Entries
- Brief Update on Kansas
by Jack Krebs - The brain of Homo floresiensis
by PZ Myers - Spiked on liberal creationism
by Timothy Sandefur - What good is half an underlying language structure?
by Steve Reuland - Not a German Piltdown
by Jim Foley - Tangled Bank #22½: The Quest for the Lost Articles
by PZ Myers
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Posted by Jack Krebs on March 05, 2005 | Comments (134) | TrackBack (1)
Between keeping up with my personal life/day job and with the flurry of events here in Kansas, I’ve had little time to reflect and inform here at the Panda’s Thumb. If you are interested, the best place to do some reading is at the KCFS Update forum, where we archive our KCFS Updates. See particularly:
Continue reading “Brief Update on Kansas”
Posted by PZ Myers on March 03, 2005 | Comments (33) | TrackBack (0)
Scoot on over to The Loom for the latest details on the brain of Homo floresiensis. The results from a detailed CT-scan of the skull of the fossil hominid are in, and they are very interesting. The short answer: the brain of the hobbit most closely resembles that of Homo erectus and does not look like the brain of a microcephalic, but it does have its own peculiarities. Read Carl's story for all of the details.
Posted by Timothy Sandefur on March 02, 2005 | Comments (77) | TrackBack (0)
There's an essay here from Spiked that makes some good points on the philosophical and intellectual causes of the Intelligent Design problem. (And it quotes me, so therefore it's very good!) It's a little long, but the thesis is that
It is suspicion of all groups who claim authority rather than excessive respect for religion that drives hostility to science....[T]he theme of anti-intellectualism on the American right has drawn vigour from the critique of expertise developed since the 1960s by their opponents in the culture wars. It was radicals who pioneered the idea that children should educate the teachers, that doctors were no more expert than their patients, and that claims to expertise generally were little more than an excuse to assert power by marginalising the voice of the victim. In this picture scientists are not disinterested investigators of the truth so much as spin doctors for their paymasters in business or government. It is the coming together of these two strands from left and right that represents the real danger for science.
I think that goes a little far. I would certainly agree that there is just as much quackery and hoodooism on the left as on the right--I live in Northern California, so I should know--and I agree that the tendency to ignore what a person says on the grounds that "he's funded by so-and-so" is an illogical and childish attitude that is all too common. But the problem isn't just hostility to people who claim authority. Such hostility can actually be pretty helpful; I understand the motto of the Royal Society is "On the Words of No One," which is a pretty anti-authoritarian sentiment. Rather, the problem (other than simple ignorance) is hostility to reason and objective science. That hostility takes the form of both traditional fundamentalism (by which reason and science subvert the unquestioning faith demanded of us by God and society) and newfangled Pomo tergiversation (by which science is exploitative, inherently racist, and part of an intellectual scheme to oppress the proletariat and deprive them of their health insurance coverage).
Thanks to reader Kelvin Kean for the pointer.
Posted by Steve Reuland on March 01, 2005 | Comments (42) | TrackBack (0)
Zimmer has another two-part series up, this time on the evolution of language.
It concerns a long-running debate between linguists about how language was acquired by our species. Go read it right now.
Posted by Jim Foley on February 28, 2005 | Comments (113) | TrackBack (0)
It has recently been reported (Telegraph, Guardian) that German scientist Reiner Protsch had committed a number of scientific frauds. Protsch apparently could not even operate his own carbon-dating equipment, and routinely made up dates for bones that had been sent to him for dating, often giving recent specimens dates that were much too old. Many webpages have repeated the following quote about the significance of these frauds:
Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory."
Stringer, however, says that he never said that:
Continue reading “Not a German Piltdown”
Posted by PZ Myers on February 27, 2005 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
In a horrendous and unfortunate spamfilter accident, many articles were lost from the last edition of the Tangled Bank. Join us now in a desperate rescue attempt, in Tangled Bank #22½: The Quest for the Lost Articles.