Anti-evolution
jlynch | March 19, 2007Following on from parts one and two, here is the penultimate portion of the talk.
The Binaries of Creationism and The Long War
To many Creationists, Darwin "merely revived ancient paganism, clothed in apparently sophisticated modern apparel, but underneath there was still the same old pantheistic materialism of antiquity", a modern day form of the "evolutionism" of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and others.
This amalgamation of very divergent philosophies and belief-systems is highlighted by Morris' assertion that "if the universe was not created by a transcendent Creator God […
jlynch | March 18, 2007Following on from yesterday's section, Here's the second installment.
Creationism, Cultural Politics and Clashing Ideologies.
If this were solely an issue of scientific observations or the veracity of hypotheses, it is doubtful that the Creation/Evolution debate would inflame such passions. While purely scientific controversies excite the scientists within the respective fields, they rarely make headlines, and never become part of legislation, or rulings of the Supreme Count. It is clear that what is being argued about here, at least as far as the ICR is concerned,
is the status of biblical…
jlynch | March 18, 2007Over at the Discovery Institute's Media Complaints Division, Casey Luskin makes much of a piece by Peter Williams decrying the use by paleontologist Richard Fortey of the phrase "IDiots". Williams exclaims:
"While Darwinists provided their own name, this childishly rude title does not allow the proponents of the ID theory to choose their own name for their theory. Descending to name-calling is not going to help the Darwinist cause shift the appearance of 'a threatened Establishment'! Rather, it confirms it."
Well, first of all, I'm not a Darwinist, so don't call me one*. Secondly, I don't…
jlynch | March 17, 2007Nearly ten years ago I started a book on Creationist misuse of intellectual history. I never finished it, which is probably for the best. The file is unfortunately MIA and all I have remaining was a section that I turned into a talk that I gave at ASU in 1999. Over the next few days, I'll be posting the text of that talk. Enjoy and feel free to comment.
"Pithecophobes of the World, Unite!"
Revisionist 'History' and Creationist Rhetoric.
"This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornography,…
jlynch | March 8, 2007
Featuring Kent Hovind.
Update: Ah, only now I see that PZ posted this yesterday.
jlynch | February 23, 2007Over at Retrospectacle, Shelley briefly mentions a quote that William F. Buckley has been mumbling for aeons now.
"I'm taken with the reply of an elderly scientific scholar to an exuberant young skeptic. 'I find it easier to believe in God than to believe that Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop.'"
When I first heard it in the 1997 Firing Line Debate, I wondered who the "elderly scientific scholar" and "exuberant young skeptic" were. According to this Time article from 1960, they were Thomas Henry Huxley and John Tyndall. If you know anything about this two,…
jlynch | February 22, 2007A few days ago I mentioned the Conservapedia entry on evolution as being notably bad. Well, it has changed over the past few days (but not for the better).
Witness:
The Theory of Evolution, introduced by Charles Darwin in his book On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859, is a scientific theory that explains the process of evolution via natural selection. The basic principle behind natural selection, states that in the struggle for life, some organisms in a given population will be better suited to…
jlynch | February 20, 2007Ed Brayton has introduced us to Conservapedia - a Conservative alternative to Wikipedia which is "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American" according to Conservapedia's founder Andrew Schlafly. The quality of work is best evidenced by the entry on evolution:
The Theory of Evolution, introduced by Charles Darwin in his book On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, published in 1859, is the scientific theory that explains the process of evolution. The basic principle behind evolution, called natural selection,…
jlynch | February 18, 2007PZ lays a smackdown on a neurosurgeon who is one of the Discovery Institute's 700 who are "skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life" and claims:
I am asking a simple question: show me the evidence (journal, date, page) that new information, measured in bits or any appropriate units, can emerge from random variation and natural selection, without intelligent agency.
Predictably, PZ doesn't even have to break into a sweat taking care of this stupidity.
jlynch | February 13, 2007Reuters is reporting:
The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life. The board in the central U.S. state voted 6-4 to replace them with teaching standards that mirror the mainstream in science education and eliminate criticisms of evolutionary theory.
Predictably, the Discovery Institute is not happy:
"You have a board in Kansas that is so extreme," said John West, senior fellow at the Discovery…
jlynch | February 12, 2007
The New York Times has run a story about the young earth creationist (and ex-DI Fellow) Marcus Ross who received his PhD in geological sciences. Predictablly, the denizens of Uncommon Descent see this as some sort of victory. Cordova comments:
He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and even young earth creationists can matriculate through Darwinist controlled institutions.
