…and this is a 
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 18th 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
Posted by: Chris Davis
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April 30, 2009 10:32 AM
Strikes me that many of these people are also dead.
Creationism: wisdom, or lethal ideology? You decide.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 10:33 AM
Has the Mormon church posthumously baptized them?
Posted by: Theophylact | April 30, 2009 10:38 AM
No, Maxwell died in 1879 -- plenty of time for him to have read Darwin.
Posted by: Newfie
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April 30, 2009 10:38 AM
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?
Posted by: Theophylact | April 30, 2009 10:43 AM
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.
Posted by: Andy | April 30, 2009 10:43 AM
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
Posted by: Lynna | April 30, 2009 10:47 AM
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.
Posted by: Ranson | April 30, 2009 10:50 AM
Always glad to have another reason to not use Facebook. Damn kids need to get off my Internets.
Now go read my blog.
Posted by: Thintalle | April 30, 2009 10:50 AM
Isn't there a rule on Facebook that doesn't allow you to create profiles for people that aren't ... you?
Posted by: Lynna | April 30, 2009 10:50 AM
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.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 10:52 AM
Wait, am I dead?
My wife is going to be pissed.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 10:54 AM
hehehe
Posted by: Gruesome Janine | April 30, 2009 10:55 AM
Chimpy, perhaps you and your wife are already dead but no one informed you two yet.
Posted by: Penny | April 30, 2009 10:56 AM
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?
Posted by: Tommy | April 30, 2009 10:57 AM
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.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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April 30, 2009 10:58 AM
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
Posted by: daveau
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April 30, 2009 10:58 AM
I wonder if they have any living scientists of international stature that are creationists? /rhetorical
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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April 30, 2009 11:00 AM
Do you doubt the stature of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | April 30, 2009 11:01 AM
Rev:
You hope she'd be pissed; what if she just said "oh... that explains a lot"? ;^)
Posted by: Lynna | April 30, 2009 11:01 AM
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?
Posted by: Eamon Knight | April 30, 2009 11:03 AM
...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.
Posted by: Lilly de Lure
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April 30, 2009 11:04 AM
Tommy said:
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?
Posted by: Dr.Woody
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April 30, 2009 11:04 AM
Als Sie gleich nach Deutschland reissen wird, hier ist in bissen Nachrichtung der Sie wissen solte!
Posted by: Matt H.
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April 30, 2009 11:06 AM
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.
Posted by: daveau
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April 30, 2009 11:07 AM
"Do you doubt the stature of the Newton of information theory, William Dembski?"
I doubt a lot of things.
Posted by: Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 11:08 AM
That explains the strange cravings I've been having
Posted by: JD
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April 30, 2009 11:08 AM
Where's Behe?
Posted by: Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 11:10 AM
I wonder if Kwok has befriended them?
Posted by: JD
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April 30, 2009 11:10 AM
They should update their list to a more modern, BioBogus version.
Posted by: Lynna | April 30, 2009 11:13 AM
JD @#29: "BioBogus" LOL. Register the name and mirror their site, with a few judicious corrections of course.
Posted by: Kausik Datta | April 30, 2009 11:13 AM
JD#27
Not dead and departed enough, yet.
Posted by: Lynna | April 30, 2009 11:15 AM
RZBDC @#26: An amazing likeness!
Posted by: Kausik Datta | April 30, 2009 11:15 AM
#26: Rev Z-BDC...
Was that a self-portrait? [Gasp!]
Posted by: rowmyboat | April 30, 2009 11:19 AM
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.
Posted by: Tommy | April 30, 2009 11:26 AM
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.
Posted by: Don | April 30, 2009 11:28 AM
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
Posted by: Porco Dio
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April 30, 2009 11:43 AM
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...
Posted by: Buzz | April 30, 2009 11:43 AM
Who is the official representative of the Darwin Fan Page? We don't want that page taken down. It has 50K fans.
Posted by: bobxxxx | April 30, 2009 11:47 AM
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.
Posted by: Ray | April 30, 2009 11:50 AM
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
Posted by: CSN | April 30, 2009 11:51 AM
"Reason receives life from faith; it is killed by it and brought back to life." -Martin Luther
Beware zombie reason!
Posted by: Michael W Simpson
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April 30, 2009 11:56 AM
I have filed a complaint at each of those pages. Anyone with a Facebook account should.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 30, 2009 11:58 AM
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.)
Posted by: incontinentia buttocks | April 30, 2009 11:59 AM
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?)
Posted by: Alverant
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April 30, 2009 12:00 PM
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?
Posted by: Rev. Zombie BigDumbChimp | April 30, 2009 12:02 PM
I hear died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | April 30, 2009 12:05 PM
I am embarrassed to learn that the great Maxwell was so thoroughly ignorant of evolutionary theory. Embarrassed!
Posted by: wjts | April 30, 2009 12:11 PM
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...
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | April 30, 2009 12:14 PM
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...
Posted by: Qwerty
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April 30, 2009 12:38 PM
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.
Posted by: Damon B. | April 30, 2009 12:40 PM
No Georges Lemaitre? Those hypocrites!
Posted by: Becca | April 30, 2009 1:25 PM
Oh, Louis Agassiz. You brighten any history class. *shakes head*
Posted by: Richard Wolford
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April 30, 2009 1:36 PM
He got better /python
Posted by: SLC | April 30, 2009 1:44 PM
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.
Posted by: Sastra
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April 30, 2009 2:17 PM
Glen D #18 wrote:
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.
Posted by: bluescat48
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April 30, 2009 3:43 PM
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.
Posted by: Zeno
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April 30, 2009 4:06 PM
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]
Posted by: natural cynic
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April 30, 2009 4:31 PM
Larry Moran has a famous picture of Agassiz's demise. Or, at least, the statue of him at Stanford.
Posted by: Dennis N
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April 30, 2009 5:30 PM
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.
Posted by: JimF | April 30, 2009 7:28 PM
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.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | April 30, 2009 10:57 PM
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.
Posted by: Aristide Valentin
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May 1, 2009 6:25 AM
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:
If anything Pasteur was a deist.
Posted by: Zombie Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 1, 2009 8:17 AM
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
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 1, 2009 11:24 AM
... 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...
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | May 1, 2009 2:02 PM
I'm stealing that. Kthxbai.
Posted by: Marita | May 1, 2009 8:39 PM
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.
Posted by: funscience
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February 8, 2010 2:56 AM
He was the peanut butter guy at the Tuskegee Institute