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Even more impressive, while the Gallup poll shows that 31% of the Americans self-identify as literalists in those very strong terms, a 2007 Princeton Survey poll for Newsweek shows that 44% believe that the earth was created within the last 10,000 years.

Article: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/creationists_in_the_american_c.php
Dataset: http://roperweb.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgi-bin/hsrun.exe/Roperweb/Catalog40/Catalog40.htx;start=summary_link?archno=USPSRA2007-NW05

The first is that the fundamentalists whom you see in your media are representative of all US fundamentalists.

"stupid" yes, "fast" not so much.

The "C is Efficient" Language Fallacy.

It's worth noting that the interviewees, despite being in the credits of the film, weren't allowed to see it. PZ Myers was barred from an open invitation screening as hilariously related on his blog here.

There was further discussion about how open the invitations to that particular screening were, but the fact that Myers (and Richard Dawkins) was IN THE FILM and NEVER allowed to see it makes the overall situation quite clear.

Of couse its only a book, because the scientific journals wouldn't accept it.

Nonsense.

One of the biologists they interviewed mentioned it in his blog:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/im_gonna_be_a_movie_star.php

Could Mathis have been sincere when he originally told PZ and me the film was an honest attempt to examine evolution and intelligent design? The evidence that they had already purchased the Expelled domain name argues against this. Certainly Mathis' friendly demeanour disarmed me into cooperating with him -- indeed, I went out of my way to HELP him on his visit to Britain -- in a way that I never would have if I had had the slightest suspicion that his outfit was in fact a creationist front. I may have misremembered the details of our exchanges, by eMail and by telephone, but I vividly remember his reassuring me, over the telephone, that he was on the side of science, and he made no attempt to distance himself from my sarcastic jokes about 'Intelligent Design'.

Could Mathis have been sincere when he originally told PZ and me the film was an honest attempt to examine evolution and intelligent design? The evidence that they had already purchased the Expelled domain name argues against this. Certainly Mathis' friendly demeanour disarmed me into cooperating with him -- indeed, I went out of my way to HELP him on his visit to Britain -- in a way that I never would have if I had had the slightest suspicion that his outfit was in fact a creationist front. I may have misremembered the details of our exchanges, by eMail and by telephone, but I vividly remember his reassuring me, over the telephone, that he was on the side of science, and he made no attempt to distance himself from my sarcastic jokes about 'Intelligent Design'.

Could Mathis have been sincere when he originally told PZ and me the film was an honest attempt to examine evolution and intelligent design? The evidence that they had already purchased the Expelled domain name argues against this. Certainly Mathis' friendly demeanour disarmed me into cooperating with him -- indeed, I went out of my way to HELP him on his visit to Britain -- in a way that I never would have if I had had the slightest suspicion that his outfit was in fact a creationist front. I may have misremembered the details of our exchanges, by eMail and by telephone, but I vividly remember his reassuring me, over the telephone, that he was on the side of science, and he made no attempt to distance himself from my sarcastic jokes about 'Intelligent Design'.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong..

Yes, Dawkins DID say that, but it doesn't mean what Stein wanted you to believe it means... I suggest you read up on this instead of following the dogma of stein.

I suggest you read up on how Stein has EXPELLED a scientist (PZ Myers) from a viewing of his movie.
> I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried ... but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird -- I was standing in line,
> hadn't even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a
> producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

But back to how, as you say "What does that say when one of the leading Darwinist admits that there is the "possibility" that there was some intelligence that started the entire process? At least he was open for the debate. I think that we should also."
Well, what he says about the movie.

>Please, don't pay to go see it. Let it die a quiet theatrical death. If you really want to see it, wait for a free opportunity that won't line Mathis' pockets.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2400,Expelled-Overview,Josh-Timonen-RichardDawkinsnet

Of course he was open for debate, but, nothing came of it, ID/Creationism is a waste of time, he knows it, and says so.

Oh, btw, do you know how much Stein mislead all the scientists in the movie?

> I shall not discuss the main message of the film -- that American creationist scientists are being victimized for their views -- except to say that it was very much NOT its main
> message when the film was called Crossroads, and when I, together with PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott and others, were conned into taking part.

> And Kristine asked Mathis to explain what had become of a film called Crossroads which had mysteriously morphed itself into Expelled. The import of her question was the widely known
> fact, which I have already mentioned, that PZ and I had been tricked into participating in Crossroads without ever being told that the true purpose of the film was the one conveyed
> by the later title Expelled -- the alleged expulsion of creationists from universities.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins

This clip is a video of Dawkins and Myers talking about Myers being EXPELLED, and about the segment that mislead you
http://youtube.com/watch?v=c39jYgsvUOY

But yes, lets put the trust in the development of our children into a scamming, lying pile of junk like Stein who deceits to get his point across.

And by the way, comparing Evolution to Nazism was probably not the best thing the man could have done. Especially not considering that Hitler considered himself very christian - Note, this is NOT a Godwin... Stein made a Godwin, i didn't..

PZ Myers recently made a post on Pharyngula about this topic. He came to the conclusion that growing meat on domesticated animals is the best way to grow meat.

I think maybe you've been misled by some of the appallingly bad reporting on the Poling case.You should read this

Hmm, SSPI, who are they? Ah, they used to be the Center for Science and Public Policy at Frontiers of Freedom. To quote Sourcewatch quoting the NYT: "Frontiers of Freedom, which has about a $700,000 annual budget, received $230,000 from Exxon in 2002, up from $40,000 in 2001, according to Exxon documentsâ. They also get tobacco money for their little public policy "research". Amazing how not-hard it was to find that.

But why stop there? Who is this McLean guy that wrote it? Let's consult his own description of himself: "John McLean has an amateur interest in global warming following 25 years in what he describes as the analysis and logic of IT." Apparently he has a Bachelor of Architecture.

So your no-consensus argument comes down to a piece written by a guy who isn't a climate scientist for an oil-industry funded think tank. Convincing. There's some criticism of the actual paper here, and more linked to from there.

Apart from accusing every climate scientist of some mass conspiracy, do you have an actual argument to make, or some actual climate scientists to quote?

The take home point is that all "violent" games are not equal. Some games fire us up and some cool us down.

Bruce needs to read more before he posts stuff like this: http://scienceblogs.com/pontiff/2008/03/shor_calculations.php

Don't forget her trying to willfully subvert the process by all her talk that delegates don't legally have to vote for the candidate they're pledged to, but can just vote for who they think is the better candidate. I don't like Hillary one bit, her stances on censoring videogames in particular I find unpalatable, but up until this bit I probably would have voted for her if she won the candidacy over Obama. Now I can't, to me this type of tactic is Karl Rove/George W. Bush redux, and we've seen enough damage done to our country by similar tactics already.

On the bright side, this strategy has already back-fired on her at least once. Frankly when I first heard about her doing this my first thought was "that's a rather dangerous strategy since it can work both ways." I'm glad to see it back-firing on her.

I think to make programming too different from natural human thought processes will result in less manageable code and probably less performance & profit for effort.

But why should programmers be forced to learn how to do this?

...doesn't have a lot in common with the process of evolution.

Interesting you should say that. Here's a biologist (who you may have heard of) who disagrees with you):

        http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/15_misconceptions_about_evolut.php

I'm not a biologist, so I can't say, with authority, one way or another. Just wanted to point out that not all biologists agree.

PZ Myers put it pretty distinctly:

"'Evolution is a theory about the origin of life' is presented as false. It is not. I know many people like to recite the mantra that "abiogenesis is not evolution," but it's a cop-out. Evolution is about a plurality of natural mechanisms that generate diversity. It includes molecular biases towards certain solutions and chance events that set up potential change as well as selection that refines existing variation. Abiogenesis research proposes similar principles that led to early chemical evolution. Tossing that work into a special-case ghetto that exempts you from explaining it is cheating, and ignores the fact that life is chemistry. That creationists don't understand that either is not a reason for us to avoid it."

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/15_misconceptions_about_evolut.php

Yeah, it's disheartening, but like the fact that when we die we cease to exist, it's reality, so the best thing to do as a scientist is to deal with it as reality, not ignore it and engage in wish-thinking.

There's lots of debates online about this, witness the disagreements between PZ Myers ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ ) and Matt Nisbet ( http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/ ) about how best to "sell" science to the public. They both have good points, but I'm not sure either one has much science/data backing up their opinions. For some of it, they may also be "talking past each other", as they have different goals and starting points.

Not sure what the answer is, but it's a question scientists should be investigating, rather than just assuming they know the answer, or ignoring the problem.

