Attacks on ideas...

I've been unable to blog as frequently as I would have liked: alas, blogging and research still appears to be a zero-sum game for me in terms of time. The attacks on evolution, science and the academic sphere have become a lot shriller, with spectacles like people at the Discovery Institute (the home base for (un)intelligent design) now deigning to take on Einstein (read Sean Carroll for a lip-smackingly satisfying thwack). What is saddest is this account from the Scientific American editors' blog, that starts:

Last night I had dinner with more than a dozen presidents of private and state universities, and it became one of the most frustrating and disappointing evenings of my professional life. It gave me reason to question the leadership to be expected from the universities on one of the most significant issues of science education in the U.S.

Scientists are too busy doing science to step up and defend the field, and political organizations are attempting to view science through the tired left-right polarized lenses that pass for public discourse. If university presidents can't step up to the plate, who will ?

Tags: evolution, ID