creationism
pharyngula | June 26, 2007Yecke, Minnesota's former odious education commissioner, is now campaigning to be odious education commissioner for the state of Florida. Her history in our fair state is now a bit of a stain on her reputations, so she hired a company called "reputationdefender" to sanitize the internet for her. This company googles up people who have said unkind things about their clients and sends out email threats to them, telling them to take it down. Their first target: gentle Wesley Elsberry. What's particularly weird about this is that the post in question is simply a collection of news clippings with…
evolvingthoughts | June 25, 2007
The Register is reporting that the UK government has ruled that intelligent design is not acceptable in science classes. [via Slashdot]
pharyngula | June 25, 2007This should win a prize for the dumbest excuse from a creationist that I've heard in, oh, about 24 hours.
...don't you find it interesting that there is NO recorded history prior to less than 10,000 years ago? If man has been around millions of years why the heck did it take so long to learn to write? Most kids are doing it by 2nd grade! Man evolved enough to suddenly figure out how to record his thoughts just a few thousand years ago? Hmmm.
This same creationist also makes a "marketing" argument, that creationism is better because it is easier to understand than evolution. He claims to…
pharyngula | June 25, 2007The UK government does not mince words.
The government has announced that it will publish guidance for schools on how creationism and intelligent design relate to science teaching, and has reiterated that it sees no place for either on the science curriculum.
It has also defined "Intelligent Design", the idea that life is too complex to have arisen without the guiding hand of a greater intelligence, as a religion, along with "creationism".
Cue another DI media blitz, they've been dissed. It's too bad for them that this is a government decree that actually aligns well with the position of…
clock | June 24, 2007Professor Steve Steve, Wesley Elsberry, Tara Smith and Jason Rosenhouse [edit: Part 3 is now available] went to that funny new "museum" in Kentucky and report about it so you don't ever have to go yourself!
pharyngula | June 24, 2007…and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt. Professor Steve Steve,
Jason, Tara, and Wesley, along with quite a few others, all took the grand tour last week. I'm glad they went, but it's becoming obvious there isn't a heck of a lot going on there — it's the same old tripe in every report at this point — and I think I can skip ever going myself.
pharyngula | June 24, 2007Jason Rosenhouse has dug into the details of the evo-devo chapter of Behe's The Edge of Evolution and found some clear examples of dishonest quote-mining (so what else is new, you may be thinking—it's what creationists do). I've warned you all before that when you see an ellipsis in a creationist quote, you ought to just assume that there's been something cut out that completely contradicts the point the creationist is making; Rosenhouse finds that Behe gets around that little red-flag problem by simply leaving out the ellipses.
I just want to expand a little bit on one point Behe mangles and…
pharyngula | June 23, 2007I guess I'd always thought Wingnut Daily would at least put up a pretense of rationality (it's a paper-thin pretense, obviously, draped over a great massive lump of lunacy), but no—they've just published a hoary old heap of old-school creationist apologetics. It's all about Barry Setterfield's long-disproven claim that the speed of light has been detectably decreasing in recent history. This is completely bogus: here's a short refutation, or you can go for the longer dismantlement. This stuff is over 25 years old, and it's pure garbage…but that's no obstacle to being eternally perpetuated in…
pharyngula | June 21, 2007One of those annoying habits creationists organizations have is the appropriation of legitimate scientific research to 'support' their claims. They almost never do, actually—the creationists have to misrepresent the science, and often they even offer interpretations flatly contradicted by the contents of the paper. For an excellent example, here's the author of a paper on ERVs complaining that Reason To Believe's use of her work was unjustified.
I eventually decided to reclaim my research from the people who have consistently tried to distort the science to support their own agenda. I checked…
pharyngula | June 21, 2007Aaron Kinney tells me that Egnor is still going on and on about dualism. He's still floundering; are you surprised?
P.Z. Myers' reply to my observation that ideas like altruism have no physical properties, like location, leaves a thoughtful observer to wonder: why do materialists have so much difficulty with this basic philosophical principle? It's clear that ideas share no properties with matter. Ideas have no mass, or length, or temperature, or location. They're immaterial. Clearly, under ordinary circumstances the brain is necessary for our ideas to exist, but, because matter and ideas…
pharyngula | June 21, 2007Get ready for it: the next battle will be over Stupid Design.
