My favorite gift this Christmas was this T-shirt from my wife. As I opened the package, for a brief moment, I thought she’d given me a cheap T-shirt. When I realized what is was, I died laughing. I’ll definitely be wearing this on my first day of grad school.

And finally, if you have no idea what this is or why it’s funny, this must be your first time here.

Go here to learn all about the flying spaghetti monster. It’s a very poignant satire on the scientific validity of intelligent design.

Lake Tawakoni fall foliage

One of the challenges I deal with when blogging is how to share more personal things. I’m obviously blogging to a general audience bigger than just family or friends, but I know that a lot of my readers are family and friends (especially since I haven’t been blogging long). I will occasionally blog about things that may be of interest to the narrower audience of those who know me. This also gives me a case to showcase my pictures, a hobby I enjoy.

I went birding the day after Christmas with my wife and mom to Lake Tawakoni east of Dallas. The weather was incredible. In the 60s and 70s. The trees looked like New England in the fall. (Okay, maybe that’s a stretch, but for Texas they were quite colorful). In short, this was definitely not the kind of weather one expects in late December.

The highlight of the day was Rusty Blackbird. I’ve never seen one before, and there are very few birds in Texas that I haven’t seen.

I’ve put up a few pictures for those interested.

Then this post is for you. Olduvai George, one of the blogs that I read, has detailed the process that he uses to paint. He uses Photoshop and a drawing tablet. He goes through the steps of creating a Mastodon. It’s amazing to watch the crude line drawings take shape into the finished work.

I’ve posted about this blog before, but if you haven’t bookmarked or RSS’d it, do yourself a favor and do that now!

So I’m at my aunt and uncle’s house for Christmas, and they have these little toys from Sonic. They’re cubes that you can fold and refold in various different ways, like puzzles, and as you put the sides together, they show various information to read. The geologic time scale, multiplication tables, what is a compound, what are hurricanes, etc.

One thing caught my eye. On one side of the cube, they had information about Canada and Mexico. Area, population, language, currency — the usual stuff. For both countries, they also had a fun fact, which I found to be rather odd.

Canada’s Fun Fact:

During the War of 1812, U.S. forces tried unsuccessfully to invade Canada.

Mexico’s Fun Fact:

The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was destroyed by the Spanish in 1521.

Hmmm… What’s wrong with these fun facts? Could it be that the degree to which they’re fun is dependent upon the cultural group you were a part of? I’ve always been struck with how our culture can so blindly see things from only the American / Christian / [insert political party here] point of view.

It’s just backwards to me, as I think striving to see things from other’s points of view is the most basic of Christian theology. You know, that whole “Love your neighbor as yourself” thing. I think this kid’s toy just reminded me how we tend to get blinded by our own perspective.

Next time Sonic does one of these cubes, they should call me. I’ve got just the suggestion for them. Highlight Poland. It’s fun fact could read:

At the start of World War II, Hitler’s forces marched through Warsaw and devastated Poland in the fall of 1939.

When we think of big animals, we often think of things that lived long ago. Turns out, the largest animal to have ever lived — either past or present — is with us today.

The blue whale, (Balaenoptera musculus) is the largest animal to have ever lived. It weighs in at an astonishingly heavy 100 tons, distributed over a length of 100 feet! That’s a weight of one ton per foot. They’re so big, there’s room for 50 people to stand on their tongue. Their heart is the size of a small car, like a VW bug. Baby blue whales drink 100 gallons of milk a day and can gain 200 pounds every 24 hours. Yes, that’s how big this animal is.

Bluish-gray above and paler below, their skin is mottled with white. Their flippers are 9 to 12 feet long, and their dorsal fin is greatly reduced. Read the rest of this entry »

The Night Before Christmas? Or Transitional Species in Insect Evolution?

I came across the latter last night, and I found it fascinating. The author of this blog has summarized the discussion of cockroach and termite evolution taken from a new book, Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel. (Hey, it’s never too late for a belated Christmas gift. Contact me if you need my address for where to mail the book.)

The article was really interesting. Basically, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that termites evolved directly from cockroaches. In fact, it appears that termites are literally modified cockroaches.

I learned some pretty nifty things too. For example, there are wood eating cockroaches today (who knew!), which have the same (and closely related) gut flora (bacteria and protists) as termites. These little critters, essential for digesting wood, are passed down in the anal secretions which the young eat (pictures included at the link!). There are also termites which look very similar to roaches, sharing a number of their characteristics.

Kind of makes you rethink that whole phrase, “not a creature was stirring…”

Wesley R. Elsberry has a post about the culture war that ID is waging in the name of science, and he’s pretty upset. As most intelligent people do, he says it better than I.

He takes issue with Dembski’s words about how the Christian community should respond to the ruling on ID.

Dembski recently wrote:

“This galvanizes the Christian community,” said William Dembski, a leading proponent of the theory and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that promotes intelligent design research. “People I’m talking to say we’re going to be raising a whole lot more funds now.”

Wes’s response is highly passionate, and exactly the kind of thing that gave me a desire as a Christian to start blogging and speak out on these issues:

Well, I do think that the Christian community should be galvanized, but certainly in a way different from what Dembski thinks. Judge Jones’ decision clearly lays out how both the specific actions of the Dover school district and the general tactics of “intelligent design” advocates have been based upon deception, subterfuge, and lies. We as Christians should reject utterly the sort of lies, mendacity, and innuendo that not just characterize antievolution, but comprise it. It is a blot upon the reputation of the body of Christ, an erroneous and injurious digression from the serious business of making our lives an example to the world.

