Eugenie Scott @ Fresno State on Dec 2: "Why the fuss about Darwin and Evolution?"

I am really excited to invite you to an evening with Dr. Eugenie Scott on the Fresno State campus next Wednesday, Dec 2, 2009! An evolutionary biologist by trade, Dr. Scott is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, and as such, has been at the forefront of the culture war around the teaching of evolution in the US for over a quarter century. Along the way she has testified on behalf of evolution and science at numerous venues, most famously at the Dover trial a couple of years ago, and has authored several valuable books on the subject, including Evolution vs. Creationism and Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools (with Glenn Branch). I am therefore thrilled that she accepted my invitation to come down into the valley to talk to us because here, as you may know, we happen to be in something of a hotbed for that culture war as well, although not nearly as hot as some other parts of the country (no attempts to mess with public school science curricula at least).

Dr. Scott will give a public lecture on "Why the fuss about Darwin and Evolution" at the campus' Satellite Student Union (maps) at 7:30 PM on Dec 2, 2009, as part of a new Evolutionary Biology lecture series hosted by the campus Consortium for Evolutionary Studies (see poster below for the various sponsors of this particular talk). We are bracing for a good turnout since this will be one of the most prominent speakers to come here and speak on behalf of teaching evolution and science in the classrooms - and we plan to bring some more over the coming year.

I know we got off to a bit of a late start in the Darwin Bicentennial celebrations this year, but we hope to keep the momentum going into the future as we try to light a few more candles in the dark in this lovely valley.

Click below the fold for the poster announcing this lecture - feel free to download and share it as widely as you like! And if you are on Facebook, check out the event page to rsvp and invite others, and become a fan of the Biology Department page while you are at it. I hope you will join us for this talk next week.

Why the fuss about Darwin and Evolution? - a lecture by Eugenie Scott at Fresno State

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Darwin's Brave New World - Extended Trailer

Does this look exciting, or what? That trailer sure sucked me in much more energetically than either of the trailers for Creation or Darwin's Darkest Hour. Hopefully the whole thing delivers on what the trailer promises. Too bad, therefore, not to see any US air dates at the end there, although our neighbors to the north will get to see it, having helped produce it. I hope it does get here eventually. PBS, are you paying attention?

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Colbert to do Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins this week!

What fun! The Colbert Report will have Richard Dawkins on tonight, followed tomorrow by Francis Collins, the new director of the NIH! I wonder if he might ask Dawkins some of these questions? Maybe not, although Colbert, despite his avowed Catholicism and gut-centric persona, seems much more rational, skeptical, and pro-science than Bill Maher. He certainly showcases more scientists on the Report than any other late-night talk show! For examples, look no further than Matt Tobey's post on the Comedy Central Blog last week featuring this collection of Colbert's Most Intelligently Designed Creationism Moments:

Did humans evolve from monkeys over the course of hundreds of millennia or were we created in the Garden of Eden 6000 years ago? It's hard for me to say, to be honest. On the one hand, like Eve, I find apples very tempting, especially when they're in fried pies. On the other hand, I really enjoy flinging my poop. Hopefully these creationism-themed Colbert Report clips can help me make up my mind.

Check out all the videos there - but let me share here, below the fold, both Collins' and Dawkins' previous appearance on the show:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Francis Collins
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Let's see how he fares on his return visit on thursday, now that he has his own upgrade to head the NIH!

And here's Dawkins hawking his previous book on the Colbert Report three years ago:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Richard Dawkins
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

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When Hollywood distributors are exposed to Darwin's thoughts, who knows what could happen?!

Its not clear yet if and how the Darwin biopic "Creation" may ever get distributed in the US, even as it readies for a UK release next week. There was some scuttlebutt yesterday when the NCSE tweeted a Bay Area NBC affiliate station's report that their parent company was in a "bidding war" over the US distribution rights! And the juicy tidbit in that story was that apparently Mel Gibson (he who managed to get his graphic movie about a guy being flogged and tortured for hours shown in churches all over the US, without the help of any major Hollywood distributors!) had actually helped finance this movie (him being Catholic, and Catholics saying they don't have a problem with Evolution - that's how some people tried to explain it)! Wow - would that have blown some fuses in the heads of the church-going fans of Gibson's Passion in the American heartlands!! But, alas, that won't happen, because that news story has been retracted/replaced, with this caveat:

The original article confused the film's distributor, Icon Distribution, with Mel Gibson owed [sic] Icon Productions. The companies use the exact same logo and indeed Icon Distribution was once owned by Gibson. It is no longer. We regret the error.

Huh?! Alrighty then... and so American journalism continues its reverse evolution - but that disease apparently afflicts the British press as well, for the very same Telegraph that lamented the lack of a US distributor for this movie had, two days earlier, published a truly egregious piece of "balanced" reporting about evolution vs. creationism! As for the movie itself, I still haven't seen any official word on how that NBC affiliate's parent company is doing in that "bidding war", nor if indeed there is any such war at all. In fact, their own latest story has no mention of any bidding!! Scores of fans on the movie's Facebook page, meanwhile, are rallying around demanding it be shown here, but who knows if they constitute enough of a market for the bean counters weighing faith-based backlash vs. the box office appeal of a 19th century nerd wrestling with serious scientfic/philosophical issues! Last night, on another media outlet likely genetically linked to the Bay Area station, Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones had probably the funniest take on the saga:

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Who will dare show this in America?

These are strange and deeply worrisome times for democracy, science, and education in America, once the beacon of those very things which drew people like me from all over the world to its shores. From a global leader for science and free intellectual pursuits, how has America become a place where even one of the most significant scientists in human history is no longer welcome? Not even a biographical film about him! In a week when this country's very own democratically elected President was censored in the nation's public schools and heckled by a congressman, this news should come as no surprise, I suppose:

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

"Charles Darwin is, I suppose, the hero of the film. But we tried to make the film in a very even-handed way. Darwin wasn't saying 'kill all religion', he never said such a thing, but he is a totem for people."

Creation was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council, and stars Bettany's real-life wife Jennifer Connelly as Darwin's deeply religious wife, Emma. It is based on the book, Annie's Box, by Darwin's great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes, and portrays the naturalist as a family man tormented by the death in 1851 of Annie, his favourite child. She is played in the film by 10-year-old newcomer Martha West, the daughter of The Wire star Dominic West.

Early reviews have raved about the film. The Hollywood Reporter said: "It would be a great shame if those with religious convictions spurned the film out of hand as they will find it even-handed and wise."

Mr Thomas, whose previous films include The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, said he hoped the reviews would help to secure a distributor. In the UK, special screenings have been set up for Christian groups.

And you thought the money-grubbing, amoral (or immoral), Hollywood movie business loved controversy and liked to make a buck off it whenever it could! Apparently not, if it might irritate a minority (I hope) of religious extremists, America's own Taliban. So a film about Darwin - a long dead and much celebrated scientist - seems much more dangerous to the fabric of this country than Borat! Sigh...

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Dawkins on those who would expel him from Oklahoma

In these hard and worsening economic times, one would think that politicians and state legislatures have their hands full with a huge number of serious issues to deal with. Instead, one congressman in Oklahoma is upset about a mild-mannered English (as in from England, not of) professor visiting a state campus to deliver a lecture! Who might that professor be? Why Richard Dawkins, of course, who got State Representative Thomsen upset enough to propose a formal resolution to condemn Dawkins' visit to University of Oklahoma last friday! Really?! So what did the good professor have to say when he did arrive in the good state? Watch:

Meanwhile, as Dawkins' US tour continues, even into the heart of the bible belt as in this case - we here at Fresno State have something else to look forward (backward?) to: Ben Stein is coming to campus next week! Yes!! That's who is the featured guest this month in the University Lecture Series! Weep, my fellow Darwin's Bulldogs... and if you do go to his talk, please ask him who is being "Expelled" from academia, exactly?

