I’ve got a pretty lax attitude towards comments. Creationists are free to add theirs. But there are limits.
In response to a post on evolution Friday, the first comment I got a very long announcement about “A PARAGON OF SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT!” [sic]–a book that proved evolution was wrong. It came from someone named C. David Parsons.
Others responded.
Jeered might be the right word.
Continue reading “No Sock-Puppets, Creationist or Otherwise”
The Guardian has just reviewed Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life:
“This is a thought-provoking book that wrenches us from our human-centred perspective and gives us a guide to life through the chemical-sensing molecules of a species that was here long before we were, and which will certainly outlive us.”
The full review is here.
The Columbia Journalism Review wants you to read it too…
Continue reading “Microcosm in the Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review”
Readers of this blog will have to indulge me from time to time so that I can respond to personal attacks from creationists. I write about science, and I strive to do so accurately. I also point out misinformation about science and explain why it’s wrong. So when someone claims I can’t admit a mistake when I make one, or that I suffer from an overactive imagination, I have to respond.
The Discovery Institute, which promotes Intelligent Design, tried to cast doubt a couple weeks ago on a transitional fish-tetrapod called Tiktaalik. The author of the post, Casey Luskin, wanted to convince us that despite the claims of scientists that it had a wrist, it didn’t seem to have one.
In 2005, researchers made headlines when they reported that they had found intact blood vessels from a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery raised hopes that paleontologists could get their hands on the flesh and blood of vanished animals. This week, however, other scientists challenged the results, arguing that the dinosaur flesh was in fact just coatings of young bacteria. But the original researchers stand by their results, calling the new argument weak. “There really isn’t a lot new here,” says Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
Colm Ó Dúshláine writes,
“I got a tattoo of a double helix on my arm (see attached) to “mark” the occasion of the submission of my PhD thesis. I felt I should have something that records my passion for genetics in the same way that another one I have, a celtic knot, records my ancestry. Anyway, a year later, my research group starts up a collaboration with James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. I thought it was pretty cool that I had the chance to meet him, so I showed him the tattoo! I was pleasantly surprised (and also felt VERY nerdy) when he at first couldn’t believe it was real!!”