Well, suffice it to say, a comet did not hit the earth, as self-described expert Eric Julien had predicted for May 25.  As NASA and most other sane observers realized, the alleged perpetrator passed by the earth some six million miles away about ten days earlier, sending no rogue fragments toward the Atlantic Ocean, as Julien had warned.

Interestingly, Julien’s posse of supporters gradually abandoned him as the cometary impact date approached, perhaps put off by his near manic insistence of being to able to predict comet trajectories better than the world’s astronomers and his seeming ignorance of the laws of physics.

Exopolitics.org, which had championed Julien’s prognostications, distanced themselves from him with a lengthy open letter to site visitors, and George Noury of Coast to Coast AM also averred on air that perhaps Julien was a teeny bit wrong about this whole comet caper.
Julien, for his part, still seems conviced that something significant will happen sometime around the 25th of May, and his new site suggests that a fragment may have hit, but the impact is being kept hush-hush by the powers-that-be.

Whatever. Why can’t these psychics/channelers/astrologers/alienwatchers just admit they’re wrong?

May 26th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Astronomy | Leave a comment

Self-appointed celestial collision expert Eric Julien has predicted a cometary catastrophe for May 25. Meanwhile, the alleged attacker, which made its closest approach Sunday, is passing by Earth a fairly safe 6 million miles away.

If you want to spy Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 and are an early riser, you can pick it out with a good pair of binoculars and a small telescope in the constellation Pegasus in the east around 4 am. Look above Venus, which will be a bright star-like object near the horizon. (Diagram courtesy of  www.spaceweather.com.)

May 16th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Astronomy | Leave a comment

I blogged about this anti-evolution debate way back when. Tom Ritter is a fellow high school physics teacher in Annville, Penn., who challenged a pro-evolution expert — any expert — to debate Ritter publicly. The Constitution Party of Pennsylvania is the sponsor of the debate.

After deadlines came and went, it seemed as if the debate would fizzle out, but Tony Whitson, who teaches graduate courses at the University of Delaware School of Education, came forward and will debate Ritter on Thursday. The Lebanon, Pa., Daily News has the details.
Under the terms of the debate, each participant puts $1,000 into the pot and the winner takes all. A jury of high school students will determine who wins the debate.

Ritter will argue that evolution is a matter of faith, not science, and that as such science teachers should be allowed to teach alternative explanations for the development of life. Whitson, while not a biologist, is a member of the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has the chops to argue that evolution is in fact a science and the only valid explanation for life’s development.

Oddly, the Constitution Party has nothing about the debate on its website, although the party promised an announcement about it late last month. For what seems to be a victory for them and Ritter, they seem to be very closemouthed about it. I was rather hoping people out there would just ignore the Party and Ritter and let the issue  die a peaceful death. Little of great significance will be accomplished during this debate, although the event may be a big thing for the local community. Whitson may in fact sway some members of the audience into accepting evolution.

May 15th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

While the real world worries about the avian flu and Mideast politics, one self-proclaimed expert says he has seen visions of a cosmic catastrophe that will make flu and oil worries irrelevant.

Eric Julien says a piece of comet will hit the Atlantic Ocean on May 25, creating tsunamis and earthquakes. He says messages from aliens and a 1995 crop circle lead him to believe that the impact will wipe out our civilization and kill millions of people.

Humbug.

Julien (also known as Jean Ederman) has managed to combine real science with his own peculiar imagination to concoct a tragedy that can only appeal to those poor souls who distrust real scientists and trust ufologists.

Julien’s only claims to expertise in space science are a series of UFO books and a career in the French air force. He also channels messages from aliens. Julien claims he has studied the orbital path of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, which has an orbital period of approximately 5.5 years.

Space scientists are also interested in 73P, because the comet split into several pieces in 1995. These fragments — at last count there were 18 — are due to pass through Earth’s neighborhood in mid-May, somewhat earlier than Julien predicts. NASA scientists say the closest approach to Earth of any piece of 73P will be nearly 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) on May 14. By comparison, the moon is 384 000 kilometers (240 000 miles) away, so by those figures the comet fragments will miss by a country mile.

April 23rd, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Astronomy | Leave a comment

Two small-potatoes news items demonstrate that the on-going attacks on evolution are not over, despite the substantial legal defeat of intelligent design in Pennsylvania.

The two events are minor in scope and media coverage, compared the Dover, Pa., school controversy, but they highlight the tenacity of anti-evolutionists.