A role model? Perhaps. But only if one believes that it is OK to lie your way through graduate school. As PZ notes:
He was doing "research" on the distribution of mosasaurs 65 million years ago, but what he was…
jlynch | February 8, 2007Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn [fanboy site here] flew across the radar a few years back for a purile pro-ID op-ed in the New York Times that was egged-on by the Discovery Institute's Bruce Chapman,. Now Chapman - a relatively recent convert to Catholicism - is having a mini-orgasm about a lecture Schoenborn gave
in New York yesterday, one that was sponsored by the Homeland Foundation, a group that funds cultural and religious programs, many involving the Catholic Church. (As this page notes, some members of the Homeland Foundation's board are members of Opus Dei and some grants are given to…
jlynch | February 7, 2007The following post first appeared at my old blog on June 2nd 2005. I'm reposting it here, not just because PZ recently linked to it, but because it remains a relevant examination of the sorts of venues anti-evolutionists choose for their "scholarship".
Today, the DI proudly
announced that "[f]or the second time in nine months, an article explicitly applying intelligent design theory to scientific research has been published in an internationally respected biology journal -- despite Darwinists' claims that this never happens." This leads one to wonder about the status of Rivista within the…
jlynch | February 6, 2007PZ has been dealing with the idiocy that is Scott Adams of Dilbert "fame". (The last word is in scare quotes because, frankly, I don't find Dilbert funny. At all. Never have. Never will.) And what is worse, PZ's had to deal with the apparent apostles of Adams who seem to think that a cartoonist like Adams either has something important to say
on science (not the case) or is being humorous (yeah, right). In any case, someone called "Bronze Dog" has wonderfully parodied Adams stupidity.
The full strip is here.
Update: Dagnabbit. PZ had posted this already! Beaten by the squidmeister.
jlynch | February 6, 2007
This is Turkana boy (Homo ergaster), soon to go on display in Kenya's national museum. Bishop Boniface Adoyo, of Nairobi Pentecostal Church (NPC) and Christ is the Answer Ministries, claims:
"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it. These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."
Someone should explain to Adoyo that the truth sometimes hurts. Speaking of "silly views," apparently, Adoyo believes the world was created 12,000 years ago, humans were created 6,000 years ago, and each biblical day was equivalent to 1,000 Earth years. I guess nothing in Adoyo's BA in design…
jlynch | February 2, 2007Looking for "cutting-edge research that demonstrates the young earth model, the global Flood, the non-evolutionary origin of the species, and other evidences that correlate to the biblical accounts"? The ICR has launched the International Journal of Creation - "a professional peer-reviewed journal of interdisciplinary scientific research that presents evidence for recent creation within a biblical framework." It's
edited by Andrew Snelling ... who hasn't himself published in a mainstream journal since 1987, so I guess "professional" means "Bible-believing".
jlynch | January 7, 2007Over at his blog, Jim Lippard has just completed his series of ten posts examining the finances of a number of creationist organizations: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access
Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation
Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and the Center for Scientific Creation.
jlynch | December 30, 2006Noticed a few hits from FreeRepublic.com this morning as someone called "truthfinder9" had linked to my post about Ken Ham and AiG revenue. Here is a highlight:
truthfinder9
I noticed the miltant YECs over at AIG have stepped up their unchristian attacks on other Christians. I wonder if their drop in funding has anything to do with it. Or maybe their methods and actions are finally catching up to them. .... [snip quote from my original post]
Isn't it illegal for members of a nonprofit to financially benefit from the donations of their supporters? Seems like Ken Ham was living high off…
jlynch | December 29, 2006Back in March, I noted that creationism was a profitable business ... at least for Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who had a salary of $121,764 for 2004. Now Jim Lippard is reporting that Ham has taken a pay-cut and only made $60,000 in 2005. Poor, poor Ken ... must be rough surviving in a state
where the median household income is $37,270.
Update (12/30): Jim left this comment which is worth putting up front-and-center:
Actually, as I've now pointed out at my blog and in comments at Pharyngula, I made an embarrassing mistake by failing to notice a technical reason for the apparent (and…
jlynch | December 20, 2006John West of the Discovery Institute has presented his version of the year in ID. In summary:
A year after Dover, Darwinists seem increasingly disillusioned as well as shrill, the central part of Judge Jones' "brilliant" decision has been found to be riddled with errors and copied nearly verbatim from the ACLU, a research lab has been launched for scientists to pursue intelligent design-inspired scientific research, and states and localities are continuing to adopt public policies to encourage students to study the scientific evidence for and against Darwin's theory. At the same time, the…