Creationism bill introduced in Arkansas—again!

March 8, 2017 • 10:30 am

You’d think the state of Arkansas would have learned its lesson in the case of McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, a case decided in 1982 by the late U.S. District Court Judge William Overton. Ruling on Arkansas Act 590, the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act”, which actually required the teaching of so-called creation science in the state’s public schools, Overton struck the law down firmly, asserting that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). In other words, Overton considered “scientific creationism” as simply a form of Christian doctrine, which it certainly was. The eloquent final section of Overton’s decision still lodges in my mind, and stands as the definitive reason why creationism doesn’t belong in public schools:

The application and content of First Amendment principles are not determined by public opinion polls or by a majority vote. Whether the proponents of Act 590 constitute the majority or the minority is quite irrelevant under a constitutional system of government. No group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others.

But. . . the Arkansas creationists are back again! As the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) reports, on Monday, State Representative Mary Bentley (a Republican, of course) filed a “shell bill” on the last possible day for introducing bills to be considered this year by the state legislature. This was an attempt to sneak creationism in under the radar by putting in a one-paragraph bill. But people noticed. One group was the NCSE, which said this:

HB 2050 is the only antievolution bill to be filed in Arkansas since 2005’s House Bill 2607, similarly filed as a shell bill and subsequently amended. If enacted, the bill would have required the state Department of Education to include “intelligent design” in its educational frameworks and also encouraged teachers in the state to include it in their lesson plans. HB 2607 died in committee.

Here’s the very short shell bill:

This will fail, as have other bills, because it falls under the Overton decision: it allows the teaching of religiously based pseudoscience in the public schools.

Rep. Mary Bentley, the miscreant

h/t: Guy

Where do you find the best science reporting?

March 8, 2017 • 9:15 am

Reader Peter called my attention to  two nice pieces on Real Clear Science and Infografic that evaluate popular-science reporting sites for both accessibility and quality.  Each outlet is scored on two axes: quality on the X-axis (evidence-based versus ideologically driven, i.e., is the reporting trustworthy?) and whether or not the content is sufficiently compelling and avoids sensationalism (Y axis). Nature and Science are, of course, scientific journals aimed at a professional audience, but their “popular” summaries are often comprehensible to laypeople; and these two get the highest ratings. I agree, though there is one writer in particular whose pieces are at best mixed (I won’t name the person.)

Have a gander (click to enlarge):

The best explanation of the rankings is at Infographic, written by Alex Berezow, a science writer and Senior Fellow of Biomedical Scienc at the American Council on Science and Health. His notes are indented, and I’ll make a few comments of my own (flush left)

Why Is THAT Source Listed There?

Some of our rankings may surprise you. Here are more detailed explanations for a few specific choices:

The best of the best. By far, the two best sources of science news (besides ACSH and RealClearScience, of course!) are Nature and Science, both of which have news sections aimed at the general public. The Economist is excellent for people who are mostly interested in global news and politics but have a curiosity for science. NewScientist and Live Science are perfect for true science geeks.

I don’t read The Economist, though I’ve written for them (contributions are anonymous). I highly recommend Nature and Science, whose overviews (not the articles themselves) are sufficiently non-technical to be appreciated by many readers here. They are scrupulously accurate, with that one exception I mention above. I think you can subscribe to the week’s content for free, and I believe many of the “popular” pieces are free as well.

No love for Popular Science and Wired? They’re okay. While some of their content is good, our biggest problem with them is that they are prone to wide-eyed speculation and clickbait rather than serious science news analysis. Physics World has the opposite problem. It is very serious and well reported, but the topic selection is esoteric and of interest to few people.

What’s wrong with Scientific American? For a long while, Scientific American became the headquarters for left-wing social justice warriors and others who felt bashing conservatives was more important than reporting good science. (Previously, that dubious distinction went to ScienceBlogs, but nobody reads that anymore.) SciAm’s best content is generally stuff they reprint from other outlets.

Agreed. I haven’t looked at Scientific American for years, and their blogs are often SJW in tone, biased, or overblown. I’ve rarely discussed any of them on this site. One welcome exception is the excellent site Tetrapod Zoology by Darren Naish. As for ScienceBlogs, I do read one good site, Respectful Insolence, featuring the anti-pseeudoscience posts of surgeon Orac.

The New York Times is a joke. The NYT — America’s alleged newspaper of record — has itself quite a record of unscientific transgressions. The paper promotes dubious fad diets, cited the quack Joe Mercola on a story about the safety of wearable electronics, and gives voice to organic foodies. It also published a story on a fake disease called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. The NYT regularly reports false information on GMOs and agriculture, perhaps none so egregious as this utterly abominable article by Danny Hakim that compared pesticides to Nazi-made sarin gas. If it wasn’t for the fact that some respectable writers like John Tierney and Carl Zimmer also publish there, the NYT’s science coverage would be comparable to that of the Huffington Post.

I think Berezow is a bit hard on the Times, but he’s right about Carl Zimmer and John Tierney, and I would add to that pair Natalie Angier, who publishes pieces that are not only accurate and compelling, but amusingly written. The rest of the science writers, especially those old dudes who write about physics and biology, I can leave or take. It would be nice the paper would include a regular column by a scientist (Olivia Judson did a good job in that role before she left), and I really mourn the increasing percentage of news in the “Science” section that is about human-related issues. Yes, there’s a human health part of the science section, but too often human stuff slops over into the “pure science” section. We’re only one of about 50 million species!

I should also recommend Ed Yong’s columns at The Atlantic, which are often very good. Have a look at the link to Berzow’s “record of  unscientific transgressions” at the New York Times, which surprised me, especially what it says about writer Michael Pollan’s distortions.

It really is time for the New York Times to clean house. They should hire Carl Zimmer as a regular staff member instead of a stringer, fire the superannuated writers who don’t do a good job on physics or biology, hire some good young talent (though that is rare these days), get a scientist to write a column, and cut down the human-related stuff in the “pure science” section.

Back to Berezow:

Beware British tabloids. News sources like the Daily Mail and The Telegraph serve up a disproportionate amount of sensationalist garbage. Avoid.

Not a single cable news source is worth your time. While CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC might be useful for other things, they are mostly awful sources of science news. Any science news reported here should be verified for accuracy.

I’ll add that NPR doesn’t do a great job with science either, though I much like Science Friday. 

Pure garbage. The biggest purveyors of fake science news are Natural News, Mercola, The Food Babe, and InfoWars. If they ever report something truthful, it is almost certainly by accident. Even a broken clock is correct twice per day.

I’d add PuffHo there, too, but I’m biased, as that place is my bête noire.  Here are today’s “top science stories” from that place:

Finally, read Berzow’s other piece, “How to spot a fake science news story.”

I welcome readers to chime in here, or add sources not listed.

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 8, 2017 • 8:00 am

Readers: send in your photos! With six or seven photo posts a week, the tank empties quickly.

Tony Eales from Queensland sent some photos of carnivorous plants. His captions are indented:

The first one is from the Drosera peltata complex—probably D. peltata subsp. auriculata [“shield sundew”], Giraween National Park:

Next is the really common sundew D. spatulata, Giraween National Park:

The next three pics are from a trip I took to Sabah, Borneo in 2004 Mt Kinabalu. The first was said by the guide to be the smallest pitcher plant but I don’t know the species. The other two were of the largest Nepenthes rajah [JAC: this species is endemic to  Mount Kinabalu and neighbouring Mount Tambuyukon]:

 

Some Bladderwort Utricularia sp. flowers from Giraween National Park:

Finally, an aquatic bladderwort, Utricularia australis:

Fleetwood Mac Week: “Big Love”

March 8, 2017 • 7:15 am

It’s Day 6—the penultimate day—of Fleetwood Mac Week. Most of the songs I’ve shown, like this one, are from “The Dance“. That was a 1997 concert in Burbank, California later released as an album. One reader kvetched about my using so many tracks from one place. I’m doing that because a). it was an absolutely fantastic live performance—as good as the albums, I think, and b). it was in effect a “greatest hits” concert, containing many of my favorite songs.

This is one of them. (I believe I posted it a few years back.) Big Love was written by Lindsey Buckingham, who performs it here on solo acoustic guitar. I was impressed by his ability to both play a complicated guitar riff and sing extremely soulfully at the same time. This also shows off his formidable but underappreciated skills on the axe, and the solo that begins at 1:24 is fantastic.

Some background from Wikipedia:

“Big Love” was written by Lindsey Buckingham, and was originally going to be part of his third solo album which he began working on in 1985, but the project became a Fleetwood Mac album instead. The song epitomised the stylised production techniques used on the [Tango in the Night] album, with its provocative “oh – ahh” male/female vocal exchange [“female” voice not present in this version]. Though many assumed the female “ahh” to be Stevie Nicks, it was actually Lindsey Buckingham performing both, created by way of his voice being sampled and altered in the studio to mimic that of a woman. The sample was aired several times on Late Night with David Letterman, where Letterman told viewers they were hearing the sounds of CPR.

Since Buckingham left Fleetwood Mac in 1987 (shortly after Tango in the Night was released), the band never performed “Big Love” live until his return in 1997. It was in 1993, on his first solo tour, that Buckingham performed a guitar-only version of the song. In 1997, he performed it in the same style on Fleetwood Mac’s live album and video The Dance. It also appeared on the second volume of Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown film soundtrack. Buckingham continues to perform the song on Fleetwood Mac and solo tours.

The originally recorded version came from the album “Tango in the Night” (1987), and you can hear it here. I find the solo version far superior. Another all-acoustic version, from 2008, is here (he appears to be wearing cowboy boots).  Buckingham hadn’t lost a lick in 11 years.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 8, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s Wednesday, March 8—a week before I head to New Zealand. It’s National Peanut Cluster Day, a patty of peanuts and chocolate that resembles elephant droppings, and International Women’s Day, commemorating the ongoing struggle for women’s rights. Women’s Day is celebrated today with an interactive Google Doodle (click on screenshot below to go to it). As you scroll through it clicking on the screenshots (or using the right arrow), you’ll see many women, 13 of whom are specific notable women. How many can you name? (I got only two!) Try it, and after you finish, check your answers here.

