Pharyngula

What do Louis Pasteur, Robert Boyle, Charles Bell, William Kirby, James Clerk Maxwell, and George Washington Carver all have in common? They all have facebook fan pages…created by the Institute for Creation Research!

Carver is representative: here’s the kind of thing the ICR writes about each one, and is the actual reason they’ve created these fan pages.

George Washington Carver was one of the great scientists who honored God as the Creator. Carver revolutionized agricultural science, and his studies of nature convinced him of the existence and benevolence of the Creator.

They don’t give a damn about the science — all that matters is that they were creationists. It seems a rather dishonorable reason to honor people known for their scientific works. It’s also absurd, in that all but Carver lived and worked before Darwin … heck, I would have been a creationist if I’d been a 18^th century scientist, too.

Looking at the list, though, there’s a significant omission. Where’s Louis Agassiz? You’d be hard pressed to find a more vehement opponent of Charles Darwin who was also a contemporary and a renowned scientist…you’d think they’d rush to embrace him. He was also such a friend to the southern conservatives who wanted a scientific argument to support slavery…

(via Jokermage)

Comments

#1 Chris Davis
April 30, 2009

Strikes me that many of these people are also dead.

Creationism: wisdom, or lethal ideology? You decide.
#2 Rev. BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

Has the Mormon church posthumously baptized them?
#3 Theophylact
April 30, 2009

No, Maxwell died in 1879 — plenty of time for him to have read Darwin.
#4 Newfie
April 30, 2009

So, Institution for Creation Research… doesn’t that just mean, “People who read the book of Genesis, and believe it”? How is there being any “research” done?
#5 Theophylact
April 30, 2009

Oh, and Pasteur died in 1895. But of course he was French, and a doctor, and might well have had scorn for a mere English botanist.
#6 Andy
April 30, 2009

I love when they claim Pasteur, saying that he proved life can’t just appear when he inventer Pasteurization. Because Scientists have been arguing all along that life started in a milk bottle
#7 Lynna
April 30, 2009

RBDC @#2: It’s highly likely that the Mormons posthumously baptized both them and you.
Here are some posts from 2004, when the Mormons were already having trouble coming up with new names for the baptism bit–must be even worse now:

My TBM [True Believing Mormon] aunt who is a temple worker told me that the temples have a real problem because there are now so many temples and they are so efficient at doing temple work now, they don’t have enough names to process.

They are recycling names. They’re using just names (and common ones at that) in some places and dropping birth dates and so forth.

Since the Russians stopped the church from buying names last year, they are seriously short.

But like any other number game, the numbers will catch up with you. Eventually, and sooner than later, the church will have to get out the whips and get the members to do genealogy again. [They did get out the genealogy whips again.]

It’s a funny thing to sit in the Gen Lib in SLC. Most of the researchers there are for private profit. They are doing personal genealogies for nonmembers and other research. Besides, most of those names have been “extracted” and there is a limited source of new names.

In my locale, the old missionaries were “extracting” names from public records. They finished up about 4 or 5 years ago. There were only so many names. Then they turned to other churches and were refused access.

It’s really sick that they “extract” names from cemeteries. But they’ve covered just about all of the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico and South America.
#8 Ranson
April 30, 2009

Always glad to have another reason to not use Facebook. Damn kids need to get off my Internets.

Now go read my blog.
#9 Thintalle
April 30, 2009

Isn’t there a rule on Facebook that doesn’t allow you to create profiles for people that aren’t … you?
#10 Lynna
April 30, 2009

Whoops. In post #7 “both them and you” should have read “both them and yours” — as far as I know, the Rev. BigDumbChimp is not yet dead.
#11 Rev. BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

RBDC @#2: It’s highly likely that the Mormons posthumously baptized both them and you.

Wait, am I dead?

My wife is going to be pissed.
#12 Rev. BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

hehehe
#13 Gruesome Janine
April 30, 2009

Chimpy, perhaps you and your wife are already dead but no one informed you two yet.
#14 Penny
April 30, 2009

I’ve just complained on facebook that the Robert Boyle page is a fake page, as Boyle died in 1691, and that the page is being used for fundamentalist propaganda.
Apparently an administrator will review the complaint – but not give feedback. Maybe if others complain as well?
#15 Tommy
April 30, 2009

These pages are a violation of Facebook’s TOS, which requires that entities creating fan pages be official representatives of the subject of the page.

