Americans’ acceptance of evolution: does it depend on how you ask them?

One thing you learn from looking at surveys of American acceptance of evolution: the statistics vary dramatically depending on which organization asks the question. And it also depends on how the question is asked. About a week ago, a Pew Survey tested this by assessing acceptance of human evolution in two ways. Read their summary—and […]

Scientists scrutinize just two examples in Behe’s new book; find them deeply misleading

Here’s a post by biologists Nathan Lents and Arthur Hunt (Hunt’s name isn’t under the title), examining just two cases touted by Michael Behe as showing “de-evolution” in Behe’s new ID book Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA That Challenges Evolution. The cases involve the loss of fur pigment and changes in fat metabolism in polar bears, […]

The Discovery Institute’s “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” not so scientific

The Discovery Institute (DI) likes to make its case for Intelligent Design simply by getting people to sign a petition, the “Scientific Dissent from Darwinism“, which reads thusly: Signatories of the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism must either hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of […]

Scientists damn Behe’s new book; he responds lamely

As I’ve mentioned before, Michael Behe has a new creationist (i.e., Intelligent Design) book coming out soon: Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA that Challenges Evolution. While its official release date is February 26, three scientists have written an extremely critical review of the book in the journal Science (click on the screenshot below). One […]

British school cancels play about evolution after complaints from Christians

Seriously? A public-school musical play about evolution got canceled in England? And because religious parents complained? That’s not supposed to happen! Here are the stories from the BBC and The Independent (click on screenshots to read): Note that the musical was written by a Christian.   From the BBC: A school has axed a musical on […]

A creationist writes in

Although over the years I’ve become largely inured to the invective I get from creationists as well as Woke Leftists, it takes an effort of (nonfree) will to not react to mushbrained emails like the one I got yesterday. I enclose the email address since it appears to be fake. (I’m not sure which post […]

My Christmas Ham

Yes, I’m having Ham for Christmas dinner, as a good Jewish boy should. (My dad used to call our ham dinners “good kosher ham”.) To wit: That’s exhibit A for “religion poisons everything.”  

Springer writes me again about the creationist paper they published; perhaps the firm’s response in the works

Of course I haven’t given up trying to get a formal response from Springer about why they published a creationist paper in the International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology. As Glenn Close said in that movie where she killed the bunny, “I will not be ignored!” After I got a perfunctory and unsatisfactory boilerplate response […]

But, but . . . Santa Cruz is real!

I’m used to being called a censor for decrying creationism taught in the public schools, published in scientific journals, or offered as a recreational event on a public school trip. But these critics don’t understand that, since creationism and its gussied-up twin Intelligent Design are seen by the courts as “religion”,  they can’t be taught as […]

Springer writes back, defending its publication of a creationist paper

Yesterday, after reading a ridiculous creationist paper in a Springer journal (International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology), I wrote both a post about the paper and a kvetching letter to the “general inquiries” address of Springer Nature. I got a reply within 24 hours, which is good, but the response was lame and evasive, which […]