…and this is a 
Is this going to be the major creationist strategy?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 23, 2008 11:43 AM, by PZ Myers
It seems to be all over the place, with both the Discovery Institute and the various overtly (as opposed to the DI's stealthy) religious creationists. It's the one message they are all pounding out consistently.
It, of course, is the argumentum ad consequentiam, the Great Godwinization of the debate, the constant claim that Charles Darwin was the evil monster responsible for the Holocaust, all modern racism and oppression, anti-semitism, whites-only seating on buses, slavery, eugenics, abortion, man-on-pig sex, gun control, job discrimination, illegal aliens, feminism, the birth control pill, hedonism, Mexicans, atheism, hippies, and anything other than the average social mores of 1950s America, and therefore evolution is false.
Anyone with half a brain can see right through this argument: Darwin could have been a baby-raping cannibal and it wouldn't have affected the validity of his arguments one whit. That Darwin was actually a fairly conservative British gentleman who was also an abolitionist and advocate for fair treatment of all races (although, admittedly, not equality of all races) similarly doesn't affect the status of his theory, but does allow us to comfortably celebrate the man, and not just the work.
Furthermore, it is ahistorical nonsense. Darwin's ideas were a relatively late addition to Western culture, arising in the last half of the 19th century. Many of the evils Darwin is blamed for, like slavery and anti-semitism, preceded his birth, and many are even literally endorsed by by a book the liars for Jesus revere, the Bible.
This is an argument that relies entirely on a deep and all encompassing ignorance on the part of the listener to be accepted — they have to be oblivious to the rules of basic logic, they have to be complete blanks on even the roughest outline of history, and they have to be willing to allow visceral reactions to the key words the creationists are spitting out to be tied to unrelated concepts. They have to be stupid and uneducated. This is the state the creationists must perpetuate if their argument is to succeed.
Who is making these transparently idiotic claims? John West, Ken Ham, Geoffrey Simmons, D. James Kennedy, and Tom DeRosa to name just a few. These are people leading a campaign to keep your children stupid.
The latest to jump on the Darwin-caused-Hitler bandwagon is — and I dislike linking to her bad prose and pathetically transparent inbred link-farm — is Denyse O'Leary. Watch how quickly she spirals into lunacy in a single paragraph.
Darwin was instrumental in discrediting the traditional way of looking at human beings. This is a fact that everyone admits and many celebrate. How often have you heard that Darwin's great achievement was to knock humanity off its pedestal and show that we are merely evolved animals, accidentally evolved at that? And that had everything to do with the Holocaust.
It is true that one thing Darwin accomplished was to challenge the traditional exceptionalist view of human beings as somehow privileged — a hierarchical view that was also used to rank races within the human species — and this was a good thing. While he didn't always meet his own standard to "never speak of higher and lower," it was a commendable goal.
But notice how O'Leary twists it: we are merely evolved animals, as if our status as animals somehow excuses our abuses of our fellows. I always wonder if people who make this argument also pull the wings off flies. Darwin did not demote humanity, he elevated it and all life on earth to the exalted position of equal products of long eras of evolutionary history.
This had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
The idea of making Jews extinct in the sense that the dinosaurs are extinct - as the Nazis tried to do - was derived culturally from Darwin, not from the Church. Also derived from Darwin and his supporters - rather than the Church - was the view of Jews as simply a gene pool rather than a race/religion/culture/Jesus's family/God's chosen people/essential part of history/essential part of our neighbourhood/people we know. The stew of traditional issues sometimes overflows into violence, but not into a eugenics program.
Look right there, in O'Leary's preferred view: Jews are "God's chosen people." Some people, apparently, are better than other people; we are therefore justified in exterminating those other people if they get in the way of the chosen ones. And who gets to say who are the chosen ones? Why, the chosen ones themselves.
The biological view that arose from Darwinian thought is that there are no specially preferred groups. Jews are as unique and valuable as Palestinians, Chinese, Basque, Germans, Italians, Swedes, New Guineans, Inuit, or Canadians. "Simply a gene pool"? What nonsense. If the other is "simply a gene pool," then so are we, and none of us have grounds for demanding privileged status.
As for the claim that the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews was derived from Darwin, all we have to do is look at Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies to see how false that claim is. Luther published in 1543, 316 years before Darwin, and in that little pamphlet lays down an 8-point plan for destroying the Jews.
- "First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. ..."
- "Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. ..."
- "Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. ..."
- "Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ..."
- "Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. ..."
- "Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. ... Such money should now be used in ... the following [way]... Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [a certain amount]..."
