creationism
mikethemadbiologist | October 2, 2007One of the major fallacies of intelligent design creationism is that so many structures appear to be haphazardly designed. Case in point: polyadenylation in Giardia lamblia. ScienceBlogling Carl Zimmer, in an excellent post about the recently published Giardia genome, describes the system:
There's all sorts of fascinating stuff lurking in Giardia's genome. As they surveyed its 6470 genes, the genome team was struck by how simple Giardia is, compared to other eukaryotes. I think this diagram in particular does a nice job of illustrating Giardia's simplicity. The top drawing shows what…
pharyngula | October 1, 2007Casey Luskin has to be a bit of an embarrassment to the IDists…at least, he would be, if the IDists had anyone competent with whom to compare him. I tore down a previous example of Luskin's incompetence at genetics, and now he's gone and done it again. He complains about an article by Richard Dawkins that explains how gene duplication and divergence are processes that lead to the evolution of new information in the genome. Luskin, who I suspect has never taken a single biology class in his life, thinks he can rebut the story. He fails miserably in everything except revealing his own ignorance…
pharyngula | September 29, 2007My crank mail can be categorized into several categories. There are the short, barely literate splutterings of abuse; the weird rants and threats; the reiteration of long-dead creationist talking points (yeah, I get email where the writer thinks he's trumped me by saying "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?"); and then there are the long, rambling lectures from deeply clueless individuals. I'm afraid this is one of the latter. I'll understand if you fall asleep partway through.
By the way, the author actually sent this to me pre-formatted in Comic Sans. I'm also rather peeved…
tqa | September 29, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, I posted two ridiculous quotes that are found in the Bob Jones textbook that's involved in the California Creationism lawsuit. I'm still wading through these texts and Behe's report explaining why it's really a very good book for high school students to use to learn biology. It's a slow process, and a painful one, but I've found another couple of outstanding quotes to share with you.
This time, I'm including three different types of quote. There are a couple where the authors say things have absolutely nothing to do with science of any kind (and are totally out to…
pharyngula | September 28, 2007So now the tale of the lying creationists of Expelled has made the Grauniad. Somebody let me know when my name is mentioned in Le Monde.
Mark Mathis must be happy about this. He is, after all, the "The No-Spin Doctor" who "demonstrates that most of what you need to understand about attracting great publicity, delivering excellent quotes, or managing a media crisis you already know.". He certainly is getting lots of international attention now, but I would think that a reputation as a dishonest fraud and creationist hack isn't exactly what most people would desire, and hunkering down and…
mikethemadbiologist | September 27, 2007And, thankfully, the NY Times' Cornelia Dean calls the intelligent design creationists out on it:
There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. And while individual scientists may embrace religious faith, the scientific enterprise looks to nature to answer questions about nature. As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are "not within the scope or abilities of science."
It's about time this is stated more forthrightly. One section of the article piqued my…
pharyngula | September 27, 2007Tikistitch reports that certain billboards are popping up in Oregon — yeah, the same signs our crazy billboard lady has been putting up around Minnesota. Try reading her forum — the stupid will burn, and you will wonder how anyone that ignorant is getting her message spread across the country.
pharyngula | September 27, 2007I met Thomas Martin the other day in NY — he's the fellow who wrote the winning essay in the Seed science writing contest. I had no idea he was a flaming creationist! At least, you'd get the impression that his essay was ID-friendly from the assessment of Uncommon Descent.
Of course, what the essay actually says is that science works because "it compels smart people to incessantly try to disprove the ideas generated by other smart people," and that one goal of science is to "find those ideas that can withstand the long and hard barrage of evidence-based argument." I don't think Martin was…
pharyngula | September 27, 2007That movie Expelled is acquiring an international reputation: Spiegel reports on Unfreiwillige Kreationisten-PR: Forscher fühlen sich von Filmemachern missbraucht (if you'd rather, here's the google translation). By the time the film opens, what it will be best known for is that they had to lie to get their interviews.
(They quote me. They get my name wrong. Oh, well, it's part of my grand plan: from now on, every scientist with a weird name you've never heard of before? Just assume it's me. I shall be ubiquitously mysterious.)
pharyngula | September 27, 2007And it's in an article by Cornelia Dean, one of their best science people. I have to single out this short summary of the argument as a good example of the right way to handle the "controversy".
The growing furor over the movie, visible in blogs, on Web sites and in conversations among scientists, is the latest episode in the long-running conflict between science and advocates of intelligent design, who assert that the theory of evolution has obvious scientific flaws and that students should learn that intelligent design, a creationist idea, is an alternative approach.
