Here's some worthy competition to TED talks from The Onion. It's title is Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought.
[Hat Tip: Mike the Mad Biologist]
[Hat Tip: Mike the Mad Biologist]
[Hat Tip: Mike the Mad Biologist]
[Hat Tip: Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant]
[Hat Tip: Pharyngula]
Ramachandran, G. N., Ramakrishnan, C. T., and Sasisekharan, V. (1963) Stereochemistry of polypeptide chain configurations. Journal of molecular biology, 7:95-99.
[Hat Tip: David Schuller.]
(Evolution is defined as) any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations.The first example involves a new mutation that arises in an amoeba-like organism. Because this new mutation in inherited by a daughter cell, the video declares that "evolution has officially occurred."
The goal of this group is to meet regularly (~biweekly) to discuss/debate the hot topics in scientific controversy and their implications in the sociopolitical world. My personal aim in founding this group is to refine the art of delivering articulate and diplomatic scientific explanations to those who don't "believe" in science. In addition, I would like to expand our efforts to somehow elucidating to the general public/non-science students the importance of science in the progress of society.I'm in.
That was such a dizzying flurry of big lies we, frankly, lost count. Those lies are so absurd, so unequivocally false, and spoken with such conviction, that the average person is sure to believe them.I don't think we're ever going to succeed in teaching the Cornelius Hunter's of this world the difference between truth and lies but TV shows like this one are having an impact and I'm glad to see that some Muslims are willing to speak out.
Unfortunately such lies are the rule rather than the exception. This evolution propaganda segment was no mistake—it is unfortunately typical.
Of course one can make truthful arguments for evolution. And one can try to find scientific evidence to support it. It is not easy, but it can be done. But that is not what evolutionists do. They mandate evolution. They insist evolution is a fact in spite of the evidence. And that is a big lie.
University professors have a lot less stress than most of us. Unless they teach summer school, they are off between May and September and they enjoy long breaks during the school year, including a month over Christmas and New Year’s and another chunk of time in the spring. Even when school is in session they don’t spend too many hours in the classroom. For tenure-track professors, there is some pressure to publish books and articles, but deadlines are few. Working conditions tend to be cozy and civilized and there are minimal travel demands, except perhaps a non-mandatory conference or two. As for compensation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for professors is $62,000, not a huge amount of money but enough to live on, especially in a university town.Ironically, this article comes out just as some of my colleagues are getting the bad news about their grant applications. Those who weren't funded face the end of their research career while they are still in their 40s. It also comes out at a time when two of my colleagues are starting to think about their applications for tenure. If they are unsuccessful, they will be out of a job in their late 30s with a family to support.
Another boon for professors: Universities are expected to add 305,700 adjunct and tenure-track professors by 2020, according to the BLS. All of those attributes land university professor in the number one slot on Careercast.com’s list of the least stressful jobs of 2013. The ranking comes from an annual best and worst jobs list that began in 1995 under the auspices of the Wall Street Journal.
Given your comment above indicating that you realize the source of your article was poor at best. I think you should consider retracting this article. I know that I would be severely sanctioned for writing this type of article with such questionable sourcing in my academic job. If the same is not the case in your job, then clearly your career is not a terribly stressful one. Maybe, "web staff writer" should be on the top of the "least-stressful jobs" list?
1. I have no intention of supplying specific information about MY job but I'm happy to explain why every one of my younger colleagues is under a tremendous amount of stress every single day.
[Hat Tip: Hermant Mehta at Friendly Atheist: Louie Giglio, Who Thinks Laminin Molecules Prove Christianity is True, Will Deliver Obama’s Inauguration Benediction]
The Board of Directors would like to thank Justin for launching CFI Canada, growing it from one location in Toronto to across the country in short order. There are few individuals who possess the dedication, passion and tenacity to accomplish this. Justin was instrumental in making CFI the premier voice for reason, secularism and skepticism in Canada. We were fortunate to have him. Justin leaves CFI in good hands with our National Director, Michael Payton, and our incredible branch leaders and volunteers who are committed to continuing our growth and influence.I'm delighted that The Board and Justin were able to reach agreement on a new direction for CFI and usher in a new era under new leadership. I agree with the Board that Justin did an excellent job of creating CFI Canada and leading it through its formative years. I was happy to work with Justin and support him during those early years of building an organization (see photo).