- "Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow... For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants."
- "If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country" and "we must drive them out like mad dogs."
In the blinkered, shuttered, moldy attic of O'Leary's mind, the fact that Darwin used the word "race" in the title of his book is far more evil than the fact that an influential leader of the church ranted openly about hating the Jews and published specific plans for their destruction.
Here's what's really appalling. This whole argument on their part is so blatantly stupid and false, yet somehow the diverse group of leaders of creationism in this country have all informally reached a consensus that their followers are ignorant enough that they will actually accept it. Sense, reason, history, logic, the plain and documented facts can all be ignored — they can delude themselves and lie, lie, lie, and the state of the creationist mind is so abysmally benighted that they can reliably expect a large following to believe them.
Comments
Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, so do they want to throw out the First Amendment?
Oh, wait...bad example.
Posted by: J | February 23, 2008 11:51 AM
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"(Hitler 1943, 65).
"The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." (Hitler 1943, 383)
Hmmmmm....
Instead of blaming other things, people need to start taking personal responsibility.
Posted by: Delta Whisky | February 23, 2008 11:56 AM
From D'OL:
Right, that explains this clearly Darwinian motto.
Posted by: J | February 23, 2008 12:02 PM
Well, not to be too cynical, but it seems that counting on people to be stupid, ignorant, or credulous has worked for other people in other times.
Posted by: chancelikely | February 23, 2008 12:03 PM
The idea of making Jews extinct in the sense that the dinosaurs are extinct - as the Nazis tried to do - was derived culturally from Darwin, not from the Church.
Then what was that whole Inquisition and Expulsion thing about?
There is truly something wrong with these people.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 23, 2008 12:05 PM
Sure, it is their current strategy. The Goebbel's strategy, lie big and lie often.
It is more likely to mark the increasing desperation of their movement. With time, all that are left are hardcore and increasingly irrelevant extremists. They long ago lost in the arena of well educated, literate citizens.
Reality always wins in the end. Although whether that will be before or after the fundies long sought Dark Ages remains to be seen.
Based on the persistence of geocentrism (20% of the US population, 26% of fundies) 400 years after Copernicus, it looks like the US population will never drop below 20% creos and that may take decades or even centuries. No one should stay up waiting for a lightbulb to go on in their heads.
Posted by: raven | February 23, 2008 12:06 PM
There is nothing new about this strategy. Creationists have been using it for years. It was on the back burner for a while as the ID crowd tried to make a "scientific" case that would pass muster. Since that strategy has failed miserably, they are going back to the "evolution is responsible for all evils in the world" arguments. But I repeat, nothing new here.
Posted by: Umkomasia | February 23, 2008 12:13 PM
I wonder if any of them have thought about how many Sunday Sermons preached messages about the inferiority of women, or that of the Black Man. How many times have other religions been pronouned evil? How many reverends railed against the jews as the killers of Jesus?
How many of those sermons led to lynchings or mob murders? How many of those sermons put someone in a state of misery for their entire lives?
Have they thought about it, or will they bring it up?
No they will not, because they are fundamentally dishonest. To support the lie of god takes many other lies, and that has become their lifestyle.
Posted by: Andy James | February 23, 2008 12:13 PM
It's astonishing what obscene disregard for truth you can promote if you qualify your lies with "praise God".
Posted by: RamblinDude | February 23, 2008 12:14 PM
This stuff drives me batty. Repeat a lie often enough, with enough conviction...
If the cdesign proponentsists behind Dembskiism had anything substantial to offer in support of their hypothesis, they wouldn't have to rely so heavily on the misrepresentation of the ToE or on these endless ad consequentiam and ad hominem arguments. It is they who are the lying propagandists and intellectual fascists, not the "powers" behind so-called Big Science.
Posted by: Kseniya | February 23, 2008 12:14 PM
The fundies strategy of blaming the Nazis and Hitler on Darwin is a loser.
Most serious historians as opposed to fundies Making Stuff Up trace this movement to German Xianity. As noted in the post, Luther was a rabid antisemite who proposed a final solution 400 years ago. Hitler himself invoked god and Jesus often and those writings are widely known, available, and quoted.
Nothing says fundies can't lie but nothing says anyone has to believe poorly crafted and easily refuted lies. The truth is out there and Xianity has got some explaining to do about WWII.
Posted by: raven | February 23, 2008 12:16 PM
You know, the creationshits (that's a typo that I'm leaving intact) and the IDeologues object loudly when anyone calls them stupid. I have always tended to avoid doing that.
