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stcynic | January 16, 2006There's a new blog that should be interesting to watch. It's called The Secular Outpost and it's the blog of the Internet Infidels. Contributors include several old online acquaintances of mine - James Still, Jeff Lowder, Jim Lippard and Taner Edis. Very smart guys, all of them, and well worth reading.
stcynic | January 16, 2006This is why I have so much respect for Eugene Volokh, head of the Volokh Conspiracy and law professor at UCLA, for posts like this. In explaining why he has posted several items taking people to task for unjustified attacks on the ACLU when he is himself critical of the ACLU, he writes:
Why Do I Keep Blogging About Unsound Criticisms of the ACLU?
Two reasons. First, people and organizations that are wrongly criticized deserve to be defended, even if on balance these are people and organizations with whom one disagrees on many matters. That's especially so if the wrongful criticisms come from…
grrlscientist | January 15, 2006When thinking about the move to ScienceBlogs, I worried about my old material becoming lost in the shuffle, many of which brought a lot of new links and visits to my site when I first published them. I actually happen to like some of this material, so I decided to use Janet's idea of publishing her blog bio. Now that I have a few minutes, I am doing the same thing.
Still Big Favorites
Tsunami: One Year Later, Part I: What We Know About The Event Itself.
Galapagos Tortoises Visit NYC
Backtracking Birds Show Islands are not Evolutionary Dead Ends
Thoughts on the Value of Blogs to Science
How…
stcynic | January 14, 2006Here's an example of why DaveScot should not be taken as anything more than a troll. Witness this comment about Mark Perakh:
Mark Perakh is a crazy Russian physicist known to say all sorts of crazy things. Russians are notoriously paranoid conspiracy theorists and bald faced liars. My favorite example was when I questioned his credentials and his response was essentially "the communists took my papers". Evidently Mark doesn't know the classic American excuse "my dog ate my homework". I had a field day with that one.
In this case, it would again appear that Mark's proof disappeared in an…
stcynic | January 14, 2006In perusing the comments after DaveScot's predictable attack on me, I noticed a comment from Bombadill that I'm going to reprint here and answer simply because I think it offers a good opportunity to spread a little reality around. If Bombadill himself is interested in understanding something about basic geology and about the meaning of terms he is throwing around, perhaps he'll even benefit from reading it. He writes:
I spoke with Ed on the Panda's Thumb, in my only post there (on that hotbed of loving encouragement and grace ;) ). I found him to be fairly respectful, though perhaps it was…
stcynic | January 13, 2006I plan to spend a good chunk of my weekend reading two new books that have recently come into my possession. And the best part is that I didn't have to pay for either of them - the only thing cooler than books are free books. The first is Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo, by Sean Carroll. Sean Carroll is a geneticist from the University of Wisconsin and one of the most influential evolutionary biologists alive (not to be confused with Sean Carroll, the University of Chicago cosmologist). My dad just finished reading this book and dropped it off to me figuring I'd want…
stcynic | January 13, 2006There's something particularly amusing when ignorant jerks get their dander up and decide to attack someone else. Our old pal DaveScot has taken a brave leap in the dark, accusing me of being a "hypocrite extraordinaire", and landed, predictably, with a resounding thud. Says our intrepid correspondent:
Ed Brayton posts this seemingly virtuous opinion that anonymous ID proponents should not have their real names exposed.
Yet among my first experiences with Ed Brayton was him exposing my real name in a public comment on Panda's Thumb. Ed lifted my real name from a private email I sent to him. I…
grrlscientist | January 12, 2006tags: science news, SeedGroup, ScienceBlogs
To the best of my knowledge, I have never been the subject of gossip before, probably because I am the most boring person whom you could ever know. However, an e-magazine, Element broke the news today that Scientific Life and several other science blogs will be moving to a new location. This has not exactly been a secret because I have hinted several times in the previous months that I will be moving to a new server, and some friends and colleagues have been following the development of this project behind the scenes, but the details of this move…
stcynic | January 12, 2006Last weekend I participated in an interview via email with DarkSyde, a front page contributor at DailyKos. That interview has just been posted, promising to bring a slew of new folks over here (my last link from there led to a quadrupling of my normal daily hits). So for my regular readers, you might wanna head over there to read the interview. And for all the new DailyKos folks who've not been here before, welcome. This blog is nearly 3 years old, but just moved here a few days ago. To see my previous work, check out my old blog. And thanks for coming.
