In a past life, I was a frog. Then I was kissed by a princess, and eventually I became the King of France. Or was it the Duke of York? No matter. At the time, I had 10,000 men, and I marched them up to the top of the hill, and then I marched them down again. When they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down. But when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down. With details like that, how can you doubt my story?

Another group (or as self-styled, “network”) of science blogs is being set up at the Guardian newspaper in order to “entertain, enrage, and inform.” According to the announcement, to start with there will be four blogs covering “evolution and ecology, politics and campaigns, skepticism (with a dollop of righteous anger) and particle physics…”. A fifth will be more generic, and “…will hopefully become a window onto just some of the discussions going on elsewhere. It will also host the Guardian’s first ever science blog festival - a celebration of the best writing on the web.”

We start tomorrow with the supremely thoughtful Mo Costandi of Neurophilosophy. You can also look forward to posts from Ed Yong, Brian Switek, Jenny Rohn, Deborah Blum, Dorothy Bishop and Vaughan Bell among many others.

The Guardian’s science blogs join a growing array of aggregations of science bloggers, most of which are well known to PT readers.

The legal morass into which John Freshwater and his attorney R. Kelly Hamilton have been sinking became deeper today. United States Magistrate Judge Norah McCann King has granted a Motion to Compel compliance with discovery demands and imposed sanctions on Hamilton, John Freshwater’s attorney in Freshwater v. Mount Vernon Board of Education, et al.. This is the second granted Motion to Compel and the second set of sanctions imposed on Hamilton. The first occurred in Doe v. Mount Vernon BOE, et al., when Judge Gregory Frost ordered Hamilton and Freshwater to pay attorney fees and costs to the Dennis family’s attorney. This new order requires Hamilton alone to pay attorney fees and costs to the Board of Education’s lawyer(s) for his dilatory tactics in guiding the evasive responses of the Freshwaters (John and his wife Nancy) to discovery demands. The amount of the fees to be paid isn’t specified in the order; it says only that Hamilton is to pay

… the reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred by the moving defendants as a result of the grant of the Motion to Compel. The moving defendants are ORDERED to provide to plaintiffs’ attorney, within fourteen (14) days of the date of this Opinion and Order, a statement of their fees and expenses associated with the filing and grant of the Motion to Compel.

The bill in the similar ruling in Doe v. Mount Vernon Board of Education, et al., was over $28K.

The order also extends the time for the defendants (Board of Education) to identify appropriate expert witnesses, since that depends on the information the Freshwaters were to provide in discovery.

Addendum: The full ruling just went up on NCSE’s site on the case.

See update at the end of the post

One would think after two years of public hoorah in this county over church/state issues in the Freshwater case that there would be a heightened sensitivity to those issues among employees of Knox County (Ohio) schools. But that’s apparently not the case. A Job Training Coordinator at the Knox County Career Center, a vocational high school, is organizing a prayer group for county educators to meet at the local Nazarene University. That in itself is not problematic; such a group has a perfect right to organize and meet in that venue.

However, the organizer publicized his work telephone number and email address as contact information for people interested in the prayer group. More astounding, he specified that contact should be made during school hours!

For more information contact Cagle during school hours at 397-5820, ext. 3051, or e-mail [Enable javascript to see this email address.].

I know it’s a risk publishing the phone number and email address even though he himself has publicized them. Please don’t call or email Cagle to harass him.

Fortunately, I got a swift response from the Superintendent of the Career Center when I complained about the matter in an email sent last night, saying she intended to deal with it today. I also got a swift response from the President of the Mount Vernon Board of Education, who sits on the Career Center Board, giving me the same assurance. She at least has good reason to know the consequences of messing around with the Establishment Clause.

What was surprising was Cagle’s apparent assumption that it is perfectly OK to use his public school email and phone to organize a sectarian religious event on public school time, “during school hours.” That’s the “casual assumption of privilege” the title of this post refers to. I don’t know Cagle, but I don’t doubt that he’s an OK guy and competent at his job. But what part of “Not on the government’s dime, not on the government’s time” is so hard to understand?

I’m reminded of middle school teacher Dino D’Ettore testifying about giving a “salvation message” to students at the middle school, and of Lori Miller testifying about praying over students in the school, neither of them apparently having any idea of the inappropriateness of that behavior. There’s a real deep pool of ignorance of (or disregard for) the Constitution here.

Update

While I don’t see it on the Mount Vernon News web site, corrected contact information for Cagle at his personal phone and email was published in todays print edition.

with contributions by Matt Young

Due to some hanging chads, we have two winners this week for the “invasive” category—kinda makes sense—Al Denelsbeck and Malcolm S. Schongalla.

Balanus improvisus, bay barnacle by Al Denelsbeck — They are now showing up far removed from their originating Atlantic home. Here, I caught detail of the “toes” (cirri) during feeding, with a depth of field estimated at less than 2mm. And of course, Darwin spent no small amount of time working with barnacles and their taxonomy.

Apis mellifera, European honeybee, Christchurch Botanic Gardens, New Zealand by Malcolm S. Schongalla — This species was introduced to New Zealand in 1839. It has suffered from worldwide population declines and “colony collapse disorder.” This species holds the unlikely honor of being simultaneously invasive, valued, and in peril.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation has generously offered to provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode. (Update: we may have more options for the winner to choose from.)

(Winners, please send your mailing address to [Enable javascript to see this email address.].)

I question that there is a mexican [sic] gray wolf. Subspecies don’t exist. Its [sic] just a wolf. It breeds and would with any wolf anywhere. Any slight difference in colour of fur etc is ireelevant [sic]. I’m sure the shades of this mexican [sic] are as varied as every mountain. In facxt [sic] its [sic] of a kind. This creationist says the dog kink [sic] is the smae [sic] as the bear kind and the seal kind and probably more. Its [sic] a cute doggy. Its [sic] immigrated but hopefully it assimilates and doesn’t ask for interference on its behalf to the loss of American wolves. Hopefully howls in the same way and doesn’t hyphenate its identity. Be a team member and not another team on the bench. – Robert Byers

Sic, sic, sic. I am always amazed when a so-called expert birdwatcher sees a flash go by and announces, “Oh look! That was a boreal chickadee [or a rosy-breasted pushover or whatever]!” That man claims to have 418 life ticks. According to Robert Byers, he is wasting his time: There is no such thing as a species; in fact there are only kinds. Without claiming anywhere near 418 ticks, I have amassed an almost complete portfolio of ticks – I have seen at least one bird of nearly every kind. Herewith a list of kinds of birds:

The defendants in Freshwater v. Mount Vernon Board of Education, et al. have requested that R. Kelly Hamilton, John Freshwater’s attorney, be subject to sanctions for failure to comply with discovery demands. What’s interesting about the request (pdf) is that it specifically singles out attorney Hamilton for the sanctions, and not Freshwater.

Recall that in Doe v. Mount Vernon BOE, et al., sanctions were also imposed on Freshwater and Hamilton. In that case the operative paragraph of the Court’s order (pdf) was

6. GRANTS Plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees and costs. The Court ORDERS Freshwater and Attorney R. Kelly Hamilton to pay the reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs that Plaintiffs incurred as a result of Freshwater’s and Attorney Hamilton’s failure to comply with this Court’s Written Order Compelling Production and this Court’s Verbal Order Compelling Production and ORDERS Freshwater and Attorney R. Kelly Hamilton to pay the reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs that Plaintiffs incurred as a result of filing their Motion to Compel. (italics added)

The italicized phrase plainly says that both Freshwater and Hamilton are responsible for the costs. However, what was offered as supposedly satisfying that order was an unrecorded lien on a parcel of land nominally belonging to Freshwater. Hamilton put nothing into the payment pot.