Justin, we look forward to watching you make further positive and lasting contributions to society, as no doubt you will.
Board of Directors, Centre for Inquiry Canada
I'm looking forward to rejoining CFI Canada in just a few months.Special Note from Justin Trottier, Founding National Executive Director, Centre for Inquiry Canada
To My Fellow Freethinkers,
It is with mixed emotions that I take this opportunity to announce the upcoming end of my leadership role with CFI Canada. March 15, 2013 will mark the end of my full-time position as National Communications Director; however, I will consider, if I am asked, continuing in part time or other status until no later than July 31. I am immensely proud of the contributions I've made to the organization over the last six years and plan to continue as a volunteer and active participant in CFI events and initiatives, but now it is time to start making the transition from CFI and pursue other interests and employment.
It has been a pleasure working with so many amazing people to form a unique Canadian educational charity and expand it into a national voice for atheists, humanists and skeptics from coast to coast. Leading CFI as it came to establish itself as the most visible, active and professional freethought organization in Canada, with employees, infrastructure and a growing budget will stand as one of the most important and certainly, matchless accomplishments of my life.
...
Here's another example of animals jumping up and down in a stylized manner. Surely there are specific alleles that make them behave this way? And the alleles must have become fixed in the Maasi population by natural selection. In other words, it has to be an adaptation, right?
- It allows an animal to jump out of high grass to look for predators
- The behavior startles the predator, giving the gazelle more time to escape
- It’s an alarm signal (like bird alarm calls), alerting herd members that a predator is nearby. This would probably evolve only if herd members were closely related, so the behavior could evolve via kin selection (assuming it’s individually maldaptive, which isn’t proven).
- It’s simply play behavior. But not only the young do it: adults pronk too when they’re chased by predators.
- It’s a way, in young gazelles, of letting the mother know the baby has been disturbed. This may be one function, but doesn’t explain stotting in adults.
- It confuses the predator. Presumably a herd of gazelle, all pronking, would puzzle a pursuing cheetah or wild dog, making it hard to pick out a given individual to chase. I don’t believe this for a second; predators aren’t that dumb, and in fact a predator would probably either learn to or evolve to concentrate on the stotting individuals because they might be easier to catch. (This “confusion” explanation was once used to explain zebra stripes: it might be hard to single out one zebra in a mass of fleeing stripey equids. But see my earlier post on another explanation for stripes.)
- It’s a way to attract mates, possibly by showing how fit you are. Sage grouse in the western U.S. form “leks” in which males group together and jump up and down for hours (making loud noises at the same time) while the females watch from nearby. Invariably it is the males who jump the longest that are chosen as mates. Females want a fit father for several reasons. This doesn’t wash for gazelles since both sexes do it, and not in a sexual context.
- This is a favored hypothesis: the “honest signal” theory. This posits that the behavior is saying to potential predators, “Don’t bother trying to catch me as I can bounce really high, so imagine how fast I could run if I wanted to!” In other words, the behavior deters the predator from attacking that individual.
- This is the hypothesis I find most credible: stotting warns the predator that it has been seen, thus discouraging it from pursuing the stotting animal. (Predators like to sneak up on a prey, getting as close as possible before they’re detected.) That is, stotting evolved via individual selection. Remember that predators often don’t go after a whole pack of quadrupeds at once, but single out certain individuals—often young or weak ones—to pursue.
[Hat Tip: Veronica at Canadian Atheist: Canada Versus Australia.]
Unfortunately, much of the discussion surrounding the publication of ENCODE failed to focus on the usefulness of the catalogue and the techniques that built it. Instead, much of the debate centered on the failure to understand that transcription does not necessarily imply meaningful biological function. Cells are messy biological entities, with lots of gunk and goo floating around, so mistakes happen all the time. Many DNA sequences get translated into RNA, only to have the cell degrade that RNA. Much, perhaps most, of the DNA in our genomes—despite being occasionally transcribed, and thus recorded in ENCODE—is still functionless “junk DNA.” That is actually not surprising; it is in fact expected from evolutionary theory. Thanks to ENCODE, though, we should eventually learn which sequences are the junk and which are the gems of cell activity.This is a very different take on the subject than that published by the editors of Science and the Intelligent Design Creationists.
Editor's note: For the No. 1 slot among evolution-related news stories of 2012, this one was an easy pick. The publication of the ENCODE project results detonated what had been considered among the sturdiest defenses that Darwinian evolutionary theory could still fall back upon: "Junk DNA." Casey Luskin's initial reporting is featured below. See also our response to the ensuing controversy over ENCODE ("Why the Case for Junk DNA 2.0 Still Fails").Normally I would make fun of the creationists for misunderstanding the real scientific results in the papers that were published last September but, in this case, there are lots of real scientists who fell into the same trap.
Welcome to 2013 and to Carnival of Evolution #55, and Happy New Year to everyone from Genome Engineering. Have you made any New Year’s resolutions this year? Apart from the oft repeated ‘This year I will write my novel’, here are some of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013.There's no host yet for the next Carnival of Evolution (February, 2013). If you want to volunteer to next month or for March, April, or May, contact Bjørn Østman. Bjørn is always looking for someone to host the Carnival of Evolution. He would prefer someone who has not hosted before but repeat hosts are more than welcome right now! Contact him at the Carnival of Evolution blog. You can send articles directly to him or you can submit your articles at Carnival of Evolution although you now have to register to post a submission.
New Year’s Resolution number one: Deliver Carnival of Evolution on time
Okay – broken that one already – sorry. Hope it was worth waiting for. Now onto the rest.
This is the thing that revolutions literally are made of. This would be more devastating to our freedom, to our religious freedom, to the rights of pastors and their duty to be able to speak and to Christians around the country, then anything that the revolutionaries during the American Revolution even dreamed of facing. This would be the thing that revolutions are made of. This could split the country right in two. This could cause another civil war. I’m not talking about just people protesting in the streets, this could be that level because what would ultimately happen is a direct collision would immediately happen with pastors, with churches, with Christians, with Christian ministries, with other businesses, it would be an avalanche that would go across the country.I'm sure it's a great comfort to most Americans that these people have the weapons they need to start another civil war over legalizing gay marriage.
[Hat Tip: Hermant Mehta: Christian Right Leader: Legalizing Gay Marriage Will Result in Another Civil War.]
The NRA is offering to help with the effort to put guns in schools. Mr. LaPierre named former Arkansas Republican congressman Asa Hutchinson to lead a National School Shield Program to help design security plans for every school in the country.
Because, as Mr. LaPierre put it: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
If there is a one statement that sums up the political divide in America, that may be it.
With all the foreign aid, with all the money in the federal budget, we can’t afford to put a police officer in every school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business — and no authority — denying us the right, the ability, or the moral imperative to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.There are about 130,000 schools in America. Let's say we find 130,000 people who are willing and able to use a gun to kill anyone who tries to get into the school. Imagine that many of them are "patriots" who belong to the National Rifle Association. They'll probably be working for close to minimum wage. A bored, underpaid, cowboy with a loaded gun in every school.
Now, the National Rifle Association knows that there are millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters and rescue personnel; and an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every school. We can deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America's schools safer — relying on the brave men and women of America’s police force.
The budget of our local police departments are strained and resources are limited, but their dedication and courage are second to none and they can be deployed right now.
I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school — and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.
It's hard to believe that Miss Johnson, who writes for Ars Technica ("a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, breakdowns of the latest scientific advancements"), is unaware of these things. So too Richard Hoppe. The most likely explanation for their posing at the game of "Gotcha!" is that they can't answer Dr. Gauger's arguments, which are given in full in a recent brief book co-authored by Gauger, Doug Axe and Casey Luskin, Science and Human Origins. We would be happy to send a review copy to Ars Technica.David Klinghoffer reads Sandwalk so he knows how real scientists deal with the nonsense being spouted by Ann Gauger. I suspect he would rather focus on the "red herring" than defend the bad science in the video.
