The Disco ‘tute, the ironically described think tank for intelligent design, loves to crow about how there are basic controversies in evolutionary science and that makes it all wrong. However, in the real world, we know that the mouthpieces at DI are overly fond of lying, as has been shown so many times that it should set the whole world’s collective pants on fire.

But there are real controversies in evolution, as there are in any science. An article in ars technica by biologist John Timmer talks briefly about some real issues in evolution, enough to give you a taste of what’s real, as opposed to what the jabbering heads at DI froth over.

Don’t let the antiscientists fool you. As we real scientists who fight them like to say, just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we don’t know anything. And we know a heckuva lot more than they do.

Tip o’ the flagellum to BABloggee and cool cartoon artist Matt Andrews.

I got an email from writer Paul McNamara about my recent comments complaining about shoddy journalism when it comes to UFO reports. Turns out he wrote a list of 10 reasons not to believe in UFOs, and while it’s a tad snarky it really hits the high notes.

To his list, I’ll add my #1 reason of all time: why don’t amateur astronomers report them in record numbers? After all, who spends more time looking at the sky? The fact that few if any amateurs report them is a pretty clear case that the vast majority, at least, of all UFO reports are misunderstood mundane objects like airplanes, satellites, reflections, meteors, and Venus. Sometimes even the Moon, amazingly.

When a flying saucer lands on the White House lawn, someone call me.

The folks at the NSCE and Expelled Exposed have done it again: made a great instructional video about evolution. This one is how an eye can evolve, and is so easy to understand that it should be shown to every single school student in the country, and indeed the world.

Chalk this one up to hard-to-believe: a substitute teacher in Florida lost his job in part because of a magic trick.

As reported by Channel 10 in Tampa, Jim Piculas did a magic trick where he makes a toothpick disappear and reappear. What happened next? The principal called him up to the office and told him he was being accused of — wait for it, wait for it — wizardry.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Now, to be fair, this looks like an excuse on the part of the principal or other Powers That Be to get rid of Piculas, whom they accuse of breaking other rules (accusations, Piculas claims, he never heard previously). But let’s be clear: they were still using wizardry (wizardry!) as an excuse to ditch the guy.

Teh stoopid! It hurts!

At first I was having a hard time thinking this story was true, but then realized it happened in Florida. I’m surprised they didn’t burn him.

And someone better tell Randi. They might have to nuke his whole house from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

During the live video chat on Sunday, I was asked a good question: why don’t nebulae, gas clouds in space, dissipate? What holds them together?

Here’s my answer:

The basic answer is: gravity. The clouds aren’t like clouds on Earth, or balloons filled with air; nebulae are immense objects with vast amounts of mass. Their own gravity holds them together, and can even cause them to collapse and form stars. And wouldn’t you know it, this goes against claims made by creationists that stars can’t form from gas clouds, so I included that as well in the video.

The images in the video, if you’re curious, are of the Orion Nebula (seen here too), very young stars forming in the Orion Nebula, and an artist’s drawing of a young planetary system still forming.

In the maybe-next-time-you-should-actually-interview-people-before-hiring-them scenario, an English lecturer at Dartmouth went ballistic (link goes to the WSJ, ewww, sorry about that) when students questioned her suppositions.

Mind you, we’re only getting one side of the story, and that side is from the Wall Street Journal, which still thinks we’re being too easy on Iraq. Also, it opens with this anti-intellectualism line:

Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world.

Why do neocons hate smart people? Oh, I bet I can venture a guess.

Still and anyway, the story makes a good point. The lecturer appears to be something of a post-modern lunatic. The line of win is:

Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”

You can guess how I feel about that. Scientific facts do reflect natural reality. Of course they do! That’s what they are. I’d love to see her scientific background.

Maybe she can get a job with the Disco ‘tute, if they’re not already burgeoning to overflowing with Expelled teachers. But then, she chose to sue Dartmouth, and DI tends to cut and run when faced with actual lawsuits.

If anyone has any more info on this case, please feel free to link to it in the comments. I’d like to know more; she does sound nutty, but I have to also account for the source of this info.

And incidentally, I do get ragged on by commenters who think I am some sort of far-left liberal goofball, but perhaps they should save it for people who really are way over on the rive gauche.

Tip o’ the deconstructionist hegemonistic mortarboard to Fark. Typical childish taunts ensue in that link, duh, but some funny ones too.

From PZ comes word that the creationists in the Louisiana state legislature are still trying to ram teh stoopid through the system to become state educational law.

Barbara Forrest, one of the Heroes of Dover, is fighting this garbage with everything she’s got, and one thing she’s got is us. If you live in Louisiana, please please please contact your representatives and talk to them about this. Barbara has all the information you need; she’s written a summary of the bill as well as a series of talking points for you.

Mind you, this is for Louisiana residents only for now. She may need all our help eventually, but for now this is a state issue.

Man. Whack-a-creationist is a game that never ends. As Barbara herself says:

The children and teachers of Louisiana are being used as pawns by the Louisiana Family Forum and, most likely, the Discovery Institute, about which I have written so extensively. These people will assuredly not be around to clean up the wreckage they will leave in their wake if we don’t stop them. We have to stop them.

Otherwise: