They say that "no news is good news" and it is easy to come to that conclusion when it comes to climate change. News of the gloom and doom variety does seem the norm as attempts to ratchet down carbon emissions struggle for traction while "business as usual" fossil fuel…
The Scopes trial in 1925 attracted a lot of interesting characters to Dayton, Tennessee. In Evolution in the Courtroom: A Reference Guide (2002), Randy Moore lists “circus performers, Lewis Levi Johnson Marshall (‘Absolute Ruler of the Entire World, without Military, Naval or other…
The distinguished theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg died on September 5, 2014, at the age of 85, according to his former student Philip Clayton, posting at the Theoblogy blog (September 7, 2014). Often described, as Clayton says, as "the greatest theologian of the second half of the 20th century,"…
Next up on our tour of misunderstood and/or maligned evolution-related topics—embryos! I’d wager that if I asked you to draw an early-stage embryo of a human, fish, or chicken, you’d probably draw the same thing: A kind of C-shaped squiggly tube with an eye at one end. And I’d wager that for most…
Last week I presented a fossil along with some pretty big clues. You knew it was part of a scapula, dating to the Rancholabrean, and the modern descendants of this critter are known for their stubbornness. No it wasn’t your mother-in-law…it was from the Camelidae family. Today the family…
Ben Santer, a member of NCSE's board of directors, is among the ninety-seven climate scientists featured in Skeptical Science's 97 Hours of Consensus campaign. Launched on September 7, 2014, the campaign features an hourly statement on climate change from, along with a playful caricature of,…
This week on Fossil Friday, I bring you a California classic. Like a 1960s VW Vagabond van or a classic Cabernet, this fossil has only gotten better with age. And it has had plenty of time to age–dating from the Rancholabrean about 240,000 years to 11,000 years before present. This fossil…
In Miller’s Crossing (1990), one of my favorite movies of all time, the gang boss Johnny Caspar murders his henchman Eddie Dane, on the mistaken assumption (fostered by Tom Reagan) that Dane double-crossed him, and remarks by way of explanation, “I had a theory about this son of a bitch…
A milestone: there are now over 80,000 fans of NCSE's Facebook page. Why not join them, by visiting the page and becoming a fan by clicking on the "Like" box by NCSE's name? You'll receive the latest NCSE news delivered straight to your Facebook Home page, as well as updates on evolution-related…