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Chess in Staunton, Part Two
For the first part of this tournament report, go here.Round Three saw me move a little higher up the food chain. Happily, my opponent let his guard down and blundered away a pawn in the opening:JR...
View ArticleWise Words from the RTD
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (that's Richmond, VA), is no one's idea of a liberal newspaper. Today's edition featured this brief, but excellent, editorial. The Williams being referred to is the...
View ArticleTeenagers Being Arrogant - So What Else is New?
Today's Los Angeles Times has this vaguely annoying article. The subject is high school biology students parroting creationist talking points they don't understand and generally making obnoxious pests...
View ArticleThe Monty Hall Problem
The Monty Hall problem goes like this: You are presented with three identical doors. Behind one of them is a car and behind the other two are goats. You want the car. Monty Hall tells you to choose one...
View ArticleThe Monty Hall Problem, Part Two
I'm afraid I'm very pressed for time today, so only brief blogging.The answer to Variation One of the Monty Hall Problem, given at the end of yesterday's post, is that it now makes no difference...
View ArticleThe Pianka Affair.
On March 31, young-Earth creationist Forrest Mims posted this account of a talk given by ecologist Eric Pianka before the Texas Academy of Sciences. According to Mims:But there was a gravely disturbing...
View ArticlePianka Transcript
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, which I gather is a newspaper in Texas, has posted this transcript of a talk given by Dr. Pianka at St. Edwards University in Texas. It is not the talk given to the Texas...
View ArticleThe Governor's Office on Pianka
The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise has also posted this article on the Pianka situation. Among other interesting nuggets, it contains the following reaction from Kathy Walt, press secretary for Texas...
View ArticleThe Real Problem
Since I'm in high dudgeon today, let me also comment on another annoying tidbit.During a brief car ride this evening, I heard about two minutes of The Michael Reagan Show on the radio. Reagan had the...
View ArticleAnother Transitional Form Found. Yawn.
Meanwhile, science marches on. Paleontologists have found a clear transitional form linking ancient fish to land-dwelling animals. The New York Times provides this decent run-down of the basic facts of...
View ArticleDunford on Pianka
Mike Dunford has writeen this excellent post pointing out the manifest distortions in the coverage of the Pianka situation provided by the Texas newspaper The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise. Dunford's...
View ArticlePresenting Evolution
The last two weeks have been very good ones for evolution. First, there was the discovery of the fossil Tiktaalik. This fossil is so clearly transitional between ancient fish and land-dwelling...
View ArticleNew CSICOP Column
My new column for CSICOP's Creation Watch website is now available. It's my take on the latest version of the thermodynamics argument against evolution. If you're really keen on this subject, you...
View ArticleThat Prayer Study
Today's New York Times has has this interesting op-ed from Raymond Lawrence, an episcopal priest and director of pastoral care at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. The...
View ArticlePresenting Evolution, Part Two
I had intended to get back to the Monty Hall problem today, but then I made the mistake of reading this article from today's New York Times.The article is about evolutionary biologist Randy Olson, and...
View ArticleMore Transitional Forms
Thursdays are busy days for me, so I'm afraid I'll have to blog and run. Check out this article from today's New York Times:In following the fossil tracks of human evolution, scientists have for years...
View ArticleIntercessory Prayer
In Tuesday's post I responded to an op-ed by Episcopal priest Raymond Lawrence on the subject of the recently completed study on intercessory prayer. The study showed that such prayer had no positive...
View ArticleLerner on Scientism
Via P. Z. Myers I came across this essay, from The Nation, by Rabbi Michael Lerner. The good Rabbi makes the familiar argument that the electoral problems faced by liberals and progressives stem from...
View ArticleThe Simplest Explanation?
Let me suggest that Lerner advise his atheist-fearing congregants that they spend more time worrying about people like the Reverend Mark Creech. The last time we saw Mr. Creech he was calmly explaining...
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