As everyone in the science blogosphere knows by now, banana man Ray Comfort, he who cannot understand sex, is planning to distribute on the order of 170,000 (his claim) copies of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in late November on various U.S. and Canadian university campuses. The book is prefaced by an introduction (2 Meg PDF) by Ray that contains the standard creationist argle bargle.

NCSE has created a page in response called Don’t Diss Darwin that has a variety of resources and suggestions. It has an appropriate flier, posters, and a lovely banana bookmark ready for downloading.

Most important for our immediate purposes, it contains a list of universities currently targeted. That list is reproduced below the fold. (I note that Lehigh is on the list; I wonder if Michael Behe will avail himself of the opportunity to learn some evolution.)

I urge scientists and interested folks on the infected campuses to seek immunization from the NCSE page.

Hat tip to Florida Citizens for Science.

This was the last of three October hearing sessions. The next sessions are scheduled for November 17-19.

The highlight of today was testimony by Taylor Strack, a student in Freshwater’s class, who corroborated Zach Dennis’ testimony about how the students’ arms were positioned and what stopped the shock that Freshwater was supplying via the Tesla coil.

Taylor Strack Direct testimony

Taylor Strack was a student in the 8^th grade science class at the time the alleged burning of Zachary Dennis’ arm occurred, and she saw the procedure followed. That came out in cross examination; first is her direct testimony by R. Kelly Hamilton, Freshwater’s attorney.

The Education Life supplement of last Sunday’s New York Times contained a little blurb that claimed college students who majored in the humanities and social sciences were apt to become less religiously observant after college. According to the Times, you may credit or blame postmodernism because it stresses that truth is relative rather than absolute. Small solace, as far as I am concerned.

First things first. The 3-part series is called Becoming Human, and it begins tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time (and 7 p.m. my time, so check your local schedule).

The website, which is in a beta edition right now, is called simply “Evolution.” Today, it features articles on Becoming Human, Evo-Devo, and The Evolution of Motherhood, among others. It looks as though a regular feature will include links to recent news articles, and there are also links to apparently original material by Neil Shubin, Sean Carroll, and Carl Zimmer. There are additional links to a number of relevant books and websites. Finally, you can watch “Intelligent Design on Trial” and “Darwin’s Darkest Hour” just by following links prominently displayed on the “Evolution” website.

As part of a year-long Darwin Lecture Series, evo-devo guy Sean Carroll will be giving a webcast talk based around his Making of the Fittest. The talk is on Wednesday, November 4, and you can sign up for the live webcast here.

With all precincts reporting, the two new Board of Education members are Paula Barone and Steve Thompson, who finished in what was nearly a dead heat, 3,476 votes for Barone and 3,477 votes for Thompson, or 25% each. The two incumbents, Watson (19.6%) and Hughes (7.4%) , came in 4^th and 5^th, respectively, with Robert Kirk in third place with 23%.

It’s a little hard to interpret this outcome. On the one hand, the two incumbents (Watson and Hughes) were defeated, but on the other hand the ‘ticket’ of Thompson and Kirk, who closely associated themselves in the campaign, was split. From the point of view of the handling of the Freshwater affair the results are inconclusive. Barone was perceived as supporting the Board’s handling, and in fact her son Joe testified for the Board in the administrative hearing and Paula addressed a Board of Education meeting about it last year. So I can’t clearly interpret it in either direction if it’s taken as a referendum on the issue of Freshwater’s situation. If one adds what might be crudely interpreted as the pro- vs. anti-Freshwater vote (Thompson+Kirk vs Barone+Watson+Hughes), the split is 48% pro to 52% anti. That’s torturing the data a fair amount–“pro” and “anti” are crude designations and there were other issues in the campaign. But it’s suggestive of the kind of split there is in the community.

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Mt. Vernon voters elect two members of the five-member Board of Education tomorrow, and I’ll be very interested to see the results. Two incumbents, current Board President Ian Watson and Steve Hughes, are running, as are Paula Barone, a former teacher and Mt. Vernon City Council member; Steve Thompson, a vice president in a major local company; and Robert Kirk, an administrator at the Knox County Career Center (formerly Joint Vocational School). To the extent that the election is interpreted as a referendum on the handling of the Freshwater situation, Watson, Hughes, and Barone are generally perceived as supporting the current Board’s actions and Thompson and Kirk are seen as opposing the current Board’s handling of the affair.

The main publicly debated issue in the election is finances, with Thompson and Kirk charging fiscal mismanagement on the part of the current Board and Watson in particular defending the record of the current Board.

Thompson and Kirk are out-spending the others by a large margin, as much as an 8-1 margin according to mid-October filings, and there are indications that the disparity has grown since then. Kirk has had to return some illegal corporate donations to his campaign, and questions have been raised about his having possibly commingled personal and campaign funds. So far no official body is acting on the allegations to my knowledge.

I won’t venture to predict the outcome, though I know what I’m hoping for. I’ll post an addendum to this post tomorrow night when the outcome is clear.

Photograph by Michael Klaas.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Cloud birth – an eruption of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii.

On Thursday, October 29, the morning saw Tim Keib, former assistant principal and for a time interim principal of the middle school, continue his direct examination. R. Kelly Hamilton, John Freshwater’s attorney, introduced into evidence an affidavit Keib had signed and walked Keib through it. Keib is a graduate of Cedarville University, a very conservative Christian school in Ohio.

Keib testified that he was in Freshwater’s classroom for a number of 30+ minute observations for evaluation and perhaps 60 to 100 times for a few minutes over the years.

Over the years Keib did a number of evaluations of Freshwater, and testified that he never saw any problematic behavior in Freshwater’s classroom. Asked if he ever saw Freshwater teach creationism, Keib replied that there was “never any direct instruction pertaining to creationism that I heard.” Interesting locution there.

In a series of questions Hamilton pushed the case that Freshwater was using suspect materials in order to teach analysis and objective consideration of multiple hypotheses per the Academic Content Standards, using those materials to see whether students could use the scientific method.

Keib testified that he never saw Freshwater try to push his faith or proselytize students. He never heard Freshwater put down another person’s faith, though he voiced concerns about that to Keib privately. He testified that he never saw Freshwater teaching intelligent design.

The administrative hearing on the termination of John Freshwater resumed Wednesday, October 28, and also met Thursday and Friday. I missed most of Wednesday, but hope to have a summary from another spectator sometime soon. This is a summary of the testimony I heard Wednesday morning.

“Coach” David Daubenmire Direct Examination

The first witness Wednesday was “Coach” David Daubenmire. Daubenmire once taught and coached in the MT. Vernon school system, and then left to teach and coach in London, Ohio, where he and the district were sued by the ACLU for praying with his football players. That case was settled out of court just before going to trial, with the district paying costs. Daubenmire left teaching in 2000 to found Pass the Salt Ministries. He claims a Ph.D. in “scriptural psychology” from some school – possibly Faith Bible College in Missouri. He also claims to be an adjunct professor at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, where he taught a couple of continuing education classes for teachers, one a two-day workshop on religion in the classroom that Freshwater attended in the early 2000s. That class used a text called Finding Common Ground, which appears to be an eminently respectable guide to religion in public schools and First Amendment issues. A copy was introduced as an exhibit in the hearing.

Daubenmire was also the organizer of “Minutemen United” (whose web site now appears to be defunct; see the pages preserved in the Internet Archive) through which he coordinated picketing at abortion clinics (he testified to that); allegedly photographed license plates of patrons of a nearby strip club and posted them on the web somewhere (I haven’t been able to find documentation of that; see note at the end of this post); and disrupting services at a Baptist church that is accepting of the LGBT community. According to Daubenmire’s testimony, Freshwater joined the Minutemen United Saturday morning picketing at a Columbus abortion clinic several times.

Paul Bettany, who plays Charles Darwin in Creation, is also playing the archangel Michael in the upcoming supernatural fantasy movie, Legion. According to the trailers, Michael comes to Earth to save humanity from the God’s wrath.

I hope I’m not the only one who finds this pairing of roles amusing.

The administrative hearing on the termination of John Freshwater as an 8^th grade science teacher in the Mt. Vernon (Ohio) School District resumed yesterday after a 5 month hiatus. I missed most of yesterday due to a doctor’s appointment, but a friend took notes and will write them up for me sometime soon. I attended the session today (Thursday) and another is scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll likely post an omnibus account over the weekend. Meanwhile, there are news accounts here, here, and here.

Just last week over at the Thinking Christian blog there was a huge stink raised over the alleged inappropriateness of linking ID to creationism. After much argument the anti-linkage people more or less conceded that there were some good reasons to link ID to a somewhat generic definition of creationism (relying on special creation), but still protested loudly about how inappropriate it was to make the linkage, because most people (allegedly) would assume that creationism = young-earth creationism, and linking ID to young-earth creationism was oh-so-wildly unfair.

Well, it’s now a week later, and, what do you know, but right there on the latest blogpost on William Dembski’s Uncommon Descent is a big fat advertisement for a straight-up young-earth creationist conference. And who is endorsing the conference? Dean Kenyon, Discovery Institute fellow, coauthor of Of Pandas and People, and one of the most-cited inspirational figures in the whole ID movement, who is mentioned dozens of times in Stephen Meyer’s new book Signature in the Cell. Here he is, endorsing young-earth garbage:

According to US biophysicist Dr. Dean Kenyon, “Biological macroevolution collapses without the twin pillars of the geological time-scale and the fossil record as currently interpreted. Few scientists would contest this statement. This is why the upcoming conference concentrates on geology and paleontology. Recent research in these two disciplines adds powerful support to the already formidable case against teaching Darwinian macroevolution as if it were proven fact.”

…proving that, yep, he’s still YEC, as has been his consistent position since at least 1980, even though this was widely doubted over on the Thinking Christian blog, and even though Stephen Meyer and all other ID advocates systematically obscure this fact.

So who is the one confusing ID and YEC? Not me. They do it themselves.

Ingrid Laas and I, members of Wisconsin Citizens for Science and Madison Science Pub, will be blogging from the Darwin / Chicago 2009 event from October 29 - 31 in Chicago. You can find the posts at Madison Science Pub. Follow us and intrepid advisor Flightless Frank as we cover the talks, sample the food, and go behind the scenes of the vast, worldwide Darwinian conspiracy and report on its seedy underbelly… and Frank’s.

Norm Levitt has just passed away. He was coauthor with Paul Gross of the 1994 book Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (the book which first called BS on the more ridiculous assertions of the postmodernist/social constructivist critique of science). Higher Superstition so annoyed the mandarins of science studies that they assembled a special issue of the journal Social Text to rebut it. Unfortunately for them, that issue contained Sokal’s famous parody article – Sokal had been inspired by Levitt & Gross – and the revelation of the hoax effectively deflated the community of academics who advocated strongly relativist views of science.

Back in 1996, Steve Fuller – that’s Steve “affirmative action for intelligent design” Fuller, for those of you who followed the Kitzmiller case – wrote one of the “serious” articles in Social Text, and, I learned today, apparently also read Sokal’s article when it was submitted, somehow without catching the obvious signs of parody.

Others in the science-studies movement took the critiques with some sense of humor and humility and made some adjustments – notably, Bruno Latour has admitted that the tools of science-critique were very easily turned against progressive causes like environmentalism, and that science studies had to admit that science had some actual solidity in comparison to your run-of-the mill social phenomenon (see his “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?”, 2004)

But not Fuller. Apparently, Fuller has hated Levitt ever since the beginning of the “Science Wars.” And now that Levitt is safely dead, Fuller is calling Levitt a fascist. And comparing postmodernists to the Jews, and their critics to anti-Semites…presumably fascist anti-Semites (gee, I wonder who they could be). It’s really a piece of work.

Never mind that Levitt was not just a liberal, but a straight-up socialist. We all know how popular that position is in the U.S. these days. Oh, and his memorial service on Nov. 1 will be at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel in New York.

