Miscellany 26 Jun 200818 Sep 2017 Barbara Forrest has an excellent analysis and background story on the introduction of the creationist bill in Louisiana, and the organisations supporting it, here at Talk2Reason. There’s a new phylogeny of birds out. See GrrllScientist’s post, and a full size tree here. Late edit See Bird Evolution – Problems with Science for more. Jesse Prinz has an essay on atheism and morality, which I think jumps the shark at the end (how can there be atheist charities? Atheism is the lack of some belief, so any charity that doesn’t make theism part of its core mission already is atheist), here at Psychology Today. Michael Ruse has an interesting and entertaining review of, among other things, Bill Wimsatt’s book, at American Scientist. It turns out we can know what it is like to be a bat… Science After Sunclipse has a discussion on what education can be achieved by science blogs. Laelaps‘ Brian Switek responds. Sciguy reports that Spain is about to give basic human rights to apes, something I have previously supported elsewhere. Stephen Hale had already argued one can prove a negative, before I did. Hat tip: Abnormal Interests. Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution General Science Politics Sermon Social evolution Species and systematics wimsatt
History Rovian dialogue 3 Nov 200818 Sep 2017 I’ve had this on my office door for four years now. Read More
Education How immigration restrictions are starting to hurt academic research 1 Nov 2009 Jorge Cham of PhD Comics was nearly deported from the UK recently. His story is most interesting, and somewhat scary: From here. Part one here. Who doesn’t believe that we allowed terrorism to win? Read More
General Science Spin versus framing: the tragedy of PR 31 Aug 200818 Sep 2017 For my sins, I was once a public relations guy, for an educational institution, and I held positions roughly in that domain (e.g., as public communications manager for a medical research institute, although I managed the means not the message) for the bulk of my professional life until I finally… Read More
Thanks for the link! Sciguy reports that Spain is about to give basic human rights to apes, something I have previously supported elsewhere. That is excellent news; I certainly hope the legislation goes through. If you haven’t seen it already you should definitely check out the Nature special “Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History,” too.
The comments on that SciGuy link are mostly so deeply stupid I’m left wondering how they mustered the basic literacy to post them. How does an intelligent poster attract a rabble like that?
I learned about Wimsatt’s book through your blog and the title made me take a look at it in Amazon. The description there made me think it might be interesting to read it, but if it’s being reviewed in American Scientist (and by Ruse), I’ll have the best reference possible.