Comments on: Press Clippings

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 09:17:39 +0000

Peter,

I don’t know PZ Meyers, so it’s entirely possible he has a blog devoted to ‘denying evolution’s documented effects on life and behaviour’. If you are thinking of PZ Myers, though, it’s hard to square your contention that his blog denies E.’s effects on L. and B. with the notion that you have ever actually read the blog. It’s true, PZ does spend a lot of time growling at IDists and bitch-slapping the godly. Happily, he has built in a ‘science articles only’ filter and, if you use it, you will soon discover that his blog doesn’t talk about much anything else then evolution and its effects on life and behaviour.

I will take it that your statement may be parsed as meaning ‘As a mere developmental biologist, Myers is obviously not qualified to comment on these matters, whilst I, as an undergraduate reading PPE who has internalised the rantings of Steve Sailer and the grubbier contributors to GNXP, am.’

By: Saint Fnordius

Saint Fnordius — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:10:52 +0000

About the Dean supporters:

I read it as such: 54% have a post-graduate degree, and approx 25% have a college degree, but not a post-graduate degree. That makes for a total of over 3/4. Sloppy wording , but still easily parsable.

Overly spun thingies like this make for things like the old “I am a jelly doughnut” joke about “ich bein ein Berliner” being a grammatical error. Guys like this are, to quote Michael Mittermeier, “gross gewordene AK-Kinder”.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 06:29:54 +0000

Oh, puhleez! Suggesting that PZ Meyers, whose whole blog is about denying evolution’s documented effects on life and behaviour, lecture others on Creationism would blow up Prof. Frink’s sarcasm detector faster than Comic Book Guy’s barbs.

By: Mary Kay

Mary Kay — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:51:57 +0000

Well, the survey certainly described ME to a tee. White, 40-59, never attend church, Iraq war was wrong, yes on same sex marriage, disapprove of Bush and critical of Democratic leadership, postgraduate degree etc. Describes my husband too—and yeah, I ‘d like to see him run again but hope Kerry stays the hell out. Conflicted on Gore.

MKK

By: BobbyV

BobbyV — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:30:58 +0000

Replacing evolution with intelligent design in their schools will ensure that Kansas remains at the bottom of our cultural gene pool.

By: albert

albert — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 20:40:37 +0000

Kieran-

You’re half way there: it’s Wichita. Common mistake.

By: Morat

Morat — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 18:39:29 +0000

See, it used the phrase “internet surveys” which immediately make me suspicious about the sample.

It DOES explain the demographics—white and educated—easily enough.

I’d like to see details of how the poll was done before I closed it out as ‘undoubtably not worth squat’, but that’s unlikely. I know Zogby’s experimenting with Internet polls but he has an edge—he knows the demographics of the population.

Since this was an attempt to [i]determine[/i] the demographics of the population, you can’t weight the thing to reflect reality. I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from this poll.

By: Alex Halavais

Alex Halavais — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 17:53:19 +0000

Sorry about that. I lacked closure.

By: Alex Halavais

Alex Halavais — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 17:52:40 +0000

Oops. The report from Pew is only marginally clearer. If you look past a strange sentence in the summary you find this later: “An overwhelming majority (79%) are college graduates; 41% have earned a graduate or professional degree.” Oh and by the way, 56% is not the same as 41% (I just checked), and so… ?

By: sidereal

sidereal — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 17:46:32 +0000

“Next in his sights, he said, is “keeping an eye on evolution”

I’m keeping an eye on it, too. The sad thing is that the Rev. Terry Fox of Wichita is being selected for.

By: joel turnipseed

joel turnipseed — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:45:33 +0000

Dean numbers are not surprising -- Christopher Lasch wrote about his supporters in depth some time ago.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:17:10 +0000

That’s Wichita, KS, by the way.

Whoops, fixed.

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:09:02 +0000

I think I want to be more the CEO type, and farm out the on-site treatment to my franchise-holders.

Maybe I could offer personal attention for an extra fee, though.

By: albert

albert — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:06:13 +0000

That’s Wichita, KS, by the way.