creationism
pharyngula | October 29, 2007I mentioned that Eric Hovind, son of Kent, was lecturing lying at Shakopee this weekend. A reader, Evan Olcott, made the trip and has reported back.
I finally got the chance to see my first creationist in action last night - Eric Hovind (son of Kent) made an appearance at a Russian Baptist Church in Shakopee, MN. I was hoping for some of Kent's old tricks, but they were actually few and far between. A lot less science, a lot more Baptist scare-tactics... but there were some choice moments nonetheless.
The church help about 500 people, probably 30-40% of them were high-school aged kids -…
pharyngula | October 28, 2007You guys are so unlucky. You don't get to regularly read the glory that is the awesome creationist Neal. I shall be generous and share a few of his latest rants with you.
Note: the language in these comments is about what you'd expect from a potty-mouthed 8-year-old. You have been warned.
Lets, for one moment, forget the social conventionally traditional, "this
is what the fuck we want to be the reality of the situation" type stupid
logic that myers, etc etc etc want to be able to continue to slam down the
throats of everybody around them. And to make themselves "FEOW SO
GOOOOOOOD" about…
evolvingthoughts | October 28, 2007
Michael Ruse has a new article up on creationism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There's not much new to those who know his work, but the following comment resonates - dare I say thunders - in the Science Blogs Atheism Wars:
Unfortunately at the moment, those opposed to Creationism are spending more of their energies quarreling among themselves than fighting the opposition. There is a new crop of very militant atheists, including the biologist and popular writer Richard Dawkins (2006) and the philosopher Daniel Dennett (2005) who are not only against religion but also…
pharyngula | October 27, 2007Those crazy rascals behind Expelled have some new games they want to play: they've put out a casting call for victims of persecution. It's a pitiful plea, but it will probably net a nice collection of complaints — because it's true. We do reject Intelligent Design from the academy, from science, and from science education, and there's a very good reason for that: it's the same reason we reject astrology, alchemy, creationism, haruspication, necromancy, ornithomancy, and witchcraft from our science courses. Because they aren't science.
Taylor Kessinger gets it. He's a junior at the…
pharyngula | October 26, 2007What an amusing find: a grad level course taught by creationists that claims it is impossible to write out 10262 in decimal notation, which prompts Tiny Frog to immediately commit heresy by writing it out. You'll burn in hell for that, Tiny Frog!
That's not the only lunacy on the creationist page. Try these:
Probability experts point out that if the chances are greater than 1 in 1050, it will never happen.
There is absolutely no chance that the creation could have happened by chance (as you point out in your mathematical computations). Although, if there is theoretically a one in 10262…
pharyngula | October 26, 2007Last night, Jeffrey Shallit debated a creationist. We must now shun him for violating the code of the evilutionist.
No, not really. But it's another case where the best tactics aren't clear and simple. On the one hand, we do want to engage the public in a discussion of the ideas, and sometimes a debate is a good way to do that; but on the other, it's giving the anti-science opponent a platform and a good deal more credibility than he deserves. I'm confident that Shallit mopped the floor with the twerp, but that's not the point — it's that a creationist was given equal standing with science,…
pharyngula | October 25, 2007Homer Jacobson wrote a paper 52 years ago in which he speculated about the chemical conditions underlying the origin of life. After discovering that the paper is frequently cited by creationists, and after reviewing the work and finding multiple errors, he has retracted the paper. Good for him. It won't matter to the creationists, though; this paper will continue to get cited and mangled and misused.
The writeup makes an excellent point.
It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all…
pharyngula | October 25, 2007The Minnetonka school district is one of the best in Minnesota, with an exceptionally concerned and active set of parents and teachers who work hard to keep informed and support their schools. They established an organization, TonkaFocus, to oppose creationism in the schools and attempts to demolish their international baccalaureate program, a very smart move — pro-science parent activism is always something to encourage.
Minnetonka was also the home district of Dave Eaton, an ID sycophant who was a crony of the odious Cheri Yecke, and who was responsible for some of the shenanigans in our…
laelaps | October 24, 2007Abe: I got a riddle for you, Sol. What's green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
Sol: I give up.
Abe: A herring.
Sol: But a herring isn't green.
Abe: So you can paint it green.
Sol: But a herring doesn't hang on the wall.
Abe: Put a nail through it, it hands on the wall.
Sol: But a herring doesn't whistle!
Abe: So? It doesn't whistle.
Borrowed from Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
Everyone knew it was coming; Ben Stein goes on Bill O'Reilly's show and says that intelligent design has a religious agenda and is concerned with showing…
pharyngula | October 24, 2007John Lynch seems to have about as little to say about this statistic as I do: 60% of adult, educated, normal Americans believe Genesis is literally true. Or, more accurately, 60% of Americans say they think Genesis is literally true.