No more.
These people are either stupid or mendacious...or both.
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | February 23, 2008 12:17 PM
..or Canadians
That may be going a little too far, eh?
Posted by: Graculus | February 23, 2008 12:17 PM
...they have to be oblivious to the rules of basic logic, they have to be complete blanks on even the roughest outline of history, and they have to be willing to allow visceral reactions to the key words the creationists are spitting out to be tied to unrelated concepts. They have to be stupid and uneducated. This is the state the creationists must perpetuate if their argument is to succeed.
Check... check... check... check...
Shit.
Posted by: J Myers | February 23, 2008 12:19 PM
#5 MAJeff,
It must have taken you an enormous amount of time to craft, what has got to be the epitome of understatements ;-)Posted by: Fernando Magyar | February 23, 2008 12:20 PM
They're the intellectual equivalents of David Irving.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 23, 2008 12:20 PM
Shorter PZ: "creationists are just like the mainstream media."
I was tracking fine up to the last paragraph.
Posted by: dzho | February 23, 2008 12:20 PM
Yes, PZ, but it is a game they will ultimately lose. It may take a couple more generations, but truth usually wins out. I was raised in a religious, creationist home, but could only deny the truth for so long. The firmer they try to affirm the world is less than 10000 years old, the faster will be the defection of their children and grandchildren.
Plus, we have dinosaurs on our side. Talk about having an effective spokesperson.
Posted by: Barry of Denver | February 23, 2008 12:21 PM
Oh yes, Darwin was responsible for slavery. After all, the Origin of Species was published in 1859, and slavery was lawful in the Confederacy until 1865. Coincidence? I think not!!!!
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | February 23, 2008 12:22 PM
This is a detailed and well-reasoned piece and therein lies the problem. Reason is the enemy. People won't listen and I don't know why...
It beyond depressing.
I can have these same arguments with friends I've known for years and years without denting their belief systems, oft times in direct contradiction of the established facts (Martin Luther being a prime example)...
And I don't know what to do, except to keep fighting...
Posted by: gene | February 23, 2008 12:24 PM
"man-on-pig sex"
No,that one was the liberals.
Posted by: PalMD | February 23, 2008 12:25 PM
I love how she argues that Christian antisemitism would never lead to genocide, because Christians can't afford to _totally_ wipe out the Jews before the Apocalyse - since they need at least some Jews there to convert or, presumably, be cast into the flames.
Posted by: Ben | February 23, 2008 12:25 PM
And then there's all the genocide in the bible.... e.g. "God commands Amalekite Genocide." That's not an example?
Posted by: Monado, FCD | February 23, 2008 12:26 PM
You know, there's something I have in common with the creationists. See, there is this well-supported theory, with evidence all around, and they simply can't believe it because it contradicts the worldview they wish were true. Even though the facts are right in front of them, they just can't believe it.
I can understand this, because even though the evidence is right in front of me for how stupid and dishonest creationists can be, and how gullible the people who listen to them, I just can't believe it. I want to believe people are mostly intelligent and well-meaning, and so I just can not believe the evidence in front of my own eyes. How can they possibly be this dumb?
Posted by: Susan B. | February 23, 2008 12:35 PM
Martin Luther also called the jews " a brood of vipers", a term Hitler adopted happily.
Posted by: I have none | February 23, 2008 12:40 PM
#16 MAJeff,
Yup! (how's that for understatement?)Posted by: Fernando Magyar | February 23, 2008 12:44 PM
Nothing's new about this strategy, except for the present intense focus on it. Their other lies have been exposed and demolished (not that this stops them from repeating them), but the scapegoating, and attempts to morally neutralize the science they react to so prejudicially, continue and even increase.
Of course the secondary claim is the Expelled's theme, the idea that ID/creationism isn't ruled out in science because it's moralistic religious tripe, but because "Darwinists" are evil.
The Constitution still has the slavery provisions in it, although these have been superseded by amendments. What Darwin opposed, slavery, was allowed for by the American law of the land.
I guess America with its freedoms really does deserve to be eviscerated by wretched theocrats, since our Constitution enshrined so much misery and oppression.
Of course, since the theocrats like to claim that the Constitution is based on the Bible, it's the latter which is most deserving of execration and (virtual) elimination. The Constitution, certainly, was originally a rational step up from the Bible, even though it was an abomination of pro-slavery sentiment by comparison with Darwin's writings.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 23, 2008 12:46 PM
Yes, and what makes Ann Coulter say stupid things (Christians are perfected Jews) is of course, her brilliant knowledge of evolutionary theories, her readings of Charles Darwin, and not her Bible soaked brain.
