Ending the Year on a High Note

Posted by jrosenhouse on December 30, 2010
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I am on the mailing lists of a number of creationist organizations, including the Access Research Network. A few days ago I received a postcard from them. It opens with the following, encouraging paragraph:

The economy has taken its toll on us here at ARN with our donations and product sales this year less than half of what they were two years ago. In order to cut costs we are mailing out this post card rather than our Annual Report.

It made my day to read that. Of course, one suspects it is not just the bad economy that has cut into their sales and donations. It is also the fact that ID has been almost completely moribund since the Dover decision.

The card includes this link to the top ten Darwin and Design stories of 2010. Feel free to have at them in the comments.

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Comments

  1. #1 Naon Tiotami
    December 30, 2010

    Was the ARN ever really all that influential in the ID scene? It’s great that they’ve been deprived of vital funds, but I’d feel a lot better if the card had come from the Discovery Institute.

    I suppose I’ll just have to fantasise about that… Hmm…

    Oh, and those Darwin and Design stories are pretty funny. Intelligent design in nature is implied because we’ve co-opted systems and structures for our own use? Talk about a long stretch for an argument. I expected better, quite frankly. ;)

  2. #2 Valhar2000
    December 30, 2010

    I was going to remind you of your own words in this blog, when on one occasion you pointed out that belief in creationism is widespread and the USA is only one Supreme Court decision away from having creationism taught in most classrooms. However, I recall having seen a recent survey according to which belief in creationism has finally began to subside after steadily increasing for years. Unfortunately, I can’t find the survey right now.

  3. #3 MacTurk
    December 30, 2010

    You really have to love their post hoc facto “reasoning”. This gem is on page 2 of the top ten Darwin and Design stories of 2010; “…in order to reverse engineer a system, it had to be designed in the first place”.

    That will be news to most hydraulic engineers, for a start.

  4. #4 eric
    December 30, 2010

    Personally I liked the mention of the pre-Tiktaalik tetrapod. You’ve got YECers citing an 18 mya age difference and a species transitional between fish and amphibians as evidence that evolution is wrong. Its like a double dose of teh stupid.

  5. #5 eric
    December 30, 2010

    Valhar, is this what you were looking for?

    I would be wary reading too much into a 4% drop in the last of 10 measurements when the 95% confidence sampling error is +/- 4%. But that’s just my personal opinion; the results certainly show a lower number, and how you gauge the survey’s significance may be different from how I gauge it.

  6. #6 ilahi
    January 1, 2011

    Oh, and those Darwin and Design stories are pretty funny. Intelligent design in nature is implied because we’ve co-opted systems and structures for our own use? Talk about a long stretch for an argument. I expected better, quite frankly. ;)

  7. #7 ilahi
    January 4, 2011

    You really have to love their post hoc facto “reasoning”. This gem is on page 2 of the top ten Darwin and Design stories of 2010; “…in order to reverse engineer a system, it had to be designed in the first place”.

  8. #8 jimvj
    January 4, 2011

    ilahi:

    The ridiculous arguments in creationist/ climate-change-denialist/ Fox & similar right-wing media are targeted to the base. The base accepts them; the base never looks for evidence to question them.

    This strategy works phenomenally! At least in the good ol’ USA. I don’t know what will jar the base to wake up.