Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
It's been a couple years since the ID crowd tried to dredge up the fake Richard Sternberg martydom (not counting Expelled, but that's been quite a while now too), but the terminally ridiculous Jack Cashill takes yet another stab at it in a Worldnutdaily column. He's trying to equate the climategate nonsense with an entirely mythical conspiracy by scientists to hide the weakness of evolution.
There's hardly a sentence in the column that's accurate. I've answered all those false claims on this blog and in Skeptic magazine. In fact, it's really just a rehash of the same column he wrote almost 3 years ago, which I fisked at the time.
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Is there a creationist in existence who stops making the same false assertions after others have convincingly falsified those assertions? More importantly, is there a creationist who actually improved their process for accepting or rejecting premises when its revealed that they were promoting false assertions?
I have yet to encounter one who met either standard.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 6, 2009 9:33 AM
I actually agree with him. If scientists were able to right the peer review process with global warming and set up the Berlin Wall to prevent criticism against it, why couldn't they do the same thing with evolutionary theory. We have in fact, already seen that scientist don't allow honest criticsm of evolutionary theory in the movie "Expelled", regardless of if you believe in ID or just don't agree with a part of evolution.
Posted by: Steve S. (PA) | December 6, 2009 9:33 AM
I continue to stand in awe of WNDs ability to not just flog a dead horse but raise it from the dead and run it round the track again. Backwards.
Posted by: MikeMa | December 6, 2009 9:34 AM
Steve S @2,
Are you a fool in real life or do you just play one on blogs? If ID had produced one iota of peer reviewed evidence, real scientists would have considered it on it's merits.
There is no honest criticisms from the ID crowd. They are creationists. They lied about that to create and push ID in schools illegally. When Behe's irreducible eye was reduced, did they acknowledge that? Not a bit. Still spouting it as a cornerstone of their 'theory'. I quote 'theory' because unlike evolution, ID does not qualify as a theory in science, only in the small minds of the fools who want it to be so.
Posted by: MikeMa | December 6, 2009 9:53 AM
Steve: The premise of your statement is false, also you're a fucking moron if you think scientists don't allow honest criticism of, uh, anything.
See, the DI is absolutely all about dishonest criticism, and so are pretty much all of the major climate change denialists. But if you were to, say, look in the primary literature, you'd see criticism of just about everything - except for the basic facts which aren't in question anymore.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | December 6, 2009 9:55 AM
Shorter Mike Ralston:
Steve, you're a fucking moron.
Sorry, Mike Ralston, the rest of it sails over his head like a frisbee.
Hey! I'll bet the Creation Museum has all sorts of great swag in their giftshop. I wonder if instead of DI logoed baseball hats they sell dunce caps?
Posted by: democommie | December 6, 2009 10:20 AM
*shrug*
If creationistsdesignproponents weren't lying, they'd pretty much have nothing to say on the subject.
Posted by: Josh | December 6, 2009 10:24 AM
Steve S. @ 2 - the level of both gullibility and ignorance has to be measured at an incredulous rate to actually use the thoroughly falsified claims of Expelled to buttress one's arguments. Here is merely Scientific American's package of rebuttals noting what a sham this movie is and how grossly dishonest they are in representing both past and present scientists and their methods.
It's also pretty obvious Steve S. you didn't read Ed's links destroying the whole conspiracy myth around Stenberg either.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 6, 2009 10:28 AM
We have in fact, already seen that scientist don't allow honest criticsm of evolutionary theory in the movie "Expelled", regardless of if you believe in ID or just don't agree with a part of evolution.
Steve S. (PA), it's not really that at all. ID is a movement whose goal (ostensibly) is, either by law or by force or by "hissy fits" or by lying and raking in the cash, to make scientists stop leaving God out of all the scientific theories.
But they forget that it helps to have some evidence for something in order to have a good argument for not ruling it out. (That way scientists would know that indeed it may actually exist, and might not be some wild fantasy creature.) Some type of evidence other than pretending or talking to invisible "thingies" would be helpful if you want to see God in everyone's face all the flippin time even in freakin science class.
