Science Fail #4

Fail #4 refers to an editorial published in the Idaho Press-Tribune. It is copyrighted, so you will need to follow the link to the article, or you can just take my word that it is some amazingly stupid stuff. Much of it refers to old arguments that even Creationist are embarrassed to have even supported.

Evidence doesn’t support theory of evolution

[Via Greg Laden's Blog]


Bonus Section:

The award for the most unexpectedly non-sequitur comment in response to a a science article goes to ...

Morp: I observed an inverse reaction .When pigs call loudly for food you can silence them instantly and for a while by blowing a trumpet   [Found on SCIAM]

Um ... OK ... I don't doubt it ... but ... you play the trumpet to pigs???

Science Fail #3

This is a second-hand fail, but still a winner loser. This was posted by RetiredSciGuy in the comments on the Sensuous Curmudgeon post: Theocratic Terror in the Classroom. The Curmudgeon is always a good read. Now prepare for failure!

RetiredSciGuy writes ...

I didn’t have any aggressively ignorant students trying to bait me into a science vs. religion discussion while I was teaching. Had some interesting conversations with a few parents during parent-teacher conferences, though. One that particularly stands out was a mom who said, “We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we don’t believe in glaciers.”

Now that's what I call denial of the cold hard facts.

In an unrelated matter, if you read through the comments of another recent Curmudgeon post, you will learn that I have been appointed as Lord of the Outer Planets. Definitely the coolest thing to happen to me all week!

I haven't posted much lately - not quitting, just busy - and I refuse to be one of those silly bloggers that posts apologies for not posting.

Science Fail #2

This Science Fail shtick is harder than I realized. Apparently really good fails don't just grow on trees, and it took me much longer than expected to turn this up. For entry #2 I delved into this short SCIAM news article mentioning a historical climate warming event. Fortunately for me, most any mention of "climate" these days is very likely to bring out the worse in people.

"Without people there to destroy the vegetation in building houses and killing the animals for food,the plants would get very large and so would the animals. The larger the animals had to get to reach the top of the plants, the more the CO2, and both plants and animals put off a great amount of heat. From the large pools of oil and coal, we know that there were places where there was a lot of plants and a large number of animals - like at a watering hole. So that tells me that if you want to cut down on CO2 build up - don't let a lot of plants and a lot of animals hang out together." (link to source, currently comment #12)

The fun part is, the trolls and pundits are going hard at each other in the comments, so this might not even be the worst fail to be found there. I chose this one because it is not overtly political, and it is fails on so many levels. Where to begin? Zoology fail, Biology fail, Ecology fail, Geology fail, time-scale fail ... It's all good. 

Or it would be good, if "good" meant "fail".

Finally, a shout out to my friend NS at Science and Math Defeated. Thanks for the link, and back at ya!

See Science Fail #1.

Science Fail #1

I'm borrowing the schtick of another blogger, who has not been actively lately. I hope he won't mind?
The idea of a "Science Fail" is to post a statement comment that fails in a completely self-explanitory way. Editing on my part is not allowed; each quote must fail on its own merits, or lack thereof. Go see Dirty Harry's Science Fail blog for many shining examples.

So what is this, Reality Show science? Leave to the Americans to get data by blowing something up or smashing something into something else. Keep this up and someday the Moon will be as livable as East Baghdad. (link to source)

If only Terraforming were that easy!

Found on Sciam.com