There’s a “Report This Page” link on each of the pages. Use it. I did.
#16 Glen Davidson
April 30, 2009

I’m going to put up fan pages of non-relativists from before 1900.

That’ll show those dogmatic Einsteinians.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
#17 daveau
April 30, 2009

I wonder if they have any living scientists of international stature that are creationists? /rhetorical
#18 Glen Davidson
April 30, 2009

I wonder if they have any living scientists of international stature that are creationists?

Do you doubt the stature of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
#19 Bill Dauphin
April 30, 2009

Rev:

Wait, am I dead?

My wife is going to be pissed.

You hope she’d be pissed; what if she just said “oh… that explains a lot”? ;^)
#20 Lynna
April 30, 2009

Sorry RBDC to have almost killed you before your time. Still, this could be your wake up call. You may want to arrange now for the Mormons to baptize you after you’re dead so that you can join your ancestors who have already been baptized into the Mormon’s Celestial Kingdom. How many True Believers will be surprised when they end up in the Mormon version of heaven instead of the heaven they thought they headed for?
#21 Eamon Knight
April 30, 2009

…because of course, Agassiz is well known to have been an old-earther, and therefore not quite up to the ICR’s standards. I don’t know about the views of the others; they may (especially the earlier ones) have accepted something compatible with the ICR’s views; they may never have said anything — or they might have been OECs, but you’d have to dig into the historical details to find out. The ICR isn’t known for doing rigorous research that risks spoiling the propaganda line.

And make no mistake: this is propaganda. Partly, it’s a retort to the assertion that creationists can’t do good science, or are not scientists (which is why our side should never make that sort of claim, in such a simplistic form). The rest of it is just trying to posthumously enlist Big Heroes on their side.
#22 Lilly de Lure
April 30, 2009

Tommy said:

These pages are a violation of Facebook’s TOS, which requires that entities creating fan pages be official representatives of the subject of the page.

I think they may have a get out clause if you wish to create a fan page for someone who has been dead for a while and thus not likely to sue/make a fuss about copyright or misrepresentation (or have surviving relatives who can do it for them)?

As a test, do we know if any other historical personages have fan pages as well?
#23 Dr.Woody
April 30, 2009

Als Sie gleich nach Deutschland reissen wird, hier ist in bissen Nachrichtung der Sie wissen solte!
#24 Matt H.
April 30, 2009

I’ve reported all the pages for being fake.

My message:

This is obviously a fake page set up by people who do not represent the deceased. Instead they use his name and his work for their own propaganda.
#25 daveau
April 30, 2009

“Do you doubt the stature of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski?”

I doubt a lot of things.
#26 Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

Chimpy, perhaps you and your wife are already dead but no one informed you two yet.

That explains the strange cravings I’ve been having
#27 JD
April 30, 2009

Where’s Behe?
#28 Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

I wonder if Kwok has befriended them?
#29 JD
April 30, 2009

They should update their list to a more modern, BioBogus version.
#30 Lynna
April 30, 2009

JD @#29: “BioBogus” LOL. Register the name and mirror their site, with a few judicious corrections of course.
#31 Kausik Datta
April 30, 2009

JD#27

Where’s Behe?

Not dead and departed enough, yet.
#32 Lynna
April 30, 2009

RZBDC @#26: An amazing likeness!
#33 Kausik Datta
April 30, 2009

#26: Rev Z-BDC…
Was that a self-portrait? [Gasp!]
#34 rowmyboat
April 30, 2009

Actually, Carver was born around 1860. He was the peanut butter guy at the Tuskegee Institute.

But having been around to hear about Darwin doesn’t make him a creationist.
#35 Tommy
April 30, 2009

Lilly@22: They may have something like that buried somewhere. I have no idea.

