For those who don’t necessarily read the ‘comments’ & so may have missed Heraclides’ heads-up – in the US the education board in Louisiana has made it possible to teach intelligent design in the state’s schools: On Tuesday, the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education adopted a policy that sharpens those fears, giving teachers […]
Continue readingTag: creationism
enough with the sainthood, already
There’s a new geology book coming out, written by a group of geologists and examining the geological evidence for evolution (& the lack of support it offers to creationism). It sounds like a good book & I’ll look forward to getting my hands on it (hopefully one of my geology colleagues will buy a copy!) […]
Continue readingdarwin, dover, & intelligent design
Following on from the reference to the Dover trial in my last post – this site has a link to the pdf of a review article, which looks at the Dover case & its implications for teaching evolution in the US. It’s an interesting overview of the case & there’s a lot to learn from […]
Continue reading‘academic freedom’ in oklahoma
One of the threads at Open Parachute has had a discussion about the concept of ‘academic freedom’ – the idea that scientists should be free to state their opinions about those areas of science where they have expertise. (This concept isn’t exclusive to scientists, either, but applies to researchers in all disciplines.) It’s probably most apparent […]
Continue readinghard to explain? more creationist straw men
It seems the silly season is beginning early – I’m expecting a rash of ‘letters to the editor’ as the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth gets closer (what are you doing for Darwin Day?), but this seems a little premature. The writer begins: We’ve weathered a fair few scientific broadcasts lately authenticating Charles Darwin’s findings. Effectively they […]
Continue readingmore on copy-number variations in chimps & humans
A little while ago now I wrote about the creationist take on a recent paper looking at chimp/human genetics – more specifically, copy-number variations in particular gene sequences. I intended to read the original paper & blog about it, because the Sensuous Curmudgeon made it sound so interesting. So you may imagine that I was just […]
Continue readingan interesting post on the dmanisi fossils
A while ago now I wrote something on the Dmanisi fossils – the remains of a few individuals that suggest that Homo erectus spread relatively quickly through Eurasia after leaving Africa. I’ve just come across an interesting post on the Panda’s Thumb that I thought makes a good follow-up. Read it & see what you think.
Continue readinghuman-chimp similarities – evolution? or design?
(Another link-&-comment today – I’m at a conference & a bit short of time for longer posts.) The Sensuous Curmudgeon offers a dry commentary on a web-post by the Discovery Institute oops Institute for Creation Research (thanks to the Curmudgeon). The DI post is itself a commentary on a recent research paper looking at the […]
Continue readinganswers to wells’ questions – all in one place
Cedric’s suggested that I should collate all my answers to Wells’ "10 questions to ask your biology teacher" all in one place. It hadn’t even occurred to me, so – thanks, Cedric, & here you are 🙂
Continue readingso what’s that 10th question?
For the last of his ’10 questions to ask your biology teacher’, Jonathan Wells offers: EVOLUTION A FACT? Why are we told that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a scientific fact — even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?
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