Sheril Kirshenbaum is guest-blogging at The Intersection while Chris Mooney is away, and she is bravely planning on discussing…dare I say it…framing. It’s a subject that gives me the heebie-jeebies, the flibbertigibbits, and a bad case of the surly snarls, but let’s see if maybe Sheril can give it a new perspective—maybe she can do a better job of framing framing.
Well, “we” meaning my fellow residents of rural communities. I suspect most of the people reading this are members of the urban elite, so you won’t really care that today is the day when urban populations were predicted to exceed rural populations. That is, for the first time in the history of the world, a majority of human beings live in cities rather than in the countryside.
Now I don’t want to hear any sneering from you glossy depilated metrosexuals about us barefoot hayseeds reeking of eau de porc. We’re the ones with the low-traffic, low-stress, low-cost lifestyle and the fresh local foods who can still see the stars at night. And since there are now more of you than there are of us, I guess that means today is the day we have been promoted to the rarefied elite, and you’re the common majority.
An article titled “Darwin misconceptions in textbooks slammed in biology journal” sure sounds like it ought to be a hard-hitting criticism—we ought to look into that. Larry Moran did, and wow, what a bust. It’s pathetic. It’s a list of seven “errors” made in discussions of Darwin’s biography in textbooks, which is little more than a lot of nit-picking over details that are not so important to a biologist, but are more a matter of historical accuracy. Some of them are trivial matters of emphasis—saying that Darwin published the Origin after he returned to England is quite correct, and unless they’re discussing what he did afterwards, saying that he waited 23 years to publish is irrelevant in the context of a biology textbook—and others, such as the statement that Wallace and Darwin presented their work together when both were presented in absentia are plain wrong, but again, do not affect the substance of the science. I agree that if they’re going to present that material, they ought to get it right…but I also wouldn’t object to stripping out all mention of Darwin’s name (except in the bibliography), and focusing on the evidence and experiment and theory. It’s not that I think the history is unimportant, but we’re already tightly strapped for time to cover the essentials in introductory biology; let’s set it aside in class, and instead tell the students to go read Janet Browne or Desmond and Moore in their copious free time.
I can sympathize with an expert insisting on holding textbooks to a better standard, and in that sense this is a reasonable work. However, it’s being pushed by hack journalist Denyse O’Leary and the British propaganda site “Truth in Science” as if it is a challenge to the science. It isn’t. It’s a criticism of lazy text book publishers, and that’s about it. Except when creationists distort a criticism of historical reporting into another reason to cast doubt on a science.
Add hammerhead sharks to your list of animals that don’t need males. A captive bonnethead female in Nebraska gave birth in 2001, and genetic testing has revealed that it was produced by parthenogenesis. In a way, this isn’t a surprise: I could have told her that Nebraska is no place for a self-respecting shark to look for a boyfriend.
Parthenogenesis had been suspected, because the shark had been isolated from males for at least 3 years, and because she lacked the obvious bite marks that result from shark sex (which is another reason a lady shark might not want to have anything to do with sexual reproduction), and now the tests have shown it for sure. Nifty!
Falwell’s funeral was yesterday, and apparently there were demonstrations — which seems highly inappropriate to me, now matter which side they were arguing — and a Liberty University student was arrested for bringing homemade bombs to the funeral. Bombs. To a funeral. There’s just something insanely religious about that.
Worse still was his excuse: “to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service.” Yeah, people waving signs and chanting slogans at a funeral is tacky and disruptive, but you don’t enhance the solemnity of the moment by setting off explosions. Replacing chanting with the screams of the maimed isn’t in keeping with the spirit of the event. Well, except maybe in Falwell’s case…but hey, let’s not stoop to his level.
It’s not even clear who attended that funeral. The Republicans snubbed him. Was it just Liberty University drones and the Rev. Godhates Phelps and his crew? If so, maybe a pitched battle with a little bombthrowing would have left the world a better place.
We’re up to a round two dozen submissions for the Ham Roast or Creation Museum Carnival or whatever we’re going to call it — keep ’em coming in, I’m planning on posting it early Sunday morning. At this rate, it’s going to be big, and it’s going to be good.
Leave it to Susie Bright to connect a review of a spectacular book about deep sea organisms to sex toys.
I’m going to get the book myself, but now I’m going to have a whole ‘nother view of its contents. Oh, wait…actually, maybe not.
Sad news: Stanley Miller died on Sunday. If you don’t know who he was, go read this interview.
(via Evolucionarios)
Oh, dear. John West of the Disco Institute is in a furious snit because, after refusing to grant tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, Iowa State University did promote Hector Avalos, of the Religious Studies department, to full professor. You can just tell that West is spitting mad that Iowa would dare to keep Avalos around, and thinks it a grave injustice that one scholar would be accepted, while their pet astronomer gets the axe. So now they’re going to do a hatchet job on Avalos.
