#24178: tristero — 05/06  at  10:12 AM
PZ. Exactly my point. You'd expect them to welcome allies on this, even if they disagree on everything else. It's a winning strategy, one those of us opposed to all of them should also employ.

#24179: — 05/06  at  10:14 AM
Oh Great! Does this mean that we can look forward to the day when American scientific achievement rivals that of Turkey?

Do I have this right? The USA is the most technologically advanced nation on earth due to its relentless pursuit of scientific truth and innovative use of it. Now ... to protect all that we have ... we will do a 180 and abandon science for mysticism? What's wrong with this picture?

#24184: Alon Levy — 05/06  at  10:30 AM
The USA is the most technologically advanced nation on earth due to its relentless pursuit of scientific truth and innovative use of it.

No, the USA is one of the most technologically advanced countries on earth (Japan and Scandinavia are more advanced, though) due to its luring foreign talent with money, and right after World War Two also due to its forcing Nazi scientists to work for the its government.

#24190: covington — 05/06  at  10:56 AM
The slack-jawed yokel who is leading the charge to teach ignorant mythology in science classes has admitted that she didn't even bother to read the pro-science materials.

#24196: That Girl — 05/06  at  11:52 AM
I keep clicking my ruby-red heels but it's not working.

#24198: — 05/06  at  11:57 AM
This is really shameful, I simply don't understand why people are this way. Why do they fear a theory, which to my mind at least, unites every living thing on this planet together?

It's a beautiful theory, well documented and supported for the last 150 years. Perhaps they deny it because they know it is true and simply are rebelling against what they know if true.

#24199: — 05/06  at  11:58 AM

No, the USA is one of the most technologically advanced countries on earth (Japan and Scandinavia are more advanced, though) due to its luring foreign talent with money, and right after World War Two also due to its forcing Nazi scientists to work for the its government.

Not really. The rise of American science is a 20th century story, and it is a story of the rise of the children of immigrants to faculty positions in the leading universities of America. The organizational basis for this was put in place from about 1880 onwards, in a conscious imitation of European institutions. Probably the most unexpected consequence was that these meritocratic institutions filled up with people who would have been barred from their doors a generation earlier.

As this movement reached maturity it was aided by a large influx of Europeans, lured less by money than the prospect of survival. The
postwar influx of Nazis was pretty insignificant, except at the Marshall Spaceflight Center.

Starting a generation later we learned to maintain our scientific community by importing people from cultures so benighted as to think that doing science is actually pretty cool. It's not that Americans don't become scientists, but there aren't enough of us to maintain American science by ourselves. At that point your comment about luring foreign talent starts to make sense.

Has anyone else noticed that it's getting harder and harder to hold an international meeting in the US?

#24206: mikez — 05/06  at  12:33 PM
It's yet another among many massive and massively successful conspiracies attributed to liberals, scientists and liberal scientists. I'm kinda proud of the level of deviousness and organizational skill indirectly attributed to me.

#24211: — 05/06  at  01:19 PM
Speaking of Kansas, is anyone else appalled by today’s NY Times story on the Kansas show-trial? Referred to the good guys as “Darwinists” and “Evolutionists” throughout, and uncritically referred to the “parade of Ph.D.’s” who “testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science’s explanation of the origins of life.” Another highlight: “‘I was hoping these hearings would help me have some good hard evidence that I could repeat.’ Connie Morris, an anti-evolution board member, said in thanking one witness.”

We’re in big trouble when even the Times doesn’t have a competent reporter covering this stuff.

#24212: — 05/06  at  01:20 PM
I'd like to second what Ethan has said. The U.S. has a strong home-grown scientific tradition that tends to be underrated. As early as 1900, a full 1/4 of all of the physicists in the world were in the U.S. In the first decades of the 20th century the U.S. was producing world leaders in experimental physics (Michelson, Millikan, Lawrence), physical chemistry (G.N. Lewis, I. Langmuir), and biology (T. H. Morgan). It wasn't quite up there with Germany, France or Britain, but it was catching up fast. Other areas, such as theoretical physics and chemistry, were notably weaker and that is where the european emigres had their most dramatic impact. Even there, though, a first generation of U.S. born (but mostly European-educated) theorists had begun to establish itself before the war (Oppenheimer, Slater, Wheeler in physics, Pauling and Henry Eyring in chemistry.)

#24216: — 05/06  at  02:10 PM
There is currently a live poll being taken on MSNBC. Follow the link about the evolution case that is on the front page.

I only hope that anyone who doesn't believe in evolution has the logical consistancy to reject all of modern medicine and instead rely on faith based healing.

#24217: — 05/06  at  02:15 PM

Has anyone else noticed that it's getting harder and harder to hold an international meeting in the US?

Unless you want to bring in an Islamic Holocaust denier who foments trouble and harassment of scientists -- then you can get a visa to get him to Topeka in a trice!

I'm waiting for a news story that the photos distributed to the Topeka cops of people they were to "look out" for included the Turkish creationist who is slated to testify . . . and it will turn out that Sen. Brownback had to pull strings to get the guy into the country.

Ruby slippers!? Hell! Bring me the tornado and get me out of here!

#24219: — 05/06  at  02:34 PM
I only hope that anyone who doesn't believe in evolution has the logical consistancy to reject all of modern medicine and instead rely on faith based healing.

Probably not, but perhaps we could work on it. How about a law requiring a label on all medicines which says, "WARNING: This medication contains ingredients which may owe their development to the study of evolution. Evolution is theory not fact. Please consult your priest, minister, rabbi, or other religious authority before proceding." Instead of wasting time on pointless debates, scientists could just sit back and let natural selection take care of the problem for them.

