Dispatches from the Culture Wars

This initiative was reported in my regional daily newspaper given two creationists are handing out the books at a nearby junior college.

I'm always interested in how mainstream media frames this issue. Here's a money quote:

Wiesner [one of the creationists distributing the book at this college] spent more than $300 on special edition versions of the book that include a 50-page introduction that instead supports the creationism-based theory of intelligent design.

I'm glad they correctly described ID as creationism. But we know IDC is not a scientific theory, so that's a misrepresentation favoring a religious notion while besmirching the standards required to become a scientific theory. In addition, I thought Comfort and Cameron were YECs, not Intelligent Design Creationists. Anyone know which religious notion they're promoting in this book?

In addition I read somewhere their edition actually was abridged where they removed key arguments that falsified creationism after Wallace and Darwin published on this topic, contrary to this paper's report it's an unabridged. I think I even read it was Darwin's observations regarding biogeography, which remains one of the most devastating findings falsifying creationism and IDC (and excellently covered by in Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True and in Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth. Anyone privy to which edition and whether that edition is abridged?

Posted by: Michael Heath | November 22, 2009 9:48 AM

According to Comfort , the "second printing of 170,000 copies" is unabridged but Euginie Scott has noted that it is "still missing a crucial diagram from Chapter 4 as well as the epigraphs from Bacon and Whewell, which Darwin chose with care."

As far as YECs using ID for cover, there's nothing surprising about that, given that is the reason ID was concocted in the first place.

Posted by: John Pieret | November 22, 2009 11:15 AM

Uncephalized:

You can find the complete text of all the editions of the Origin here.

Posted by: John Pieret | November 22, 2009 11:19 AM

@Michael Heath.
The interesting discovered by your local paper is that the guy spent $300 buying the books. They were given away, but seemingly not by Comfort and Cameron if this is anything to go by. Does it mean that the campaign has resulted in their followers buying an extra 120,000 copies from them, then?

Posted by: Brian Jordan | November 22, 2009 12:05 PM

umm Kirk Cameron is going to hell for lying:

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"

Posted by: leafs_fan_jd | November 22, 2009 1:20 PM

I caught a snippet of the "hip" fundie radio show called "Wretched Radio" that often features Comfort and Cameron last night, and the show's host was gloating about how Comfort had outsmarted the "atheists" by distributing "200,000 books" (the number keeps growing) two days before they had said they were going to. "As wise as a serpent" was the comment.

They had a couple of field reports, one from Kirk Cameron at UCLA and the other from the University of Georgia, but they really didn't say anything interesting, though they sounded a little disappointed that they didn't get much trouble from atheists. After all, how hard is it to give out a couple of thousand free books on a university campus. I have no doubt you could give out as many copies of Mein Kampf and the Satanic Bible without much problem.

They then began subjecting an atheist student to the usual "If you are not perfect don't you deserve Hell?" line of questioning but I gave up at that point.

The radio show is probably on their web site, but you're welcome to use Google if you really want to find it!

Posted by: tacitus | November 22, 2009 2:13 PM

The second edition is probably the best. By the sixth edition, Darwin was tying himself in knots trying to answer all of the objections of all of his critics, like a science writer trying to refute all the falsehoods and half-truths and fallacies a Gish Gallop.

Posted by: Monado, FCD | November 22, 2009 5:22 PM

This is just more proof that intelligent design creationism appeals to the scientifically illiterate, the ignorant and the gullible. Ray Comfort fits all criteria.

Posted by: Paul Burnett | November 22, 2009 9:30 PM

Android B: The pineapple was a post-Fall modification. Blame it on Adam & Eve.

Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 23, 2009 1:07 AM

re. #18: I think the banana was put there for "fun and games".

Posted by: fireweaver | November 23, 2009 1:38 PM