Here’s a fun exercise: since we already have Christianity Today underwhelming us with the most compelling argument for Christianity, how about if we compile Pharyngula’s list of “What is the FEEBLEST reason for becoming a Christian?”
I’ll start with the easiest answer: all of them.
Clive Thompson wants us to simply redefine the “theory of evolution” as the “law of evolution”. This is possibly one of the worst ideas I’ve heard yet for overcoming the problem of the colloquial definition of theory. It is not correct. The theory of evolution is a whole collection of ideas describing complex phenomena; it is not reducible to the kind of clear and simple mathematical description we associate with scientific laws. When somebody asks me what the ideal gas law is, I can say PV=nRT; when someone asks me what the law describing the gravitational attraction between two bodies is, I say Gm1m2/R2; when they say, “OK, smartie pants, what is the law of evolution?”, what am I supposed to do? Recite Hardy-Weinberg at them (which, by the way, is called a law already, but is not the sum of all of evolution by any means)?
It’s a bad idea that sets us up for more confusion and will play right into creationist hands. Why not go all the way and just call it the “Truth of Evolution”? It’s the same strategy — it’s all avoiding the issue by an attempt at redefinition, and mangling the idea in the process.
(Larry Moran sees it the same way I do. He must be a very smart man.)
(And Wilkins was way, way ahead of us both.)
Last August, when I was at the Sci Foo camp, Paul Sereno brought along the skull of one of his latest discoveries…and whoa, is it ever a weird one. This is Nigersaurus taqueti, an herbivorous dinosaur with specializations for ground-level grazing. Look at this picture; in reality, it’s even more striking.
Those jaws and teeth—they are so neatly squared off and flat-edged. In addition, the skull itself on the spinal column is turned habitually downward. This is a creature that kept its face pressed to the ground as it nibbled its way across the landscape.
Another feature that was apparent is that the skull is awesomely light — it’s mostly empty spaces with a delicate webwork of bony struts holding it together. It’s so specialized it’s almost comical, and you can imagine something like this appearing on the Flintstones as a lawn mower or hedge trimmer.
Bora has more, and you can read the original on PLoS.
Sereno PC, Wilson JA, Witmer LM, Whitlock JA, Maga A, et al. (2007) Structural Extremes in a Cretaceous Dinosaur. PLoS ONE 2(11): e1230. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001230
I’m not a fan of the Huffington Post — I see too much support for clowns like Chopra and anti-scientific thinking like Robert Kennedy’s — so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this. Matthew Chapman posted his suggestion for a presidential debate on science there. This is the same issue I thought was a good idea, but cynically suspected none of the candidates would ever go for it. The response on HuffPo was to a large part deranged.
Sidr is currently officially a Category 5 cyclone, and is about to make landfall in Bangladesh…and has also finally made the top news story at CNN. You can get more timely info from a Bangladesh blog and the Bangladesh online news agency.
If you’ve been wondering about this administration’s priorities (you probably haven’t, but go with the flow), take a look at this chart comparing spending on the war with spending on alternative energy research. That thing isn’t going to scale tidily to fit on a powerpoint slide, I’m afraid.
Somehow, this reminds me of my meetup with Phil.
It’s an exercise for the reader to decide whether Phil was the meteor or the cat.
Hang on here. The war in Iraq is costing about $200 million per day, or a billion in less than a week. Yet George W Bush has just vetoed a bill that would give NIH an additional $1 billion per year, raising the budget from $29 billion to $30 billion.
And what does he do? He accuses Congress of being on a “spending spree.”
Here’s hoping the guy chokes on the irony.
That’s a poll on Christianity Today — and I’m afraid “none” wasn’t one of the options. Instead, readers got to pick from insipid nonsense like “the reliability of the Scriptures,” “The exquisiteness of the physical world,” and the winner, “The life and character of Jesus.” As Ophelia notes, those aren’t even arguments. Isn’t it rather pathetic that this is all they can dredge up for their readers, platitudes and errors?
Try checking the major American news sites: CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the New York Times, you can even try the BBC. There’s a major news story missing.
You’ll have to read Chris Mooney’s blog to find it. There’s a potential Category 5 cyclone, Cyclone Sidr, on its way to smash Bangladesh.
It’s going to hit sometime tomorrow. While Sonny Perdue prays for a little rain, maybe we should be urging our news networks to pay attention to the important news, our government should be getting ready for emergency assistance, and we should all be preparing to loosen those checkbooks and possibly offer what aid we can.
