Here are some picture from Paris. I'm experimenting with slideshows.
Paris Slideshow
However, unlike its predecessors, this new edition was shaped to a large extent by a careful program of audience research. This research was initiated to bring about a better understanding of the frame of reference that the intended audiences bring to this issue. The committee decided early in the revision process that its goal was to successfully inform opinion leaders and influentials who could then use this information to help reframe discussions about the evolution "controversy." By presenting authoritative scientific information in ways that address the questions and concerns of those who are unsure about teaching evolution in science classrooms, the authoring committee would provide opinion leaders and influentials (scientists, business leaders, clergy, teachers, members of school boards, policy makers, judges, lawyers, and others) with the tools needed to change the understanding and decisions of other people who comprise the "wobbly middle." They defined the wobbly middle as the large percentage of citizens that various national polls have shown to be undecided about whether or not evolution, creationism, or some combination should be taught in public school science classrooms.This opens a can of worms. It is very difficult walk the thin line between "presenting authoritative information" and framing that information so that it makes everyone comfortable. I'm not sure that it can be done.
Compared with the previous two versions, there is more discussion in SE&C about how science and religion differ as ways of knowing and how, for many scientists and other people, acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be reconciled with personal faith. Published statements are provided from various religious denominations and from prominent living scientists declaring that acceptance of the evidence for evolution is compatible with the tenets of their faith.I'm sure Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney are very pleased about this.
Labov, J.B. and Pope, B.K. (2008) Understanding Our Audiences: The Design and Evolution of Science, Evolution, and Creationism. CBE Life Sci Educ 7: 20-24. [CBE Life Sciences] [DOI:10.1187/cbe.07-12-0103]
Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins so that the actual content of these sciences has become corrupted. The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry, leading to incorrect and unsupported conclusions about biological and cosmological origins. At the same time, intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution -- an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support. Hence, ID needs to be vigorously developed as a scientific, intellectual, and cultural project.The Intelligent Design Creationists make a big deal of this whenever they get around to defending their worldview. They claim that Intelligent Design Creationism is a "promising scientific alternative" that deserves respect. They say that Intelligent Design Creationism is not just anti-evolutionism.
Discover the extraordinary story of Charles Darwin in Darwin: The Evolution Revolution, the most comprehensive exhibition ever mounted on the man whose revolutionary theory changed the world. This extraordinary exhibition traces Darwin’s life from his early years of curious observation and scientific study to his uninspired days at boarding school. Relive his five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle that brought him to the Galapagos Islands, and discover some of the unique animals he encountered, including African spur-thighed tortoises, an iguana and live frogs.
Walk through his historic study where he developed his ground-breaking Theory of Evolution. Intimate letters, photographs and personal artifacts give insight into aspects of Darwin’s life that are rarely seen. Discover why it took so long for Darwin to publish his findings, and how his daughter’s untimely death in 1851 may have contributed to his decision to eventually publish On The Origin of Species.
Interactive media and videos help bring Darwin and his ideas to life, and contemporary scientists explain how Darwin’s theories have held their relevance in so many areas of modern biology and science.
Darwin is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York in collaboration with The Field Museum, Chicago; the Museum of Science, Boston; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada; and the Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom.
[Photo Credit: David McKay, ©ROM: A first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, on loan to the ROM from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. (The Origin of Species)]
[Photo Credit: The Toronto Star: Student faces Facebook consequences]
Recognizing the complexity of public attitudes, a number of scientists and other scholars are trying to develop language to discuss evolution in ways that might build bridges to the religious. These efforts were the subject of a well-attended panel I moderated at last month's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. Some panellists, in effect, advocated co-opting the language of religion. For example, Kenneth Miller of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the author of a leading textbook on evolution and a practising Catholic, talked about embracing the notion of life having a design, but explaining it as the result and embodiment of evolution. Others, such as Matthew Nisbet, a communications scholar at American University in Washington DC who organized the panel, suggested moving the discussion away from scientific theory and talking about the medical and other benefits that have resulted from understanding evolution.What are those two facets? The first is the fact that the fight is not about science alone. It's about a whole range of social issues that upset the religious right.
No doubt all these approaches are worth trying, and the general message of the panel — that scientists should address the public with respect rather than contempt — is well taken. But the panel failed to grapple with two important facets of the way science and religious attitudes intersect.
