Science Tuesday

Anti-Evolutionary Dead End

In a defeat for critics of Darwin, the Utah House of Representatives on Monday voted down a bill intended to challenge the theory of evolution in high school science classes.

The bill had been viewed nationally, by people on each side of the science education debate, as an important proposal because Utah is such a conservative state, with a Legislature dominated by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But the bill died on a 46-to-28 vote in the Republican-controlled House after being amended by the majority whip, Stephen H. Urquhart, a Mormon who said he thought God did not have an argument with science. The amendment stripped out most of the bill's language, leaving only that the state board of education "shall establish curriculum requirements relating to scientific instruction."

It was Republicans what killed it. This comes on the heels of defeats for IDiots in Ohio (legislature), Pennsylvania (courts), and Wisconsin (bill to outlaw teaching ID). Prediction: Kansas will revise its state science education standards -- again -- after the next school board election.

Oh, by the way: the Discovery Institute is now saying that it's merely a "local issue" for Utah.


The Pompeii of the East?

Next year, Dr. Sigurdsson expects to extend the radar survey, searching for traces of the rest of Tambora and perhaps the king's house. If Tambora is indeed like Pompeii, which was buried in an instant by the erupting Mount Vesuvius, the scientist said, "all the people, their houses and culture are still encapsulated there as they were in 1815."


Pharyngula on Theoscience:

An informative comment by PZ Myers at Pharyngula about the publishing history of the Discovery Institute:

The DI has long had this goal of getting their work published in mainstream science journals; unfortunately, they don't want to bother with that unpleasant business of trying to do real research. Give Up Blog has examples of their prodigious output: 5 abstracts that have been published in science journals. That's it.

For those of you who might have forgotten, the Discovery Institute is the "scientific think tank" involved in pushing creationism and now ID into public schools. Myers' post is worth reading just to note the reaction the IDers get at scientific meetings.

Another One From Pharyngula:

OK -- he seems to miss one detail here:

So here goes. To the evolutionists: First, evolution claims that humans and apes have a common ancestor. But since apes are not still evolving into man that notion is debunked without performing a single experiment.

The jump from "common ancestor" to "apes evolving into man" seems to me to be the real howler, either betraying a distinct lack of cognitive ability, or a touching belief in such a lack in everyone else.

However, don't bother with the "Darwin is Dead "symposium" he links to unless you have a very, very high tolerance for smug stupidity. Make that "stubbornly smug stupidity."