An old pal of mine, the splendiferously morphogenetical Don Kane, has brought to my attention a curious juxtaposition. It’s two articles from the old, old days, both published in Nature in 1981, both relevant to my current interests, but each reflecting different outcomes. One is on zebrafish, the other on creationism.
For a rather different kind of squid, here’s a pretty image. There’s also a mammal in the picture, which I understand some people might find not quite safe for work, so don’t click through unless you can handle viewing an exposed superficial epithelium.
Whoa…watch this phenomenal video of the Vampire Squid. They’ve caught it feeding and using a few sneaky tricks to escape predators.
Chris Mooney gave a talk in Seattle, and you know who else is up there in my home town: the Discovery Institute. They tried to go on the offensive and sic their version of an attack dog on him…which was, amusingly enough, Casey Luskin. This is the kind of attack dog that goes “yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap,” though, and annoys you by peeing on your shoes. His initial volley was this:
Why do so many people eagerly listen to a journalist with neither scientific nor legal training discuss a complex scientific and legal issue like intelligent design?
It is awkwardly ironic for an unqualified stooge of the Discovery Institute to question anyone’s credentials; if we start down that path, it’s going to lead to pointing out that very, very few of the people at that institute have any credentials in biology at all, and that maybe we should wonder why anyone should listen to a collection of ideologues with degrees in philosophy and law and theology when they pontificate on science (although, to give the other side of the argument, one of their favorite people, Ann Coulter, thinks “biologists are barely scientists,” so maybe they think the dearth of fellows with training in evolution is a plus).
But I’m not going to go down that path. I don’t think the formal credentials are as important as that gang of poseurs and con-men would like to believe.
I mentioned before that IDEA clubs insist that expertise is optional; well, it’s clear that that is definitely true. Casey Luskin, the IDEA club coordinator and president, has written an utterly awful article “rebutting” part of Ken Miller’s testimony in the Dover trial. It is embarrassingly bad, a piece of dreck written by a lawyer that demonstrates that he knows nothing at all about genetics, evolution, biology, or basic logic. I’ll explain a few of his misconceptions about genetics, errors in the reproductive consequences of individuals with Robertsonian fusions, and how he has completely misrepresented the significance of the ape:human chromosome comparisons.
Via El PaleoFreak (in Spanish; here’s a translation), I find this strange little cockatoo chick, and even better, take a look at these wonderful simulations of feather development.
We just had one of these!
Well, just to flesh it out a little more with some random links, here are some photos. I was told the second one made someone think of me (warning: body modification!). And, jebus help me, for some reason I thought this photo was very sexy. Or appetizing. I don’t know, something in the midbrain flickered.
Oh, and several of us sciencebloggers were interviewed for an article by Eva Amsen on “Who benefits from science blogging?” It doesn’t mention the benefit of people sending you pictures that tickle the cingulate.
What the heck is wrong with the people at Slate? I simply do not understand why any magazine would put in a science column, and have Jackie Harvey, I mean Gregg Easterbrook write it. It’s an astonishing decision, and I’m stunned into silence…so I’ll let others do the snark and abuse.
This has been a bountiful week at Chez Pharyngula, and I have received generous gifts from several readers. A full accounting lies below the fold.
More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government.
It doesn’t go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women’s fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and reddening of the vulva, and we don’t get any visible signs at all. Let’s use technology to return to those halcyon days, and imbed women with LH monitors that change color: from gray on infertile days, to pink as hormone levels rise, to flashing red to announce, “She’s ovulating, boys!” I wouldn’t suggest anything as crude as mounting the device on her vulva, though: on the forehead would be fine.
The device should also have some ports to enable coupling it to fashion accessories. Wouldn’t a police siren hat plugged into the fertility monitor be attractive?
I better patent this idea, quick.