O'Leary is another Ann Coulter, same with all these other racist, antisemists, anti gay, anti feminists, you-should-do-what-I-sayists, people-haters.
PZ, you are absolutely right, this is now their clear strategy, and it will be a disaster for them.
Because it will give the possibility to all people who want to defend reason and Science above all, to focus on this issue, wether they are Atheist, Agnostics, Deists or religious moderates.
We need to find ways to get the religious moderates to denounce this nonsense. This is a beautiful opportunity.
It's time we focus on something. This is it.
Who cause more hate ? Science, or Religious fundamentalism ?
Posted by: negentropyeater | February 23, 2008 12:50 PM
How come Martin Luther's little pamphlet is not rendered in Comic Sans? I don't think it deserves the "normal" font...
Posted by: Judas | February 23, 2008 12:52 PM
Comic Sans is amusing and mocks the foolishness of the creationists. Luther deserves a more actively evil font. I've got a few wicked-looking jagged fonts on my machine, like Nosferatu and CreepyGirl, but they aren't going to be widely available.
If you've got a suggestion for a good font suggesting evil that most people have, let me know. I can't think of any...
...except maybe MS Arial.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 23, 2008 12:57 PM
It's brain pollution. The adult part of the brain is contaminated with beliefs imposed in childhood by parents and others. That's one reason why it's bad to treat religion with too much respect nor mention any doubts: we reinforce the entrenched point of view.
However, the ordianary religious person is not stupid: rather, it's as if they have a deep-seated fear of Friday the 13th or love of a certain lullaby. Or they're used to eating with a fork or with chopsticks or driving on the left or right side of the road. It's a habit. It's part of the community. It's not rational and will not be helped by insults. "Damn braces, bless relaxes." And a relaxed person will listen more.
Changing religious attitudes might be helped by gentle ridicule of the beliefs; discussions of the fruits of religion (if atheism causes orgies, then belief causes massacres); or straightforward appeals to reality: "I see no evidence" or "I believe in it as much as you believe in the Hindu religion and its sacred texts."
Finally, some people want a comforting certainty and they will always search for one. It's best to offer an alternative belief--perhaps in the value of life and our environment. Every time I slap a mosquito I'm conscious of ending a 4-billion-year journey. Or help them to tackle the problems of the here and now. Protecting species from extinction while giving every person a fair slice of the pie, security of person, equality before the law, and a productive life will be a challange as great as any crusade.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | February 23, 2008 12:59 PM
The creationists don't have to rely on people being "stupid" -- they only have to rely on a religion-soaked culture resulting in a populace which frames everything in terms of "faith" and "choice." It can take a clever mind to do this well.
How do you know which church or group of people are REALLY trying to understand God as God, and not just distorting God in order to follow their own desires? Oh, that's just so easy. You look to see how they behave. You look at the consequences. If you can see good results from believing in God, or believing in Jesus -- or believing in Church or Synagogue or Mosque or Coven X -- then this is where you find Truth. Show people you have Truth by being Good. That's how they "choose" God. And "choose" a religion.
As PZ points out, they're framing science theories just like they're framing faiths. Having faith is important. Choosing to believe means you've got good character. And you choose to believe in whatever "makes you a better person." If the religious belief leads to bad things, it must be wrong. Militant Muslims with suicide bombs cannot possibly have TRUE religion. Unless, of course, you're on the other side, where people who allow too much freedom cannot possibly have TRUE religion. Consequences, consequences.
People who start out with this desire for the Good Outcome as the basis for figuring out what is true are easily lead into the view "if the science theory leads to bad things, then it must be wrong." It's the most familiar approach, after all.
Posted by: Sastra | February 23, 2008 1:08 PM
It was the first Christians who lay the foundations of anti-semitism. The gospel of John is rife with anti-semetic comments, including, of course, making them completely culpable for the death of Jesus. The Crusaders picked up on this grand tradition by laying waste populations of all non-catholics on the way to Jerusalem: Muslims, Jews and even the Eastern Orthodox. Catholocism, and later the break-away 'Protestants', such as Luther were no help, even into WW II.
Today, churches still condemn all who do not believe in Jesus to eternal damnation - fiery torture forever.If they can still believe that today, who is to say that they could even now, fail to stand up against a genocide of non-christians? After all, what is a bit of torture here on earth compared to what they will suffer in hell?
Posted by: Adrian Thysse | February 23, 2008 1:10 PM
PZ, I am confident that you haven't forgotten long suffering professor of Disinformation DOCTOR Nisbet.
Last year our charming champion of yuppie framing skills gave us the rock-em-sock-em definition of the mystical powers of framing.
Unfortunately, there is no way out of its repeat application to sweet church lady O'Leary's recent engineered agit-prop;
Again here is DOCTOR Nisbet at his UNABASHED best:
"That's the power and influence of framing when it resonates with an individual's social identity. It plays on human nature by allowing a citizen to make up their minds in the absence of knowledge, and importantly, to articulate an opinion. It's definitely not the scientific or democratic ideal, but it's how things work in society."
A more glaring plea for elitism, manipulation, racism, anti-science, anti-objectivity, & anti-humanism, would be hard to find.
For a tenured professor to make such a glaring argument for "making up their minds in the absence of knowledge" ( knowledge that he proposes to deliver!) has to rank as a modern classic of trained unadulterated intellectualism gone mad.
But DOCTOR Joseph Goebbels, a modern precursor & master, comes close when he waxed framingly in 1934;
"Political propaganda in principle is active and revolutionary. It is aimed at the broad masses. It speaks the language of the people because it wants to be understood by the people. Its task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the street. Its foundation is that there is nothing the people cannot understand, but rather things must be put in a way that they can understand. It is a question of making it clear to him by using the proper approach, evidence, and language."
Posted by: gerald spezio | February 23, 2008 1:14 PM
#25: The "brood of vipers" Luther statement, adopted happily by Hitler, as you pointed out, goes back farther -- it's a quote from Jesus in the Bible (Matthew 12:34). John the Baptist said it, too. But Jesus especially liked using it to refer to his enemies. "Generation of vipers", etc. Referring to Jews.
Posted by: Holydust | February 23, 2008 1:19 PM
WTF. What do you have against Arial? Arial is clarity itself -- that's why it's used for Wikipedia --, so it's no good for obscurantism.
What about Banjoman or Century Gothic?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | February 23, 2008 1:20 PM
In this one post, PZ, you've very concisely and helpfully clarified the modus operandi of these creationist creeps.
Excellent!
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 23, 2008 1:25 PM
The fact that IDers speak "on message," and that their messages can be so quickly spread throughout their community, demonstrate that ID is mainly a political movement.
Posted by: Tosser | February 23, 2008 1:26 PM
Do they honestly think that the concept of genocide for "inferior" groups didn't exist before the 1850s?
Gosh, I seem to remember one really clear older example of a group in power who didn't like another group living near them, and put them into slavery, and treated them badly, and tried to thin out their numbers by killing off all the male babies, and then tried to throw them out of the country, and then hunted them down to kill them all. You know, genocide, the kind that Hitler could easily have used as inspiration. I just can't remember exactly where I read about that one...
Posted by: Carlie | February 23, 2008 1:29 PM
Intelligent design. These people really are Holocaust denialists.
Posted by: Joe Mc Faul | February 23, 2008 1:33 PM
Posted by: Stanton | February 23, 2008 1:40 PM
the last paragraph echoes my feelings with all the arguments against science. I am so amazed by the arguments as to be speechless.
My first reaction is to defend as in this case it would be Darwin which is actually mostly ineffective and very unsatisfactory. With the second "tactic" as in this example I have much more fun. I do not fool myself into thinking I am going to convince "my opponent" to change their mind in any way so I want to have some fun anyway. I admit my mastery of all the facts is not perfect by any means but I realize that the "fundy" does not even understand what the facts are anyway so I question the facts in this case what is the history of slavery and racism and how does that bare on the made up conclusions and causes. It does best when you can get an actual response.
I am mostly completely dumb founded!!!
Posted by: uncle frogy | February 23, 2008 1:40 PM
Typo alert - On The Jews And Their Lies was published in 1543, not 1453. Best change that or the fundies will use it as further proof that Darwin was actually Hitler's paternal grandfather and that bellief in evolution causes cancer. Or something like that :)
Posted by: Paul A | February 23, 2008 1:42 PM
Typo alert - On The Jews And Their Lies was published in 1543, not 1453. Best change that or the fundies will use it as further proof that Darwin was actually Hitler's paternal grandfather and that bellief in evolution causes cancer. Or something like that :)
Posted by: Paul A | February 23, 2008 1:43 PM
spezio, just shut the fuck up. My god you are a twit.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 23, 2008 1:44 PM
If the creationists are honest in their argument (ha!), shouldn't they include Mendel in their "creators of all evil on earth" list? After all, he was the one who showed how characters are inherited, so basicly he's the one who started the "people are a gene pool" notion.
Yea, I think we should reject all that genetic thing. The idea that God create all the souls and send them down to earth is so much more wholesome.
O, wait - Mendel was a Christian monk... Does that give him immunity?
Posted by: Tamar | February 23, 2008 1:50 PM
I strongly recommend Theologians Under Hitler - either Robert Erickson's book or Steven Martin's film. Neither are anti-Christianity in any way, but they show the profound way that some of the 20th century's top Protestant theologians were complicit in the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust (especially Gerhard Kittel).
The irony of it is that Kittel's work is still a standard work in seminaries. Kittel (re-)framed the "Jewish Question" in Nazi Germany (for which a "Final Solution" was then implemented). You can argue that Luther was long enough ago that his influence has dissipated into the culture at large (although Erickson argues otherwise), but Kittel's scholarship is still at the heart of Protestant Christianity. Now I think it's ridiculous to taint one with the other - Kittel's scholarship is independent of his antisemitism, just like Darwin's beliefs are irrelevant in assessing evolution. But when people who trained using Kittel's work (as Kennedy and Dembski would have) try to play this game, there's a stink to their hypocrisy.
Posted by: IanR | February 23, 2008 1:52 PM
"the Holocaust, all modern racism and oppression, anti-semitism, whites-only seating on buses, slavery, eugenics, abortion, man-on-pig sex, gun control, job discrimination, illegal aliens, feminism, the birth control pill, hedonism, Mexicans, atheism, hippies,"
You forgot torturing puppies!
What is quite clear is what they are doing is all strategy, they don't really believe a word of it, they are pathetic ammoral liers, willing to twist anything to their cause. Reminds me in a way of communism at its worst.
Posted by: sailor | February 23, 2008 1:52 PM
Whoa, MAJeff... I hadn't even realized there was something to get angry about in spezio's post. Is it that I haven't seen other posts by him that I didn't catch some opposition in his comment? Needless to say it was a bit... wordy.
Posted by: Holydust | February 23, 2008 2:17 PM
PZ, one possibility is embedding the desired font in the page, it isn't very difficult.
Here is an how-to tutorial, with both available methods explained in detail.
http://www.webmonkey.com/design/fonts/tutorials/tutorial2.html
Posted by: decius | February 23, 2008 2:21 PM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | February 23, 2008 2:27 PM
I'm thinking that they didn't go farther with Mendel, in that one can not excommunicate the dead, that his standing in the Church, and that his crimes were not severe enough to warrant his remains being exhumed and ritually mutilated and or scattered throughout the land.
Posted by: Stanton | February 23, 2008 2:32 PM
holydust,
It's just a constant thread of nonsensical rambling. One post bleeding into another, all demonstrating a man with delusions of intellect. It's like that Andy Bell line in the Erasure song "Waiting for Sex,"
He could have been describing gerry. It's just so bloody tedious.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 23, 2008 2:33 PM
Quote-mining the baby-raping cannibal remark? It's already been done.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 23, 2008 2:34 PM
Some of you expressed optimism that this strategy by the creationists is doomed to fail. I do not share it. Lies can get entrenched in cultures for long periods of time - look at the longevity of jingoism in the US, or the Jewish blood libel in many Muslim countries. Most of the Muslim world regressed from intellectual sophistication to backwards ignorance centuries ago, and it's stayed that way since. And that's just one example of intellectual regression.
If this ignorance and dishonesty does fail, it will be because people like PZ and the commenters here fought it tooth and nail, not because we waited patiently for it do die out on its own.
Posted by: ndt | February 23, 2008 2:52 PM
MAJeff: I understand. It was so hard to pick through that I missed his point completely. So now I understand your initial point. >:D Nitwittery, indeed.
Posted by: Holydust | February 23, 2008 2:53 PM
The creationist "strategy" has always been to say that evilutionists only say what they do because they're evil godless souls who are following Satan.
The well has to be poisoned, since those who drink from it oppose fundamentalist bullshit.
The IDists are simply a bit more sophisticated about it. Well, I don't know if they really are--look at how over-the-top Expelled's trailers are--but they at least are willing to pay $3.5 million to dress up yahoo nonsense in some competent cinematography.
The upshot, though, is that it's wrong to think like a scientist does. That message comes in various aspects, from Bible-thumping preachers denouncing anything that contradicts "God's word," to the attempts to make evolution out to be responsible for the major atrocities of the 20th century. The actual fact that creationists/IDists share the Nazi and Stalinist penchant to use government to decide science is lost on them, since their whole point is to denounce and punish science for committing the sin of questioning God (whether or not science really does this--I don't think that it does as science, though science supports philosophical judgments that God is not a sound hypothesis).
Trying to link evolution with Stalinism and Naziism is just a way of trying to call evolution sinful, while using a more secular and universal definition of sin. It does not matter that they like far more racist and anti-Semitic authors and books than Darwin and Darwin's writings, for they have very little in the way of "argument" against evolution other than that it is wrong and sinful, and that it is accepted simply because people don't want to believe in God.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 23, 2008 2:57 PM
James Clerk Maxwell was a scientist in the same time period as Darwin. He was credited with formalizing the mathematics for electromagnetic fields and waves.
If historians stumbled apon some collection of documents that showed Maxwell to be among the worst racistists of the Victorian era, do you think that people who are demonizing Darwin would give up their cell phones and Televisions.
Posted by: Tony Popple | February 23, 2008 3:04 PM
Of course if you were to quickly turn the spyglass around and look on the results of those who claim to be True Christians, you'd see AIDS supported in Africa, people swindled by prosperity gospel preachers, and untold family misery created by those who claim connection to absolute truth and won't rest until their relatives agree with them.
So people are dying, poorer, and unhappy (to name a very select few things) as a direct consequence of their beliefs.
Only two ways out of this situation. Either say it's Darwin's fault that they have those problem too, or state that god "works in mysterious ways." I bet they'd say both. In any case, the mechanism for oppression is only allowed to work one way.
Posted by: Michael X | February 23, 2008 3:09 PM
Technically speaking, it's not that Christians support AIDS in Africa, they are constantly being taught and told that AIDS is either a "white man's disease," or that only sinful people contract it, and more importantly, they are taught and told that various methods of prevention, namely wearing contraceptives, are, in fact, sinful.
Posted by: Stanton | February 23, 2008 3:12 PM
Someone in the PR industry has figured out that attacking "founders" from history is the way to attack contemporary ideas, I think.
Have you noticed the "sidestream smoke" opposition now labeling the epidemiology as coming from Nazi theory?
Bullshit -- science grows like kudzu, starting new wherever there's something interesting, and its newest roots are its most prolific --- science isn't like a religion or a redwood tree with one origin that can be cut off that will topple the whole thing.
But if you're trying to do PR on people whose worldview is based on the idea that everything arises from an Original Founder -- attacking the founder for any other idea is likely effective.
I'd suggest backing off a bit and seeing if attacking founders is developing as a widespread PR strategy --- if so, likely it's because it's been found to be convincing to a majority of those who vote.
Who studies this stuff? Where would it be published?
Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2008 3:40 PM
I completely agree. I was using "support" as in: such actions continue the spread of AIDS, thus supporting it as an epidemic. Not as in the "I want people to get AIDS" type of support. Though, I don't doubt that there are people out there who may wish AIDS on those who are sinful.
Posted by: Michael X | February 23, 2008 3:43 PM
Michael X: consider also that along with the points you brought up, there are occasions where totally "pious" people just happen to get AIDS -- like say a rare accident giving blood or during a hospital stay. When that happens, they rarely are willing to stick with the "you're just sinful, so you got AIDS" ideology.
I wonder what they do think in such a case?
Posted by: Holydust | February 23, 2008 4:00 PM
Holydust: probably they'll say it's a test of faith.
Posted by: Beowulff | February 23, 2008 4:15 PM
"man-on-pig sex"
No,that one was the liberals.
Posted by: PalMD |
On the chance that this isn't sarcasm or that it could be construed as not sarcasm I would like to call your attention to this at News Hounds.
Anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."
Posted by: jimmiraybob | February 23, 2008 4:22 PM
I'd like to take this opportunity to promote my new book, From Newton to Hitler, in which I demonstrate conclusively that Hitler's nefarious plan to lob V2 rockets at London can be traced back to Newton's materialistic theory of gravity.
Actually, that might be a less crazy idea than the Darwin fantasy. After all, Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark did promote 'Aryan Physics' in the official SS newspaper, and they claimed Newton as the prototypical Aryan physicist (must have confused that with 'Arian').
Posted by: porkchop | February 23, 2008 4:23 PM
Porkchop, you and I should do a publicity tour together. My new book, Einstein Left the Toilet Seat Up, lifts the lid on the secret life of Mr. Relativity and thus flushes the notion that E=MC2.
