Our Scientific Output

Ha! Let me be among the first to say--degas willing!--that it's a good thing for them that ID/Creationism have no need to match your pathetic level of detail!

I"d love to see a similar post on Uncommon Descent.

275 science publications!

yikes!

I'll be happy if I end up with a few dozen in my whole career.

A lot of those rows don't add up to the total. Is there another column missing?

Has anyone ever compiled a list of specific predictions about evolution in papers like these along with the supporting evidence eventually found? That would be something else the ID crowd would have difficulty replicating..

I've been thinking about picking out a week or a month and doing a survey of news releases that have something to do with evolution -- i.e., announcements or publications of REAL science -- and also doing a count of news releases coming out of the DI. They were pretty prolific a few weeks back. It would be interesting to compare the quantity and content of their output in a "good" week with news releases from the people who are actually doing science.

The reason all the rows don't add up was actually stated in the preamble:

"So I ended up with three major categories: Science Papers, Humanities Papers, and Technical Reports. In addition, the Total Publication category covers all three of these as well as other academic/professional publications not covered by them ".

One can only wonder how many contributions to science can be attributed to the ArchIDiotCaseyLuskin Steve . . . . .

Has anyone ever compiled a list of specific predictions about evolution in papers like these along with the supporting evidence eventually found? That would be something else the ID crowd would have difficulty replicating..

Sir_Toejam said:
> check the talkorigins archive.

Right, I've seen items like that scattered around talkorigins. Just curious if anyone had made a concise list--perhaps organized by date and prediction. Something that could be easily extended and maintained along the lines of the TalkOrigins index of creationist claims. Counting papers is useful, but seems to me that a long list of successful predictions might be pretty compelling.

What exactly qualifies as a publication? I'd be rather surprised if anyone here using an x86-based computer was NOT running some of my code - quite probably embedded in more than one chip.

Right, I've seen items like that scattered around talkorigins. Just curious if anyone had made a concise list---perhaps organized by date and prediction.

I've been working on a course syllabus that approaches teaching evolutionary biology from exactly that perspective; looking at the early predictions made by Darwin, and tracking all the way to the most recent ones that haven't been tested as of yet.

A similar post on Uncommon Descent? Ridiculous! They are far too busy googling and then cutting and pasting from other websites!

Just curious if you verified any of the data and what exactly qualifies.
Nate

Just curious if you verified any of the data and what exactly qualifies.

Hmmm, very strange sentence placement. The comment about folks rocking should have been at the end of the paragraph relating to Talk.Origins, not the one about peer review. As much as I have faith in the peer review process, it tends to rate pretty low on the rockage scale.

Quite an impressive list. Only one question, though - are there any coauthored papers in the list that are double-counted?

I'm just trying to play the devil's advocate here; I think the list as a whole is quite impressive and amusing, especially considering the average values and that not everyone here concentrates solely on the field.

I would love to see it when you feel like you can share it.

No no!
You got it all wrong!

Its PRESS RELEASES that count!
So count them, I'm sure the Discovery Institute has more, so of course ID is a real, important science!

You have two very different subgroups at PT, a number of young people just starting careers, and a group of people retired or near retirement. Thus, the use of a SD is not recommended as shown by a SD so large that in every variable it exceeds the lower bound (and I'll bet the upper in most cases).

I am currious how you differentiated "science" from "humanities," and how would you score say "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design," or the chapters in "Why Intelligent Design Fails?" Is medicine a science or a humanities topic?

And the purpose of this string again is WHAT ?

Wait, .....I think I've got it.
A bunch of " Steves " wrote a bunch of " papers ".

Therefore, using our trusty friend, aka deductive reasoning, evolution MUST be considered as valid scientific fact.

Right ? No, Not quite. Self-validation has always been the keystone of our dear darwinists.

Right, I've seen items like that scattered around talkorigins. Just curious if anyone had made a concise list---perhaps organized by date and prediction.

You have two very different subgroups at PT, a number of young people just starting careers, and a group of people retired or near retirement. Thus, the use of a SD is not recommended as shown by a SD so large that in every variable it exceeds the lower bound (and I'll bet the upper in most cases).

