{"id":1448,"date":"2011-12-16T15:16:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T19:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2011-12-16T15:58:22","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T19:58:22","slug":"a-sad-day-for-intellectualism-and-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1448","title":{"rendered":"A Sad Day for Intellectualism and Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hitchens <\/a>\u00c2\u00a0died yesterday after a long fight with esophageal cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure\u00c2\u00a0some of us would not agree with many of his thoughts on politics or religion,however we can all agree, he was a staunch advocate of science and science education. Hitchens\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0spoke out against creationism (refusing to use the phrase Intelligent Design) and wrote many articles pointing \u00c2\u00a0out the obvious flaws in its idea.\u00c2\u00a0In his last essay, “How blind salamands make nonsense of creationist claims”\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Hitchens shows\u00c2\u00a0the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a huge influence in the media with\u00c2\u00a0the mastery of\u00c2\u00a0 logical argument. Science and intellectualism has lost a great ambassador<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hitchens \u00c2\u00a0died yesterday after a long fight with esophageal cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure\u00c2\u00a0some of us would not agree with many of his thoughts on politics or religion,however we can all agree, he was a staunch advocate of science and science … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-nm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=269","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":0},"title":"Everything I needed to know about physics I learned from Hollywood","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"No, not really. But that does seem to be the case for many people. Of course, there are plenty of areas where audiences can draw a clear line between entertainment and reality. Superman shooting heat rays from his eyes? I think everyone would agree that is fantasy. But there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "On the Web"","block_context":{"text":"On the Web","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2849,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2849","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":1},"title":"This is not “needless fretting”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"An editorial was published in a few papers recently, including the Gainesville Sun, opining that Florida's new instructional materials law isn't something to get all worked up about:\u00c2\u00a0Needless fretting over textbook law. The doomsdayers among us believe Scott and the measure\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supporters have thrust open an educational Pandora\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box, exposing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Instructional Materials bills '17"","block_context":{"text":"Instructional Materials bills '17","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=32"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1254,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1254","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":2},"title":"Evolution targeted in newspaper commentary","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know who Paul James is, but he wrote a newspaper commentary for the Palm Beach Post about evolution. Judging from the title \"Evolution doesn't answer all of science's questions\", it is already evident that the writer isn't the most knowledgeable person in matters of science. Of course, James\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1254#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=23","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":3},"title":"Tackling Evolution Challenges at Museums and Parks","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a good story that shows the fight to defend science happens in places beside the classroom and politics. The vast majority of scientists agree that intelligent design (ID) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the belief that the complexity of life is evidence that something intelligent must have designed it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is not a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=331","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":4},"title":"We know what one vote will be now …","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Before I begin, let me give a brief recap of what's going on for anyone just joining us. Florida's state science standards for public schools is currently going through a revision process. The current standards are a miserable mess, having been given a grade of F by the Fordham Institute.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1079,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1079","url_meta":{"origin":1448,"position":5},"title":"More This & That","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"-- National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (the \"mag lab\") folks in Tallahassee offer lunchtime tours of their facilites. So far, the tour program is getting a good response. More info on the tours found here. -- A University of Florida graduate hasn't packed her bags for the red planet yet,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1079#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}