Shermer on Salon

Don’t let the first paragraph stop you—it’s awful. Once the reporter gets out of the way and lets Shermer get going, though, it’s a good interview.

Here’s the bad part of the opening:

Some of Shermer’s ivory towerish science pals, like Richard Dawkins and the late Stephen Jay Gould, told him not to bother with the I.D. boosters, that acknowledging them meant going along for their political ride, where the integrity of science was being run into the ground.

Gould and Dawkins have both said we shouldn’t debate creationists—we shouldn’t elevate them to the same status that science holds. But both certainly have ripped into ID; the argument isn’t that we shouldn’t criticize them forcefully, but that we shouldn’t give them the opportunity to pretend their dogmatic foolishness is the equal of science.

After that, though, the article is good godless fare.

From the mailbag

Since several have asked me to post these strange emails prompted by the WingNut Daily article, here’s a couple of the cleaner, more coherent ones.

Batboy satanist
I believe that you are a satanist.Pukehead.W.M.

It is a shame that such a learned individual can be so afraid of opposing viewpoints. How can one explain maintaining a point of view about something (evolution) that most scientists secretly admit is bunk. Despite the years of research and billions in funding spent on this idiotic “theory”, never has anyone been able to produce ANY hard evidence to support this theory. In fact, more evidence exists to disprove it. Yet, our tax-payer funded schools are being forced, despite the will of the people in this “democratic” nation, to teach this bunk to our children, while being blocked from teaching ANY opposing viewpoints. And, those who dare will find themselves in court so fast it will make their head spin.

I dare you to read this
Jesus loves you even if you are a pig-####### ############. [I edited that last bit]

“…ejaculations from a godless liberal
Why are godless liberals the only ones who seem to have faith in the Darwinic system of beliefs? Evolution was a great belief when it was first introduced. After all there were brass microscopes and all kind of modern tools to study this new found faith. Today evolution is as ###### as it was in the past and people who hold no faith in religion or evolution can see it for what it is. A farce!

You can see why I don’t dump more of these here: they’re boring. Especially after you get 20 or 30 of them.

Bye bye, Beale

Corruption and wingnut Christianity seem to go hand in hand. Case in point: Vox Day, misogynist Christian freak, is the son of Robert Beale, Minnesota millionaire, founder of both a computer products company and the Minnesota Christian Coalition. The elder Beale is on the lam from The Man for tax evasion.

“He fundamentally believes, and has stuck to his belief since this case started, that the federal income tax is illegal,” said Bradford Beale, his son and vice president of Comtrol Corp., the firm that his father founded.

“It was common knowledge at Comtrol,” wrote Rank, “that Beale was opposed to paying taxes as Beale had begun encouraging people at Comtrol not to pay their taxes and had even placed a poster in the Comtrol lunchroom advising people not to pay taxes.”

Theodore Beale, AKA Vox Day, tries to pretend it’s all a minor misunderstanding.

“He is a highly intelligent, highly educated man,” Theodore Beale said of his father. “My sense is that he believes the tax laws are being applied improperly by agents who either don’t understand that or have gone rogue.”

Daddy makes several million dollars a year, and refuses to pay any income tax. I don’t think there’s a misunderstanding or bad IRS agents trying to persecute him: he thinks he’s above the law.

Oh, and Theodore Beale was contacted at his home in Italy—no doubt enjoying the fruits of his family’s wealth.

(via Blog of the Moderate Left)

Maybe it’s to prevent evolutionists from exercising in air conditioned rooms…

I’m hearing lots about this CHE story that documents an omitted category in a list of subjects eligible for a class of grants…and the omission conveniently knocks out evolutionary biology. I’m suspicious, and everyone is suspicious, and for good reason—this is an administration that elevates incompetent ideologues to positions of unwarranted power in the halls of science, so seeing that kind of selective deletion isn’t too surprising.

However, Matt Brauer at the Panda’s Thumb finds two other deletions: exercise physiology, and…Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology? Unless there’s a passage in the Bible that says Jesus hates ducts, this sounds like a case of incompetence being a bigger factor than ideology.

Trout Fishing in America

i-af9936665b86da929b1149885719dfd1-mayfly.jpg

Troutnut has put up a beautiful page of Aquatic Insects of American Trout Streams. It’s all about using insects to catch fish, but it’s still an excellent example of how outdoor sportsmen (and in this case, soon-to-be grad student) can put together scientifically interesting information, too. If you don’t know a mayfly from a caddisfly, it’s full of photographs of the different organisms that might flit out of your nearby stream and park on your screen doors to weird you out.

Billionaires for stem cell research

Forbes has an article on billionaires who oppose the stem cell ban (free reg required): the subtitle is “Billionaire cash has kept embryonic stem-cell research alive—just barely,” which really says it all. It discusses the extremely generous gifts private donors (and also some state funding by referendum) that have kept stem cell research afloat in the world of GW Bush and the religious right. There’s quite a bit of money flying around out there.

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