I am currious how you differentiated "science" from "humanities," and how would you score say "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design,"

or the chapters in "Why Intelligent Design Fails?"

Is medicine a science or a humanities topic?

Self-validation has always been the keystone of our dear darwinists.

Wait, .....I think I've got it. A bunch of " Steves " wrote a bunch of " papers "

Self-validation has always been the keystone of our dear darwinists

"3. Should public schools require the teaching of intelligent design?

No. Instead of mandating intelligent design, [organization] recommends that states and school districts focus on teaching students more about evolutionary theory, including telling them about some of the theory's problems that have been discussed in peer-reviewed science journals. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned. We believe this is a common-sense approach that will benefit students, teachers, and parents."

Does anyone here agree with this?

This is the sort of middle ground that is out there... this is off of the "Discovery Institute" website FAQ.

Is it just hogwash to cover their asses?

In my opinion, it's just hogwash to provide cover for fundamentalist teachers who want to inject religion into the classroom. "Honest, I wasn't trying to preach fundamentalism; I was just teaching the controversy." No one who has spent any real time in a classroom believes there is any restriction on teaching the scientific controversies, so this kind of statement is ... well ... just stupid. The only people who feel constrained by the current situation are the ones who really just want to teach religion.

Every time I hear this argument, I have one reply...

"What problems? What critical scrutiny?"

Be specific. What part do you think is wrong?

I never get a cogent answer.

Evolution has probably set the record as the single most unpopular scientific theory in the entire history of mankind. It has been subjected to whithering scientific, and not incidentally, legal attacks for 150 years from every quarter.

More effort may have gone into denying evolution than into curing cancer.

And yet nobody has ever shown the core concept to be wrong.

Nobody has even been able to articulate a reasonable doubt (at least one based on observable evidence).

Even the darling of the ID crowd, Michael Behe (of wagging flagellum fame) admits that evolution is the essentially correct model.

The argument is simply a red herring. There is no controversy to teach.

Creationists learned long ago that they can't block the teaching of evolution (Epperson v. Arkansas) they can't demand equal time to teach creationism (McLean v. Arkansas). And they can't dress it up and pretend it's science when it's not (Edwards v. Aguillard and Kitzmiller v. Dover).

Since they can't outright prevent the teaching of evolution, the next best strategy is to put up roadblocks to prevent its effective teaching.

Hence, the whole "teach the controversy" approach; a simple slogan that plays upon peoples sense of fairness.

The problem is, there is no real controversy, and there hasn't been for the better part of a century, at least not in the entry level theory taught in high school.

That argument was settled literally a hundred years ago. There's more hard understanding of how evolution works than there is for gravity or magnetism (that statement is not hyperbole, btw, it is literally true).

Nobody has managed to do any serious work in creation science since the 1800's.

That's not to say that that there aren't all sorts of healthy arguments about the finer points, especially out at the theoretical edges. Open the pages of any professional journal, and it's full of conflicting ideas and new research. It's not like we keep that secret.

But it's all argument about the exact details, and the Creationist crowd is trying to purposely conflate that healthy give-and-take at the cutting edge into the idea that evolution is poorly understood, or "a theory in trouble".

It's as if they were pointing to the fact that nobody can tell for certain what the continents looked like half a billion years ago (which is true) and holding that up as evidence that the "round earth" faction might still be wrong.

Brad,

On the face of it, it sounds reasonable to teach some of the problems with the theory of evolution. Which controversial aspects of it do you have in mind that could be usefully discussed in a high school biology class? I am not aware of any appropriate ones since the demise of Lamarkism. I suppose you could bring in the discussion of the importance of sympatric speciation. Do you have any reason to believe that topics like this are being deliberately excluded from the classroom?

Well said. I was trying to think of what the real controversies are. Sympatric speciation? Group selection? Neutral evolution? Who can rationally argue that these topics need to be taught in the K-12 curriculum?

No Stephanies among all those Steves?

Mostly courses are concentrated on what is already known beyond reasonable doubt, a few speculations may be mentioned, rarely controversies. Controversies in a science is mostly concentrated to the cutting edge.