Yeah, it's disheartening, but like the fact that when we die we cease to exist, it's reality, so the best thing to do as a scientist is to deal with it as reality, not ignore it and engage in wish-thinking.

There's lots of debates online about this, witness the disagreements between PZ Myers ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ ) and Matt Nisbet ( http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/ ) about how best to "sell" science to the public. They both have good points, but I'm not sure either one has much science/data backing up their opinions. For some of it, they may also be "talking past each other", as they have different goals and starting points.

Not sure what the answer is, but it's a question scientists should be investigating, rather than just assuming they know the answer, or ignoring the problem.

I can't beat 100million (though Wikipedia suggests a max estimate of 43m for TGLF).

You're right to say it was safer to be in England at that time but being in one of the colonies was a whole different story.

The British Empire brought mass starvations and wholesale murder. And starvation during periods of bumper harvest, unlike Mao who precipitated famine through mismanagement (aside from the purges).

20% of the population of Eire
12-29 million Indians in the late 1800s

This is the time that the Brits invented the concentration camp. One of which is reported to have a 94% death rate.

http://scienceblogs.com/thescian/2008/01/late_victorian_holocausts_the.php
http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1674478,00.html

also 40% of the soldiers sent to India died of disease, very few saw real combat.

The split of Humans from the Apes pushed back by another 6 to 7 million years earlier than previously thought based on molecular genetics. The difference from the earlier estimate of around 5 to 6 million years is therefore over 100%
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_2169361,00.html

Fossils of early apes especially during the critical period of 14 to eight million years ago were virtually non-existant - until now.

Evolution would still happen in a universe of infinite resources, just in a different way. Things that reproduced faster/more prolifically would be more common, and the more of any one reproducing thing there is, the more mutants it would produce, and the even-faster mutants would in turn become more common...

Anyway, no, 'wealthier families having fewer children' isn't a universal truth - but in anything like the current social, political, and technical environment we're in, it's a strong overall tendency, and that's enough for a control input. Lots of perfectly stable, predictable systems can be built from stochastic, random-with-some-bias processes. See, e.g., here.

Again - "Evolution For Everyone", David Sloan Wilson.

Good luck, he's "authored" over 1000 papers! Yes, that's one THOUSAND: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/01/aetosaurs_and_whistle-blowing.php

I wouldn't be quoting John Lott as an authority on anything. Have a look through Tim Lambert's weblog [scienceblogs.com] for a very extensive collection of stories on Lott's utter lack of credibility.

I have trouble saying Tim Lambert is any more credible than is John Lott. Take his article "Another fabrication from John Lott". In it he critics Lott as saying that laws "that require guns be locked up and unloaded face a five-percent increase in murder and a 12 percent increase in rape" and provides a paragraph from a study in the AMA's "JAMA" that supposedly supports his position. Yet not once in the paragraph is either murder or rape mentioned once. All it talks about is how laws that held firearm owner responsible saw a 23% drop in children under 15 being unintentionally shot and die. And there are more way of holding owners responsible than by requiring firearms to be inaccessible to children.

There are many people who grow up with firearms yet only a small number of them ever commit a crime with a firearm. For instance in the neighborhood I grew up in I knew a bunch of kids who grew up with and shot firearms if they didn't own one themselves. I was given my first firearm, a .22 long rifle, before I was 13. My dad and my best friend's dad used to take the two of us out for target practice, as were other kids in the neighborhood. Yet the only person from the 'hood I knew who was ever accused of a violent crime was someone who stabbed a person, no firearms involved. On the other hand a friend of mine was shot and killed, we were in the army and stationed in Germany then and he was shot while in the unit's armory cleaning weapons. The armorer was playing around with a .45 and not realizing it was loaded, how he became an armorer I don't know as it's easy to tell if a .45 is loaded, he pointed it at my friend and saying "bang" he pulled the trigger killing my friend.

I wouldn't be quoting John Lott as an authority on anything. Have a look through Tim Lambert's weblog for a very extensive collection of stories on Lott's utter lack of credibility.

One interesting thing about the Atlas of Creation is that it uses photos of fishing lures as examples of life to compare to fossils to show a lack of evolution.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/well_fly_fishing_is_a_science.php
Fishing lures.

Yeah, this is something I can believe in...

Another good source is http://scienceblogs.com/ On specific ones, I also really like http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php It shifts away from the main author's professional background in neurology fairly often, but that also makes it a lot of fun.

That's a very rigorous analysis you've subjected the results to, but one of my freaks above (you'll notice because he's been modded to five) already linked to an even more thorough statistical analysis of the results, that controlled for even more of the possible explanations you mentioned, and STILL found correlation at the p less than .001 level.

That is, there is a 1/1000 chance that it's just a coincidence.

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/01/the_diebold_effect_hillarys_vo.php [scienceblogs.com] --I mentioned it above.

I had just submitted this other story about the Primaries in NH to Firehose: Diebold Effect Persists even after statistical removal of demographics covariates. http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/01/the_diebold_effect_hillarys_vo.php

Not to mention that energy usage wouldn't be as much of a problem if we would just produce it from more efficent and cleaner sources. That CFL what is powered by a coal fired plant is more damaging than an incandescent bulb powered by solar (or wind or tidal or geothermal or nuclear ad nasuem).

And isn't mercury a component of current CFLs? While it may not be a global warming danger, I centainly don't want any more mercury in my house than neccessary (anyone with a link to a site that compares the *production and disposal* of CFLs to incandescents?)

People interested in this thread should take note of Science Debate 2008. It's an effort to encourage a presidential debate on matters of science and technology. I'm pleased to note that my humble blog was a charter member. At present many influential scientists have signed on.

Thanx for the link, but Bryan has a better article.

You need to read my comment closer. I said "Now that it is SCIENTIFICALLY proven that Abortions INCREASE the risk of cancer". People having abortions are indeed at higher risk for cancer. It doesn't prove causality, but that it is likely to be a contributing factor at minimum.

Actually, it was a new study released this last week, if you cared to read the article.

You need to read my comment closer. I said "Now that it is SCIENTIFICALLY proven that Abortions INCREASE the risk of cancer". People having abortions are indeed at higher risk for cancer. It doesn't prove causality, but that it is likely to be a contributing factor at minimum.

Actually, it was a new study released this last week, if you cared to read the article.

Next up, Abortions. Now that it is SCIENTIFICALLY proven that Abortions INCREASE the risk of cancer, I wonder if you'll bring the Bible thumpers as a means to dismiss this evidence ....

SPACE SCIENCE: NASA Declares No Room for Antimatter Experiment
Science 16 March 2007: 1476
DOI: 10.1126/science.315.5818.1476

News of the Week SPACE SCIENCE:
NASA Declares No Room for Antimatter Experiment
Andrew Lawler

NASA has no room on its space shuttle to launch the $1.5 billion Alpha
Magnetic Spectrometer, which is designed to search for antimatter from
its perch on the international space station.

Expanded and posted on a science blog where it was being discussed:
NASA: Alpha to Omega
Category: astro
Posted on: March 18, 2007 10:39 PM, by Steinn Sigurðsson
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/03/nasa_alpha_to_omega.php [scienceblogs.com]

SPACE SCIENCE: NASA Declares No Room for Antimatter Experiment

Lawler
Science 16 March 2007: 1476
DOI: 10.1126/science.315.5818.1476

News of the Week
SPACE SCIENCE:
NASA Declares No Room for Antimatter Experiment
Andrew Lawler

NASA has no room on its space shuttle to launch the $1.5 billion Alpha
Magnetic Spectrometer, which is designed to search for antimatter from
its perch on the international space station.

Hey, isn't that the Samuel Ting-Michael Salamon project?

Yes, it is:
http://ams.cern.ch/AMS/Secretariat/AmsWhosWho.html [ams.cern.ch]

NASA HQ is surely going WAY over the edge in punishing Michael Salamon. He was the head of fundamental Physics at NASA HQ, then they sent him to the White House, where he was for half a year or so the
Director of Physics at OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy). They pulled him out of the White House for what looks like political reasons.

This was to be the major actual Science experiment on the space station. And they are killing it -- why? I am leaning towards thinking that it is a purely political decision, as the "room" or money
argument is unconvincing, and as I say, it seems to be the #1 science project in the entire Space Station program.

If one detects even a single anti-carbon nucleus, one almost has to conclude that someplace there is an anti-star performinbg anti-nucleosyntheis, which exploded asn anti-supernova.

What a huge discovery that would be by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. For that tremendous science value per dollar ratio alone, it should fly.

I am going to write to my congressman and senators. Maybe it would be worth writing to, say, Oprah. The tax-paying public deserves to have SOME science done with their NASA tax dollars.
====

Yep, I'd like to see it launched, too. Cancelling an experiment after spending 1.5 billion to build it is just the sort of idiocy that the govenment does all the time, though.

If you follow NASA politics, though, you'd see that there's no reason to invoke any sort of "punishment" to understand this call. Griffin was given the order to cancel space shuttle by 2010. When you add up
all the things that Griffin has been instructed to do with the shuttle before the drop-dead do-not-fly-it-any-more date, and look at the maximum flight rate that's considered to be safe, there are zero flights available.

Of course, adding one more shuttle flight in 2011 would make perfect
sense-- the replacement for the shuttle won't be available for
another four years, so why not? But at the moment, that is being
considered the "camel's nose under the tent" thinking, and "cancel
shuttle by 2010" is a non-negotiable deadline.
- Show quoted text -

From the same blog and thread, a reply about Michael Salamon and the
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer:

==========

He was the head of fundamental Physics at NASA HQ, then they sent him
to the White House, where he was for half a year or so the Director of
Physics at OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy). They pulled
him out of the White House for what looks like political reasons.

Dear Austin-area friends of NCSE,

I thought that you might like to know that Barbara Forrest will be speaking on "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse" in Austin on November 2, 2007. Her talk, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry Austin, begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Monarch Event Center, Suite 3100, 6406 North IH-35 in Austin. The cost is $6; free to friends of the Center.

In her talk, Forrest will provide a detailed report on her expert testimony in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board trial as well as an overview of the history of the "intelligent design" movement. Forrest is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University; she is also a member of NCSE's board of directors.

For further details, visit: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/austin/events/barbara_forrest_inside_creationisms_trojan_horse_lecture/

Sincerely,

I've yet to see any evidence that either he or almost any publicly religious official actually hold the beliefs they state.

It's not really any wonder that politicians love a block of voters that believe anything you say because you say you believe a book. Or in Jack's case, audience attention that gets him paid air time on major news networks.

An example:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/mysterious_case_of_ethical_myo.php

For those curious, this speech prosthesis research was presented in a number of posters at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference a couple weeks ago. Their six SfN posters can be found on their website here, covering topics like the circuitry they developed, Bayesian signal analysis, and so forth:

http://migrate.speechprosthesis.org/DNN2/SpeechProsthesisHome/tabid/52/Default.aspx

There's also a nice blog entry on this over at Neurophilosophy:

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/11/speech_prosthesis.php

They also gave the Elephant 2.8 grams of Thorazine and an unknown quantity of Pentobarbital. One of these is likely what killed it.

See here for a much more complete account of the story, posted by a very pretty geek girl with whom I am madly in love. If only she knew who I was...

Wow, your comment had me convinced until I read the link provided by an AC:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/125028/8808

Very good argument that it was poorly done science in search of a pre-ordained conclusion by an interested party. I read through all the opposing comments as well, and they certainly don't seem satisfactory and are mainly just the Courtier's Reply. To be more explicit, The author of the article points out several ways in which the experiment did not have a sufficient control group and the counter-argument was that some of these are accounted for statistically. However it seems that list of things accounted for doesn't include all of the problems, and the counter-arguer just repeats himself more vehemently and seems to have absolute faith that sufficient rigor was taken despite lack of support from the research paper and multiple instances of other scientists and groups of scientists pointint out the exact same problems brought up in the article. Given the available options, we should in fact not trust the one scientist who has probable cause to fake the results and as the article points out, has already been suspiciously injudicious in his methodology. That's not just an ad hominem attack, the study itself has been attacked successfully, with a large variance on trustworthiness, and the circumstantial evidence only serves to point out that prudence urges caution in accepting the results. That some scientists agree with the research paper is not good support, as people (even scientists) who don't know tend to go with whoever's loudest, which creates false consensus.

(BTW, joe, this long reply is just to summarize the linked article and address possible concerns, not because of anything you said. I'm certainly interested in hearing any rebuttal if anyone has one)

I find your post "informative." You really "know" what you're talking about. NOTICE THE QUOTES?

See, you are completely wrong: no court had ANY of those "findings," as as you claim.

The judge described "errors" -- with quotes -- in order to reference the plaintiff's claims.

An 'error' is not the same thing as an error

The parts of the film that were considered unfounded: