It’s still going on?

I was interviewed on a website over a month ago, and unfortunately John A. Davison and his infected polyp, VMartin, took over the comments there and went on and on in their ridiculous way.

They’re still going at it. Even more absurdly, the droning duo are bragging on ISCID, in an awesome example of pretentious self-delusion:

658 comments and going strong again. Are there any brave souls here that are willing to join Martin and myself in this incredible demonstration that there are still those who believe that life in all its manifestations was an accident? Are Martin and myself the only ones who reject that by publicly challenging the two major exponents of that bizarre philosophy, Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Meyers, both of whom have remained silent? So it would seem. I am sure Martin agrees with me that we welcome any or all to join in this most fundamental of discussions at a venue which was arrogantly introduced by the author of the thread on which he is now afraid to speak.

Opportunities like this do not occur every day and they should not be ignored. They reveal a philosophy without foundation that deserves to be thoroughly exposed and One Blog A Day presents a rare opportunity to challenge the Darwinian fantasy and its two most vocal supporters in a reasonably neutral venue. Perhaps others can produce a response from the two most prominent atheist biologists of the present time. Martin and I can’t seem to achieve that most desirable result.

Uh, “incredible demonstration”…of what? Somebody sure has an over-inflated opinion of his “most fundamental of discussions” … and obviously, I’m not afraid of them. I do have to apologize to the poor owner of the OneBlogADay site, though; I’m sorry a couple of parasites piggy-backed on my interview to infest you, but hey, here’s a link and a little more traffic to make up for it, I hope.

Davison has made a revealing comment:

In the meantime Martin and I have scored another conquest by being banned at The Loom.

Someone cut their ISP cable, quick, and reward them with a complete victory over the whole of the internet.

Two-fisted drinking

That weird guy Dave Ng put out a call for bloggers to flaunt their drinking containers. That’s easy, at least.

1. Can you show us your coffee cup?

As if there were just one…

i-d24fa9e1203abf7798462719f06bc7fe-cups.jpg

2. Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?

From left to right:

None of those reflect anything about my personality.

3. Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?

No. Drinking coffee is serious business.

3. Can you try to get others to comment on it?

I doubt it. Now everyone will refuse to comment, just to be contrary.

That hair-thin line between satire and insanity Republicanism…

I know everyone is talking about this demented blog supporting Brownback’s candidacy that, among other things, denounces heliocentrism. I honestly can’t decide whether it’s satire or genuine—I’ve met a few people who sincerely believe ideas that stupid. It’s just that they usually lack the technical competence to put a website together.

But then, of course, all you have to do is read Brownback’s official campaign site, or his official blog colony, which is almost as looney, and you have to wonder how crazy an idea would have to be to be rejected by a Republican presidential candidate. After all, Brownback looks like a guy who went into politics because his first career choice went kaput when he failed the balloon animal test at the clown college.

Spare biology from the opinions of conservative economists

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece on their opinion page (yeah, boo, crap so runny and putrid you can’t even get rid of it with a shovel, I know) that claims biologists have been actively inflating species numbers as a cheap ploy to gain better support for conservation efforts. I really can’t rebut that any better than Loren Coleman does here:

What is occurring is a classic theoretical battle between lumpers and splitters, not a fight of conservationists vs non-conservationists, not a war of Greens vs non-Greens, although “Species Inflation May Infect Over-Eager Conservationists” appears eager to convince you of that. The splitters are making their points lately, with more scientific evidence for a diversity of species.

“Species” are not like “dollars”—they are far more fluid, and to the biologist, there is no way to rank the value of a beetle against a monkey. This is a classic case of concepts in one discipline being applied in a grossly inappropriate manner to the concepts of another.

I’ll also add that, while it may not be true of some groups that focus on charismatic furry beasts to win popular support, among the scientists who do the work of taxonomy, I don’t see the individual species being used as the coinage of environmental conservation. I see much more focus on habitat preservation, which is really where the action is at if you want to save species.

Ah, but the WSJ editorial page is more likely the province of baraminologists than credible authorities.

Our school boards are broken

That’s not news, I know—you can find Mark Twain complaining about them, too. One of the big problems is that any idiot who may well lack any experience in education, or even any interest in education beyond destroying it, can run for school board and actually get elected. Case in point: Ken Willard, one of the Kansas rubes who tried to get Intelligent Design creationism into the curriculum, has just upped the ante and decided to run for the national presidency of the association of state boards of education. It’s incredible—he’s an insurance executive with no competence and no qualifications other than that he’s a fervent dogmatist who wants his religious beliefs taught, and that he has the backing of the Discovery Institute. The association ought to be deeply embarrassed if he can get in, and he just might do it:
he’s running unopposed.

If this boob can rise to the top, you know there’s something rotten in the system.

Major *ick* factor

South Dakota: very conservative, very Republican, very concerned with women’s reproduction, and none of it in a good way. This story just personifies the worst of South Dakota’s repressive residents perfectly.

A former South Dakota lawmaker is accused of molesting his own foster children and legislative pages.

Ted Klaudt, 49, a Republican rancher from Walker, faces a long list of charges: eight counts of rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of witness tampering, sexual contact with a person under 16, and stalking.

Court documents mention five possible victims. Three were foster children between the ages of 15 and 19 who lived with Klaudt’s family. One is a cousin of one of those girls, and the fifth is a friend of Klaudt’s daughter.

In the most disturbing accusation, the girls say Klaudt had them convinced they could earn up to $20,000 by donating their eggs to a fertility clinic. And even though he has no medical training, the girls say Klaudt did all the supposed “exams” and “procedures” himself.

If you feel the urge to go wash compulsively, you’re excused.

But, see, this is one of the virtues of keeping young women ignorant of basic reproductive health. He was able to convince them to let him, a farmer with no medical training, that he needed to give them breast exams and poke around in their reproductive tracts…and they believed him. All those restrictive laws passed by repulsive old Republicans suddenly make sense.

If the South Dakota legislature is sufficiently repelled by this horror story, one way they could make amends is by rushing through some sensible sex education laws.

Congratulations to Gregory Simonian!

The Alliance for Science sponsored an essay contest—students were asked to submit an essay on the theme, “Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?”

The winners have been announced, and first prize has gone to Gregory Simonian. Read the whole collection, including the entries from Merve Fejzula, Shobha Topgi, and Linda Zhou — it seems a few high school students are far smarter than the entire gang of evolution deniers at the Discovery Institute.