Posted by: 386sx | December 6, 2009 10:56 AM
democommie: I am aware, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt at least once. ;)
Also, there might be a lurker or two who'd like to see something more than a bald assertation of reality, so I tarted my assertations up a bit. :D
Posted by: Michael Ralston | December 6, 2009 11:04 AM
Steve S, based on this incomprehensible statement alone, why would you expect anyone to take the rest of your comment at all seriously?
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 6, 2009 11:23 AM
Steve S. (PA), ID is a scientific movement whose goal (ostensibly) is to make boards of education feel guilty and sad for "ruling out" things for which there is no evidence.
"You ruled out a priori you mean poopy-heads! Think of the unicorns!! For they are crying now. Sad, sad, unicorns and puppies..."
Posted by: 386sx | December 6, 2009 11:25 AM
Back when I was active in the evo/cre debating forums, I knew one who lived up to the former. He really did stop using arguments when they were refuted to his satisfaction. How much refuting that took varied, of course. Eventually, he left after abandoning YEC for OEC, which makes him a high point in creationism, as far as I'm concerned.
Sadly, I have nothing to offer in terms of the latter.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | December 6, 2009 11:40 AM
Need some help here, please, folks -
Something weird goes on when I try to read the original report, linked in Ed's 2006 post, Creating a Martyr: The Sternberg Saga Continues, linked from Ed's 2007 fisking post:
Ed’s post:
But, when I try to click on those links (disabled so I won't get held up in moderation purgatory), this is what happens:
Souter’s website:
???!!!
And when I go straight to the site and then do a site search for either “Smithsonian” or “Intolerance” (both words are in the report title), it comes back with “2 records returned” . . . while only showing one link?
What’s going on there? Am I blocked because I came from Dispatches? I’d like to read the source material. Or am I just missing something?
Posted by: marnk | December 6, 2009 2:19 PM
[sorry about the malfunctioning links - I tried to get rid of the automatically generated html "nofollow" when posting a link, but it wouldn't let me (tears hair out by the roots)
so, here are the URLs straight-up:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/12/creating_a_martyr_the_sternber.php
http://souder.house.gov/index.cfm (do a search using "Smithsonian")]
Posted by: marnk | December 6, 2009 2:23 PM
Sorry - found the report on his site (icon links to it), but still am persona non grata when trying to come through Dispatches links. Maybe it's just html phrasing is wrong/can be fixed?? Sorry AGAIN for hijacking thread... No more, I promise.
Link from Ed: http://www.souder.house.gov/sitedirector/~files/IntoleranceandthePoliticizationofScienceattheSmithsonian.pdf
vs
Link on site: http://www.souder.house.gov/_files/IntoleranceandthePoliticizationofScienceattheSmithsonian.pdf
Posted by: marnk | December 6, 2009 2:31 PM
Actually, Cashill is right to equate the two - they're both vacuous nonsense based on very little, if anything solid at all.
Posted by: Zmidponk | December 6, 2009 3:52 PM
I thought Steve S. (P.A.) was a Poe. Come on, no one can say anything nice about "Expelled" with a straight face.
What I really find hilarious is that you've got creationists/warmingdeniers on one side whining about how they're being mistreated by those horrible scientists, and on the other side you have less-than-mediocre scientists whining about how those nasty religious people (or denialist cartel) are preventing them from doing good science. I have yet to figure out how the religious groups affect grants and publications where the whiny mediocre scientists are involved, although there is no doubt they do hinder genuine scientists in many areas such as stem cell research, and in the case of whiny scientists complaining about the denialist cartel I can't see how the cartel can affect grants and scientific publications at all.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 6, 2009 4:22 PM
Well done, Steve! It's time someone had the courage to speak up and tell the Truth.
Slightly OT: perhaps you would be insterested in helping me. I have inherited some money form a dead uncle, but my uncle lived in Nigeria, you see, and the financial regulations in that country make getting the money quite difficult. However, with the help of a fellow Christian like you, things could go a lot easier, and there might be something in it for you. What do you say?
Posted by: Valhar2000 | December 7, 2009 6:48 AM
A few months after Ed wrote his original post on this topic, the html path structure changed. Replace "sitemaster/~" with "_" and the links will work again. Links below:
Report
Appendix
Ed, any chance you'll get around to updating the links? Not the first time I've pointed this out.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | December 7, 2009 11:07 AM