#24221: — 05/06  at  02:36 PM
Why would scientists expect the media to provide competent reporters to cover Kansas when they won't even go there? Boycotts can be double-edged swords, so no one should be shocked that the coverage is one-sided.

#24225: — 05/06  at  03:10 PM
I love the disclaimer at the bottom of the MSNBC survey! (it says "Not a scientifically valid survey")
The actual survey question is kind of strange isn't it? When I was learning about evolution, I was told what the "counterarguments" were. I also learned why they were wrong.

#24233: coturnix — 05/06  at  04:21 PM
Hmmm, Turkey, this is not a good way to enter the EU....Look a little north and see how Serbs responded to Creationism last year.

BTW, this reminds me of Yemen (I think it was Yemen) where Pokemon was banned because it is a "Zionist Darwinist heresy". Well, the show uses the word "evolution" in its English translation for a process that should be described as "metamorphosis". But "Zionist Darwinist"!? What would Darwin say to that, I wonder?

#24251: — 05/06  at  07:11 PM

Speaking of Kansas, is anyone else appalled by today’s NY Times story on the Kansas show-trial? Referred to the good guys as “Darwinists” and “Evolutionists” throughout, and uncritically referred to the “parade of Ph.D.’s” who “testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science’s explanation of the origins of life.”

I don't think the reporter used "Darwinist" once, and Ernst Mayr used the term "evolutionist" all the time.

Other than that, though, you're right. The article was pathetic. *Sigh*

#24260: — 05/06  at  09:05 PM

Has anyone else noticed that it's getting harder and harder to hold an international meeting in the US?

Only the rest of the world....

#24261: Buridan — 05/06  at  09:31 PM

How about a law requiring a label on all medicines which says, "WARNING: This medication contains ingredients which may owe their development to the study of evolution. Evolution is theory not fact. Please consult your priest, minister, rabbi, or other religious authority before proceding."

Nice! I like that. Perhaps a creationist proof cap as well.

#24265: — 05/06  at  11:14 PM
I am feeling like PZ: Nauseated. An Islamic extremist imported to witness in the second Kansas monkey trial? Evolution, he proclaims, is a Zionist conspiration. According to a Gallup poll late last year, only 28 percent of Americans accept the theory of evolution, while 48 percent adhere to creationism.. That is while it is still legal to teach evolution and before the current wave of crazyness. Americans, more than other advanced peoples, seem to have a great difficulty to accept nature, they would much prefer things to be otherwise, that a friendly, caring supernatural being arranged all as it is.

#24271: Bartholomew — 05/07  at  01:08 AM
A bit more on BAV:

The Islamist organization Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (Foundation for Scientific Research), led by Adnan Oktar (better known as Adnan Hodja), draws support from educated and wealthy young people but, unlike the RP, most of its followers do not adopt Muslim dress or regularly attend mosque.

Oktar is responsible for virulent attacks on Jews and Freemasons. Two antisemitic books are distributed by the foundation: 'Holocaust Lie - The Inside Story of the Secret History of the Zionist-Nazi Co-operation and the Lie about Jewish Genocide' (originally published in 1995, see also Holocaust denial) and 'New Masonic Order'.

...Controversy over the book 'Holocaust Lie - The Inside Story of the Secret History of the Zionist-Nazi Co-operation and the Lie about Jewish Genocide' continues to attract media attention. In March 1996 Bedri Baykam, a prominent painter and intellectual, published a critique of the book in the Ankara daily Siyah Beyaz (Black and White). Baykam was subsequently sued for slander by Nuri Özbudak, who claims to have written the book under the pseudonym of Harun Yahya. At the trial Baykam exposed the real author as Adnan Oktar (i.e. Adnan Hodja), leader of the Islamist group Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (see Parties, organnizations, movements). In March 1997, however, Özbudak withdrew the case.

#24279: — 05/07  at  05:57 AM
And where do you start with this?

"Man has changed and evolved, but we are not going to change back into monkeys."

[...]

But she did repeat her claim that evolution has been disproved. When the Pitch asked if she thought that most biologists would agree with that statement, she answered, "Yes, I think they do. They just don't want to admit that it's happening."

Kathy Martin - Kansas School Board Member

From http://www.pitch.com/issues/2005-05-05/news/feature_1.html

#24280: — 05/07  at  06:27 AM
Speaking of crackpots, a ReNew America columnist asks:

Could it just be possible that teaching evolution as fact, that students come from animals and without purpose, be responsible in any way for the increase of crime and other social problems, such as rape, that we're seeing amongst our youth today?

Perhaps she should ask "Dr." Kent Hovind, I believe he wrote his "thesis" on that very subject.

#24290: — 05/07  at  10:07 AM

But she did repeat her claim that evolution has been disproved. When the Pitch asked if she thought that most biologists would agree with that statement, she answered, "Yes, I think they do. They just don't want to admit that it's happening."

Kathy Martin - Kansas School Board Member

Exactly what Charlie Wagner believes.

#24304: kelley b. — 05/07  at  07:32 PM
They both want basically the same world. And you won't get them to admit it in public, but it's the source of the willingness of the Royal House of Saud to bankroll TheoCons like Bu$hCo.

Similar goals.

Yeah, the House of Saud would prefer to ride at the top of the declining oil curve tsunami- but like the TheoCon Dominionists, they want to suppress alternative energy technologies and return the world to a feudal condition.

It's that simple. Scientific liberal progressives will produce a world where they're out-gunned intellectually and economically. So it's very important to them to make sure the secular liberal progressive world science could produce never comes into being.