Today at Colliding Universes

Serious push to find more exoplanets (planets that orbit stars other than our sun)

Water inferred on Mars

Coffee Break: Scientist discovers two alternative universes

Well now, and what of Berlinski's Devils?

Alarm! Alarm! Critical thinking spotted in vicinity of threatened Pop Science Kludge

British physicist David Tyler muses, "Is critical thinking subversive to science?

The instinctive reaction of most people to this question is "Of course not! Without critical thinking, science is dead!" So when one of the leading science journals carries a report on the Louisiana bill promoting the development of "critical thinking skills" describing it as an "attack [. . .] on the teaching of evolution and mainstream scientific thought on global warming and other topics" - it is time to reflect on the reasons why.

It is indeed. And unfortunately, the answer isn't too hard to figure out.

As science morphs into a faux religion for tax-funded Bo-Bos (bourgeois bohemians, in David Brooks's immortal phrase), the Bo-Bos' witless neuroses become Unassailable.

So, whether the current freakout is the Big Bazooms theory of evolution or the "You Gonna Fry! You Gonna Die!" theory of climate change, the Bo-Bos do insist on being taken Seriously.

And they do NOT want critical thinking applied to the nonsense they have already charged.

Intelligent design and the arts?

Here and then here Dennis Wagner of Access Research Network talks about the ID Arts site which tracks the interface between intelligent design theory and popular culture.

The site is one of my own favourites because it gives me a chance to write about novels, movies, poems, et cetera, and here are some of my contributions:

Art

Major new find in early human art:

A sculpture of a mammoth and figures of other animals, the oldest ivory carvings ever found, dated to 35 000 years ago, shed another ray of light into early human culture. (Most existing artifacts are less than 5000 years old.):

Intelligent design and popular culture: Illustrations, cartoons, and spoofs

Literature

Rob Sawyer's Calculating God: A sci-fi novelist's look at the intelligent design controversy

From Darwin to Hitler: A clear path, though not an inevitable one

Poetry

Brain: find me those coconuts and pigs ... or else!

Film

Bella: A film loved and hated by all the right people

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy here: