Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

Quote:

The experiment involved a scientific gamble that included shelling out over 1 million dollars

A million dollars is a tangible object looked at in a simple way. There are other ways of looking at it but they are too scientific for this thread I'm afraid.

First, it was not an experiment unless looking in the cupboards for a screwdriver is an experiment.

Second, it was not a gamble because those who owned the $1m+ had nothing to gain and no say. In fact, the vast majority of the owners (taxpayers) had plenty to lose. The $1m+, plus their being reminded that they are powerless and having those looking for the fossils, which it is probably impossible not to find, lording it over them with scientific sounding papers describing what they did find and making out that they are superior persons to garbage collectors (better living conditions, lower infant mortality rates and suchlike) despite the fact that if they withdrew their labour nobody would notice the slightest difference in contradistinction to the effects of the garbage collectors withdrawing their labour which can be seen today in many parts of France. One needn't be all that sceptical, a necessary quality in any scientist, to wonder whether almost any fossil can be claimed to be a "key intermediate" one with a bit of fancy wordwork combined with an awestruck audience.

fm's whole post there betrays the complete absence of any scientific sensibility and, what is much worse, an arrogant and asserted assumption that the audience has none either. There is no suggestion that this modern "priesthood" of psuedo-scientists will officiate at baptisms, marriages and funerals, provide a focus in communities for the strengthening of moral and ethical values, or engage in any charity or missionary works. In fact the presence of the post on this thread is to try to negate and abolish all those activities and transfer them to bureaucrats as was depicted, fictionally, in Soylent Green where females were designated "furniture" and came with the accomodation.

But the $1m+ was an object. Or can be seen as one. So while this obfustication over some stone old bones is going on, so old that were they to wait to be found for another 50 million years they would be little changed, the source of the $1m+ is forgotten about and how it is disposed of also.

So--in order to get some real science on this thread, perhaps fm will explain for those who don't know, the processes involved in the $1m+'s arrival in the books of the disposers of it and precisely, scientists should try to be precise, how it was arranged that it should be used in this particular way rather than in other ways which there were possibly competing applications to do.

Obviously I realise that such a project presents more difficulties than the spending ( a type of bonfire) of the $m+ ( an open ended, indeed irrational, number), but since when has difficulty stood in the way of science. Science is not supposed to behave like water running downhill taking the line of least resistance.

From what fm has previously said about himself he is uniquely placed to write a scientific paper for our education on this important matter. It is important because similar processes are going on behind closed doors from sea to shining sea and may very well, for all I know, add up to an amount close to the Federal deficit. With infant mortality and foreclosures being important factors in the distribution of tax dollars we might find that the projects of a similar nature, when aggregated, are killing kids and turning working class people out of their homes so that people scratting in the muck looking for reasons to preen can live in salubrious neighbourhoods, have two cars and play golf in exclusive settings.

Just because the Discovery Institute doesn't report these matters is no reason why fm should adopt the same policy on this thread which is, as a science thread, disinterested, as the DI is not. We accept that the DI's partiality would cause it to look the other way, as a matter of course, but we cannot accept it on here where only being Abled 2 Know is a consideration.

Go fm-show us the real science that a non-drinking, non-smoking old fart can manage. We are sick to the back teeth of your PR.

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@High Seas,

Im not disagreeing . Its just that "predictions" in paleo , involve efforts to recreate the edaphic conditions that surround ,say, the necessary requirements for oil deposits and migration. In effect, theres enough woprk on the applied engineering to take up our efforts. Remember, mineral exploration is now a much more refined methodology based upon many of the predictions in the basic sciences.I remember in the wildcat days , they would say that 1 out of 7 wells would produce in viable quantities. Today weve pretty much reversed those numbers, all based upon boring stratigraphy and geophysics and chemistry , and even applied photoshop (a personal fav)

I think that the modelling of various environmental and epidemiological "smackdown" scenarios is a tool on which we should be spending some quality time. Course, Economic models are examples of how primitive our efforts are in many areas of quantitative analyses. I think that a model or two had been in use for the spread of H1N1 and somehow, they got less than stellar results.

I know of some quantitative toxicologists who are working on the explosion of diabetes and are working backwards to predict some outcomes (like Craig Venter). Theyre looking to pull out various commonalities to the growth of this disease on the planet and, most often , the "Autocorrelation aspects" of models show the primary causes are related to major dietary shifts in populations. Itd be neat to let models just run for 20000 generations (sort of a minimal time for which major mutations become fixed in populations).
However, as you know, there is the poroblem of client needs and confidentialities that must be maintained. There is no "plausible deniability" in things like medical effects of dietary components. (Its sort of a modern version of the tobacco industry swearing in front of congress that they were unaware of health effects of smoking).

