Biology is under attack in the US right now — there are a great many people who are utterly ignorant of the subject who have decided that no, sir, they don't like it, they don't want to be a descendant of no monkey, and Jesus tells 'em everything they need to know. It's gotten so bad that one of our major political parties, while not making it a central issue of their campaigns, has made rejection of one of the central tenets of modern biology a signifier of ideological purity. There is a deep well of ignorance here, a strain of outright stupidity strongly held and ardently defended, and what teacher wouldn't savor that challenge?

¶ 1/26/2008 08:55:00 AM 3 comments

I've been so consumed with a very few blogs and activities of late, and realized that there were at least a dozen that I'd been neglecting (easy to do, because they're bookmarked on a computer not currently connected to the Internet and with a screwed-up USB automounter).  I thought about making quick visits to a few, and....

realized that I couldn't remember their URLs, or even more than a couple of names.

There really is a limit to how much you can keep track of.  I can sympathize with major policy-makers who can't keep up with all the arcana, and I'm beginning to think that even their best advisors may have a valid excuse for missing important facts and trends.  It really does move too fast to keep up.

¶ 1/05/2008 02:35:00 AM 4 comments