Gauger, a PhD in developmental biology who was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, has the science on her side. It's a typical Darwinist feint: When you don't have the arguments and you don't have the science, change the subject and pile on the red herrings. Casey Johnson, who dismisses our little video as a "nonsensical rant," can't reply to Dr. Gauger on the merits. If she could, she would.
he CSC Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences will prepare students to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design (ID). The seminar will explore cutting-edge ID work in fields such as molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology, developmental biology, paleontology, computational biology, ID-theoretic mathematics, cosmology, physics, and the history and philosophy of science. The seminar will include presentations on the application of intelligent design to laboratory research as well as frank treatment of the academic realities that ID researchers confront in graduate school and beyond, and strategies for dealing with them. Although the primary focus of the seminar is science, there also will be discussion of the worldview implications of the debate over intelligent design. Participants will benefit from classroom instruction and interaction with prominent ID researchers and scholars. Past seminars have included such speakers as Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Paul Nelson, Jay Richards, Douglas Axe, Ann Gauger, Richard Sternberg, Robert Marks, Scott Minnich, and Bruce Gordon. The seminar is open to students who intend to pursue graduate studies in the natural sciences or the philosophy of science. Applicants must be college juniors or seniors or already in graduate school.This is your chance to get up-to-date information on biochemistry and population genetics from Michael Behe and Ann Gauger! You can learn about evolution from Young Earth Creationist Paul Nelson and anti-evolutionist Jonathan Wells.
Do you have a commitment to truth and to following the evidence where it leads? Do you have the desire, the vision and the determination necessary to breathe new purpose into the scientific enterprise and influence its self-understanding in ways that will benefit both science and humanity? Apply to become one of a select group of students participating in this exciting workshop.
Admission Requirements: You must be currently enrolled in a college or university as a junior, senior, or graduate student. Required application materials include (1) a resume/cv, (2) a copy of your academic transcript, (3) a short statement of your interest in intelligent design and its perceived relationship to your career plans and field of study, and (4) either a letter of recommendation from a professor who knows your work and is friendly toward ID, or a phone interview with the seminar director.Just ignore the fact that you need a letter from a professor who's ID-friendly. I'm sure they don't mean that as way of eliminating skeptics and evolutionists. I'm sure that the phone interview is just a way of confirming that you are really interested in learning about Intelligent Design Creationism no matter what your religion.
An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member’s or student’s conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.I suppose it was inevitable that politicians in Texas would finally recognize that their children might flunk out of university.
The relationship between our genome and disease is far more complicated than originally anticipated. Indeed, the more we learn about the human genome, the less we seem to know. For example, results from a major international initiative to explore all the elements of our genome (the ENCODE project) found that, despite decades-old conventional wisdom that much of our genome was nothing but “junk DNA,” as much as 80 per cent of our genome likely has some biological function. This work hints that things are much more convoluted than expected. So much so that one of ENCODE’s lead researchers, Yale’s Mark Gerstein, was quoted as saying that it’s “like opening a wire closet and seeing a hairball of wires.”Statements like this from someone who is supposed to be knowledgeable about such issues show us that the ENCODE fiasco has far-reaching consequences. The misleading statements by Ewan Birney and others will take years to undo. It's all the more reason to criticize Nature and Science for aiding and abetting the spread of this false information.
[Hat Tip: Ryan Gregory, "The Bullshit Continues to Spread" on Facebook.]
Evidence has never been Ms. Somerville's strongest point. So, without any evidence to back up her claims she declares on the Catholic website, "One of the things that's wrong with respect to Justice (Lynn) Smith's judgment (in Carter v. Attorney General of B.C.) is that she purports to review the use of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the jurisdictions that have legalized it. She said there is no problem, there is no slippery slope. Well, that's simply not right factually." It turns out, in our Report on end of life decision-making in Canada we reviewed the empirical evidence on the slippery slope matter and concluded that there is no evidence that assisted dying leads us down slippery slopes to unwanted killings. Of course, we reviewed evidence, Ms Somerville is in full preaching mode.I like this guy! He thinks that real, scientific, "evidence" is an important part of any debate.
1. We're anxiously waiting to see if her predictions about kids of gay parents being traumatized will come true.