Fundamentalist Exams on par with A-levels?

The iTunes store has a new Creationist Claims Index app, which at 99 cents might just be the thing I should recommend to my students as I begin teaching Intro Bio (Bio 1B) next week. I just hope I don't have to keep turning to it myself too often. I also wonder if this might have helped last year when I had a creationist grad student in my very lab?! I do have and recommend the paperback version, but having it handy one a phone might have helped others in the lab who got into head-scratchingly odd conversations with that student.

I've been away from this blog, and blogging in general, for a while with grant deadlines and end of semester issues for the past some weeks, but am beginning to catch up again as the holiday break is about to begin. This place looks much nicer since the last time I wrote here - thank you Martin for really sprucing up the joint! I look forward to exploring the new features, and to contributing a bit more often. For now, while taking a break from grading (or is it marking for folks in the UK?) exams and term papers, I want to share something I played a small part in the making of, something you might find useful if you encounter creationism much in your daily lives.

Quick straw poll. You're going to bring out a new edition of "On The Origin of Species", but to differentiate it from all the other editions, and to give some background to the sociopolitical ramifications of the theories of natural selection & shared descent, it is decided to have a new foreword by a leading scholar in the field.

So - who do you pick?

A debate between creationist Ray Comfort and YouTube personality thunderf00t. Comfort comes across a bit clueless at times, but I really like this conversational style of debate - it works much better on video than traditional moderated debates with an audience.