Pro-Science News
Physicists and engineers decide how to analyze evolution
A big story in the press today. Scientists – mechanical engineers and physicists, one working for Boeing with his office only a few miles from my home – show that the evolution of airplanes works the same way as the evolution of organisms: The evolution of airplanes A. Bejan, J. D. Charles and S. Lorente J. Appl. Phys. 116, 044901 (2014); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4886855 (fortunately this paper can be downloaded for free). They make allometric plots of...
Joe Felsenstein
http://evolution.gs.washington.edu/felsenstein.html
Categories: Pro-Science News
Contrails
Contrails, in the general direction of Denver International Airport, as seen from Boulder, Colorado, August, 2011. Jeff Mitton, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, in an article in the Boulder Daily Camera, reminds us that contrails reduce diurnal temperature fluctuations and may have a significant effect on climate....
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Polling climate around the world
A new report from Ipsos MORI includes data on public opinion about the causes of climate change from twenty nations — and the United States led the world in the rate of climate change denial, as assessed by answers to two questions.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Church Youth Groups and Apologetics
Over on Facebook, Nancy Pearcey responded to a post about young people and deconversion from churches with a modest proposal: let them read apologetics. Age at which people leave the church — Tell me again why youth groups focus on games and goodies instead of majoring on apologetics? One study found that the age at […]
Categories: Pro-Science News
Understanding creationism, VIII: An insider's guide by a former young-Earth creationist
By David MacMillan. 8. New perspective. I think there are several different varieties of creationism activists. Some are obsessed with the presumed negative effects of evolution and secular humanism. Some are driven by suspicion for science and the certainty that a conspiracy must be afoot. Some use creationist apologetics to make themselves feel smarter and better-informed than the general public. Some are genuinely interested in science and want to know the truth. I’d be lying...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Asteroid named for NCSE's Scott
Asteroid 249530 Eugeniescott was named in honor of NCSE's founding executive director Eugenie C. Scott, according to the Minor Planet Circulars for July 12, 2014 (PDF, p. 324).
Categories: Pro-Science News
Acharia stimulea
Photograph by Al Denelsbeck. Photography contest, Winner. Our congratulations to Al Denelsbeck, the winner of the latest Panda’s Thumb photography contest with his remarkable photograph “Parasitized moth larva.” “Flightless cormorant,” by Dan Moore, was second. We will award Mr. Deneslbeck a book generously supplied by NCSE. Acharia stimulea – saddleback caterpillar moth larva, which has been parasitized by a species of Braconid wasp, of the superfamily Ichneumonoidea. Mr. Denelsbeck writes, “Darwin, of course, made a...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Wyoming reacts to the Climate Bill of Rights
The Climate Science Students Bill of Rights, which articulates the principle that all students deserve the best climate science education available as part of a 21st-century science education, was widely discussed in Wyoming.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Heartland and Discovery Institutes - Not So Strange Bedfellows
Because of the cognitive dissonance required to buy into pseudoscientific beliefs, it’s not surprising when an adherent of one pseudoscience is sucked into believing another one. For example, there is considerable overlap between advocates of 9/11 Truth beliefs and advocates of anti-Semitic causes, or between young-earth creationists and climate change deniers. The Discovery Institute has been engaging in climate-change denial for some time (see here and here, for example), so it’s really not surprising...
Dave Thomas
http://www.nmsr.org
Categories: Pro-Science News
Understanding creationism, VII: An insider's guide by a former young-Earth creationist
By David MacMillan. 7. The religion of evolution. The final set of creationist misconceptions about evolution surrounds its supposed religious, moral, and ethical implications. These objections prove difficult to address, simply because they have little or no objective basis and are almost purely philosophical or religious. This section will concentrate mostly on explaining the relationships and connections between these arguments, as systematically refuting them would delve deep into philosophy and theology and is far beyond...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Climate Change Bill of Rights launched
NCSE is pleased to announce the launch of the Climate Science Students Bill of Rights, which articulates the principle that all students deserve the best climate science education available as part of a 21st-century science education.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Presbyterian Church refuses to endorse Evolution Weekend
Michael Zimmerman reports today in the Huffington Post that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has declined to endorse the Clergy Letter Project and declare the second Sunday in February to be Evolution Sunday. Specifically, Reverend John Shuck, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and his congregation are longtime supporters of the Clergy Letter, and Reverend Shuck proposed that the General Assembly of the church vote to support Evolution Sunday. A subcommittee voted the...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Opposable thumb
Photograph by Helena Insko. Opposable thumb. Ms. Insko submits this photograph of a fully opposable thumb as evidence of evolution and writes, “My mom and I have been voting in the photo contest as long as I can remember (I’m 10). When my mom told me the theme was how we know evolution is correct, this is my answer (and my hand).”...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Samuel Varg interviews Kenneth Miller
While searching for the source of this cartoon, I ran across the website of Samuel Varg, a Swedish magician and skeptic. Mr. Varg has posted an interview with Kenneth Miller on YouTube and promises interviews with Candida Moss and John Safran. Mr. Varg and his colleague Anders Hesselbom were unusually well prepared. Professor Miller, in turn, was an excellent spokesperson for theistic evolution, though I had to take issue with his claim that the universe...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Flap over creationist cartoon shown in high-school class
This cartoon Ken Ham, The Lie: Evolution, illustrations by Steve Cardno (Master Books, 1987). See also here. was shown as part of an otherwise innocuous PowerPoint presentation to a freshman biology class at Grady High School in Atlanta and caused a bit of a flap, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The teacher and the district science coordinator apparently refused interviews, but the student newspaper reports, based on interviews with students, that the teacher did not...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
Reply to Rick Warren and Other Clergy Re Hobby Lobby and Federal Grants
Rick Warren and others sent the most genteel invitation to perpetuate rank discrimination to President Obama this week. It is really quite eloquently stated. It asks that religious groups receiving federal grant money be allowed to continue discriminating against LGBT people, as a waiver from rules that would apply to others receiving those grants. My […]
Categories: Pro-Science News
Understanding creationism, VI: An insider's guide by a former young-Earth creationist
By David MacMillan. 6. Genetic evidence. Revised July 4, 2014. Perhaps one of the clearest and most obvious confirmations of evolution is the convergence between the evolutionary paths of descent determined by fossil evidence and the phylogenetic tree generated by algorithms analyzing genetic information. Because the tree of universal common descent is real, not invented, it leaves the same fingerprint in every part of nature that life touches. Matching trees can be found in global...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
"Creationism comes to the county fair"
Writing in the July 2014 issue of the American Geoscience Institute's magazine Earth, Scott K. Johnson relates his experience in engaging in evolution outreach in a not-so-usual venue: at his local county fair.
Categories: Pro-Science News
Science standards on hold in Wyoming
The Wyoming state board of education voted on July 1, 2014, to recommend a halt to the development of a new set of science standards for the state, according to Wyoming Public Media (July 1, 2014).
Categories: Pro-Science News
NCSE weighs in on Nye-Ham debate
A follow-up on the Nye-Ham debate in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education: Andrew J. Petto said it wasn’t a real debate, which is sort of true, but the most interesting observations, to me, were those made by John W. Patterson. Prof. Patterson, an engineering professor, correctly gives Ken Ham credit for not obfuscating, for not pretending that creationism is based on anything but his interpretation of the Bible. He thinks that...
Matt Young
http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung
Categories: Pro-Science News
