Dave S.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a balanced article on Iowa State’s refusal to tenure Guillermo Gonzalez. Advocate of Intelligent Design Who Was Denied Tenure Has Strong Publications Record By RICHARD MONASTERSKY At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination. As an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez has a better publication record than any other member of the astronomy faculty. He also happens to publicly support the concept of intelligent design. Last month he was denied tenure. Read More

Augie Auer, Professor of Atmospheric Science for 22 years at the University of Wyoming, says global warming is a myth and it will be joke material in 5 years.

Global warming debunked
By ANDREW SWALLOW – The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007

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In another thread there’s a discussion about specified complexity. I think the problem with specification is it’s a subjective measure but it shouldn’t be hard to understand. Most people intuitively recognize it and draw conclusions from it. To explain I’ll use a deck of cards and a conclusion that just about any reasonable person, with or without knowing what specified complexity is, will recognize and draw the same conclusion based on it. Then I’ll present a like example from a living thing and ask you be the judge of whether there is specification. Read More ›

– According to World Magazine they have two professors at Iowa State on record saying they voted against tenure for Guillermo Gonzalez based partly upon his assocation with the Intelligent Design movement. – According to Federal Judge John Jones in the Dover case ID is religion not science and thus cannot be taught in a public school as doing so violates the first amendment establishment clause. – According to Guillermo Gonzalez he never taught ID in any Iowa State classroom. Thus he kept his religion apart from the school where he teaches. Indeed Guillermo has 68 papers on astronomy published in refereed journals, over 1500 citations to those papers, co-authored an article that made the cover of Scientific American, was Read More ›

Wallace Arthur, head of the zoology department at the University of Ireland and evolutionary biology researcher, reviews in Nature (Vol 447|17 May 2007) the book From Embryology to Evo-Devo: A History of Developmental Evolution. There were some breaths of fresh air in the review [my emphasis]: Third, and most important in my view, the origin of novelty is becoming one of the major themes of evo-devo. Attention is shifting from the retention of the old (as in recapitulation) to the creation of the new (be it an eye, a leg, a feather or even a whole body plan). Both the historical and the current importance of novelty emerge repeatedly in the book. How do novelties arise? We can’t yet agree Read More ›

Refuges for life in a hostile universe
G. Gonzales, D. Brownlee and P.D. Ward
Scientific American, October 2001, p.60-6

Et tu, Brute?

If anyone whose comments have been showing up right away after submission is finding them being delayed or never showing up at all it’s probably because the third party service we use to keep spam (unwanted advertisements) out of the commentary is unpredictably flagging a lot of legitimate comments as spam. If it’s any consolation even authors and editors here (myself included) are getting comments held up for no discernable reason.

We often hear the argument that evidence for common ancestry can also be interpreted as evidence of common design. Some years ago I made the argument that there was no way to discriminate between the two. The argument was countered (successfully IMO) by endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). Read More ›

We hear about the ill effects of global warming shouted from the hilltops. I’ve always balanced this with talking about the positives here (that’s IF the climate does indeed warm up). Here’s an article talking about how, as the computer models are being refined, things aren’t looking so bad after all. Sea level won’t rise enough to cause any problems. Crops will flourish in the north where they haven’t flourished since the Medieval Warming a thousand years ago. Species diversity will increase. Germany will turn into a summer resort paradise. Storms will not increase in intensity. And we’ll even be healthier on average because the cold & flu season in the bitter north will be a thing of the past, more than offsetting additional heat-related deaths in warmer regions. In short, for many regions, global warming will be a godsend. But as the article points out, mentioning these things is politically incorrect.

Not the End of the World as We Know It
By Olaf Stampf

How bad is climate change really? Are catastrophic floods and terrible droughts headed our way? Despite widespread fears of a greenhouse hell, the latest computer simulations are delivering far less dramatic predictions about tomorrow’s climate.

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During a recent GOP debate among presidential candidates a moderator asked the field of ten to answer whether they believed in evolution by the raising of hands. How can one possibly answer this without a more rigorous definition of evolution? Three candidates Tancredo, Huckabee, and Brownback raised their hands indicating they didn’t believe in evolution. The only way to answer this ambiguous question was by gross political calculation of whether raising a hand would gain or lose more votes. Evolution of what and how? I believe in the evolution of life the same way I believe in the evolution of computers. It’s obvious both evolved in a stepwise fashion from simple beginnings but just as obvious is that neither could Read More ›

This is for ForTheKids (FTK) to discuss separation of church and state. An important topic IMO. I deleted her opening separation comment on the DCA Update II thread as well as responses because I wanted that thread to remain topical. Our blog software has no option for relocating comments. FTK has been so gracious to me on her blog when I go off topic I felt bad about it so here’s the venue. I’ll open it with links to a couple relevant articles I wrote last year, some verbatim quotes of relevant constitutional amendments, and some historical facts regarding use of the phrase by founders and the US Supreme Court: Read More ›

I added a category on the sidebar “DCA” so you can find the series of articles I’ve written about this cancer killing drug beginning in late January of this year. It’s been a month since the last update. Read More ›

Why Atheism Fails: The Four Big Bangs
By Frank Pastore
Sunday, May 6, 2007

Their titles sound so confident:

• The Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam by Michel Onfray.

• God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.

• Letter to a Christian Nation: A Challenge to Faith by Sam Harris.

and of course, • The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Yet, like all atheists before them, they still can’t answer the fundamental questions of origins.

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Reid Bryson is Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental Studies. Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Many climatologists regard him as the father of climatology. Professor Bryson calls manmade global warming absurd.
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