What a week for trying to walk, talk, learn and think at the same time!

First, our 10-year-old son is listening to NPR in the car when he's riveted by news of an important fossil discovery linking fish and land creatures, a so-called tetrapod, lifeforms that left the water to walk on land.

He isn't interested in the news or politics, although he just
discovered Stephen Colbert and gets some of the comedy. He likes the
split screen where the contradictory wisecracks are on the right as
Stephen pontificates on the left. It reminds him of the wisecracking
moose commentary on the Brother Bear DVD.

But yesterday in the car, he suddenly wanted us to turn it up, so
he could hear all about the new fossil link. That was the first really
interesting "news" worth hearing, he proclaimed, but there wasn't enough
to the story. (He actually said this, exactly that way, pronouncing
judgment like a seasoned media critic.)
Intense investigation ensues when we can get online, after which my little boy, who has never been made to think about anything, hugs me with a goofy grin and says, "Hello, my fellow tetrapod!"
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Blogging with Lorraine about truth and lies, and whether we have the wisdom to know the difference, I commented that moms understand how children construct meaning that is both truth and lie, or to be more accurate, meaning for which the labels "truth" or "lie" have little or no meaning!

. . .just ask a child who ate the last cookie, or why his dog suddenly has a bald patch and where are the scissors?! The answers will depend (most passionately!) on what the child believes you may believe, and what he or she WANTS to believe, and not much on evidence, objectivity or looming jurisprudence.

Then this morning, I came across a book review of "Real Kids: Creating Meaning in Everyday Life" in which Susan L. Engel apparently pleads with us to be at least as interested in the ways that children think, their thought processing if you will, as we are in their outcomes or achievements.

(And JJ pleads with citizens everywhere to reject the lie that society's Job One is to label the natural thinking processes of children as some unnatural problem or other, the better to impose years of beating the devil out of them and/or professional intervention in the name of national security and all that is holy.)

Engel argues that children's play
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Yesterday, PZ Meyers , and a slough of other "pro-science" bloggers received this "survey" from an IDiot at Telic Thoughts:

For the purpose of this survey, "creationism" will be defined as "a belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible" (source: Dictionary.com). "Evolution" will be defined as "the theory that all modern life forms are derived from one or a few common ancestors via descent with modification".

Please answer the following:

On which points are intelligent design and creationism identical?

A. Both creationism and intelligent design require one to have a particular interpretation of the Biblical creation account.
B. Both creationism and intelligent design require one to accept a particular age of the Earth and of the universe.
C. Both creationism and intelligent design require one to reject evolution.
D. Both creationism and intelligent design identify the Christian God as the creator.
E. Both creationism and intelligent design hold that there is an intelligence behind certain features of nature.
F. There are no points of similarity between creationism and intelligent design.
G. None of the above options accurately describe the relationship between creationism and intelligent design.
(Please check all that apply.)

Krauze (the author of this survey) say's that s/he (dunno it's gender, don't care) is trying to gather "sociological data" about what "defenders of evolution" (the rest of us call them scientists) "preception about ID. Well, Krauze may be thinking s/he's collecting sociological data, but s/he certainly doesn't know the first thing about doing so, and as a, you know, real sociologist, I'm a bit fussy.
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