But no such clause is listed when you make the page. And making the page requires you to “certify” (their words) that you’re an official rep.
#36 Don
April 30, 2009

I was really tempted to become a fan of the ICR, in hopes of being able to piss on their parade, but instead I became a fan of Charles Darwin:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Darwin-1809-1882/35398237686
#37 Porco Dio
April 30, 2009

i just love the way creationists laud ignorance…

i wonder how it must feel to be laughed at by your children and/or your grandchildren…
#38 Buzz
April 30, 2009

These pages are a violation of Facebook’s TOS, which requires that entities creating fan pages be official representatives of the subject of the page.

There’s a “Report This Page” link on each of the pages. Use it. I did.

Who is the official representative of the Darwin Fan Page? We don’t want that page taken down. It has 50K fans.
#39 bobxxxx
April 30, 2009

I frequently see creationists on news websites providing links to ICR and AiG as if a pro-science person would be impressed by retards who believe the universe is 6,000 years old.
#40 Ray
April 30, 2009

George Washington Carver lived from 1864 to 1943. I don’t know if he was a creationist or not, but he did know Mendelian genetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver
#41 CSN
April 30, 2009

“Reason receives life from faith; it is killed by it and brought back to life.” -Martin Luther

Beware zombie reason!
#42 Michael W Simpson
April 30, 2009

I have filed a complaint at each of those pages. Anyone with a Facebook account should.
#43 Anonymous
April 30, 2009

Buzz@38: I have no idea. I don’t make Facebook’s rules. (But I do read them before I click on a box saying I’m certifying myself as an official representative. I hope whoever put up the Darwin page did the same.)
#44 incontinentia buttocks
April 30, 2009

how ’bout these guys?
http://www.spike.com/video/losing-my-religion/2478571cmpnid=753&pt=sr&refsite=7063

(and who wants to bet this guy’s a drummer?)
#45 Alverant
April 30, 2009

Maybe we should put some saints up on Facebook and either 1) fill the page with quotes that reflect attitudes that aren’t acceptable today (pro-slavery, anti-semetic, etc) or 2) have them recant their beliefs after death. Just to see how the ICR reacts. If it’s OK for them to use dead people to push their agenda so can we right?
#46 Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp
April 30, 2009

George Washington Carver lived from 1864 to 1943. I don’t know if he was a creationist or not, but he did know Mendelian genetics.

I hear died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.
#47 Bj�rn �stman
April 30, 2009

“No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, or generation or destruction.”

[Maxwell, J. C.]

I am embarrassed to learn that the great Maxwell was so thoroughly ignorant of evolutionary theory. Embarrassed!
#48 wjts
April 30, 2009

The ICR’s Museum in Santee, CA houses a sort of “Creationist Scientist Hall of Fame.” There are little displays about Pasteur, Boyle, Maxwell, and Carver as well as others – including Wernher von Braun. As I recall, this set of displays came right after the section of the museum that blames Nazism on evolutionary biology.

The rockets go up…
#49 Pierce R. Butler
April 30, 2009

Maxwell has long been a hero to anti-Darwin crusaders, in a funhouse-mirror sort of way.

Why doesn’t the ICR include Kelvin in their pantheon, as he proposed the only (sfaik) objection to Darwin’s theories that gave Darwin pause? The fact that other physicists have since smashed that objection to gluons shouldn’t be any problem for ICR…
#50 Qwerty
April 30, 2009

Rev. BigDumbChimp @ #11

The wife will be pissed if you have not taken out:

A.) Sufficient life insurance.
B.) The garbage.
C.) Her enough during your time together.
or D.) All of the above.
#51 Damon B.
April 30, 2009

No Georges Lemaitre? Those hypocrites!
#52 Becca
April 30, 2009

Oh, Louis Agassiz. You brighten any history class. *shakes head*
#53 Richard Wolford
April 30, 2009

Whoops. In post #7 “both them and you” should have read “both them and yours” — as far as I know, the Rev. BigDumbChimp is not yet dead.

He got better /python
#54 SLC
April 30, 2009

Re Pierce Butler

As I understand it, Lord Kelvin, near the end of his life, attended a lecture in which the issue of the, then, newly discovered phenomenon of radiation was discussed. Legend has it that Kelvin turned to the person sitting next to him and admitted that the discovery negated his age of earth calculations.
#55 Sastra
April 30, 2009

Glen D #18 wrote:

Do you doubt the stature of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski?