In the new request (pdf) filed in Freshwater v. MVBOE the defendants specifically single out Hamilton for sanctions. They say

Further, this Court should order Attorney Hamilton to pay the expenses incurred by Defendants. “Rule 37 permits a court to order the attorney who advised the conduct necessitating a motion to compel to pay the expenses thereby incurred… when it is clear that discovery was unjustifiably opposed principally at his instigation.” Id. at *19-20 citing Humphreys Extermination Co. v. Poulter, 62 F.R.D. 392, 395 (D. Md. 1974). For the foregoing reasons, it is clear that Attorney Hamilton controlled the disposition of his clients’ discovery responses. Attorney Hamilton chose not to call Defendants’ counsel to notify them that responses were in the mail and chose not to file for an extension of time. It was Attorney Hamilton who did not work with Defendants’ counsel to provide adequate discovery in a timely fashion.

I’ve heard some talk among attorneys not associated with the matter to the effect that Hamilton should be subject to some sort of discipline for his behavior in the several cases involving Freshwater, and this request for sanctions specifically directed at him may foreshadow even more serious measures to come.

with contributions by Matt Young

Don’t forget to vote in our new Invasive contest.

The winner of the threatened or endangered category is Dan Stodola for his splendid photograph of a Mexican Gray Wolf.

Canis lupus baileyi, Mexican gray wolf, by Dan Stodola — A subspecies of the gray wolf. Was intentionally eradicated from the wild to protect domestic livestock. Has now been reintroduced to a limited range in Arizona. Photo taken at Brookfield Zoo.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation has generously offered to provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode. (Update: we may have more options for the winner to choose from.)

(Mr. Stodola, Please send your mailing address to [Enable javascript to see this email address.].)

Don’t forget to vote in our new Invasive contest.

Note: Matt Young directed the selection of the finalists and wrote most of this text.

We received approximately 60 photographs from 20 photographers. Most of the pictures were excellent. Approximately half represented endangered or invasive species, very loosely defined. We therefore established 3 categories: general, threatened or endangered, and invasive.

Choosing finalists was difficult. We considered what we thought was the scientific and pictorial qualities of the photographs, and also attempted to represent as many photographers and present as much variety as possible. The text was written by the photographers and lightly edited for style.

Here are the finalists in the invasive category. Please look through them before voting for your favorite. We know it is possible to game these polls. Please act like adults and don’t vote more than once. If we believe that the results are invalid, the contest will be canceled. The photos and poll are below the fold.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation will provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode.

I recently finished some fieldwork in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains, and was favorably impressed with many road signs describing geological formations in the area.

No appeasement of young-earth creationists here! Wyoming is telling visitors just how old the area actually is. Hurrah for Wyoming!

A couple weeks ago, the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe (the best podcast there is, by the way) covered a horrific story about an Australian couple who tortured a woman after a psychic led them to believe that she was responsible for a theft they had suffered. Their attack on her was really godawful. But then the Rogues got to talking about whether the psychic was herself criminally or civilly liable for her part in the affair, and much of what they said was incorrect. I thought it might serve as an interesting “teaching moment,” but as it has less to do with creationism than with woo in general, you can read more over at Freespace.

with contributions by Matt Young

We forgot to declare a winner of the “general” category yesterday The winner is Nicholas Plummer for his splendid photograph of a Robber Fly Eating a Wasp.

Robber fly (possibly Promachus rufipes, red-footed cannibalfly) eating a wasp that it has caught in flight, by Nicholas Plummer.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation has generously offered to provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode. (Update: we may have more options for the winner to choose from.)

(Mr. Plummer, Please send your mailing address to [Enable javascript to see this email address.].)

I generally do not think authors should comment publicly on book reviews, but this spring I came across two reviews of a book that I coauthored, which had somewhat divergent viewpoints and were written by reviewers who were put out by our treatment of religion. Both reviewers, to some extent, project their own views onto us, but for very different reasons, and I thought that this interesting divergence called out for a brief response.

The book in question is Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by me and Paul Strode. A review in Science Education by Adam Shapiro, now a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, begins with this enigmatic niggling:

Voting on the general category has ended. Now is time to vote on the Threatened or Endangered category.

Note: Matt Young directed the selection of the finalists and wrote most of this text.

We received approximately 60 photographs from 20 photographers. Most of the pictures were excellent. Approximately half represented endangered or invasive species, very loosely defined. We therefore established 3 categories: general, threatened or endangered, and invasive.