My contribution to this panoply of awesome women will be this video showing Or Lazmi interacting with four lions.

On this day in 1817, the New York Stock Exchange opened for business, and, as appropriate for Women’s Day, it’s the day in 1910 when the French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to receive a pilot’s license. In 1917 the February Revolution began in Russia, and in 1978 the first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It is not a day marked by many great events.

Notables born on this day include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841), Otto Hahn (1878), Cyd Charisse (1922), John McPhee (1931; one of my favorite essayists), Richard Fariña (1937), and Carol Bayer Sager (1947). Those who died on this day include Hector Berlioz (1869), Millard Fillmore (1879), William Howard Taft (1930), the Japanese Akita dog Hachikō, (1935; the only animal I’ve seen listed in Wikipedia’s obituary section), Sherwood Anderson (1941), Billy Eckstine (1993), Joe DiMaggio (1999), and the “fifth Beatle” George Martin (2016). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, guest Sarah has just left, but has also left a reservoir of Hili photos for future dialogues.

Hili: I’m a territorial animal, ever ready to defend my territory.
Sarah: I’m just taking a picture, silly.
Photo: Sarah Lawson
In Polish:
Hili: Jestem zwierzęciem terytorialnym, zawsze gotowym do obrony swojego terytorium.
Sarah: Ja tylko robię zdjęcie, głuptasie.
Foto: Sarah Lawson
h/t: Jon

 

Kevin Richardson cuddles lion cubs

March 7, 2017 • 3:00 pm

Kevin Richardson is an animal behaviorist and conservationist who works in South Africa. He’s also called “The Lion Whisperer” because of his remarkable ability to bond with wild lions, and the fact that he’s never been seriously injured. He does have a rapport with those cats, one honed from a lifetime of experience (he’s 42). But, as Wikipedia notes, “As a rule, Richardson only interacts with lions he has been with since their birth.” That helps!

I’ve put up posts of his videos before (see here), but here’s a particularly nice one in which a mother lion lets him handle her cubs: the ultimate sign of trust.  And OMG, when he cuddles those very young lions, well, it makes me think I’m in the wrong job. If I could do this just once, I could die a happy man!

Get a load of this:

NYT defends free speech at Middlebury College

March 7, 2017 • 12:30 pm

The New York Times should defend free speech—after all, it’s the country’s best newspaper—but I was still surprised to see today’s editorial, “Smothering speech at Middlebury“, as the Times also has a leftward slant. And it’s a good defense of free speech, though that defense starts, oddly, by saying that the “shutting down” of Charles Murray’s talk at Middlebury College in Vermont—he later gave it livestreamed from a private room —is bad because it feeds into the Right’s narrative of the easily-offended Left:

Now, [Murray] says, Middlebury may prove an “inflection point” — where colleges yield the lectern to intolerant liberals, hastening a bastion of free thought toward its demise.

It’s an outcome that many on the right seem to be aching for. Though speakers of all ideologies regularly appear at colleges without incident, a few widely publicized disruptions feed a narrative of leftist enclaves of millennial snowflakes refusing to abide ideas they disagree with. From the president to Fox News, right-wing voices wail, through their megaphones, about how put upon they are, like soccer players collapsing to the turf and writhing in pretend agony.

That seems more than a bit gratuitous. We don’t need to defend free speech because if we didn’t it would just would empower the Right. We need to defend it because it’s a cornerstone of American democracy—indeed, something essential for all democracy. If you think the truth will out, a basis for Enlightenment philosophy, then you give it a chance to “out.”

After that slap at the Right, though, the Times mounts a ringing defense.

A letter like the one sent by Middlebury alumni assailing Mr. Murray does not help. “The principle” — of free speech — “does not apply, due to not only the nature, but also the quality, of Dr. Murray’s scholarship.”

Hey, hey, ho, ho — heck no. The principle does not distinguish between great minds and mediocrities. Mr. Murray is an academic with an argument to make about class in America — from his 2012 book “Coming Apart” — and maybe it is flawed. But Middlebury students had no chance to challenge him on any of his views. Thought and persuasion, questions and answers, were eclipsed by intimidation.

True ideas need testing by false ones, lest they become mere prejudices and thoughtless slogans. Free speech is a sacred right, and it needs protecting, now more than ever. Middlebury’s president, Laurie Patton, did this admirably, in defending Mr. Murray’s invitation and delivering a public apology to him that Middlebury’s thoughtless agitators should have delivered themselves.

 I’m wondering whether Middlebury will discipline any of the disrupters or those who are identified as having mobbed Murray and his host at the College. I’m betting against it, but I think the surest way to stop the censorship of college mobs is for the students to realize that they’ll pay a price for their actions.