Hat-tip: OneGoodMove

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God, Darwin, and the Culture Wars - Ethics Center Lecture

Today, at noon, the Ethics Center Lecture series @ CSU-Fresno will plunge into the culture wars with the following lecture:

March 4: Leonard Olson, God, Darwin, and the Culture Wars

12-12:50 PM in the Alice Peters Auditorium (in the University Business Center)

Most observers would agree that there is something like a cultural war taking place in America today, especially over the question of the origins of life on Earth. Is the choice as simple as one between evolution or creation? Extremists on both sides frame the issue poorly. As a result, a reasonable middle position is ignored. This talk will examine the middle and criticize the extremes.

Leonard Olson is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at CSU-Fresno, where he has been teaching ethics courses since 1986. A native of the Central Valley, he was educated at San Francisco State and U. C. Davis.

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The Truth of Evolution

What a day to raise the spirit of an evolutionary biologist wondering how a conversation about Darwin's legacy ended up being mostly about religion last friday! First, we got that wonderfully trenchant letter from Prof. Gottelli telling the DI to put-up real scientific evidence or shut-up! Next, as I drive home after pausing to soak in the (alas all too rare) view (from the campus parking lot) of freshly-snow-clad Sierras in the late-afternoon sun, what do I find waiting for me on the front porch? A package with Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution Is True"!! Just what I need to curl up with...

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who needs a reality-based education, anyway? eh?

Once again, Wiley's creation Danae hits it right on the nail! Do I want a student like her in my classroom when I start another Evolution class next month, however?

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Forget neutral - how do I jump off this train heading over the cliff?

At least I'm not in Texas, where the State Board of Education's runaway train, driven by their religio-political-appointee Chair, is taking all the children aboard with them as they head full-steam off the cliff and into the dark-ages! So worried are they about protecting the delicate sensibilities of children from the assaults of the E-word from a philosopher of science (SHOCK! HORROR!) that they had to force Chris Comer, the Texas director of science curriculum to resign for the crime of forwarding an email announcing a talk by said philosopher: you know, Barbara Forrest, that scary old wicked-witch who testified in the Dover trial! And was seen most recently on PBS's re-enactment of the trial, explaining the transitional fossil she discovered connecting creationism with intelligent design. We can't have young minds corrupted by such truths can we? But if you want to read that horrible email (only when the children are asleep!), it is available on the immoral internets, of course.

Texas Citizens for Science has the whole sordid story. What struck me was the Board of Education's use of the word "neutral":

TEA Policy of Neutrality Toward Creationism and Evolution

TEA has a new policy, one of neutrality between biological evolution and Intelligent Design Creationism. This new policy was put in place in September when Dr. Don McLeroy--an outspoken Creationist and activist for Intelligent Design Creationism and its marketing campaign who was appointed the new Chair of the State Board of Education (SBOE) in July--decided to start giving the TEA staff some tough love. By forwarding an email message that publicized a lecture in Austin by Barbara Forrest, a Southeastern Louisiana University professor of philosophy and Dover trial witness, that supported evolution (as required by the Texas science standards) and opposed the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism, Chris Comer ran afoul of the new policy and was asked to resign or be fired immediately. As we will see, this excuse to terminate Ms. Comer was trumped-up and illegitimate. The memo to her from the TEA contained several other criticisms, all of which were petty or insultingly insignificant. Amazingly, this memo is now available for the public to read thanks to the American-Statesman (see below), and it reveals the lengths to which the top administrators of our state's public education agency will go to silence dissent from their new policy of not criticizing Creationism.

when their agenda all along was something else.

The real reason Director of Science Chris Comer was forced to resign is because the top TEA administrators and some SBOE members wanted her out of the picture before the state science standards--the science TEKS--were reviewed, revised, and rewritten next year beginning in January 2008, and she would have some influence to make sure the standards were scientifically accurate and of high quality. Plans are underway by some SBOE members and TEA administrators to diminish the requirement to teach about evolutionary biology in the Biology TEKS and to require instead that biology instructors "Teach the Controversy" about the "weaknesses" of evolution, that is, teach the Creationist-inspired and -created bogus controversy about evolution that doesn't exist within legitimate science. They may even want specific bogus weaknesses required. There are, of course, no legitimate scientific weaknesses with biological evolution as the natural process is understood by scientists. At the level at which it is taught in high school, evolutionary biology has no weaknesses, gaps, or problems. At higher levels, there are poorly-understood concepts, but these are not weaknesses: these are areas that need more research. Therefore, it is duplicitous to pretend such "weaknesses" and "controversy" exist. The so-called controversy is a manufactured controversy, one created primarily by the Discovery Institute to trump up the notion that there are disagreements among scientists about evolution and these should be taught to high school students. This "teach the controversy" and "weaknesses of evolution" ploy is an attempt to disparage, diminish, and distort evolution so students will not have confidence in one of the most highly-corroborated explanations in science.

Still think you can remain neutral on this moving train?

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NOVA smacks down the cdesign proponentsists!

Wow, was that ever a serious smackdown that NOVA just handed down to proponents of intelligent design this evening! No wonder the IDiots at the DI are unhappy. Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial turned out to be an outstanding and gripping documentary of the saga of Kitzmiller vs. Dover School District. Even my 7-yr old Darwinista daughter was pulled in to watching large chunks of it. This one is definitely going on my holiday DVD order list from PBS, and I (like many of my colleagues, undoubtedly) will be pulling some of the outstanding science exposition bits out of it to add some multimedia pizazz to my lectures in Evolution next spring. Not that the social drama wasn't interesting, but I wouldn't necessarily take up classroom time with that material.

I could list a number of great things about this documentary were I to attempt a comprehensive review, but I won't do that here - there are many other better reviews out there that you can read online, including one from the multi-taskmaster PZ Myers, who live-blogged it! If you missed watching the show, wait for the DVD, or go online to the NOVA site on/after Nov 16 and watch it there - and if you can also multi-task, you could fire up the Pharyngula live coverage along with your popcorn and enjoy the thumping of intelligent design in all its multimedia goodness.

As for me, here are some quick highlights, my immediate favorite moments:

• I somehow didn't know, and was therefore especially struck by the fact that the whole thing started in Dover over this mural by a student:
  
  
  I love it when artists get the creationists' goat - although in this case the mural was actually burned down by (apparently) the school board member who thus got the ball rolling on this trial. It so often starts with burning art, doesn't it?
• The various segments of science interspersed between recreations of the trial (is it just me, or would we all be better off with a good Hollywood recreation of the courtroom drama? How about "Inherit the Wind - Part II"?) were especially good. My favorite would have to be the segment showing the discovery of the transitional tetrapod ancestor fossil Tiktaalik roseae (pictured above), which happened in parallel to the trial.
• Another wonderful science segment addresses the evolution of the infamous bacterial flagellum. Not only do they have beautiful animations of the flagellum and its likely precursor secretory apparatus, but Nova also shows you how to do proper journalism when confronted with two unequal but opposite arguments. Rather than merely regurgitating the "irreducibly complex" flagellum argument in a (Be)he-said / she-said frame, the show brilliantly brings in DeRosier (Behe's acknowledged source for the idea) who systematically takes apart Behe's argument! One side can be wrong indeed - and how badly wrong at that!
• And the transitional fossil of the day has to be "cdesign proponentsists"! It was immensely entertaining to watch Barbara Forrest in action digging through the 7000 strata of buried manuscript to find and piece together the missing links between the extinct (I wish) "creationists" and the soon to be endangered "design proponents" via this lovely fossil resulting from a copy-n-paste mutation.

What fun!

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