Choosing finalists was difficult. We considered what we thought was the scientific and pictorial qualities of the photographs, and also attempted to represent as many photographers and present as much variety as possible. The text was written by the photographers and lightly edited for style.

Here are the finalists in the threatened or endangered category. Please look through them before voting for your favorite. We know it is possible to game these polls. Please act like adults and don’t vote more than once. If we believe that the results are invalid, the contest will be canceled. The photos and poll are below the fold.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation will provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode?

Since Comedy Central took Futurama from Adult Swim, I have boycotted watching Futurama on Comedy Central. (Adult Swim is the reason why Futurama lives.) That may have to change.

I recently read Casey Luskin’s article (“Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause”) in the Liberty University Law Review. Most of it is tendentious as usual, and Tim Sandefur makes an excellent reply (PT: Luskin, laws, and lies).

However, I think it may be important for us to read Luskin’s article, as it looks like it is laying out a new lawsuit strategy for the ID movement, which would be to provoke parents into suing school districts that use a textbook that has some smidgen of (alleged) materialism, (alleged) endorsement of theistic evolution or accomadationism, or critique of ID/creationism somewhere within its hundreds or thousands of pages.

Casey Luskin has an article in the Liberty University Law Review which he claims isn’t about Intelligent Design creationism, but is instead meant to show how “zeal for Darwin encourages certain violations of the Establishment Clause.” It will come as no surprise to anyone that Luskin’s argument is flimsy, his evidence illusory, his readings of the case law distorted, and the overall effect essentially a fun-house mirror version of First Amendment law.

Luskin’s thesis is that criticizing Intelligent Design creationism = attacking a religious viewpoint. He combines this with an insistent denial that ID is a religious viewpoint, which is an amusing effort to stick to the Discovery Institute party line, but is not, strictly speaking, illogical. His position is that, if we assume the fact (which is a fact, but he assumes, rather than believing it) that ID creationism is a religious viewpoint, why, then, it violates the First Amendment to disparage it: “Sylvia Mader’s 2007 introductory biology textbook, Essentials of Biology…plainly communicates that ID runs counter to the factual scientific data,” he writes. “If she is correct that ID is a religious viewpoint, is it appropriate for state schools to use her textbooks that unambiguously claim ID is empirically wrong?”

The correct answer is, yes, it’s perfectly constitutional and perfectly appropriate–but of course, to Luskin, the answer is no: “Students who support scientific creationism would thus hear that their ‘set of religious beliefs’ is not only an ‘arbitrary faith,’ but that they are not using their ‘God-given gifts to reason and to understand’ in the way God intended. While many might agree with such arguments, religious neutrality forbids the government from attacking, opposing, and disapproving of such a ‘set of religious beliefs’ in this fashion.”

This is false. The neutrality requirement in the First Amendment forbids the government from taking a position on the truth or falsehood of a religious doctrine in religious terms, but it may take a position on any matter on areligious or non-religious terms. That is, the Constitution forbids the government from endorsing or propagating or censoring the doctrinal truth of a religious proposition, but it does not forbid the government from endorsing or propagating the factual truth of a proposition, even if those propositions turn out to be the same in content. It does not forbid the government from reaching a conclusion, and stating or endorsing that conclusion, from secular premises, even if that conclusion happens to clash with someone’s religious view. Government may not take religious positions, but it take secular positions that happen to clash with positions endorsed by a religious viewpoint.

This ought to be plainly obvious. Some people, for example, believe that AIDS is a punishment sent from God to scourge sodomites, or that blacks are inherently inferior to whites, or that ancient Indian tribes descended from Israelites and fought wars in chariots, or that earthquakes express Vulcan’s displeasure at man’s hubris.* The First Amendment forbids the government from taking any official doctrinal positions on these matters–but it does not forbid, and could not possibly forbid the government from teaching that, in fact, AIDS is caused by a virus, that blacks are not inferior to whites, that American Indian tribes have no relationship to the Israelites and lacked chariots, and that earthquakes are caused by geological activity. The First Amendment does not forbid the government from saying that there is no documentary evidence (or no fossil evidence or no eyewitness evidence) for P, even though P falls within a religious doctrine–and the Amendment cannot sensibly read to require this, because it would make all communication and all activities impossible. The most arbitrary claims would be insulated from challenge, and each person would have a heckler’s veto over government’s actions–the more irrational and mystical, the better.