One, coincidentally in Pennsylvania, involves a public school science teacher proposing a public debate on whether evolution is science or a faith, since it is atheistic. (Their words, not mine!)

The other, in Lancaster, Calif, involves “teaching the controversy” about evolution in the local public schools, by allowing student challenges and questions about evolution in class.

Both developments demonstrate the level of obfuscation anti-evolutionists reach in their war on science.

Tom Ritter teaches high school chemistry and physics at Annville-Cleona High School in Annville, Pa. Last month, he and the Constitution Party of Pennsylvania announced they would stage a debate in May between Ritter and a challenger on whether evolution is a science or a faith.

The exact wording of the resolution is convoluted, which might explain why no one has yet taken up the challenge, despite the possibility of winning a $2,000 pot. The party is also offering a $500 finder’s fee, the deadline for which ends tomorrow.

The question reads, “Unless the teacher acknowledges an alternative, teaching materialistic evolution as an explanation for the origin of life, the variety of sexual species or the existence of the human mind is an article of faith.”

April 6th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic, Science | Category: Commentary | Comments (2)

If we are to believe William Dembski, our local expert in intelligent design, the theory of evolution is on its way out. Within the next decade, he says, evolution will be dead.

Dembski, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville, made this astounding prediction in an Associated Press article published in Sunday’s Lexington Herald-Leader.

Needless to say, evolution as a theory is not anywhere close to being dead, or even knocked out, but among the ID folk, I guess hope reigns supreme.

In the article, Dembski offers little convincing evidence for his claim, other than saying that evolution cannot supply answers about how life evolved on Earth. He suggests that patterns in biological systems “point us to intelligence.”

Now I may be wrong about this, but I thought evolution was all about how life evolved on Earth. For the vast majority of scientists who accept the theory, it seems to have done a pretty good job of explaining how life has evolved. There is a ton of evidence supporting its validity as a scientific theory, as well.

For those subscribing to the ID dogma, however, evolution lacks that one critical ingredient, the inclusion of an external “intelligent” influence that has directed the development of life on Earth. They stop short of calling that influence divine, preferring the word designer instead, but the proposition is still unscientific.

April 3rd, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, our governor’s views about intelligent design have not endeared him to writers of science blogs. Just what Kentucky needs — negative publicity that reinforces the national impression of Kentuckians as backwoods rubes.

The Kentucky Academy of Science in December issued a press release to explain its opposition to teaching intelligent design in the public schools. Fletcher responded with a letter supporting ID and explaining why it should be taught. The text of both documents are at The Panda’s Thumb.

Careful readers may find Fletcher’s letter repeats the same arguments about ID that were in his State of the State address in January. In fact, some are verbatim repetitions of that address. I’m not sure what to conclude about the similarities, other than Ernie is just recycling them. Politicians don’t waste words, you know.

Right after the address, I drew up a rebuttal to the pro-ID arguments, and submitted them to the LEO. They did nothing with them, so here they are. Ah, the power of self-publication …
::
OK, class. For today’s lesson in logic, we are going to analyze this segment of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s State of the Commonwealth address on Jan 9. How many fallacies in the argument can you find?

“As I close, let me recognize Kentucky’s veterans. You have served to protect our liberty and the freedom that spurs our quality of life in this nation. Please know that this administration is committed to supporting you.

March 7th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic, Science | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

I quote from the Kentucky Revised Statutes (thanks to Future Geek for pointing these out):

In re: public schools

February 15th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

Ohio, which borders our fair Commonwealth, has come to its senses and rejected the attempts by Intelligent Design advocates to weasel ID into the public school science curriculum. The Ohio Board of Education voted, 11-4, to remove a pro-ID lesson plan and pro-ID science standards from the state curriculum.

The board had a month earlier voted, 9-8, to retain the material, which essentially gave ID proponents a way to introduce discussion of ID as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

Reactions, as they say, were mixed. From The New York Times:

Darwin’s defenders celebrated the reversal as a sign of a backlash against the inroads made last year by critics of evolution. But leaders of the Discovery Institute, the intellectual home of intelligent design, warned that Ohio’s move would create a backlash of its own.

“It’s an outrageous slap in the face to the citizens of Ohio,” said John G. West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the institute, referring to several polls that show public support for criticism of evolution in science classes.

“The effort to try to suppress ideas that you dislike, to use the government to suppress ideas you dislike, has a failed history,” Mr. West said. “Do they really want to be on the side of the people who didn’t want to let John Scopes talk or who tried to censor Galileo?”

February 14th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic, Science | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment