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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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CreationWiki

Category: Creationism
Posted on: March 1, 2007 12:15 PM, by PZ Myers

This one has been around for almost a year now, but if you're getting tired of Conservapedia, take a stroll through the CreationWiki. It doesn't generally have that tone of having been written by a gang of third-graders, but there's plenty of stupid on display.

(via Unscrewing The Inscrutable)

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Comments

Posted by: diehard_TH | March 1, 2007 1:45 PM

Oh.....my.....diety.....i only looked for some wierd fascination, but wow, just wow. I just clicked on the general term galaxy (i'm more familiar with astro-physics) and you get this, 7.5 lines, about 100 words. Is that it? Jeebus. The real Wiki by contrast has this, it's got 88 references alone.

Just staggering in their banality. I also just love their little html logo, an upsidedown Darwin fish, says it all really. Pathetic.

Posted by: diehard_TH | March 1, 2007 1:49 PM

damn html tags! Shoul be creation galaxy and Wiki galaxy

Posted by: CalGeorge | March 1, 2007 2:14 PM

Part of the entry for Earth is completely, classically, creationist bonkers. Too bad Dustin won't be able to do a little job on this...

[snip]
The next question is one of inference: did these planets come to be arranged in such harmonious motion by chance and natural law, or by design?

Neither the origin of the planets, origin of the sun, or origin of the moon have been explained naturalistically. Further, as we discover more facts about their harmonious motion, many aspects of it appear to defy the known facts of astrophysics. Therefore, while naturalistic explanations may someday be shown to be true, for the moment, they are not science but mere speculation, and many of them are not even reasonable speculation, because they are demonstrably impossible.

On the other hand, the history of Genesis states that the sun, moon, and other stars (including the planets, which were known as stars in ancient times) were put into place to keep time and report the years and seasons. While this fact cannot be observed or tested, it is consistent with the evidence. That is to say, if someone did put the planets into orbit, we would expect exactly what we see now: planets in a harmonic, delicate, and beautiful orbit whose origin cannot be explained naturalistically. That is what we see.

Therefore, while there is no hard scientific "proof" of either view, some inferences are more reasonable than others:

Naturalists infer that the Earth and solar system originated naturalistically, despite the absence of evidence or explanation to support their claim;
Creationists infer that the Earth and solar system were designed, due to their beautiful, harmonic, and aesthetic motion, based on the golden ratio, ancient histories which affirm the creation of the Earth by God, and the absence of any functional alternative;
[snip]

Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 1, 2007 2:20 PM

CreationWiki's "galaxy" entry, in its entirety:

A galaxy is a large group of stars moving around a common center of gravity. It is not known why galaxies form, what holds them together, nor why space is almost entirely devoid of stars outside of galaxies. Astrophysicists speculate about the existence of unobserved, undescribed, and unexplained "dark matter" and "dark energy" in their attempts to explain the nature and function of galaxies, as well as the fact that they are profoundly ordered and structured, and beautiful.

Common creationist tropes run through this like summer rain through a willow tree. "It is not known why X," they say, without bothering to explain what is known, what the big outstanding questions really are, and the tentative answers people have proposed for them. "Unobserved, undescribed, and unexplained 'dark matter'" is, quite simply, a lie. We've observed it, and we've even mapped out how it is distributed! Just listen to Phil Plait:

Dark matter, the ubiquitous yet ethereal stuff filling the cosmos, has been mapped three-dimensionally for the first time by a team of astronomers using a fleet of orbiting and ground-based telescopes. Implementing techniques not even dreamed of when dark matter was first postulated, they have created a map two degrees on a side (roughly 15 times the area of the full Moon) and 6 billion light years deep. The Cosmic Evolution Survey, or COSMOS, reveals the spatial distribution of dark matter stretching back to a time when the Universe was half its present age.

"Unobserved" is a bald-faced lie, and "undescribed" is at best an exaggeration. The question on the table now is, "What is dark matter made of?"

Note also CreationWiki's appeal to profound order and structure. One can almost hear the whisper of "design" which they were either too cautious to type or, more likely, felt unnecessary to set down.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 1, 2007 2:23 PM

Wow!

Creationists infer that the Earth and solar system were designed, due to their beautiful, harmonic, and aesthetic motion, based on the golden ratio, ancient histories which affirm the creation of the Earth by God, and the absence of any functional alternative;

Quick, somebody tell Mark Chu-Carroll!

Posted by: Rey Fox | March 1, 2007 2:37 PM

I suppose the Creator also put our ears in place to keep eyeglasses on.

Posted by: sparc | March 1, 2007 2:46 PM

At least there is some truth in creation wiki's definition of ID:

Intelligent design (ID) is a creationist perspective

and it directly links to

• Creation theory
• Creation research

Posted by: David Marjanović | March 1, 2007 4:13 PM

(including the planets, which were known as stars in ancient times)

Are they insinuating there's a mistake in Scripture!?!

Posted by: MartinM | March 1, 2007 4:57 PM

Good grief, if you think those entries are bad, you probably shouldn't even bother reading this one:

http://creationwiki.org/The_universe%27s_energy_can%27t_come_from_nothing

Quite possibly the single worst creationist mangling of physics I've ever seen.

#10

Posted by: Susannah | March 1, 2007 9:57 PM

MartinM; Warn a body, please! This: "Good grief, if you think those entries are bad, you probably shouldn't even bother reading this one:" isn't adequate -- that entry is seriously dangerous to one's health. I almost choked to death!

#11

Posted by: Greiner | March 2, 2007 12:27 AM

Perhaps you brought this up for a little subtle vandalizing eh eh? Of course any vandalism of the site could be seen as an improvement. I'm considering replacing the Jesus entry with this one. http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Jesus

#12

Posted by: Mike B. | March 2, 2007 10:28 AM

Well, it's gone now - I get a "403" when I try to go there. Too bad, too, as this seemed like the sort of sideshow comic wackiness that I normally enjoy...

Huh?

Whattya mean their serious?

#13

Posted by: Keith Douglas | March 3, 2007 4:55 PM

More evidence that there really is a cultural hijack going on. Bleah. I wish I knew what to do here.