To put it a bit more technically, if proposition P can be supported by religious argument R and also by secular argument S, government is entirely within its constitutional authority to take an official position on P on the basis of S. In fact, it’s even entitled to throw people in jail for P. But it may do nothing whatsoever on the basis of R. It may not support or oppose or endorse it. That’s why the government can make it illegal for people to use intoxicating drugs–even if they do so for religious purposes–but why it may not prosecute faith healing, even though faith healing is obviously fraudulent bunk.

Now, let’s play “name that logical fallacy” (to steal from our friends at the Skeptic’s Guide): “[E]ither ID is a religious viewpoint that is unconstitutionally opposed, inhibited, and disapproved when this textbook is used in public schools,” writes Luskin, “or ID is not a religious viewpoint and is thereby fair game for all forms of government-sponsored attacks, disparagement, hostility, as well as endorsement.” This is all very clever, no doubt–it is, as Lincoln once said, the kind of logic whereby a horse chestnut turns out to be the same thing as a chestnut horse. It’s the fallacy of the false dichotomy. In fact, ID is a religious viewpoint masquerading as a scientific theory–it is a religious position which is layered in factually untrue or arbitrary assertions. Government is entirely free to denounce the factually untrue statements and explode those arbitrary assertions. No, it cannot say that God does not exist, and it cannot say that man was not created by God through some guided process. On that, Luskin is correct. But government violates no law when it says (and rightly) that there is no factual basis for ID’s scientific claims.

It’s amazing that Luskin can get 88 pages out of this silliness–even if it is through Liberty University. But the bottom line is this: government may inhibit (short of censorship or compelled speech), oppose, and disapprove of any factual proposition whatsoever–including factual propositions that religious groups have taken a position on–so long as it does so from a secular background.

*–Update: I feel so bad. Vulcan was not the god of earthquakes; that was Poseidon/Neptune. I did not mean to denegrate, oppose, or disapprove of this non-materialistic explanation of earthquake generation, and I sincerely apologize to all members of the Supreme Council of Ethniokoi Hellenes.

Dan Siegal-Gaskins (pdf; scroll to page 8), a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at The Ohio State University, is starting up a Science Pub in Columbus. Science pubs are a kind of Science Cafe. They’re “live events that involve a face-to-face conversation with a scientist about current science topics. They are open to everyone, and take place in casual settings like pubs and coffeehouses.”

The Columbus Science Pub will hold its inaugural event Tuesday September 7 at 7:00 pm in the basement of (what else?) a bar, Hampton’s on King right by the OSU campus in Columbus. (It is a Science Pub, right?)

The speaker will be Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa, Deputy Director of the University of Iowa Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, founder of Iowa Citizens for Science, author of the Scienceblog Aetiology, and a participant in the Panda’s Thumb field trip to the Creomuseum. Be warned: The announcement on Facebook says “7:00 pm to 2:30 am”!

I’m going to try hard to make it down to Columbus for (some of) the festivities and other Central Ahia folks are cordially invited to join us, so mark your calendars now. I’ll post a reminder a few days before the meeting.

Note: Matt Young directed the selection of the finalists and wrote most of this text.

We received approximately 60 photographs from 20 photographers. Most of the pictures were excellent. Approximately half represented endangered or invasive species, very loosely defined. We therefore established 3 categories: general, threatened or endangered, and invasive.

Choosing finalists was difficult. We considered what we thought was the scientific and pictorial qualities of the photographs, and also attempted to represent as many photographers and present as much variety as possible.

Here are the finalists in the general category. The text was written by the photographers and lightly edited for style. Please look through them before voting for your favorite. We know it is possible to game these polls. Please act like adults and don’t vote more than once. If we believe that the results are invalid, the contest will be canceled. The photos and poll are below the fold.

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation will provide the winner with an autographed copy of Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), by Matt Young and Paul Strode?