Posted by: Tosser | February 23, 2008 4:32 PM
People won't listen and I don't know why...
There's something wrong with these people
nobody seems to want to admit the fact that there is an obvious psychology that is so strikingly parallel to those who have been brainwashed into cults it's scary.
the kind of "religion" these people ascribe to, and force their kids to ascribe to, is nothing less than a cult.
look up what needs to be done to "deprogram" a cult member, and you will see why these folks appear to be so intractable.
it really is that simple.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 23, 2008 4:46 PM
spezio, just shut the fuck up. My god you are a twit.
seconded.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 23, 2008 4:51 PM
In-group loyalty and out-group hostility appear to be one of the human universals (although individuals may show differing levels of this trait).
Organised religion is a parasitic amplifier of this trait, sometimes for the general good, but more often for the strengthening of the in-group at the expense of the out-group. Some religions even have special names for the out-group. The religious adherents ascribe special powers to their leaders and prove their loyalty by meeting in special places and following special rules and rituals.
It follows that attacking the out-group requires attacking the out-group leaders (as seen by the religionists) and claiming that the out-group breaks all the (sacred) rules. This is why 'they' attack Darwin. Such activities are driven by the human universals and are not easily countered by reason (that Johnny-come-lately of mental skills).
IMHO sweet reason will reach the moderates of all debates but it will only harden the fundamentalists resolve. My suggestion is that 'we' debate the moderates fairly and to deprive the fundamentalists of any recognition (or validation in their own eyes). A toughie to do, especially as 'scientists' or atheists have no strong in-group identity and amplification of their own.
In practice I think 'we' should choose to answer the attacks of Ham/Hovind/Dembski etc with answers directed at the hidden moderate audience and not counterattack the fundamentalists using their methods (lies, name calling, insults etc) tempting though it may be.
This will eventually, after a very long time, disenfanchise the fundamentalists.
Posted by: DiscoveredJoys | February 23, 2008 4:51 PM
While West et al have dumbed down and distorted the history, there is such a thing as protesting too much. An absolutist stance sits uneasily with the facts that I discussed here:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/02/ruse_on_the_darwinhitler_link.php#comment-745095
"Darwin could have been a baby-raping cannibal and it wouldn't have affected the validity of his arguments one whit."
Correct. That is what the counter-creationist argument has to rest upon: the genetic fallacy.
Posted by: Colugo | February 23, 2008 5:01 PM
That really never gets old, does it? I wonder what poor Neal is doing now?
Posted by: Dan | February 23, 2008 5:34 PM
As stated above, this is an old strategy. Hal Lindsay (the Tim LaHaye-esque "prophet-eer" of the 70s), made similar arguments in his books, as here. Of course, he went the full 9 yards, why link Darwin just to Hitler and Stalin, when you can also link him to Satan!
This may be a sign of desperation, but keep in mind that these holy warriors have been effective in defining public policy concerning the rights of women (ERA, reproductive rights) through the use of extremist rhetoric.
What is frightening to contemplate is what--out of their desperation--might come next, especially if the religious right continues to lose political influence. There are still people like Terry Randall out there ("Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...."), fully capable of fomenting something much worse in the name of God.
Posted by: jeh | February 23, 2008 6:32 PM
Fixed it for you. Since there was so recently about 100 comments discussing the difference between "stupid" and "ignorant", I'm surprised you would use "stupid" in that sentence.
Posted by: SteveM | February 23, 2008 7:37 PM
Many of the evils Darwin is blamed for, like slavery and anti-semitism, preceded his birth, and many are even literally endorsed by by a book the liars for
Jesusgod revere, theBibleOld Testament.The Bible is essentially broken into two parts: Old Testament (Genesis to Malachi) written in a time range from 200-1200 years before Jesus; the New Testament (Matthew to Revelations) was written from 45-140 years after Jesus, based on information provided on Wikipedia.
I suspect creationists adhere to the Old Testament (which says nothing about Jesus) and spend less time in the New Testament, which contain words (particularly in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) Jesus presumably said. When one examines the Old and New Testaments, there seems to be a significant difference in tone between them. The Old Testament seems more authoritarian (hell fire, locusts, commandments, sinner and what not); the New Testament (especially the Jesus parables) seems closer to that of a wise, tolerant, hippy, philosopher.
If the creationists were really Jesus advocates, they should seem more like wise, tolerant, hippy, philosophers. Instead, they come across like the Old Testament god.
Which leads me to believe Jesus was adopted.
Posted by: Tony Jeremiah | February 23, 2008 7:37 PM