For those still reading Ocellated, sorry for the lack of blogging goodness lately. Grad school has officially consumed my life, and I love it.

This week shows absolutely no signs of letting up either. A test today (bird orders of the world - which I’ll ace) and one tomorrow (advanced genetics — I’ll be beaten and disfigured to the point of being barely recognizable) will keep me snowed under. I also leave for a weekend in the Davis Mountains this Friday! I haven’t been back since I left this summer from thesis research.

What’s really been sucking up my time though is the Wednesday bible class lessons I’ve been doing over evolution. When I’m not working on school or other business jobs I have on the side, I’ve been working on those lessons.

Last week (the second lesson) was large scale evolutionary change. Cool things like the reptile-mammal transition, theropod dinosaur - bird transition, biogeography, adaptive radiations, vestigial traits, and the 2000 pound elephant in the room all along, human evolution. The audience (with a conservative evangelical background) did quite well, and took in stride human chromosome number 2 being the combination (fusion) of chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13. Indeed you can read a little about that evidence yourself here.

I have been spending much of the week since that lesson though struggling with a desire to feel merciful and forgiving, and a sense of righteous indignation. I expected some people to be upset. I mentally prepared myself for it and was (and am) fully determined to be polite and gracious in my conversations that ensue.

What’s frustrated me so was a conversation that I overhead as I made a beeline to the kitchen to grab liquid refreshment to quench the cracked and burning surface that was my throat after an extended period of talking with no breaks. One person in the class was talking to another and “refuting” everything they’d just seen. I completely stayed out of the conversation. But as I thought about it, what troubled me so was that this person was wasting an opportunity. At the front of the room, two biology grad students who’d just taught the class, both Christians, were available to answer questions. But instead of taking the opportunity to ask further questions and reflect on what they’d just heard, this person instead cornered someone to gripe about the class.

The irony is ripe here. The very creation story some cling as having to be literal teaches much about the dangers of pride and the virtues of humility. Yet pride and a lack of humility rear their ugly head when the evolution / creation issue gets discussed.

Oh well. That’s why I’m teaching the class. And at least for some people, I have little doubt they’ll find it worthy of their time and consideration.

I went birding for a short time with my wife yesterday to the north unit of the San Angelo State Park in west Texas. For those of you that are birders, you’ll understand that there are rare days that are just magical. Yesterday was just such a day.

Ringed Kingfisher

I was hearing a kingfisher chattering in the distance. Not its full machine gun fire call, but just individual chattering notes. After walking through the brush and peering out along the Concho River, I spotted this guy (or rather girl). It’s a Ringed Kingfisher, the largest new world kingfisher that ranges throughout Latin America, barely reaching south Texas. They’ve been straying north, seemingly with greater regularly, with sightings from central Texas. This is perhaps the third sighting and first photographic record for the Concho Valley.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

That alone would have made it an incredible day, but the magic wasn’t done. We walked down to a dry spot on the river to try and refind the kingfisher, when my wife pointed out a small passerine bird coming down to the water’s edge. I was somewhat distracted, still looking for the kingfisher. When the bird finally hopped out into view, my jaw hit the ground. A male Black-throated Blue Warbler, one of two regularly occurring U.S. warbler species I’d not seen, hopped in view to get a drink. This is a hard bird to find anywhere in Texas, but when it does show up, it’s usually on the southeast coast. They breed in the northeast and winter in the West Indies, so most migrate down the eastern seaboard and miss Texas all together. As far as I know, this is the first record for the Concho Valley.

I’ve also put up lots more pictures of both birds in the photo gallery.

When it was all said and done, I’d seen a couple of highly unlikely birds within the span of 15 minutes. When you least expect it, birds can really surprise you.

Do they give extra points for creativity?

(Via Pharyngula)

I like this picture simply because the chair adds an interesting aspect to its composition.

A reader sent in a link to this video. It’s our old friends Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, the creationists that have names sounding suspiciously like adult entertainers. I’ve mentioned them before as making on the worst evolution videos I’ve ever seen. This clip’s much shorter, though just as bad.

While I do find them extremely funny, deep down they really sadden me. This level of scholarship aint what we’re called to as Christians. Any person on the street can say, “Ok Ray, what about the pineapple or coconut? Where’s their pull tab?” And they know this. It’s all a game of showmanship. They’re not concerned with actually making good arguments. At the end of the day, they’re concerned with making arguments they know will go over with their audience.

They also fail to understand the most basic aspects of science, namely that it does not attempt to proclaim the underlying meaning of everything. While one could try to explain that to them, I fear it would be every creationist’s worst nightmare.

… as the famous line from Monty Python goes.

Though I’ve recently felt close. I survived a test on Monday, with another one this afternoon.

In addition, tonight I start a 5 week series in the university class at church on the evolution / religion issue, and I’ve been spending a lot of time getting that prepared.

Here’s how the schedule looks to be shaping up.

• Week 1 — What is Science (briefly), natural selection, sexual selection.
• Week 2 — Large scale evolutionary change, the fossil record, genetics, biogeography, human evolution.
• Week 3 — early Genesis, nature of science, nature of religion, history of the church’s response to the theory of evolution.
• Week 4 — Christian frameworks for interfacing with science and religion — youth earth creationists, old earth creationists, intelligent design creationists, and evolutionary creationists.
• Week 5 — discussion. You can bet I’ll come prepared with plenty of open-ended questions in case the audience needs some prompting.

Not to leave you without something to look at though, I’ve put up some pictures of an outing a couple of weeks ago to a local ranch, where my university’s biology department hosts an annual Bioblitz, identifying every species regardless of taxa they possibly can.

I managed to get one picture in particular that I just really like.

Another highlight of the weekend was this Hoary Bat, a species I had previously only seen in pictures. They are arguably the most beautiful of bats found in the U.S.

More from me if I survive today.