There is no credible…
pharyngula | September 26, 2007Denyse O'Leary finds another review of Lifecode … and reveals again her own lack of discrimination. It's by Jerry Bergman, a deranged young earth creationist who works for the Institute of Creation Research. Why??? This is a man with disreputable credentials afflicted with a ridiculous position on science — it's like writing down the ramblings of some addled wino, and has just as much credibility.
It's a tepid review that does not endorse Pivar's work at all (not good enough for Jerry Bergman—that's got to sting.) But mainly what we learn is that Bergman doesn't know any biology.
All cells…
pharyngula | September 26, 2007I know there are a few fans of Peter Irons out there — and maybe some of you agree that he ought to have a blog. Since he doesn't, though, I'm posting a little email exchange he had with Denyse O'Leary and William Dembski, by his request and with the permission of the participants.
There's a disturbing--but highly revealing--footnote to Bill Dembski's crusade against Baylor University and its president, John Lilley, for removing the "Evolutionary Informatics Lab" website of Professor Robert Marks from the university's server. By way of background, Marks had hired Dembski as a "post-doc" in…
mikethemadbiologist | September 26, 2007In a great post over at Pandagon about a lesbian mother who confronted the rightwing ninnies at the Family Impact Summit, I came across this link to a good column by a former employee of the American Family Association (italics mine):
It is not coincidental that the road to Hell is paved with the best of intentions, thus while one hopes that conservative leaders, such as Don Wildmon, began their crusade motivated by morality, it appears that a number of them have been hypnotized by the siren song of the almighty dollar.
Christian activism has become a lucrative business. According to its 990…
mikethemadbiologist | September 26, 2007In response to this blast from the past about Kuhnian scientific revolutions, SteveG has an interesting discussion about the inadequacy of Popperian falsification for understanding paradigm shifts, or to use Imre Lakantos' phrase "research programme" (italics mine):
Imre Lakatos was a student of Popper's who also found certain things about Kuhn's view deeply attractive. He realized the problems with the use of falsifiability of individual hypotheses as a criterion of demarcation for science that arose from Kuhn's insights. but he also saw one of the glaring problems with Kuhn's system. If a…
mikethemadbiologist | September 24, 2007From the archives comes this post about the ridiculous attraction to 'breaking paradigms':
Every so often, intelligent design flares up like a really bad pimple. If you're a biologist, you're always torn between ignoring it or responding to the same old statements of belief that you or someone else has refuted over and over again. Pharyngula sums up this frustration perfectly:
I am tired, so tired. A few people have claimed we're overreacting to Bush's tepid endorsement of Intelligent Design creationism, but no...look at the deluge of garbage from the frauds of creationism that has followed…
pharyngula | September 23, 2007Wesley Elsberry covers the contemptible David Vitter's stealth funding for creationism efforts. Vitter's a devious little sneak, and it's good to see him exposed.
pharyngula | September 23, 2007I had not known that the UK actually had a legal requirement "in all state schools for pupils to take part in a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature." How … quaint. That must create a fair number of atheists, since I think I would probably have reacted with some resentment if my school had shuffled me off to chapel every day, just on the general principle. And I've learned something else: the UK government has an infestation of holy muckity-mucks, almost like ours! When Dr Paul Kelley tried to turn the school he runs into a a fully secular institution, he was told he couldn't do…
pharyngula | September 22, 2007Poor William Dembski has many thorns in his side. There's that spunky grad student and that guy who knows more math than he does, and there's also been a certain professor of constitutional law who has been quietly plaguing him behind the scenes. I'm on Peter Irons' cc list for these emails, and there have been quite a few occasions when I've been laughing from my easy chair at the well-aimed slingstones winging their way from California to Texas.
Dembski has had enough, and has posted his own reply. Irons has been chatting with Baylor President John Lilley, urging him in particular to not…
mikethemadbiologist | September 22, 2007A follow up to yesterday's blast from the past:
Ever since Majikthise, Pandagon, and Alternet linked to my post about Yglesias, my sitemeter hit-counter thingee has blown a gasket (and, Majikthise, um, thanks for the very kind words, but low expectations are much easier to live with...). Anyway, it's been interesting to read what other people think about the post.
One general angle I've noticed is that many commenters are focusing on the politics of evolution. Granted, this post was picked up largely by political websites, so this is to be expected. Regarding the politics, I'm not naive: I…
pharyngula | September 22, 2007I mentioned before that Mark Mathis is prowling Baylor, looking for new footage for his paean to creationist paranoia, Expelled. I have a suggestion for Mark.
Go north.
Just get on I35 and head north to Iowa, and pop into Southwestern Community College. Have a little conversation with Dr. Linda Wild, Vice President of Instruction. Mention the name Steve Bitterman. Bitterman was teaching a course in western civilization, one in which he uses the Old Testament, and here's what he taught them:
"I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn't given any more…