All the little details are perfect, like the mangled "facts" they'll use to support it, the arguments from consequences, and the scientists conceding legitimacy in some domain to it.
pharyngula | June 21, 2007Here's another sample of strange creationist email. This one spares the freaky fonts and excessive style changes, and instead we get an abrupt opening with no explanation, and a healthy dose of paranoia.
First, a little background: David P. Wozney is basically a dinosaur denialist (and also a conspiracy theorist—he has doubts about the Apollo moonlanding, for instance). Archy has a good overview of Wozney weirdness. The person who sent this to me, Cyndy Kenickell, is also a dinosaur denialist. The fun begins when she tries to explain why dinosaurs don't exist: dinosaurs were faked to justify…
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2007Having been encouraged by ScienceBlogling John Wilkins, I'm going to follow up on my post about science journalism, and, no doubt, get myself into further trouble. First, though, I want to clarify some points.
Without going into specific detail, I work for a non-profit organization that deals with infectious disease. My primary job--and the one that pays my bills and keeps the lights on--is to conduct and develop research projects. However, I'm also the primary person who deals with questions about the 'science' of our issue (we also have clinical and economic experts). An average day is…
pharyngula | June 19, 2007I told you that Answers in Genesis was trying to hire a geologist. You've blown it now, they've gone and hired a real pro.
The addition of Dr. Snelling confirms AiG's continued efforts to meet the highest standards in its research in creation studies, according to AiG President Ken Ham. "Dr. Snelling's stature among the scientific community should be an unequivocal sign to the academic world and the media that serious research is being conducted at AiG and its museum," Ham said.
Oh, sure: "Snelling's stature among the scientific community" is a significant indicator. Let's see…
Creationist…
pharyngula | June 18, 2007This is perfect: a crossword puzzle, with the answers filled in as a scientist would, and then as a creationist would. Very cute—the creationist answers don't fit!
They will argue, of course, that the problem is our metaphysical insistence on using words that fit the grid and address the clues.
pharyngula | June 18, 2007The Council of Europe has put up a wonderful motion for a recommendation. Can anyone imagine this being discussed in the American senate or house of representatives? The Republicans would howl in fury against it, and the Democrats would rush to bury it, lest they offend the Republicans and annoy the ignorant members of their electorate. (The Council of Europe, by the way, is not the same thing as the Council of the European Union or the European Parliament, so it's not really comparable to our congress. Europe says some very sensible things, but Europe is also very confusing.)
1. The…
pharyngula | June 17, 2007Bill Dembski is touting some strange ID-positive blog as a sign that there is a "growing number of non-religious ID proponents" — alas for poor Bill, when you glance at the blog, it's some random guy making a post about once a month, whose background is as a musician and professional crackpot. His sole qualification as a "scientist" seems to be that he signed up to post on that ID web forum, ISCID. You should read more on Stranger Fruit, and Afarensis reveals that rather than touting his non-religious credentials, his unique claim to fame is as an "ID Pleasurian," believe it or not. How will…
pharyngula | June 16, 2007Everyone did good: they met Scalzi's challenge and then some, so now he has to go spend $20 and tour the horrid little place.
This will chap Ken Ham's buns, too. Sure, he'll have to buy a ticket, but he also raised $5,118.36 all of which will be donated to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Good deal!
pharyngula | June 15, 2007A Cincinnati news weekly, the City Beat, has weighed in on the Creation "Museum". They don't seem to like it.
Here are some of the good quotes from the article.
Gene Kritsky, biologist:
it's almost like intellectual molestation.
Not only is it bad science, it is filled with bad religion, and it's also bad sociology and bad history, too.
Lawrence Krauss, physicist:
This is an institution designed to mis-educate children.
This is nothing but an institutionalized lie and a scientific fraud.
Edwin Kagin, lawyer:
What they are doing is no less an attack on the very way that science and…