Exxon John

Ya Just Gotta Love the New York Times

Excerpted from Op-Ed piece in August 12th issue of the New York Times:

Evolution should be taught — indeed, it should be central to beginning biology classes — for at least three reasons.

First, it provides a powerful framework for investigating the world we live in. Without evolution, biology is merely a collection of disconnected facts, a set of descriptions. The astonishing variety of nature, from the tree shrew that guzzles vast quantities of alcohol every night to the lichens that grow in the Antarctic wastes, cannot be probed and understood. Add evolution — and it becomes possible to make inferences and predictions and (sometimes) to do experiments to test those predictions. All of a sudden patterns emerge everywhere, and apparently trivial details become interesting.

The second reason for teaching evolution is that the subject is immediately relevant here and now. The impact we are having on the planet is causing other organisms to evolve — and fast. And I’m not talking just about the obvious examples: widespread resistance to pesticides among insects; the evolution of drug resistance in the agents of disease, from malaria to tuberculosis; the possibility that, say, the virus that causes bird flu will evolve into a form that spreads easily from person to person. The impact we are having is much broader.

For instance, we are causing animals to evolve just by hunting them. The North Atlantic cod fishery has caused the evolution of cod that mature smaller and younger than they did 40 years ago. Fishing for grayling in Norwegian lakes has caused a similar pattern in these fish. Human trophy hunting for bighorn rams has caused the population to evolve into one of smaller-horn rams. (All of which, incidentally, is in line with evolutionary predictions.)

Conversely, hunting animals to extinction may cause evolution in their former prey species. Experiments on guppies have shown that, without predators, these fish evolve more brightly colored scales, mature later, bunch together in shoals less and lose their ability to suddenly swim away from something. Such changes can happen in fewer than five generations. If you then reintroduce some predators, the population typically goes extinct.

Thus, a failure to consider the evolution of other species may result in a failure of our efforts to preserve them. And, perhaps, to preserve ourselves from diseases, pests and food shortages. In short, evolution is far from being a remote and abstract subject. A failure to teach it may leave us unprepared for the challenges ahead.

The third reason to teach evolution is more philosophical. It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, “The Republican War on Science,” the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude.

Mci-Pedia?

Evidently John McCain delivered a speech which plagiarized material from Wikipedia.

Now, can you imagine the uproar if Obama had done this? McNasty woulda shouted how this showed his inexperience. And the right wing talking heads, well, they would've talked til they were blue in the face.

And they'd have been correct to point out the poor judgment of using Wikipedia as a source for a political speech... especially without any attribution.

The bottom line is that McCain is proving to be the one showing poor judgment and inexperience in this race, not Obama.

A Christian MP3 Player?

Have you seen this MP3 player yet?

I'd like to get a hold of one of these puppies and fill it up with Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Iron Maiden and Morbid Angel tunes... and then leave it in a church... with a note that said something like "To the person who finds this, it is your lucky day! Enjoy the music on this special MP3 player!"

It'd be fun to follow the person who finds it and watch their crazy little head explode as they listened to "Satanic" heavy metal on a cross-shaped MP3 player...

200 Children Have Died Due to Faith

Most pediatric research takes place in a medical or scientific setting such as a clinic or lab. But one postdoctoral fellow in forensic pediatrics is more likely to conduct his work in a cemetery. Seth Asser, M.D., studies the deaths of children due to medical neglect on religious grounds.

In the past 15 years, more than 200 children have died in the United States because their parents relied exclusively on faith to heal them. The children died of treatable ailments such as diabetes or dehydration.

“Typical parents cannot relate to this topic because it is so unbelievable,” said Asser. “But freedom of belief doesn’t allow you to throw away a young life.”

Nicely stated. The linked article later states: There are “many laws that allow parents to deprive their children of various kinds of health care on religious grounds,” said Swan. “The religious exemption laws are a rare example of discrimination de jure: laws that deprive one group of children of protections afforded to others.”

Many cases of religiously motivated medical neglect never become public due to cover-ups, lack of investigations and poor record keeping, Asser said. His most recent findings provide bone-chilling evidence that some individuals and groups look outside of medicine for healing illness and disease.

It is long overdue for laws to be changed that explicitly prohibit parents from not seeking medical attention and treatment for their children. I don't care what make-believe sky daddy they believe in and I don't care if they think that medically treating their offspring will anger said sky daddy.

My screed above was awkwardly worded, as Bob so kindly pointed out in the comments, so I'm re-writing it:

It is long overdue for laws to be changed! Specifically, those laws that permit parents to avoid seeking medical attention and treatment for their children in lieu of prayer. I don't care what make-believe sky daddy they believe in and I don't care if they think that medically treating their offspring will anger said sky daddy.

Diebold Still Causing Problems

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has filed a lawsuit against an electronic-voting machine vendor, saying the vendor should pay damages for dropped votes in the state's March primary election.

E-voting machines from Premier Election Solutions, formerly called Diebold Election Systems, dropped hundreds of votes in 11 Ohio counties during the primary election, as the machine's memory cards uploaded to vote-counting servers, Brunner's office said. Officials in Brunner's office later discovered the dropped votes in other counties after voting officials in Butler County discovered about 150 dropped votes, said Jeff Ortega, Brunner's assistant director of communications.

The votes were recovered and included in the final counts but could have easily been overlooked, Ortega said.

A Premier spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for the company's comments on the lawsuit.

More Christian Child Abuse... and Murder!

Anthony Hopkins, 37, was arrested Monday night at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Jackson, Alabama, just after he had delivered a sermon to a congregation that included his seven other children, officials said.

He faces charges including murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and incest.

Hopkins was denied bail Thursday when he appeared before Mobile County District Judge George Hardesty. The case is set for arraignment next week, Hardesty's clerk said.

The case began Monday, when the daughter, now 19, went to the Mobile Police Department's Child Advocacy Center and reported that she had been sexually abused by Hopkins since she was 11 years old, according to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant of the preacher's home in Mobile.

The affidavit related the daughter's story as follows:

Her mother, Arletha Hopkins, 36, caught her father abusing her in a bathroom in November 2004. Afterward, her parents argued, and her mother locked her father out of the house. The father came to the daughter's window and asked her to let him in, and she did so.

The next morning, her father asked her to help him hide her mother's body in the freezer in the laundry room of the home.

The girl said she moved out of the home about two weeks ago and was living with a neighbor. She told police that her mother's body was still in the freezer.

When authorities went to the home, no one was there, as Hopkins and the other children were at the church. A body was found in the freezer, the affidavit says.

You just hafta admire those good Christian values, don't ya?

On Why You Cannot Blame the Democrats for Congress

The current GOP Senate minority has set an all-time record: using the filibuster more often than at any time in history. On more than 80 different occasions, they have blocked progress on ending the war, stymied efforts to rebuild our economy, impeded forward movement on health care, or stood in the way on a whole host of other issues.

Even so, Congress took action this week to protect the health of children, strengthening rules for the Consumer Product Safety Commission concerning toy safety and restricting marketplace practices used by the tobacco industry to target children.

Now I won't say I'm the biggest fan of Congress, but you cannot blame the Democrats for everything that has happened in Congress the past two years. Now, if they get a filibuster-proof majority come November, then you can blame the Democrats for what happens in Congress...