, but it’ll do.
Cyberguy has a nice collection of short pamphlets discussing atheism, evolution, and the scientific method, and will soon be including a lovely pdf of Planet of the Hats. It’s useful to have these sorts of things in simple, single page format.
I expect you all to make lots of copies, team up, put on your white shirts, get on a bicycle, and distribute them in your neighborhood.
Someone must have been reading some of my comment threads attentively, because this looks familiar:
