Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
It’s extremely painful working my way through C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: I still can get through 20 pages at most before I have to stop in disgust. Fortunately, I have only about 100 pages to go, and the pages are small. My revulsion may be due to having been crammed to the maw with theology when … Continue reading C. S. Lewis: Evolution denialist?
I haven’t been to the BioLogos site in a while, but I hied myself over there yesterday, and was appalled—but not surprised—to see that the site has become yet more evangelical while moving even farther away from scientific evolution. (Remember that the organization was founded by Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, both of whom have left it, to try to … Continue reading BioLogos tells “The Big Story”, becomes less scientific and more evangelical
I was sent the following Washington Post tw**t, which refers to an article by Chris Mooney, an accommodationist who now works for that paper. Of course I was intrigued, so I went to both Mooney’s article and the source of that graph, an analysis of Pew-poll data and a post by Josh Rosenau, another accommodationist who works for … Continue reading The correlation between rejection of evolution and rejection of environmental regulation: what does it mean?
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City is perhaps the finest museum of its type in the U.S. My old friend Betsy visited it during her trip to NYC with her husband to see the Rigged Dog Debate, and she sent me a picture from her visit to the Museum’s Hall of Human Origins. The … Continue reading Accommodationism at the American Museum of Natural History
Yes, this is a recurring theme on this site, and my answer is “Somewhat, but not fully, for creationism won’t disappear in a big way until religion does.” My answer is buttressed by a paper that I’d somehow overlooked (reference and free download below). The paper by Eric Plutzer and Michael Berkman is six years … Continue reading Can we cure creationism by teaching the facts?
Taking the same conciliatory tone that characterized his notorious “Don’t be a dick” speech, Phil Plait has taken it upon himself to tell us how to solve the problem of creationism in America. The answer is in Plait’s analysis of the Ham/Nye debate that he just posted at Slate: “The creation of debate.” In short, … Continue reading Debate postmortem II: Phil Plait goes all accommodationist
When I first gave a talk at the University of Kentucky in 2010 (could it really have been five years ago?), I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Krupa, a biologist and natural historian with wide interests, and with a reputation as an excellent teacher (see here for my visit to his lab). Krupa has now written … Continue reading Teaching evolution in Kentucky—with accommodationism
Ken Ham, head of the evangelistic organization Answers in Genesis and the force behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Park, is a low-hanging fruit. Indeed, it might be said that he’s a strawberry, a fruit that hangs so low that it’s almost on the ground. I shan’t spend much time on him, but thought that, for the … Continue reading Ken Ham vs. Dawkins: On the nature of science and physical law
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has done some great work in court (and other places) quashing attempts of creationists (IDers or otherwise) to get their falsities taught in public schools. And for that I applaud them. But I don’t applaud them for their constant coddling of religion, guided by the unevidenced belief that if … Continue reading The National Center for Science Education becomes BioLogos
Matt Stopes, from BuzzFeed, asked both creationists and evolution-accepters at the Ham/Nye debate to write messages directed at the other side. The other day we saw 22 messages from creationists; but Stopes also collected 22 messages from evolutionists. They’re all here, but I’ve chosen a few to show below. The quality of the messages is … Continue reading Evolution-friendly young folk proffer questions for creationists
