creationism
gregladen | December 17, 2007 St. Bernard Dog
I woke up this morning to see headlines such as the following in my newsreader:
Study Casts Doubt on Creationism ... and St. Bernard Study Casts Doubt on Creationism....
It turns out that the shape of the dog's head has evolved over time, and that this can only be explained by evolution.
The study looked at 47 St Bernard skulls over a 120 year period, and analyzed these in the context of ancient written specifications for the breed.
"We discovered that features stipulated in the breed standard of the St Bernard became more exaggerated over time as breeders selected…
mikethemadbiologist | December 17, 2007ScienceBloging Greg Laden reports that the Texas Board of Higher Education is considering accrediting The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research so it could offer an online course in Science Education.
ScienceBlogling PZ offers one solution to stop the inanity (or at least limit the damage if Texas proceeds):
I hope Texas scientists can slap that Board into wakeful reality before that meeting, because if this goes through, the trust I can give Texas-trained teachers is getting flushed right down the sewer. And if Texans can't fix this, the rest of the country has to step up and deny…
pharyngula | December 17, 2007This month's Mad magazine (I know, I'm probably the only person over 14 who doesn't like vomit jokes who ever cracks the magazine open) has a feature on the the 20 dumbest people, events, and things of 2007, and guess what won a slot on the list?
(click for larger image)Finally there is compelling evidence that the theory of evolution is wrong! For proof positive that man's intelligence has not evolved in eons, consider the Cro-Magnon brained imbeciles behind the recently opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum's exhibits don't merely challenge science, they ignore it…
gregladen | December 16, 2007Creationists plan British theme park
The latest salvo in creationism's increasingly ferocious battle with evolution is about to be fired in Lancashire. Not in a fiery sermon preached from the pulpit, but in the form of a giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days.
The AH Trust, a charity set up last year by a group of businessmen alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading, has identified a number of potential sites in the north west of England to build the £3.5m Christian theme park…
pharyngula | December 15, 2007All you Brits who pointed and laughed at our village idiot who built a major Creation "Museum" in Kentucky are going to get your comeuppance: Lancashire is about to get a "giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days."
We're pointing and laughing ourselves now, but I assure you — we also feel your pain, and there are tears in our eyes.
pharyngula | December 15, 2007Many people have been sending me this story about Texas considering accrediting the Institute of Creation Research for training teachers, and I've just been reluctant to mention it because poor Texas has been getting walloped over creationism lately, and I was feeling a terrible sympathy for the place. It's as if the whole state has fallen into a pit of suck.
The ICR wants to offer Masters degrees in science education, of all things; they claim they'd be offering instruction in evolution alongside their science curriculum, but we know that is a lie, since the people at ICR aren't competent to…
gregladen | December 15, 2007From the NCSE:
Over two weeks after it was first reported that Christine Comer was forced to resign from her post at the Texas Education Agency, apparently because she forwarded a brief e-mail announcing a lecture on "intelligent design" by Barbara Forrest, the state's newspapers continue to provide a steady stream of news and commentary. And groups with a stake in the integrity of science education in Texas continue to voice their concern. As the Austin American-Statesman (December 14, 2007) observed in its latest story, "The controversy over Comer's departure put the agency's scientific…
pharyngula | December 15, 2007Given Dembski's recent remarks, this is spot on:
ID is science. Always has been. Always will be. Amen.
gregladen | December 15, 2007The Texas Based Institute for Creation Research would offer an online degree in Science Education. Approved by a State Advisory Board yesterday, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will consider the degree in January.
Could this be why there has been a shakeup at the Texas Higher Education department?
The prospect of the ICR offering a degree is at the same time chilling and satisfying. Accroding to NCSE Director Eugenie Scott:
They teach distorted science ... Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools…
gregladen | December 14, 2007REPOST from gregladen.com
"Everyone needs to understand the basic facts of evolution as well as the essentials of the scientific method... When people are deprived of a scientific approach to reality as a whole, they are robbed of both a full appreciation of the beauty and richness of the natural world and the means to understand the dynamics of change not only in nature but in human society as well."
-Ardea Skybreak, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"
Ardea Skybreak's new book, "The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing what's real and why it matters…
pharyngula | December 14, 2007There goes Bill Dembski again, revealing both his religious delusions and his ignorance of the state of modern biology in an interview.
4. Does your research conclude that God is the Intelligent Designer?
I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.
The focus of my writings is not to try to understand the Christian doctrine of creation; it's to try to develop intelligent design as a scientific program.
There's a big question within the intelligent design community: "How did the design get in there?" We're very early in…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Given the latest efforts in Texas and Florida (and elsewhere) to push religious views into the science classroom, I thought it might be helpful to remind everyone of this blood curdling story.
Dover gets a million-dollar bill
That's $1M less than what law firm says it's owed
CHRISTINA KAUFFMAN The York Dispatch
Article Last Updated: 02/22/2006 12:29:04 PM EST
Legal fees for thousands of hours of attorney services and a six-week trial: $1 million.
Damages paid to 11 parents whose rights were violated in the Dover Area School District: $1 each.
A sense of closure: Priceless.
The Dover Area…
pharyngula | December 14, 2007Take a look at this interview with Lizzette Reynolds, the Bushite behind the resignation of Chris Comer. The unbelievable claims come out in the second question.
Were you surprised she resigned?
Yes, because I had asked her supervisor to look into the e-mail issue. But I wasn't kept in the loop. I was at a meeting some time later when someone mentioned, "By the way, she (Chris Comer) is resigning today."
Oh, she was surprised? Lizzette Reynolds is the person who wrote this in response to the email:
This is highly inappropriate. I believe this is an offense that calls for termination or, at…
pharyngula | December 14, 2007You may recall the event a few weeks ago at the University of Minnesota in which John West of the Discovery Institute attempted to tell us how Darwin was responsible for eugenics. Greg Laden has mentioned that we now have an account from Mark Borrello, who rebutted West in a too-brief ten minutes after the talk; he gets to stretch his legs a little more online and tears West's premises to shreds. In addition, Jim Curtsinger, who missed the talk but watched it online, gets to tell us something about the practice of teaching science: we Darwinists often talk about eugenics in our classes (I did…
gregladen | December 14, 2007You will remember our blogospheric reactions to John West's talk at UMN (John West can Play the Violin But Not the Fiddle on my blog, and John West at the McLaurin Institute on Pharyngula for Scienceblogs.com, as well as In Which I Meet John West at Tangled Up in Blue Guy and here at Amused Muse).
Well, the brilliant and tenaceous Mark Borrello, a key operative with the Minnesota Citizens for Science Education, has written an excellent editorial on the topic on the MnCSE site, entitled Dancing with the Disco Institute.
pharyngula | December 14, 2007I've already mentioned that the Texas biologists are coming out on the side of science, but there's also another group gearing up to fight: would you believe that they are oxymoronically (or perhaps, just moronically) called Texans for Better Science? They're no such thing, of course — they want Intelligent Design creationism taught in the schools.
When will they learn that naming your organization dishonestly merely testifies to the fact that if people learned what you actually want, they'd dislike you, so you need to mask your motives? It seems you only find right wing crazy groups doing…
pharyngula | December 14, 2007They're violent, murderous bastards. Rudi Boa, a scientist, got into an argument with Alexander York, an ignorant ass, while on a backpacking trip in Australia. Boa was arguing for evolution, while York was arguing for idiocy. Later, under the influence of alcohol, York attacked, stabbed, and killed Boa.
York was just tried and sentenced to five years in jail, eligible for parole in three. The judge apparently thought York was a man of good character.
As Greg Laden put it, "Stabbing an evolutionist to death, in Australia, is not considered a serious offense if you are a person of good…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Yesterday, in an Australian Court, Englishman Alexander Christian York was sentenced to Five Years max for the stabbing death of Scottish biochemist Rudi Boa during an argument over evolution. The argument happened in January of Last Year. York, traveling alone, and Boa, with his girlfriend, were backpacking in Blowering Holiday Park, near Tumut, New South Wales, when Boa suffered mortal wounds at the hand of York.
Tumut is a tourist destination at which visitors pick fruit, and stay in tents and trailers. York and Boa, together with Boa's girlfriend Gillian Brown, were neighbors in the…
evolvingthoughts | December 13, 2007
It's a dangerous thing to let philosophers talk to high school students, in the main, for we tend to drown our audience in terminology and deep concepts (many of which turn out to be not so deep), but I do try to communicate clearly when it is needed. My kids indicate that maybe I am not so successful as I might think, but this is a letter I received yesterday from a student that I thought might be useful for others. Named have been erased to protect the innocent (i.e., not me).
Mr. Wilkins,
My name is Alex ***** and I am a junior in high school. I'm doing a research paper on the moral…