Oh, thank Goodness. I had to read this twice — at first I thought you wrote “the statue of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski.” But, no.

It would not have surprised me much, though, if someone who compared himself to Newton, had also gotten a statue of himself made and installed somewhere. Then we would all be forced to doubt the stature, but not the statue, of the Isaac Newton of Information Theory, William Dembski.
#56 bluescat48
April 30, 2009

It’s also absurd, in that all but Carver lived and worked before Darwin ? heck, I would have been a creationist if I’d been a 18th century scientist, too.

That just proves what I thought, ICR belongs back in the middle ages.
#57 Zeno
April 30, 2009

For some time now, ICR has been featuring scientists as “Men of God” in their publications, highlighting the supposed religious convictions of various famous researchers (with particular emphasis on those who preceded Darwin). The Facebook pages sound like variations on this theme, probably using the same material as they published in their Acts & Facts newsletter. People here may recall that ICR did a bogus profile of Gregor Mendel that showed off their lack of both scientific and historical expertise. [Link]
#58 natural cynic
April 30, 2009

Larry Moran has a famous picture of Agassiz’s demise. Or, at least, the statue of him at Stanford.
#59 Dennis N
April 30, 2009

On the other hand, you are allowed to make duplicate pages for those scientists with different content, in order to compete. For example, there is surely more than one fan page for Paris Hilton. So, more accurate fan pages should be made for these scientists. Also, I am a fan of PZ on Facebook.
#60 JimF
April 30, 2009

As far as I can determine (from searching the indexes of a couple of biographies), no-one knows if Pasteur rejected the theory of evolution or not – he doesn’t appear to have ever written about it.

The main reason for not including Agassiz, by the way, was probably not his old-earth stance (many of the people in that list were probably old-earthers too), but the fact that he was virulently racist.
#61 Pierce R. Butler
April 30, 2009

SLC @ # 54: … the, then, newly discovered phenomenon of radiation was discussed. Legend has it that Kelvin turned to the person sitting next to him and admitted that the discovery negated his age of earth calculations.

Sounds a little too tidy to be reliable (though I’d not be surprised if he made that admission elsewhere). In any case, the question was doubtless still a thorn in Darwin’s Birkenstock when he died, which by ICR standards should entitle Kelvin to a gold pedestal with blue ribbons & an annual cupcake with M&Ms on top.
#62 Aristide Valentin
May 1, 2009

Well it’s not the first time the religious tried to use Louis Pasteur. It got so bad that in 1939, Louis Pasteur Vallery-Radot, grandson of Louis Pasteur and son of Rene, the author of The Life of Pasteur, had to make this precision:

My father was always keen to precise, and so was my mother, that Pasteur wasn’t a practicing (Catholic)… I remember well my father’s and my mother’s annoyance when some priest in his church was bold enough to attribute to Pasteur this sentence he never uttered : “I have the faith of a simple Breton peasant.”… Everything that has been written about the so-called catholicism of Pasteur is absolutely wrong.

If anything Pasteur was a deist.
#63 Zombie Rev. BigDumbChimp
May 1, 2009

The wife will be pissed if you have not taken out:

A.) Sufficient life insurance.
B.) The garbage.
C.) Her enough during your time together.
or D.) All of the above.

A)check (though she really makes more than I do so..)
B)check (after the new pup decided to display it nicely all over the kitchen)
C)not an issue there
#64 Pierce R. Butler
May 1, 2009

… some priest in his church was bold enough to attribute to Pasteur this sentence he never uttered : “I have the faith of a simple Breton peasant.”

Did either Pasteur or the priest inquire as to which simple Breton peasant was under discussion. A number of those vieux amis were quite the surly contrarians, and rumor has it some still are…
#65 David Marjanovi?, OM
May 1, 2009

smashed that objection to gluons

I’m stealing that. Kthxbai.
#66 Marita
May 1, 2009

Ugh. A few Facebook friends who are people I grew up with have popped up as fans of the ICR. How annoying.

I’ve started a new FB group: “My lab has more peer-reviewed publications than the entire ID movement“. Would love to have any of you join.