There is a difference. There is an attitude that religious explanations must not be questioned that is common here: what we need to do, and what I think the "New Atheists" are most successfully doing, is waking people up to the idea that that is not true — you can argue with religious proclamations, and having a divinity degree does not make you smart, let alone…
pharyngula | October 24, 2007I told you that the Discovery Institute was going to have conniptions over the Stein/O'Reilly interview. O'Reilly defined ID as the idea that "a deity created life," and I could have mentioned this nonsense from Stein:
There's no doubt about it. We have lots and lots of evidence of it in the movie. And you know Einstein worked within the framework of believing there was a God. Newton worked within the framework of believing there was a God. For gosh sakes Darwin worked within the framework of believing there was a God. And yet, somehow, today you're not allowed to believe it. Why can't we…
laelaps | October 23, 2007Creationists have been strangely quiet today, their silence all the more odd because it's Bishop Ussher Day! According to Young Earth Creationist dogma the world just celebrated it's 6,011th 6,010th birthday (or a formless, empty Earth just celebrated it's birthday, the job not being finished until a few days later, of course), the creation week beginning the night prior to October 23, 4004 B.C. We know this is preposterous now, of course, but in Ussher's time figuring out the date of the Genesis narrative was big business, many theologians using various sorts of numerology in an attempt to…
pharyngula | October 23, 2007Oh, no … we've almost missed it! Now we have to make a mad scrabble for birthday hats and noisemakers and cake and ice cream. It's the big 6010th birthday for planet earth, according to Ed Darrell and Phil Plait and these guys in Austin. Hmmm. Maybe we should at least make a quick trip to the Dairy Queen.
Oh, wait. I don't believe that crap. Neither do any of the people I linked to above. But some of the wacky people at World Net Daily do.
But the author of the book frequently described as the greatest history book ever written, said the world was created Oct. 23, 4004 B.C. - making it…
evolvingthoughts | October 23, 2007
An article at Wired by Clive Thompson notes that the antievolutionists use rhetorical ploys, playing on the ambiguity of language to imply that "theory" just means "wild-arsed guess" (or words to that effect). He proposes that we should stop calling evolution a theory, and start calling it a "law".
I disagree:
The term "theory" has much wider application than "law", and in any event, the very same sorts of rhetorical ambiguity will be used for that too (a law requires a lawmaker, doesn't it? Hmm? So evolution is false, blah, blah, blah). In fact, "law" is the term that should be, and…
pharyngula | October 23, 2007Ben Stein and Bill O'Reilly.
Bill made a thousand creationist hearts flutter in dismay when he opened with his introductory definition: "intelligent design, that is, a deity created life". It was, unfortunately, the last hint of intelligence in the whole segment.
Ben Stein is an astonishingly ignorant person. He goes on and on about several themes.
Evolution (or as he called it, "Darwinism") is a weak theory with many gaps that was fit for the 19th century, but not the 21st. This is a ludicrous statement; Darwin would scarcely recognize what we were talking about if he attended an…
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2007Since I'm speaking at Harvard today*, I thought sharing this bit from Hanna Rosen's God's Harvard would be appropriate (and it's a fascinating read). The president of Patrick Henry College, whose mission is "to prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding", accidentally divulged his strategy to get young earth creationism in the public schools (italics mine):
But there's one hitch with this model: Many evangelicals, especially the older generation, are not like Catholics or…
pharyngula | October 18, 2007That nice but batty lady, Denyse O'Leary, is teaching a course in intelligent design. At the University of Toronto. Woe, the devaluation of a great research university…!
Oh, but wait. It's actually taught at St Michael's College, a Catholic institution within the University of Toronto. And you have to look at the course entry to believe it. It's a non-credit course under the category of "Scripture, Spirituality & Pastoral Care", and the listing is buried in the middle of a lot of theology, mysticism, New Age nonsense, and gibbering madness.
it fits in perfectly.
pharyngula | October 16, 2007Kent Hovind may be rotting in jail, but his son Eric is continuing the family tradition of lying to the public. Eric Hovind is going to be here in Minnesota on 28 October,
giving a talk at the Russian Evangelical Christian Church in Shakopee. I don't think I'll be able to make it, but this could be interesting. Not Hovind — I understand he's just doing his daddy's same old patented high-speed babble with corn-pone jokes — but these new Russian evangelicals have been in the news lately, and have been exhibiting a particularly virulent strain of hate and ignorance. I know nothing about this…
mikethemadbiologist | October 16, 2007Once again, the science framing wars have flared up. While I'm not allergic to the concept of framing as some are, one of the major reasons why I'm not a big fan of dwelling on the topic is that obsessing over language reminds me of the late 80s and 90s when the Left won the battle of words, and the fundamentalist Uruk-hai took over the damn country.
I've been doing some thinking about the 'progressive' concern with media communication (including my own)--and it is important, no doubt about it. But, as the 2006 elections have shown, if words aren't turned into the exercise of power, there…
pharyngula | October 15, 2007Tsk, tsk, Canada. I know you caught this disease from your southern neighbor, but still…
this is a sorry state of affairs.
The Alberta government has been quietly increasing funding to faith schools -- to 100 per cent in the case of "alternative" programs -- and allowing creationism to be taught alongside the Alberta curriculum.
Currently, this movement is most visible in the Ontario election campaign where Conservative Leader John Tory has promised a free vote on funding for all faith schools, pointing to Alberta as an example.
In response to a question, Tory said, "You know it's still…