Chris has his latest, greatest cartoon. It’s correct: you’re either nuts, short-sightedly stupid, or venal to an extreme if you support the Republican party in any way anymore.
This Newsweek article on the latest innovation in stem cell research is infuriating. The author, Michael Gerson, is a Republican hack with no competence in biology, which seems to qualify him to be a serious judge of science to this administration.
The issue of stem cells was the first test of the infant Bush administration, pitting the promise of medical discovery against the protection of developing life and prompting the president’s first speech to the nation. His solution–funding research on existing stem-cell lines, but not the destruction of embryos to create new ones–was seen as a smart political compromise. In fact, the president was drawing a bright ethical line. He argued that no human life should be risked or destroyed for the medical benefit of another. This was an intentional rejection of the chilly creed of utilitarianism–the greatest good for the greatest number–because the greatest number would gain the unrestricted right to extend their lives by ending or exploiting the lives of the weak.
By request, I’m bringing over this old post on the outcome of the Dover trial. What it reveals to an astonishing degree is how delusional and disconnected from reality the Discovery Institute gang are.
Michael Behe has previously commented on his testimony in the Kitzmiller trial. He felt good about it; in fact, he thought it was exhilarating and fun.
I haven’t the foggiest idea how the Judge will rule, but I think we got to show a lot of people that ID is a very serious idea.
Hmmmm…I wonder, what did the judge think of his testimony? Do you think there might be a way to, you know, find out?
Let’s look in his decision for references to Behe! As it turns out, we owe a debt of gratitude to the good doctor of ID for the invaluable assistance of his testimony.
A reader from Stillwater sent in a few photos of this lovely creature. They thought it was just some plant debris until it started crawling. Can you guess what it is?
Somebody has a weird obsession with hybridizing terrestrial and aquatic animals, but even more strangely, there isn’t a single cephalopod in the whole collection.
So…when is this play, Darwin in Malibu, going on tour? I’d see it.
Wow, it’s only Monday, but I think it’ll be awfully unlikely that we see anyone limbo under the bar of sucky vileness set by Sylvia Browne this week. Watch her lie to a grieving woman. It’ll make you want to take a loofah to your eyeballs.
Oh, wait…am I being stupid in my certainty that Browne is a despicable con artist?
Two can play this game—Chad Orzel, who sometimes likes to blame his insufficient popularity on his off-puttingly deep wisdom and excessive sense of moderation and fair play, notes approvingly that “All the world’s stupidest people are either zealots or atheists,” and that “certainty only comes from dogma,” both rather interesting statements coming from a scientist. My certainty that I shouldn’t step out of my second-story window, or that I shouldn’t eat a large cake of rat poison, don’t come from personal experience, but they aren’t dogmatic, either—although I’m awfully darn certain that warfarin and high velocity impacts with solid surfaces would probably be lethal. I can think of many examples and experiments that demonstrate these facts without actually having to experience mortality personally, or requiring blind adherence to unsupported dogma.
Similarly, I am sensible enough to see that religion is an irrational course, without having to actually meet God face-to-face, and without having to comb through every particle of the universe looking for him. Waffling is not a virtue, nor is an absence of conviction a signifier of open-mindedness—not when the evidence all points one way.
Neither is traffic to a weblog a measure of its accuracy, whether inversely or otherwise, and heck, I don’t get fifty thousand visitors a day, either. I hope he’ll forgive me for adding to his damning tally of visitors with this link.
Plans for my army of zombie cephalopod-cyborgs proceed apace. First target: Holland!
Go ahead, open the dikes—nothing will stop them.
(via My Confined Space)
Wilkins pins the blame where it belongs: on on a medieval hierarchical concept that Darwin actively negated. It’s a very thorough take-down, not that fans of D. James Kennedy will even notice.
