Watching lay Christians discuss evolution in the public arena is very frustrating for me. As I've stressed repeatedly here, evolutionary biology is some of the most fascinating and dynamic science to be found. But public discourse on the subject is strongly influenced by the antics of demagogues at places like the Discovery Institute, an organization that is committed to ensuring that as few Christians as possible will encounter the reality of evolutionary science.This, I think, is one reason why some of the finest work in all of biology is largely unknown to Christians who are otherwise convinced that they are qualified to pronounce a major scientific theory a categorical failure. A perfect example: the ongoing work on the evolution of corn and its relationship to its wild ancestor, teosinte. It doesn't get much better than that.
Back in October, I wrote an introduction to this great story, and covered just a little of the evolutionary biology involved. People liked the post a lot, and it got some nice attention in the blogosphere.
Now, the post has been honored with inclusion in the second edition of The Open Laboratory, a science blogging anthology edited by Bora (aka Coturnix) at A Blog Around The Clock on ScienceBlogs.
Woo hoo! Thanks to Bora and to Reed Cartwright, the guest editor of the 2007 edition, to the various judges, to The Panda's Thumb, ERV, and Pharyngula for the links that got the story into the larger blogosphere, and especially to John Doebley and his colleagues for assembling a world-class scientific story.
6 comments:
Congratulations, Steve!
Great stuff!
I've been reading here on/off for a while, courtesy of Matt Stone (I think. . .), and it's good to see that you're getting some recognition, as I think you're doing a difficult job very well.
(And yes, I'm in too!)
Hi, My name is John from Melbourne Australia.
Its good to see someone trying to counter the simplistic nonsense and essential dishonesty of the DI. Theres is essentially a political motive/exercise.
Please check out these refrences which ask the question how would you do science, or anything else, if you truly understood (and Realized) that everything (including "you"), and "dust" is just a modification of Conscious Light?
1. www.dabase.org/christmc2.htm
2. www.dabase.org/broken.htm
3. www.dabase.org/unique.htm
4. www.dabase.org/dht7.htm
Plus a reference on the absurdity of trying to prove that Real God exists--especialling by appealling to processes in nature. Ref#3 above also addresses this.
1. www.dabase.org/rgcbpobk.htm
Ummmmm......yeah.
How about if you discovered/Realized that time is a CUBE!!!?!?!?
Anyway, Congratulations, Steve. It was a great article.
Interesting stuff.
Thanks.
Hey all--
Thanks for the congrats. I like the teosinte story a lot, and I think I'll send John Doebley a copy of the anthology in thanks for giving me a great subject on which to blog.
John from Melbourne, thanks for stopping by. I glanced at the material in the links and found it incoherent. Plus it's really not my cup of tea. But thanks for your interest.
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