I can't think of any course in any science subject where they can, need (or have time) to get that far and discuss this. The real discussion is anyway always in the scientific community. It is not an already outdated description of difficult questions and/or little data and/or bad methods (the usual reasons for a controversy) in a class room. It is such a ludicrous idea, like other ideas from non-scientists about science and the goals and possibilities of real education.

The existence of pseudosciences like homeopathy or ID are other subjects that no one has time to waste on.

"Problems", unsolved questions or areas, may be mentioned though since it is much more interesting and descriptive and may define more stable borders of current knowledge. For example, the lack of a verified full quantum theory.

"verified full quantum theory" - verified full quantum gravity theory.

Does anyone here agree with this?

— Brad

Whatever questions may still exist regarding various details of biological evolution are best left to college classes. K-12 needs to concentrate on making sure that we have an educated citizenry who understand the basics.

Can you imagine attempting to discuss the problems with string theory in a class of high school seniors who have yet to master Newtonian mechanics? Duhhh...

Whatever questions may still exist regarding various details of biological evolution are best left to college classes. K-12 needs to concentrate on making sure that we have an educated citizenry who understand the basics.

— David B. Benson

If the point was to obscure the identities of responders, then Tara for example would have been identified by a isolated female "steve" name. A 50/50 split with "Stephie" "Stevey" etc.. might have been available, but why bother?

As to the OP data, I would count diserations and theses. I made more royalties from my disertation than from WIDF (a few $100 v. $0.00). That is one way to measure a publication. My disertation, after 30 years, is still cited as well, but alas no more royalty checks. Also, I have had various "peer review" experiences and by comparison, I would say that the TalkOrigin archive papers I wrote were as good as any journal article of mine. Doug's 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent is better than most. Then there were some early PT articles that were the core of later journal articles. Maybe not lately, but there were some TD and PT items as good as any.

Oh Well...

17, 0, 80, 97, 7
I am glad to say as a PT co-founder that I fall in the upper mode. Bibo Anon 6:1 "We all fall, what matters is where we fall."

Yea for PT. The remaining question is "So what?"

Sign me "Superfluous Steve."

Frank J --- You are more optimistic than I about the abilities of high-school seniors. I doubt they know enough, have enough facts yet, to engage in 'critical analysis'...

I agree-students need to be well versed in all the science basics; asking them to deal critically with the finer points (ie-the cutting edge) is silly when they have neither the background nor the skills. Critical analysis can be taught, but not by faking a controversy where there is none, or inflating debate over the finer points into a debate about the central idea. My students have enough on their hands learning basic science.

Self-validation has always been the keystone of our dear darwinists.

Does anyone here agree with this?

This is the sort of middle ground that is out there... this is off of the "Discovery Institute" website FAQ.

Is it just hogwash to cover their asses?

To David B. Benson and KL:

I think we all agree that no one, especially anti-evolution activists, wants high school students to learn college level critical analysis.

Of course any interested high school student could seek out that information on his own time. One of the things he will learn, if he doesn't uncritically process anti-evolution misinformation first, is that those who do critically analyze evolution (bio majors in college and beyond) are much more likely to accept it than those who don't.

Frank J wrote:

A sure-fire way to know that a promoter of "critical analysis" wants no such thing is if he singles out evolution, either alone or with one or two other topics (e.g. global warming) that political extremists obssess over.

Hmmm...when we "critically analyze" our accounts of history, and discover that Columbus actually "invaded" the New World, or that the US over the years hasn't acted honorably in some circumstances (this in contrast to what MY history or social studies texts used to say, since they were written from a Eurocentric viewpoint) or that Spanish missionaries committed atrocities in the name of God, who has a triple fit? The same groups that would like us to present alternatives to evolution, global warming, etc.

Frank J --- A typical complaint regarding engineering students in college is that they cannot engage in 'problem solving'. This is being addressed via 'senior design' classes. Dunno how successful this is, but employers seem to want it.

I'd love to see greater attention in high school to 'critical analysis', especially in regard to the social science topics that others have mentioned. I am pessimistic regarding the success of such an attempt, due to the above mentioned direct experiences...

How about us civilians? My contribution is to raise kids that embrace math and science as much as soccer and bicycle riding ;)

My kids only being 10 and 7 my numbers are a bit low....

I've attended: 168 youth soccer games, 12 school music programs, 4 Math & science nights, 5 trips to a planetarium.

Glad I can help :)

What about your webpage output? No posts in 5 days? Is this a website or a still-life?

Sorry. I've been dealing with some issues with the TalkOrigins Archive. Not sure about the rest of the contributors.

Siamang,

It's the end of the semester/quarter and a lot of our contributors are busy doing real life things like grading.

Siamang, our big recent enemy was Intelligent Design. ID was a frankenstein, stitched together from scientific sounding jargon and bits of old creationist arguments, animated by a bolt of jesus. Clumsy and error-prone, a bad idea from the beginning, it was beaten to death in a courtroom about a year ago. Until the creationists can figure out how to revive the corpse, we just don't have much to do.

Well, to extend the metaphore- ID will stagger on as a zombie.

Alot of former PT contributers now have their own blogs that run ads and pay them for writing. Plus the last internecine battle triggered by Ed Brayton has probably cooled a number of people toward contributing.

Another aside:

I'm all for leaving threads open for as long as anybody here has anything to contribute.

But we'd cut a fair few spammers off at the knees if the thread owners would eventually close down stale threads.

Maybe, as a rule of thumb, come back and check your old thread on a one-time, quick-in-and-out, basis a month or so after the thread has dropped off the front page. If there's no new relevant comment, or only a few offers to hook us up to some nice product or other, or the meaningless "I'm getting paid for a link" Nice site! comments from an unknown screen-name, it's probably time to lock the thread down.

I don't appreciate jostling for bandwidth on our always-cranky interface with some spammer or other...

Of course, probably the spammers don't appreciate jostling for bandwidth with me...!

Why is everyone being so defensive? Where is it written that you may never go 5 days without a new essay? When I come across something worth posting, I shall post it.

Re #148460 --- Steviepinhead speaks my mind...

Cgraham (from a recent visit to Tara's page just below):

How about going trolling -- er -- fishing? There might be other potentially friendly blog-planets that could be enticed to join the conversation, say around the issue of strategies.

Q: How could those friendly with or at least tolerant of theists join together with some help for clergy who want to tap their vast, untapped pew-sitters for some education that might create a wave going the other direction against the dogmatic fundies? I know several high-school and college science teachers who also (hold your breath) go to church.

Q: Who out there might share their expertise with soccer-moms and 4-H dads with some help in basic science projects outside of schools? How about home-schoolers who want to avoid the fundy approach in curriculum content?

Q: Where does it say that you folks who can talk science-ese in your sleep couldn't use some help in learning how to talk with folks who might be friendly but don't know a swimming pool from a gene pool?

Q: Anybody want to hook up with non-science institutions to publish a basic series aimed at any or all of the above?

These may be really silly suggestions, but I'll bet my ignorance against your knowledge that you could play around with some other strategies for increasing science awareness among non-scientists -- and have fun doing it. It just seems to me that the blogosphere might be a great place to increase resources and invent new strategies. Cgraham

Well, you know what they say.

Slow and Steady Steve wins the race.

Cgraham: I suggested to the university that I am loosely associated with that they produce the scientific equivalent to gospel tracts to leave in bus depots, coffee shops etc. It seems they would probably print them if I did the writing and distribution. (I'd better get writing. Unfortunately I live a 2-hour drive away.)

You might be interested to know my father-in-law was a zoologist who turned into an Anglican minister (he tended to have joint United parishes in rural Canada - he called himself an Anglicated Unican). I'm told he often managed to bring zoological examples into his sermons.

Siamang, our big recent enemy was Intelligent Design. ID was a frankenstein, stitched together from scientific sounding jargon and bits of old creationist arguments, animated by a bolt of jesus.

— Steve S

SMgr: Has anyone ever compiled a list of specific predictions about evolution in papers like these along with the supporting evidence eventually found? That would be something else the ID crowd would have difficulty replicating..

There are a lot of good texts out there with good inquiries and labs but there is precious little about the people who discovered what we call the basics, what challenges they were working on, what we can know from their discoveries and etc. The way to make them engage is to mix it up with stories.