[…]

In the second instance, Christians should be repulsed by the notion that we are simply seen as a complicit source of ready cash, ready to be squeezed by sensational broadsides into giving money to people whose aim is to spread misinformation. In these times, there are so many worthy causes to be supported that it should be inconceivable that one would instead send even a dime to folks whose only product is misinformation, and whose claims to be doing Christian work are an offense.

And here’s the best part. If you, my beloved reader, have real trouble accepting evolutionary theory and integrating it with your faith, he writes:

Whether one is a Christian and theistic evolutionist, old-earth creationist, or young-earth creationist, the time has come to reject the false teachings of antievolution peddlers. If one finds the data and theories of science to be incompatible with one’s interpretation of scripture, then say that and there leave it. That at least is an honest difference of opinion, without the pretense that one is trying to cloak theology in a camouflage outfit to try to pass it off as science. Christian belief has weathered previous encounters with aspects of science. Pretense, though, must be set aside. Christians can disagree on whether particular findings of science should or should not be accepted, and how the interface of theology and science should be handled. But Christians should draw the line on the use of untruthful tactics. It is past time to say that we will not put up with lies told in the name of Christ.

Sorry for stealing so much of your words Wes. I just couldn’t have said it better.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the trial in Dover, and squeezed it for all it’s worth in my blogging, I wanted to share what’s coming up here at Ocellated. Perhaps not much.

Today I leave for Christmas with family. Will I blog? Depends. Do my aunt and uncle have wireless high speed internet or even a second phone line they don’t mind being tied up? If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know why.

I’ve also got a post coming up that speaks directly about theology and how I integrate it with my views on science. I got an email from a friend who’s a theologian, and he asked some questions. Now biologists often cringe (or worse) when Christians speak up on biology. Perhaps a few Christians will cringe when the reverse happens? Either way, it’ll be a good opportunity for me to speak directly about my faith, something I need to be coaxed to do at times. (I’m like that mouse in a sherman trap… The questions about faith sound so easy. I just don’t realize their oats on a loaded spring plate, with a steel door behind me.)

I’m also going to be moving to San Angelo, TX the week after Christmas, in preparation to begin grad school in a few weeks. Even when I get moved in, it may be a couple of days before I can get internet access up and running in the place.

What all this means is that my blogging may suffer. But have no fear. I will return!

In the meantime, if you’re bored and need something to do, go look for theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationist) blogs and send me the link. Surely I’m not the only one out in the blogosphere, and I’d like to know of others.

Depending on your tolerance for bad behavior, it’s either been kind of funny or sad to watch people rip apart the judge for his ruling in Dover. Funny because people are literally trying to say that the judge didn’t say what he said, in order to put his ruling in the best possible light for intelligent design. Sad because their mischaracterizations are essentially an all out assault on his character.

Judge John E. Jones III is a Republican. He was appointed to a US District Court in Pennsylvania by current president George W. Bush. He is also a church-going Lutheran. About as controversial as his career had been up until now was his involvement as chairman of Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board when he found the logo of Bad Frog Beer distasteful (it featured a frog giving the finger) and fought to prevent its sale.

Yet since his ruling on the case in Dover, intelligent design proponents have had some harsh words. John West of the Discovery Institute, in a recoiling press release about the trial writes:

The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won’t work.

[…]

Judge Jones found that the Dover board violated the Establishment Clause because it acted from religious motives. That should have been the end to the case. Instead, Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.

Other, much harsher things were said of course, particularly in the blogosphere by those with lots of passion but little knowledge of the case. But I’ll leave it at that.

I still find it amazing just how fast this good conservative judge turned into a liberal God-hating Darwinist, but then again, I guess that’s how every person on the other side of the issue from creationists and IDists is painted — as liberal God-hating Darwinists. (I guess I better tell people at my church, they might not have realized.)

I’ve been reading through the 139 page decision in the Dover case. It’s good reading if you’re actually interested in the results. Since I know most of you are, you can get the entire thing here (pdf format). For a fast read on the trial, MSNBC also this story that covers it quite well. (I actually take issue with the opening line, “In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution…” simply because the clash wasn’t so much against faith per se, but a particular type of faith, and the methods of science. Oh well, the rest of the article’s good.)

Since you might not have time for 139 pages, (oh come on, it’s the Christmas season — surely some of you will need an excuse to get a break from family…) here are some of my favorite snippets from the decision. I’ll include page numbers just so you can check them out yourself if you want the full context. Read the rest of this entry »

They don’t get it. At all. One would think that this kind of decision — coming from a Lutheran Republican judge appointed by George Bush (that’s George W. Bush, mind you), who, for six weeks watched exactly the kind of “Darwin[ists] on Trial” case that the IDists have been fantasizing about for years — would at least give the IDists a bit of pause. […] No, instead, all we have seen is vituperation (”activist”, “biased”, and, presumably worst, “Darwinist”) directed at a judge who on any other day would be considered a model conservative.

Nick Matzke has a really nice post on Panda’s Thumb titled “Boy, they *really* don’t get it“, which just sums up the entire Dover Trial and the spin by ID proponents. I think his points are really good, and I wish that people who think ID’s being unfairly suppressed would give it a read.

After going over why the judge ruled as he did, and how the outcome should be exactly the same in another trial with another judge, he concludes with some good comments on the whole ID theory.

Finally, the ID movement has no one but themselves to blame for this decision. If you don’t want damaging court decisions, don’t make the very first book systematically using the term “intelligent design” a 9th grade biology textbook!!! […] IDists have made much of comparing ID to the Big Bang model — but did Big Bang proponents kick off their model in a high school textbook? Did they go around the country mucking with kiddies science standards to promote their view? Did they ever lobby legislators? I don’t think so.

Well said Nick.