Swans on Tea

What neo-creationists get right
[I]n the debate over evolution, I also think creationists’ doggedness has to do with the fact that they make a few worthy points. And as long as evolutionists like me reflexively react with ridicule and self-righteous rage, we may paradoxically be adding years to creationism’s lifespan.
I think that the creationists’ doggedness [...]

Still catching up from more than a day (and more than a blog-cycle) without power. Guide for the Amateur Physicist, which (if I were to have input) might be subtitled “This is why your missive isn’t science,” or, if I were Mike Myers in an SNL sketch, it might be “If it’s not physics, [...]

via Respectful Insolence

Outsider Science
To merit their attention, professionals say, an outsider would have to show that he’s done his homework. Serious contenders have to understand the language of physics and get their math right. Most importantly, any new theory must agree with past experiments.
[...]
Frustrated amateurs can be aggressive, clamoring to have their ideas heard. Not surprisingly, physicists [...]

It happens in science blog comments, and more so in discussion boards where you get some crank with their pet theory of some science subdiscipline, and how it’s the new paradigm ready to emerge and topple the orthodoxy. And it’s almost formulaic like a Hardy Boys mystery (or even a Robert Ludlum novel) with [...]

Over at Backreaction
Current illusions such as the idea that if it’s on the internet, and especially if it’s in an oft-visited location, then it must be true (argument from popularity), if it can’t be explained in a short presentation, it must be false (argument from incredulity), if it’s not on the internet then it [...]

A while back I posted some links to anti-relativity sites and gg suggested that it would be fun to debunk the claims. Sometimes that’s fun, but often — and especially after doing it a number of times — I find that it’s tedious. An error is present, and one has to find it in [...]

Female Science Professor makes an observation about random scientific inquiries made to universities
In some cases, the questions are easy and quick to answer — for example, some people call with a question about something they heard on the news. In some cases, people stop by the department (with or without calling first) and expect assistance. [...]

I agree that finding that half of polled students can’t identify that “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals” is true doesn’t imply that the other half are creationists, given that other science questions also garnered less-than-spectacular results.
However, it also doesn’t mean that all of the [...]

An online colleague at my blog-host, SFN, makes the following observation:
Wouldn’t it be amusing if science groups started leading tours of the Creation Museum, lead by archeologists pointing out the flaws in their reasoning and why evolution really does answer those questions?
It would be a great response to that story out of Colorado about creationists [...]

Greg Laden on the Pioneer Anomaly
I’ll be interested to see a more detailed analysis. I can easily imagine how nonuniform heat flow and different emissivities could lead to asymmetric radiation patterns, and that would cause a small force on the craft.
[N]owhere in this story do you hear people denigrating, belittling, or even expelling scientists [...]

Expelled Exposed, because I have been commanded to do so