Second, the panellists tiptoed around the fact that scientific discovery can genuinely undermine religious beliefs. The focus of the panel was on teaching evolution, but discoveries in genetics and neuroscience are likely to be far more problematic in the long run. The two fields are verging on drawing the ultimate materialist picture of human nature — humans as nothing more than proteins and electrical impulses, all machine and no ghost, to play off Descartes' formulation. This view will challenge not only fundamentalist views about the soul, but more widely held notions about what it means to be a person. That will further complicate age-old questions about the nature of individual responsibility and morality.That's a good point. What does it have to do with the conference and with the views advocated by people like Miller and Nisbet? Would using the language of religion and talking about design—as Miller suggests—make believers more comfortable about becoming materialists? Will advertising the medical benefits of science—as Nisbet sugggests— relieve the angst of learning that God has no role to play in the universe? I don't think so. Framing science isn't going to hide the fact that it is antithetical to many of the core beliefs of the religious.
Responding to these issues will be difficult for scientists and non-scientists alike. New discoveries about the human genome and neuroscience will no doubt be clearly linked to potential medical advances, but they may also raise new questions about what kinds of interventions are appropriate. The conundrums may leave even atheists longing for some theological guidance on how to decide what is moral. And wandering about this uncharted territory may make the well-rehearsed battles over evolution seem like the good old days.What nonsense. Atheists don't need "theological guidance" to work through these problems. As a matter of fact, atheists are well placed to deal with the issues once the stranglehold of religion is broken. That's because atheists have long been deciding what's "moral" in the absence of God. We're good at it.
Goldston, D. (2008) The Scientist Delusion. Nature 462:17. [Nature] [doi:10.1038/452017a]
[HatTip: Pete Dunkelberg]
The viscous personal attacks on Dr. Wells are an example. If you were a scientist, how candid about questioning the relevance of Darwinism would you be if your livelihood depended on Darwinist professors like Dr. Myers and Dr. Moran?Anyone with an IQ above 50 knows that neither PZ or I are Darwinists [Why I'm Not a Darwinist]. We have both posted numerous articles attacking adaptationism and the emphasis on natural selection as the only mechanism of evolution. We have questioned all kinds of things about the modern orthodoxy from punctuated equilibria to evo-devo.
In particular I was annoyed that those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as "feeling good that someone has religion somewhere". Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us'n'Themism of TGD. We dislike it because no matter what other beliefs an intelligent person may hold, so long as they accept the importance of science and the need for a secular society, we simply do not care if they also like the taste of ear wax, having sex with trees, or believing in a deity or two. Way to go, Richard. Good bit of framing and parodying the opposition. Real rational.John, it's you who aren't being rational about this topic. Somewhere on this planet there may be a true believer in God who resembles your hypothetical caricature but they are very rare.
One thing that you should remember about Kirby's pretty rhetorical flourishes and speculation. It's all there to distract you from the utter failure of science to support the original claims of the mercury militia, namely that mercury in vaccines was the cause for most cases of autism, or, as Generation Rescue puts it, that autism is a "misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning." Multiple large and well-designed epidemiological studies have utterly failed to find a link between mercury in vaccines or vaccines in general and autism. Indeed, the idea that vaccines cause autism is the incredible shrinking hypothesis. It's gone from confident claims that mercury or vaccines cause nearly all cases of autism to a lot of handwaving based on one case conceded by the government in which the plaintiff had a rare mitochondrial disease which may have been aggravated by vaccines plus multiple bouts of inflammation due to otitis media, a far cry from previous cries blaming vaccines for an "autism tsunami." Is it possible that in rare cases vaccines can aggravate a preexisting condition and lead to injury that resembles autism or ASD? Despite all the studies cited by Kirby in is speculations, what we really have is one documented case of a child in which childhood vaccines probably exacerbated a preexisting mitochondrial disease who later went on to meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism; so it's possible. It's also a far cry from the original claims of the mercury militia. Don't forget that. Also don't forget that, no matter what new physiologic alterations or abnormalities are found in autistic children, antivaccinationists always--and I mean always--manage to find a rationale to link it to vaccines, no matter how tortured that rationale is.This is a serious issue. It's part of a much bigger picture including the attack on science by creationists. The issue is not only science vs. religion: it's rationalism vs. superstition. David Kirby is just as dangerous to the cause of science as Jonathan Wells of any or the other creationists.
1. This is one of those times when I refer to an anonymous blogger because, as Orac himself admits, his identity is an open secret.