The creeping cancer of creationism is infecting Geological Society field trips: Paleontology began as, and largely remains, a sub-field of geology, but gets more press attention and public scrutiny than its parent discipline. Which is too bad, because the dearth of public interest in geology allows deceitful creationists some cover and makes it easier for them to lie to the public. Take this quote from six-million-dollar stone cold creationist
Steve Austin, one of the leaders of a recent GSA field trip: "these rocks were 'not normal deposits,' and likely formed as fast, liquefied and pressurized subaqueous mudflows during catastrophic flood flows." Sounds like science, right? But it's not, at least, not in context. Geology is slowly becoming the latest frontline in the battle between creationism and reality.
The bird-crocodile family tree appears to have split earlier than previously thought: This one speaks for itself. I've long suspected that archosaurs existed in the Permian -- logically, it makes perfect sense -- but as yet no one has found any fossils (keeping my fingers crossed) to bolster the case.
Did Stephen Jay Gould mismeasure man?: This one hits really close to home for me. Gould's
The Mismeasure Of Man was one of the formative texts of my paleo-consciousness, and remains one of the few evolution books I re-read on a regular basis. Now, it seems, he might have been wrong all along. Them's fighting words (rolls up sleeves...)!
The Gould on Morton paper is awesome - thanks so much for sharing! Gould's analysis of Morton has been cited as fact by many of my favorite histories of racist and racial thinking. Very surprising to have that analysis so forcefully overturned.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Humanimal. I'm still drying the tears from my eyes.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I found the closing paragraph oddly inspiring:
"That Morton's data are reliable despite his clear bias weakens the argument of Gould and others that biased results are endemic in science. Gould was certainly correct to note that scientists are human beings and, as such, are inevitably biased, a point frequently made in “science studies.” But the power of the scientific approach is that a properly designed and executed methodology can largely shield the outcome from the influence of the investigator's bias. Science does not rely on investigators being unbiased “automatons.” Instead, it relies on methods that limit the ability of the investigator's admittedly inevitable biases to skew the results. Morton's methods were sound, and our analysis shows that they prevented Morton's biases from significantly impacting his results. The Morton case, rather than illustrating the ubiquity of bias, instead shows the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts."