Quoting Montaigne

Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen.

O RLY? Strange Owlet

Hedwig the Owl at Living the Scientific Life has lots of information and more pictures of this strange owlet that has been known only since 1976 and only now actually seen in the wild.

“The strange and extremely rare Long-whiskered Owlet, Xenoglaux loweryi, has been seen in the wild for the first time on a private conservation area in Northern Peru by researchers.

“The species is among the world’s smallest owls. It is so distinct that it has been named in its own genus: Xenoglaux, meaning ’strange owl’.”

Photo by Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN).

O RLY? owls

Books: Carl Zimmer’s "Evolution"

My weekend was taken up with family-related driving, the first long bike ride of spring, and country dancing; working on a dismal writing contract (1 week to go); and cooking and housework. Whenever I could fit in a minute I was dipping in to Carl Zimmer’s book Evolution, which is wonderful. It flows, it’s easy to understand, it’s exciting, it’s breezy: it rolls off the mind’s tongue like cream.

Hmmm, maybe we can become Zimmerites instead of “Darwinists.”

Michael Egnor revisited

This is a sampling of the blog posts inspired by Dr. Michael Egnor, speaking outside of his area of expertise and parroting Discovery Institute’s criticism and lies about evolution:

• Dr. Michael Egnor challenges evolution (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor: The evolution wars visit Eye on Science (Eye on Science, Michael D. Lemonick)
• Michael Egnor makes me slink away in shame for my profession (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon, challenges evolution (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Michael Egnor responds and falls flat on his face (Pharyngula)
• A math geek challenges Michael Egnor’s evasions (Good Math, Bad Math)
• Michael Egnor comes back for more (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor: Too Much Information [Theory] (Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge)
• Michael Egnor is on a list of anti-science, creationist doctors (Evolgen)
• Michael Egnor is a crappy neurologist (Evolgen)
• Nathan Bradfield thinks Michael Egnor is a top scientist (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Michael Egnor: more spin from anti-evolutionists (Eye on Science, Michael D. Lemonick)
• Michael Egnor: Medicine and Evolution Part 8 (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor: PZ, Egnor, and Luskin (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Mark Chu-Carroll debunks Michael Egnor (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Michael Egnor: evolution, information, and Hamlet (The Questionable Authority)
• Michael Egnor: surgery and the spread of cancer (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor – Gotta have more woo in my medical school (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor – how did I miss this contest? (Respectful Insolence)
• Just when I thought I could put away the paper bag, Michael Egnor… (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor, neurosurgeon and creationist (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor: Harry Potter called…. (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor has an interesting syllogism (Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge)
• Michael Egnor: career day at the Discovery Institute (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor on evolutionists in medicine (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor – let’s arrest the Discovery Institute (Good Math, Bad Math)
• Michael Egnor: word of the day–egnorance (Stranger Fruit)
• Michael Egnor, a final shot at (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor, thy name is train wreck (Respectful Insolence)
• What about antibiotic resistance doesn’t Michael Egnor understand? (Mike the Mad Biologist)
• Michael Egnor and why resistance matters (Mike the Mad Biologist)
• Michael Egnor, the Energizer bunny of antievolution (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor: basics: tautology (Good Math, Bad Math)
• I see stupid people, the Michael Egnor edition (Mike the Mad Biologist)
• Michael Egnor and natural selection (The Questionable Authority)
• Michael Egnor is at it again (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor, the gift that keeps on giving (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor: Discovery Institute distorts survey results (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
• Michael Egnor, It’s time to put up or shut up (The Questionable Authority)
• Michael Egnor: interconnections everywhere
• Michael Egnor’s pigheaded egnorance of antibiotic resistance (Good Math, Bad Math)
• Michael Egnor: the Egnor challenge, Day 2 (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor, Paleyist surgeon (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor – Sunday paleopathology blogging (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor: the Egnor challenge, Day 2 (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor – quick addition to responses to (Corpus Callosum)
• Michael Egnor: telling what people think (Thoughts from Kansas)
• Michael Egnor: the daily egnorance – the mind reels (Pharyngula)
• Michael Egnor: the Egnor challenge, Day 3 (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor on paleoneurology (Evolutionblog)
• Michael Egnor: the Egnor challenge, Day 2 (Afarensis)
• Michael Egnor: the individualization of medical treatment (Respectful Insolence)
• Michael Egnor and natural selection (Muara Teweh)
• Michael Egnor and intellectual incuriosity (Red State Rabble)
• Michael Egnor: it’s not brain surgery (Monkeygirl)
• Michael Egnor: brain surgeon challenges Darwinism (All-Too-Common Dissent)
• Michael Egnor: the real question is would you want Egnor… (Northstate Science)
• Michael Egnor (Greg Laden)
• Michael Egnor (Anomalous Data)
• Michael Egnor, irony department (Science Notes)
• Michael Egnor: from PZ re Michael Egnor, nut brain (Behavi)
• Michael Egnor and egnorance (Sunbeams from Cucumbers)
• Paging Michael Egnor: “Dogfight for Dr. Egnor” (Rock Star Ramblings)
• Michael Egnor: another IDer proves the point (Who is He?)
• Michael Egnor: he shouldn’t feel egnored (Thoughts in a Haystack)
• Michael Egnor inspires a great blog entry on tautologies (dunno260)
• Michael Egnor: Rushing river of stupid eugenics (Consipracy Factory)
• Michael Egnor: heads up, Mark CC – woo (Eclectics Anonymous)
• Michael Egnor: on origin of genetic code (Get Busy Livin’, or Get Busy Bloggin’)
• Michael Egnor (Migration)
• Michael Egnor: OK, Egnor, it’s time… (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor: He, Dr. Egnor, at least… (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor: and still more (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor: Dr. Michael Egnor… (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor responds (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor: egnorance combined with arrogance (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor is egnoring the data (Panda’s Thumb)
• Michael Egnor and backward nations (Thoughts in a Haystack)
• Michael Egnor and the Discovery Institute – if their lips are moving! (Red State Rabble)

Doctors should be like this one:

Science is a team sport

I’m shamelessly re-purposing this from a blog comment I made elsewhere.

Speaking of making it all up oneself, how many people worked on Dembski’s or Behe’s books? I was looking at Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale” this morning, reflecting that I’ve only blogged about 2 of our 45 ancestors, and noticed that he did not pull it all out from under his hat.

He credits two researchers, Yan Wong and Sam Turvey; critical readers Mark Ridley and Peter Holland; his editor, Latha Menon; Michael Yudkin, Mark Griffith, Steve Simpson, Angela Douglas, George McGavin, Jack Pettigrew, George Barlow, Colin Blakemore, John Mollon, Henry Bennet-Clark, Robin Elisabeth Cornwell, Lindell Bromham, Mark Sutton, Bethia Thomas, Eliza Howlett, Tom Kemp, Malgosia Nowak-Kemp, Richard Fortey, Derek Siveter, Alex Freeman, Nicky Warren, A. V. Grimstone, Allen Cooper, and Christine DeBlase-Ballstadt in his Acknowledgments. Others are acknowledged in the notes at the back of the book. He has an 18-page list of cited papers and reference books. The meat of the book is over 600 pages long. He didn’t just sit down and make up some rhetorical smart remarks. The book is packed with facts, new learning, charts, illustrations, and solid biological concepts along with evidence and discussion. It’s truly a tour de force.