Can we hope the poll is just wrong?

The latest USA Today/Gallup poll probably is valid, unfortunately — it’s not far off from my impressions. 44% of Americans think evolution is probably or definitely false, and two thirds think a god created human beings in the last ten thousand years. Those two numbers don’t quite fit together well — those who think a god created humans recently should also consider evolution false — but we can safely say that about half the country is ignorant or deluded about science, anyway.

We will now, of course, all close our eyes and pretend that religion has nothing at all to do with this catastrophic epidemic of stupidity.

Scott Hatfield hits the big time

I’m rather peeved and disappointed, too. The Discovery Institute Media Complaints Division posts a rebuke of bad bloggers and scientists who are mean to their shills, and there’s a link in there to Pharyngula…and I thought for sure it would be whining about something I said.

But no. The link is directly to one of Scott’s comments.

Poor guy. Now he’s going to have Casey Luskin squeaking at him. The rest of you are going to have to work at catching up by hurting the DI’s feelings badly enough that they point at you and cry. (You’re going to have to really work to beat me out, though—they have invoked my unholy, fearful name in their fundraising literature.)

Stephen Colbert: you are ON NOTICE!

How else can I respond to this wretched rant against our beloved cephalopods last night? He claims that “Narrowing the gap between cephalopods and humans can only lead to disaster” and that “Our seafood is training for something big”, and he’s right—and the only appropriate response is to welcome our new tentacled masters. Defiance and threats, like those of Mr Colbert, will only hasten your subjugation.

Father’s Day suggestions

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Yuck, I’m reminded that Father’s Day is coming up soon, and you are all obligated to find something cheesy to give to Dad (except me, I don’t have one anymore, so I’m exempt). Here’s a collection of manly suggestions, most of which don’t appeal at all to me, but hey, maybe your dad is different. Anyway, the only one that was mildly cool was the squidbrain tie (you can order here), which has a mere two flaws. 1) I don’t wear ties, and 2) why a vertebrate brain? What would be really nifty is a tie with a chain of ganglia down its length (it would even be in the right location, along the ventral body wall!) with the sub- and supra-esophageal ganglia at the knot and around the band, just like the real thing.

In other words, that tie is insufficiently nerdy for me.

I have standards.

Actually, if my kids are wondering what to get me, I’m settling for nothing less than The Chair.

My next office chair

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Now this is the pinnacle of office domination furnishings. Imagine, a student comes in to complain about his grade, and I push a button: my chair rises up to tower above the trembling supplicant, and stalks across the room bearing the professor, who in a booming voice declares, “You dare? You dare to question my decisions?“

It’s much more intimidating than the trap door to the spiky room in the basement or the discreet ceiling-mounted lasers I’m using now. We tyrant kings all know that spectacle is an important component of effective oppression.

First they came for the pirates…

Morgan Smith is six years old and is going to have a birthday party with a pirate theme. His parents hoisted a Jolly Roger up the flagpole, and…boom, some officious titzypritzel goes bustling off to the city council to complain. Down goes the flag. Now there is what a deranged bureaucrat might call a “happy ending”:

A Stafford Borough Council spokesman said: “A planning application has been made for a Jolly Roger flag to be flown at a property in Stone.

“The application is currently under review and will include planning officers looking at the impact the flag has on the area, with the decision expected by the end of this month.

“Legislation requires planning approval before it can be flown from the flagpole.”

Erk. That’s the antithesis of pirate. I say, hoist the flag, run out the cannon, and give the pretentious stuffed shirts at the Stafford Borough Council a broadside. Give that mob of six year olds cake, ice cream, and good sugary soft drinks, hand ’em each a cutlass, and turn ’em loose on the neighborhood. Yarrr, that’s the pirate solution.

“Explore Evolution”—displacing good science with ‘dumbed-down’ creationism

The various ID blogs are all atwitter over the new textbook the Discovery Institute is going to be peddling, Explore Evolution. I’ve seen a copy, but I’m not going to give an extensive review just yet. I will say that it’s taking a slightly different tack to avoid the court challenges. It does not mention gods anywhere, of course, but it goes further: it doesn’t mention Intelligent Design, either. The book is entirely about finding fault with evolution, under the pretext of presenting the position of evolutionary biology (sort of) together with a critique. The biology part is shallow, useless, and often wrong, and the critiques are basically just warmed over creationist arguments.

What it actually is is Jonathan Wells’ Icons of Evolution rewritten and reworked as a textbook.

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