My name is Michael Hawkins and I am, for all intents and purposes, a graduate of the University of Maine system with a degree in Biology, Liberal Studies, and a minor in Philosophy. (If you want to get technical, I have one outstanding class that I’m 99% sure my university has intentionally scheduled to conflict with my availability over the past several years. I’m taking it in the spring of 2013.)
I am currently working on an NSF-funded study looking at the effects of wild turkeys on Maine agriculture. Wild turkeys can carry with them a number of zoonotic agents which may infect livestock and humans. In addition, the health of wild turkey populations is of interest to recreational hunters and, largely for economic reasons, state wildlife management. Relatively little has been done in terms of turkey populations in New England, so this study may prove regionally useful.
This blog is devoted to evolution, atheism, civil rights, and whatever else tickles my fancy. It is geared towards defending the underlying theme of all of biology against the insult of creationism, ignorance, and misinformation. Also, sometimes I will use the British spelling of words, like “towards”. But most importantly, this blog is about science. First and foremost, science is the best way of knowing. It deserves a place high within any society. For the Sake of Science is here to fight against its undue degradation.
It is incredibly difficult to get banned here, so don’t come crying to me when someone upsets you. Especially if I’m the one who did it. I will basically only ban for spam or trolling. For the one and only example (that wasn’t a bot), see Mark Lindholm. He was allowed to be a scrote for some time, but then he spammed the hell out of the place, cluttering up the Recent Comments widget. This joke was literally on FTSOS more than I was. He was initially only held in moderation so that other comments and discussions could be clearly seen in the widget, but then he assumed he was banned (despite being told otherwise) and circumvented his moderation. In turn, he actually was banned from posting (and embarrassing himself). (What’s more, he lied about discussions had elsewhere. That isn’t disallowed – if he wants to pretend he doesn’t believe anecdotal evidence is valid scientific evidence, something he has actually said multiple times, I won’t stop him – but it did make the banning rather easy to do.)
There is a five-link limit per post. If you have more links than that in a post, it will automatically be caught by the spam filter and I may see it. Give me some time to find and approve it. If it doesn’t show up in short order, I can be contacted at forthesakeofscience@gmail.com.
For a less snarky version of FTSOS, try Nothing But Science.
