This one is for those blood-thirsty free-riding sprogs.

Sepia apama
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
This one is for those blood-thirsty free-riding sprogs.
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
The IDists are promoting a staged event at Biola—they are purporting to put their proponents “under fire”…at Biola. Right. This is the same kind of thing creationists always do, promoting their crap in venues that will guarantee a largely friendly, and largely ignorant, audience.
In this case, though, they are trying to salt the crowd with a few opponents. Most have wisely turned them down, since this is about feeding the creationist pretense rather than actually putting some pressure on the clown show. Michael Shermer reveals some of the restrictions; some of their ‘guests’ would be seated in the audience, and allowed only one question. You can guess how any critical questions would be answered, of course: with meaningless noise. Andy Groves, who sometimes comments here (Hi, Andy! Kiss, kiss) was one of the critics invited, and maybe he’ll tell us how he turned them down. Good for him on doing the right thing. I wasn’t invited, but I wouldn’t have gone even if they’d promised I could be the stock villain swinging a folding chair.
This is an escalation of the debating ploy, which was always intended to do one thing: put creationists on stage with real scientists, falsely amplifying the creationists’ credibility. Now they’re setting up a ‘debate’ with their own rules, stacking the situation until it’s as fake as pro wrestling. The event is on the 12th; I will predict that on the 13th, the Discovery Institute will be proclaiming victory by press release, and saying that they sailed through a trial by fire unscathed.
His book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, apparently only contains 100 professors. While some might argue that this is an indicator of his sloppiness, I prefer to think of it as his offering of hope: those of us aren’t in the book can now dream that we were supposed to be in there, and it was just an oversight that we were left out.
Repeat after me: I am the 101st Professor!
I’ve been catching up with the blogs, and I’m seeing outrage over the revelation that the NSA has been carrying out wide-spectrum data mining of the American people…that it hasn’t just been surveillance of suspected terrorists. You know, if everyone would just read Gary Farber, you’d have known this five months ago. That’s how data mining works. Now people are trying to argue that we knew it all along, so it’s OK—but this is exactly what the administration has spent the last several months denying.
It’s not just the surveillance. It’s the lying. Well, the obtuseness, too.
Crap. Coturnix tagged me with this beautiful bird meme, and I am the wrong person to ask. I don’t get out much, preferring to sit in the lab or the library, so my favorite birds are all in pieces and dead. But OK, since he asked…
Flitting about as I have lately means I’ve been missing this, that and the other thing. So here’s a quick summary.
Now I’ve got a couple of finals to give, and man, I’m exhausted. Driving to Madison and back again in one day is too much for this tired old guy—we got back about midnight last night, and then I had to drag myself out of bed at 6 to finish writing one of my exams. And then tonight…more grading.
I’m pretty sure he’d drive a Hummer H2, with a pile of fast food wrappers in the back, a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker, and one of those stainless steel bull scrotum castings hanging from the rear.
Lots of people have sent me links to this—thanks, all!—and it’s the perfect thing to lift me out of the finals week blahs, and it’s also just in time for Mother’s Day on Sunday: The Devonian Blues.
Every single girl and every little boy
Was born from the clan of the wayward Dipnoi
Don’t let the preacher man spoil all the fun
Took a lot more than 6 days to get the job done
Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and man
All belong to the fish tribe, doncha’ understand?Your momma was a lobefinned fish
My momma was a lobefinned fish
Sing along, everyone!
We’re still on the road here—we’ve ducked into a place in Eau Claire for dinner, and it has free Wi-Fi!—and while sucking in the pile of email waiting for me, I see that our prom photos have arrived. Here’s me and Mary at the Geek Prom.
Yeah, she does look better than the octopus woman from yesterday, even with the deficiency of limbs.
The latest Tangled Bank is online at Science Notes: Go climb a tree!