Michael Egnor, Paleyist surgeon

The Discovery Institute seems well pleased with their new anachronistic acolyte, a modern neurosurgeon who harks back fondly to the ancient wheeze of Natural Theology from a few centuries back. He’s been promoted to being a regular contributor on the DI Media Complaints Division web page, and he manages to combine the arrogance of a surgeon with the ignorance of most creationist hacks in a way that I’m sure the other DI fellows envy — he’s like the apotheosis of the Intelligent Design ideal. Why, he’s got the dishonesty of Wells, the pomposity of Johnson, the ineffectual stupidity of Luskin, and the egotism of Berlinski, all wrapped up in one package.

Anyway, I’m not planning to waste much effort on the archaic old fossil, but fortunately, Mark Chu-Carroll, Mike Dunford, and Orac are gleefully sharpening their knives and are planning to make Egnor’s welcome to the blogosphere acutely memorable. Orac has a challenge up now, asking Egnor to present…

…instead of his usual evidence-free assertions brimming with unjustified confidence, some actual evidence to support his claims. Inquiring minds want to know: Will Dr. Egnor show us some of these wonderful insights into human biology and disease provided or facilitated by the design inference or will he simply keep repeating the same misinformation?

I predict he’ll keep babbling substance-free nonsense, with occasional detours into whining about incivility. This is a problem with the followers of Paleyism: they are actually satisfied with assertions that lack a mechanism or evidence, because they see mysteries and unsolved complex problems as testimonials to the greater power of their god designer, and every explanation and solution is heresy.

Interconnections everywhere

You really should take a closer look at this map of publication links between scientific disciplines. Here’s the description:

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This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as pale circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved black lines) were made between the paradigms that shared papers, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation forced every paradigm to repel every other; thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.

There’s an amazingly detailed version of the map available at Seed, and it visualizes an important point: all of the sciences are interconnected, sometimes very indirectly, but the contacts are there. When some clueless ideologue (like Michael Egnor, who is up to the same old tricks again) tries to split off a major subset and pretend it is irrelevant, he has to ignore the breadth of science.

Cephalart

Did I say it was St Patrick’s Day? I was mistaken…it is actually AIR KRAKEN DAY!

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While you’re celebrating with excessive imbibage today, keep scanning the skies—about the time you fall over backwards and your eyes are glazing and defocusing, you might just spot the fabulous air kraken gliding overhead.

It’s been a light week for cephalopod art, and I just have a few more examples below the fold.

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Scott Adams reads Newsweek. Uh-oh.

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, the insignificant, minute information Adams has on evolution must be exceedingly risky—it’s like the atom bomb of ignorance. In this case, it’s not entirely his fault, though. He read the recent Newsweek cover story on evolution, which fed his biases and readily led him smack into the epicenter of his own blind spots, and kerblooiee, he exploded.

This is a case where the flaws in a popular science article neatly synergize with an evolution-denialist’s misconceptions to produce a perfect storm of stupidity.

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Missouri isn’t for lovers

Little things can expose serious injustice. For example, this story about two women being thrown out of a restaurant for a kiss…we need reminders like this that discrimination is real, and it hurts people.

There is no federal law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Neither Kansas nor Missouri are among the few states that protect gay people from being discriminated against in areas of employment, housing and public accommodations.

Kansas City does have an ordinance protecting gays, as do St. Louis, Columbia and University City. But if you’re anywhere else in Missouri and you’re gay, you can legally be denied service in restaurant. Landlords can refuse to rent you a place to live.

You can even be canned from your job on the suspicion that you’re romantically inclined toward members of your own sex.

(via Daily Irreverence)

Happy Us!

It’s been a busy day—if you’ve noticed it’s been quiet here, it’s because I’ve been driving back and forth to St Cloud to help my son get situated in his new apartment, and also, by the way, today is our wedding anniversary — note that my wife cleverly scheduled it to be exactly one week after my birthday, making reminders easy.

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I was going to make some lecherous joke about getting lucky tonight, but it would be superfluous since I seem to have been in luck for twenty seven years.