pharyngula | January 12, 2006As you've figured out now, I've joined the ranks of the many science bloggers at scienceblogs.com. The plaster's still wet on the walls and there are a few things I still would like to see fixed up here in the new place (my rotating logos will be implemented some time—Carl Buell's Brontops will change now and then, pretty as it is; someday I'll have to see what I can do to get Pirate Mode functioning here, too), but for now it's a good clean layout and plenty of buckets to pour text into, and that's all that really matters. Most importantly, with a team of pros managing the behind-the-scenes…
stcynic | January 12, 2006Longtime DFTCW reader and Texas BBQ supplier Jeff Hebert has started his own blog. It doesn't look to be too serious at this point, more of a personal blog, but it should be interesting to read. As he put it, the blog will contain "stories of my double life as a nerdy graphic designer by day and country hick by night." Hey, I love those fish out of water situations. Given that I live in the middle of Nascar central, I can relate. I particularly liked this post about his daily transition, both literal and metaphorical, from "Bubba to Geek".
stcynic | January 11, 2006I just happened to catch this last night. When Sen. Lindsey Graham began his questioning of Alito, he joked about Alito having said he didn't recall something by saying something to the effect of, "We can only hope that if we come before you in court you'll be as gracious in accepting our lack of recollection of any involvement with Jack Abramoff." That's not an exact quote, but it's the gist of the joke. And it got quite a laugh.
stcynic | January 11, 2006For those who have not gone exploring, I thought you might like to get some idea of what other blogs are part of this project. At this point there are about ten blogs total, but that will likely grow. It starts with a couple of "big boys" in the blogosphere, Chris Mooney and PZ Myers. Mooney is the author of The Republican War on Science and a prominent writer/commentator on science issues in the media. PZ Myers you may know from the Panda's Thumb, but his Pharyngula blog has become huge and gets in the range of 10,000 hits a day. He and I don't get along, as many of you probably know, but I'…
stcynic | January 10, 2006Welcome to the new home of Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I have joined forces with a group of other popular science bloggers under the umbrella of Seed Media Group. As I've previously noted, all content here is still solely my responsibility. I will still write whatever I want about any subject I choose and no one has any authority over that but me. Nothing will change from the old blog at all. I will continue to write about evolution and creationism, as befitting a science blog, but I will also continue to write about constitutional law, politics, religion, and my three favorite hobbies…
stcynic | January 10, 2006Okay folks, moving day has arrived. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this blog is moving to a new location to be part of a project sponsored by Seed Media Group. That project officially rolls out Wednesday morning. To get to the new Dispatches from the Culture Wars, use the following link:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/
For my fellow bloggers who link to this page, please update those links as soon as possible. For my regular readers, please join me at the new location. I've moved the last few posts over there for some continuity. My plan is to keep this page looking the way it is for a…
stcynic | January 7, 2006Nick Matzke has a terrific post up at the Panda's Thumb about the DI's complaint that the judge in the Dover trial wasn't qualified to rule on the scientific status of ID. It's quite a silly complaint and Nick gives it the sarcastic attention it deserves. First, he quotes the DI's statement:
"Moreover, based upon the extensive expertise he [Judge Jones of the Kitzmiller case] professes to have acquired in the course of a six-week trial, he defined science and determined that the scientific claims of intelligent design were invalid, neither of which are exactly legal questions best decided by…
stcynic | January 7, 2006Daniel Morgan has posted several items at his blog attempting to figure out the real life identity of "Mike Gene", a pseudonymous ID advocate who blogs at Telic Thoughts. Mike Gene has been a staple in the evolution/ID debate for many years. He's not really a Discovery Institute-type of ID advocate, he's more of an "ID evolutionist" than an "ID creationist", or at least that is my reading of him which is admittedly not too thorough (unlike many of my Panda's Thumb colleagues, I never took part in the discussion boards at ARN where Mike Gene has been a major figure for a long time debating…
stcynic | January 6, 2006Writing at Dembski's blog, DaveScot refers to my post on him taking over that blog yesterday:
Be sure to read Ed Brayton's trackback pn Dispatches. The peanut gallery never fails to provide some laughs. Just to show Ed there's no hard feelings I approved his trackback. Let's see if he returns the courtesy (probability zero) and lifts the ban on DaveScot on his blog.
Returns the courtesy? You had a chance here, Dave, and you spent 2 days dropping (literally) 30-40 comments a day full of ignorance and vitriol. There isn't a chance in hell I'm lifting the ban on you because you are an obnoxious…
stcynic | January 5, 2006This is classic. Reader Pieter B. found this and left it in a comment. Bill O'Reilly is whining like a schoolgirl over Letterman telling him he's full of crap the other night. But here's what O'Reilly was saying back in 2001 about Letterman:
The late-night program hosted by David Letterman is the toughest interview show on television.
That's because Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down.
Hilarious.
stcynic | January 5, 2006Just after Christmas, Dembski decided to mothball his blog because it was taking up too much of his time. Now it's back, but you're not gonna believe who's in charge:
By popular demand this blog is back in operation, though with only limited participation in the future from me. Past contributors to this blog have decided they are willing to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining this blog, namely, DaveScot, Bombadill, Crandaddy, and Gumpngreen. Unlike in the past, when they were limited to commenting on my postings, they now have full posting privileges. They will be in charge of the day-…