Sayonara, EvolutionBlog

Jason Rosenhouse is calling it a day. His EvolutionBlog is ceasing publication. Jason is one of the veterans in the evolution/creationism wars, dating back to his postdoc at Kansas State around 14 years ago, when he got involved with the Kansas Board of Education’s efforts to pollute the teaching of biology with creationism.

While Jason blogged on other topics–chess, religion, math–for our purposes here let it be remarked that Jason is one of the most knowledgeable and (occasionally) acerbic reviewers of creationist/ID claims. For a recent example see this review of Douglas Axe’s recent ID-pushing book. Jason’s review opens with:

Do you remember those commercials, from a few years back, for Excedrin headache medicine? There was a whole series of them. In each, some very normal-looking and totally relatable person would talk straight to the camera, explaining that he or she suffered from terrible headaches and had tried every other remedy. The climax of each commercial was when the person said something like, “How do I know Excedrin works? Well, they have their “scientific research” to prove it. But you know what? I did my own kind of research. I tried it.” I use the scare quotes to indicate their tone of bemused contempt.

That’s basically what Douglas Axe’s new book is like.

Delicious!

I remember fondly a field trip to Ken Ham’s creationist museum shortly after it opened. Along with Wesley Elsberry, Tara Smith, Art Hunt, Lauri Lebo, Professor Steve Steve, and others, Jason was a delight to watch as we perused the displays.

I’ll miss EvolutionBlog and Jason’s acute commentary, but I understand his fading desire to blog. And as he notes in his farewell, maybe he’ll be back!