In order to get more exposure to my opinions and recommendations, I am moving my political, social and religious commentary to my new home at Talking Points Memo.

Make sure you add my rss/atom feed to make sure you get all of my ranting.

Cheers!

With the “new” discovery of Darwinius masillae ( I quote “new” because it was studied in secret for 2 years), the news agencies are clamoring over ‘Ida’ as the missing link between humans and chimpanzees. But why would the news media put so much hype on this story, because it’s ground breaking science? I’m afraid not, its because its PR science.

I cannot explain it any better than what Brian Switek did in his recent blog.

This is a shame. I would have hoped that this fossil would receive the care and attention it deserves, but for now it looks like a cash cow for the History Channel. Indeed, this association may not have only presented overblown claims to the public, but hindered good science, as well. As Karen James has suggested, the overall poor quality of the paper and the disproportionate hyping of the find make me wonder if this research was rushed into publication so that the media splash would occur on time. The paper tried to cover so much, so quickly, and contained so many shortfalls that I honestly have to wonder why it was allowed to be published in such a state. Perhaps we will never know, but I am sickened by the way in which a cable network has bastardized a legitimately fascinating scientific discovery, with the scientists themselves going along with it every step of the way. I can only hope that Darwinius will eventually receive the careful analysis it deserves.

So, what is the big deal that scientists want to create a rock star acclaim for such a well preserved fossil? Well, for one, if spotty science was indeed performed this gives unneeded fuel to the creationist propaganda tool. This is done easily because of the authors’ movement of the genealogy tree to compensate for the “awesomeness” of this fossil. It will be heavily debated and peer reviewed for at least a decade, but in the mean time creationists can point out the fallacy in their arguments and show that “the scientific world is not united”.

As spectacular this discovery is—and the fossil’s preservation,  down to even the last thing it ate and bacteria spots where its muscle used to be—it gets over shadowed by the glamor and the hype. To the point that if things are changed—and they will, this is science—it will come back to haunt in a hurry.

Science shouldn’t be a publicity stunt. It should be well documented, data driven and careful. By highly publicizing recent articles, to the point that they “break into” the daily crud fest that is cable news, it does an injustice to the scientific process. This is one of the main reasons people can say that “climate science is at a loss” regarding what is causing global warming.

I’m sorry scientists, if you wanted fame and fortune you should have gone into industry.

We can see the ramifications of this stunt already:

Ken Ham, president of the apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis, finds it ironic that the same scientists, in a research paper detailing their findings, toned down their pronouncements after pressure from colleagues in the scientific community.

“One of those reviewers said that…whether nor not it’s going to be a transitional form, or missing link, is a judgment for the scientific community,” Ham states. “And he’s quoted as saying that [issue] will be sorted out, or at least debated extensively in the community for years, once the paper is published.”

Personally I miss the “irony” Ham is speaking of, science is, in fact, ever changing and lies in the judgment of peer review. The only irony I see is that Answers in Genesis doesn’t even hold a match to the peer review world.

But in case your faith is shocked by this primate no need to worry:

“Because the fossil is similar to a modern lemur (a small, tailed, tree-climbing primate), it’s unlikely that creationists need any interpretation of the ‘missing link’ other than that it was a small, tailed, probably tree-climbing, and now extinct primate — from a kind created on Day 6 of Creation Week.“

Emphasis mine.

I was pondering this question the other day:

If two parents are good at math, does that make their child good at math. For instance, without any adult influence.

Well, that question has been studied, abstractly, in the form of culture. They have learned that “Zebra finches, which normally learn their complex courtship songs from their fathers, spontaneously developed the same songs all on their own after only a few generations.”

What is amazing, is that normally the father teaches the child the song, and it uses it. But the test subjects who where isolated from their fathers, had a slightly different song. As the new fathers passed down the new song, the children tweaked it. Then only 4 generations later, the children had the same song as the origional father, who was isolated from the control group.

This study starts to answer a lot of questions I have about isolated cultures picking up religion and language that is similar to other cultures even though they haven’t been exposed to them for 1000s of years.

This also has a lot to do with the scientific studies that show religion a by product of useful cognitive processes. I highly suggest you take the time to watch the whole video.

Very interesting studies that show our DNA and mind are more complex, yet elegantly tuned over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. And to see it in “lower” species, such as song birds, really puts into question who we are and why we think the way we do.

I’ve mentioned it to a number of friends, but I decided to post it here.

I’ve started my own graphic novel. I only have a title page right now but I obviously would like to finish this within my lifetime.

The question I had for you, is if I should post per page I finish or if I should wait till a “chapter” is done?

Enjoy my graphic novel. When it is finished I will buy its own domain name and put it up there.

… yes, i’ve already had a spelling mistake, gimp fix…