For those who think that Levitt’s passing should be treated with a bit more class, I note this in the announcement:

It is with much sadness that we report the death of Norman Jay Levitt on Saturday, October 24, 2009, due to heart failure. His wife of 38 years, Renee Greene Levitt, reported the news to friends and colleagues of Norman, and announced that a memorial service will be held on Sunday, November 1 at 1:30 PM at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Avenue at 91 St. She also asked that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be sent to the National Center for Science Education, 420 40^th Street, Suite 2, Oakland, CA 94609.

Photograph by Paul Burnett.

Latrodectus hesperus - (male) western black widow spider. Mr Burnett assures us, “Yes, that’s my thumb and forefinger. And yes, it was alive, although unhappy.”

To the earth. According to Archbishop James Ussher, of course.

Hat tip to Epsilon Clue for the reminder.

According to a press release issued by Intel, a survey they conducted found that parents are more prepared to talk to their children about drugs than science and math.

Parents clearly want to be part of the solution. Ninety-one (91) percent of parents believe parental involvement is crucial to their children’s academic success, with nearly 9 in 10 (89 percent) saying that talking to their children about the importance of math and science in the real world would help improve their children’s performance and interest. Among the findings:

1. Despite recognizing the importance of math and science, parents say they are uncomfortable addressing these subjects with their children. More than 50 percent (53 percent) of parents of teenagers admit that they have trouble helping their children with math and science homework. Parents of high school students are also more likely than parents of younger kids to express disappointment in their own ability to help their child with these subjects.
2. Nearly a quarter of parents (23 percent) who admit to being less involved in their child’s math and science education than they would like say their own lack of knowledge in these subjects is a key barrier
3. Another 26 percent of parents who are less involved than they would like wish there was a one-stop shop with materials to refresh their existing, but unused math and science knowledge so they can better help their kids.

And for those of you wondering about the title, here is the most memorable PSA from my childhood:

In spite of the Disco ‘Tute’s recent efforts to imply that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films, the stodgy old place persists in being a place where evolution education is important. Most recently it has announced (pdf of press release) the upcoming opening of a new exhibition hall devoted to human origins:

A new exhibition hall dedicated to the discovery and understanding of human origins will open next year at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Based on decades of cutting-edge research by Smithsonian scientists, the David H. Koch (pronounced “coke”) Hall of Human Origins will premiere March 17, 2010, which also marks the 100-year anniversary of the museum’s official opening on the National Mall.

The $20.7 million exhibition hall will be complemented by ongoing human origins research and education programs, which are all key components of the museum’s broader initiative, “Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” The initiative focuses on the epic story of human evolution and how the defining characteristics of the species have evolved over 6 million years as its ancestors adapted to a changing world. The museum will launch a compelling new Smithsonian Human Origins Web site and a revolutionary virtual experience hosted on the Blue Mars 2150 virtual Web site. It will include a complete reproduction of the physical exhibition plus additional features visitors can only experience on the Web.

It’s noteworthy that the main funding is coming from two people with science and engineering backgrounds, the eponymous David H. Koch, a chemical engineer and executive vice president of Koch Industries, and Peter Buck, a physicist and co-founder of Subway restaurants. It’s good to see there’s significant science philanthropy to offset the likes of Howard Ahmanson, a major funder of the Disco ‘Tute.

According to Inside Higher Education, Butler University has sued one of its own undergraduates, junior Jess Zimmerman, for defamation. The incident was also picked up by Stu Kreisman at the Huffington Post.

Details are murky, at least to me, but evidently the university had demoted both Mr. Zimmerman’s father, Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Weekend, and his stepmother, Andrea Gullickson, the chairman of the school of music. When Professor Gullickson was demoted, Jess Zimmerman anonymously wrote a blog in which he accused the university of acting arbitrarily. The suit was dropped yesterday, but there is no guarantee that the university will not reinstate it.

Photograph by Paul Blake.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Fossilized Ladder Ripples, Torpedo Creek Quarzite near Mount Oxide in the Western Succession of the Mount Isa Inlier, Queensland, Australia. In environments such as tidally influenced areas, water currents often go in different directions, resulting in unusual ripple patterns (hard to explain tidally influenced areas in a global flood). Torpedo Creek Quartzite is about 1.69 billion years old.