THIS SEEMS FAMILIAR

Lately, I've seen a lot of oblique arguments sent my way aimed at evolutionary theory: you know, it doesn't always make good predictions, it has a high margin of error, etc. One would get the impression that this is somehow news, or that the economists and engineers are pointing out some problems that biologists are unaware of. How sweet of them.

But, believe me, the ANOVA scenario above is brutally familiar to young biologists who want to devote themselves to publishable research. What actually goes into the literature has to survive intense scrutiny: it's not the actual science that these creationists are troubled by, it's the popularizations of science that they prefer to read (and, typically, misinterpret) that get their panties in a knot.

By the way, Jorge Chan's comic strip Ph.D is a hoot. Check it out!