Im sure we are seeing an explosion of applied modelling in health scenarios and chronic disease growth (like diabetes and Alzheimers). Im sure youre waay more informed on whats going on in quantitative epidemiology.

Modelling of evolutionary effects that interact environment with adaptation is going on but ,again, it is keyed most often to that 20000 year (or so) target interval.
I saw an article in the American forensic journal on population genetics and the imposition of the STR (short tandem repeat) alleles into epigenetic and DNA sequences of populations (like sherpas , bushmen, AMish, and other more isolated populations. Its mostly a matter of statistical appearance and maintanance of theses STR's. They too, can be placed in a sizable portion of the population and then , just as suddenly, disappear as the population changes some component of their daily life , or their component stock.

In the aspects of predicting evolutionary markers .Fairbanks "Relics of Eden" is about 1/2 a really neat work. (The other half is anti Creationist bullshit and just plain preaching to the choir of Dawkins and Coyne). Im kind of tired in autors going for the easy page fillers of re re rereviewing the Dover trial. I think we get it and theres not too much that hasnt been said that needs resaying.
SO, the important part of his book looks at specific allele components and documents their presence and persistence through time and how the "experiemnts" that were used to confirm them were developed. Its maybe 150 pages of fascinating reading and another 150 pages of crap.

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@farmerman,

I hope HS understood that. It looks more like a nutcase in the throes of an automatic talking fit to me.

I suppose keeping away from pubs does cause people to address others in ways that take no regard of them. Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley both mentioned the American middle-class's conversational style as one which doesn't expect others to be listening. They thought is was very polite of them.

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@farmerman,

Published epidemiology models are afflicted by political correctness; there was near-perfect correlation of N1H1 mortality with obesity (+or obesity-related co-morbidities) but you never heard that from the CDC. AIDS transmission is the classic example of PC-misrepresentation of risk factors.

As one who can only tell the Devonian from the Cretaceous thanks to your efforts to educate us online I tried to come up with a suitable contribution to your forthcoming geological tome; mathematical examples are too esoteric for a general audience, so here are verses from America's greatest poet:

Quote:

There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust

Good luck

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@High Seas,

Quote:

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which side are you on?"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fisherman hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row.

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@High Seas,

I wanted to include a verse and a painting in chapters. I have to call Roberta about the copywright requirements of documents nd works in the poublic record.
I was going to open with Walter Scotts "By Conants Well". Its addressed to Geologists is a humorous vein.

Eliot , hmmm.

Quote:

AND THEY RAN
up hill and down
dale, knapping
the chunky stones
to pieces with
hammers, like so
many road
makers gone
daft."

"They say it is to
see how the world
was made."

Precise and Concise, thats the ticket.

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Quote:

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

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Quote:

O'Donnell questions separation of church, state
(By BEN EVANS, Associated Press, October 19, 2010)

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools."

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

Erin Daly, a Widener professor who specializes in constitutional law, said that while there are questions about what counts as government promotion of religion, there is little debate over whether the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from making laws establishing religion.

"She seemed genuinely surprised that the principle of separation of church and state derives from the First Amendment, and I think to many of us in the law school that was a surprise," Daly said. "It's one thing to not know the 17th Amendment or some of the others, but most Americans do know the basics of the First Amendment."

O'Donnell didn't respond to reporters who asked her to clarify her views after the debate.

During the exchange, she said Coons' views on creationism showed that he believes in big-government mandates.

"Talk about imposing your beliefs on the local schools," she said. "You've just proved how little you know not just about constitutional law but about the theory of evolution."

Coons said her comments show a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the Constitution.

The debate, their third in the past week, was more testy than earlier ones.

O'Donnell began by defending herself for not being able to name a recent Supreme Court decision with which she disagrees at a debate last week. She said she was stumped because she largely agrees with the court's recent decisions under conservative chief justices John Roberts and William Rehnquist.

"I would say this court is on the right track," she said.

The two candidates repeatedly talked over each other, with O'Donnell accusing Coons of caving at one point when he asked the moderator to move on to a new question after a lengthy argument.

"I guess he can't handle it," she said.

O'Donnell, a tea party favorite who stunned the state by winning the GOP primary last month in her third Senate bid in five years, called Coons a liberal "addicted to a culture of waste, fraud and abuse."

Coons, who has held a double-digit lead in recent polls, urged voters to support him as the candidate of substance, with a track record over six years as executive of the state's most populous county. He said O'Donnell's only experience is in "sharpening the partisan divide but not at bridging it."

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Those tea party loons are an absolute hoot. If i hadn't known better, i'd almost have believed this came from The Onion. Truly incredible . . .

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@Setanta,

No, ODonnell is real. Frightengly so, Im afraid. Her lack of knowledge about the Constitution shows that even her handlers arent taking her seriously.
There is a way for her to win. She can appear put upon by Coons more intellectual approach, and she can play up the " elite college pinhead" angle.
Coons is a member of the WL Gore Family of companies (guys who make Goretex, not Al Gore).

ODonnell is scaring the public, even some of her supporters are starting to cast doubt on her abilities. I was listening to the REhoboth Talk station over the net and even those , originally wildly conservative ODonnell supporters have come out and started saying that she may have been a poor choice due to her baggage and inability to grasp simple concepts

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I bet the Republican leadership is peeing in its collective panties . . . they should have supported a mainline Republican candidate as an independent when the idea was first mooted.

I love it . . . you can't beat free entertainment like that.

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@wandeljw,

I saw a short video on CBS News the other night of Mrs Palin addressing an admiring audience of what looked to be prosperous Americans most of whom I suppose, from evidence I have seen on A2K, have majored in something or other.

Whether it is of any interest to my excellent audience of reverences and worships, I have to report that the first thing that came into mind, as a passable expert in the science of what one might call, for want of a better word, Gesticulation, was Woody Allen in the scene in Zelig where he can be seen from a distance remonstrating with the Pope in St Peter's on Easter Sunday , as Mrs Palin was in the cut in between the two longer ones of Katie Courich's legs. You might need to read that sentence a few times to get the right rythm or flow of it. I had to.

Welcome to Ladymedia. They are seriously bitchy. Especially the stroppy ones. The ones who kneel down by their bedsides to say their prayers everynight are not so bad. Not enough for them to ever learn the finer points of bitching. They are too busy looking after the comforts of the man who took them off their father's hands. As long as they stay the majority we should be alright.

I bet Katie hates Sarah not for anything the latter says, but because she is more "up there", as Andy called it, than she is and it is in those zones of "up there" that the bitching and cattiness gets really attenuated into subtleties the male mind is not sufficiently developed to understand. That it fondly believes it is sufficiently developed to understand such things is an obvious signifier that it isn't and possibly it's most important mistake.

I was in bed mind you and was as pissed as a wasp in a cider brewery on a warm afternoon after drinking two pints of John Smith's Extra Smooth, "silk in a glass", which, as you all might remember, is a brain bazooking, mind-bombing three and one whole point five of a percentage above that of ginger beer. Wine being 12% and spirits about 70%.

Mrs Palin looked batty. Out of all the film they have of Mrs Palin they selected the 10 second (at most) shot of her at her battiest. How difficult the choice was I couldn't guess as I haven't seen the rest.

What with Katie having a resemblance to Mrs Clinton and Sarah having a resemblance to Ava Gardner and Ms ODonnell to Anne of Green Gables you can easily see the tension between two female mindsets. The independents and those who think it best to do what they are told. How on earth would a republican woman know she was a republican unless she was told. Independents would be democrats because the word has an appeal to independents. It's being fair. As if the other lot have no devices for getting their own way.

I'm looking forward to this election. Maybe the Tea Party thinks of the north east as the Bostonians thought of the British Government. It might be the biggest challenge to teaching evolution that there is.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

There is a way for her to win. She can appear put upon by Coons more intellectual approach, and she can play up the " elite college pinhead" angle. Coons is a member of the WL Gore Family of companies (guys who make Goretex, not Al Gore).

O'Donnell could then emphasize her own family background as a striking contrast. O'Donnell's father became famous for playing Bozo the Clown on local television.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

No, ODonnell is real. Frightengly so, Im afraid. Her lack of knowledge about the Constitution shows that even her handlers arent taking her seriously.

It's a poor do when a Limey has to teach you about American politics fm. Isn't the whole point that experts on the Constitution have got us into all this ****. And now they are trying to fill the hole up by digging another one. That what's needed now is some homespun wisdom and a matronly steady hand on the pram handle and, if necessary, some spanking.

It's not real **** mind you. I'm speaking relatively. But being in the **** and feeling you are in the **** are much the same thing psephisically.

The term "constitutional expert" is only a badge of honour in the circles which have agreed that it is so. One can say it with a sneer, as the expression "barrack lawyer" often is, in other circles. And get a laugh. People have been executed for being constitutional experts and making too big a deal out of it.

The intellectual approach and the " elite college pinhead" have not been backward in the dropping us all in the **** as well as constitutional experts. Defence cuts--you know.

You can argue that we are not in the **** as I would but it's you lefties who are always saying that we are so that we will turn to you to pull us out. So that's out.

Whatever "even some of her supporters" means it needs a more scientific enumeration to justify building the rest of the sentence upon it despite them only "starting to have doubts". It's the same in your next sentence. And your sources for both are not what any scientist would take on trust.

Can you not see that people are getting sick of that sort of rhetoric. The Tea Party is a spontaneous reaction against something and that sort of language might well be part of it alongside CEs, the IA and the ecps.

2010 is not the end of the world.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

O'Donnell's father became famous for playing Bozo the Clown on local television.

That's a plus surely.

And playing up Mr Coons' connections to Mr Gore is probably a good thing to do.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

O'Donnell's father became famous for playing Bozo the Clown on local television.

Are you shittin me?

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Don't worry about it because it's not true. Her father only substituted as the clown for one day. Another of the lies she makes up all the time.

She seems to be a pathological liar.

BBB

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

You mean she made up a story saying that her father was Bozo the Clown?

Further proof that she should reconsider seeking an elected office.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Yep! That's what the con girlie did.

BBB

1 Reply

@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Oct. 8, 2010

Christine O'Donnell's dad: A local Bozo
By WILL BUNCH
Philadelphia Daily News

[email protected] 215-854-2957

America may still be searching for solutions for high unemployment, the outsourcing of jobs to Asia and our addiction to foreign oil.

But we're finally getting to the bottom of "Bozogate" - one of the more bizarre political kerfuffles of a bizarre 2010 midterm election.

No joke - the TV clown "scandal" loomed as a new controversy flaring this week over whether GOP Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, under fire for past statements on everything from her college resume to witchcraft, was at it again.

The issue: Whether her dad, now 70 and living in South Jersey, really played "Bozo the Clown" on Philadelphia TV in the 1960s, as claimed in a profile of the candidate.

Yesterday, in a telephone interview from his home in Moorestown, a bemused Daniel O'Donnell filled in the blanks about his very brief stint as a substitute "Bozo the Clown" on the small Jenkintown UHF station that eventually became Fox 29.

The father of the 41-year-old Senate candidate - who raced from Delaware obscurity to national obsession in a few weeks - said he was only a short-timer in the late 1960s when the regular actor who played Bozo on WIBF-TV was called away to a gig on Broadway.

"I was doing things in community theater and a friend of mine worked there who knew that I could relate to children very well," said O'Donnell, explaining what was supposed to be a very minor detail from a New York Times article last weekend.

Except nothing is minor in today's 24-hour news cycle.

When Times reporter Mark Leibovich described Bozo - the TV clown made famous by Larry Harmon but ultimately franchised in the 1960s to local channels in dozens of cities, including Philadelphia - as Daniel O'Donnell's "signature role," the blogosphere pounced.

Why, asked online critics, did the name "Daniel O'Donnell" not turn up in online directories of the other actors who played Bozo? Was this another "gotcha" for Christine O'Donnell, who's been accused of exaggerating her academic record, including long claiming a degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University that she did not receive until last month?

Not so - although the senior O'Donnell admits that it was hardly a "signature role" but a short-term gig; in fact, any full-time actor who played Bozo was required to attend a special clown school led by Harmon in Texas.

"They gave me a book with 60 pages on how to be a 'Bozo,' " O'Donnell recalled. Even though it was only a few weeks, the experience provided the part-time actor with lifelong memories of a golden era in Philadelphia TV when live shows still flourished. He said the "Bozo" episodes were taped in a small studio in an apartment building owned by the founders of WIBF, the Fox family of Jenkintown.

One day the producer told him that the show would be canceled because snow had sidelined the bus driver who was supposed to bring in schoolchildren for that day's audience.

But O'Donnell said he called his wife and rounded up a studio full of kids from the neighborhood. He said they were counting down to start the live telecast when one of the children ran into the booth and blurted out, "That's not Bozo - that's Mr. O'Donnell!"

He said he also played Bozo at some live appearances, but clearly there was a learning curve. On the way to the first event, he said, they stopped for gas and he got annoyed at some teens who tweaked his red nose - until he was informed that that meant he was supposed to blow his clown horn.

O'Donnell said he was "always on the periphery" of the TV and theater scene in Philadelphia - which may not have prepared him for the hypercharged cable TV bubble that's engulfed his daughter in 2010.

His wife even tried swearing off the news coverage the other night, he said, but then came running down the stairs 20 minutes later to complain about a new report. "It's addicting," he sighed.

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