creationism
pharyngula | May 13, 2007On 28 May, there will be a protest demonstration at Ken Ham's folly, the creationist exhibition near Cincinnati. This is not about shutting down the foolish building, but using its own PR focus on itself, turning media attention to the fact that a lot of people consider it backward, insane, and kooky.
I like this guy's attitude.
According to Edwin Kagin of the RfR, the rally is not challenging the right of AIG to present their world view. "They can teach that things fall up if they wish," said Mr. Kagin. "We are simply trying to show that the views they are promoted are not accepted by those…
pharyngula | May 13, 2007Uh-oh. I'm being chastised by Jason, and by more than a few commenters in the thread about Mitt Romney's views on evolution. You're all going to have to crack the whip harder, though, because I am still unpersuaded, and I'm still mildly disgusted with all the people praising Romney for his anti-science statements.
First, let me deal with a misconception: I am not proposing to run Romney out of the country on a rail. I mentioned that I expected the candidates in the Democratic field would probably say exactly the same mystical line of crap … and come the election, I'm going to hold my nose and…
evolvingthoughts | May 12, 2007
In what is for this furriner a somewhat perplexing column, Kathleen Parker, who is supposedly one of the Washington Post stable of writers, argues that the question asked of Republican nominees for presidency - Do you believe in evolution? - was unfair.
I fail to see why. Sure, nobody expects the president to select the next generation of successful breeders for any generation, but this is a good surrogate test of whether or not the candidate thinks science is to be trusted, or whether they think, as this administration odes, that they can choose the reality in which they operate with…
mikethemadbiologist | May 12, 2007Well, that got your attention, didn't it? Actually, I'm referring to a post by PZ where he discusses his objections to religion. In reading them, they really didn't seem to describe my religion, so I thought it would be interesting to go through them.
For background, I guess I'm a Reconstructionist when it comes to theology, Reform when it comes to politics (i.e., my politics and stands on social issues most resemble those of the Reform movement), and Conservative when it comes to observance (what Christians would call practice). I'm not going to pretend to speak for "Jews", but simply…
pharyngula | May 12, 2007What is going on here? I read Mitt Romney's comments on evolution on TPM Cafe and was surprised at how many people think it was a positive development.
Is this a first? Mitt Romney isn't pandering to religious right voters or flip-flopping on an issue important to them in this interview, in which he reveals that he opposes the teaching of intelligent design:
"I believe that God designed the universe and created the universe," Mr. Romney said in an interview this week. "And I believe evolution is most likely the process he used to create the human body."
He was asked: Is that intelligent…
pharyngula | May 11, 2007It's always so exciting to see a new creationist argument…until you actually look at it and see how silly it is. And they've been getting more and more desperately absurd as the years go by and the flaws in the old arguments get harder and harder to support. Once upon a time, they could just say it rained really hard for 40 days to flood the earth. When it was pointed out that you can't wring that much water out of the atmosphere, they had to contrive all kinds of elaborate conditions for earth prior to the flood, with deep reservoirs and a "vapor canopy" of crystalline hydrogen to keep huge…
pharyngula | May 11, 2007Hey, this isn't a half-bad critique of creationist arguments — short, written at a simple level, and with a list of references at the end.
Too bad he's another of us repugnant atheists — he'll frighten the children and never convince anyone of anything.*
*That's sarcasm, 'k?
pharyngula | May 10, 2007First, an important message from Randy Olson:
Second, another important message from Randy Olson: one of the DVD extras for the movie has been released to YouTube! It's got my picture in it, but skip that, watch for…
Jack Cashill's little falsehood about Haeckel's embryos. He accuses SJ Gould of sitting on the problems of Haeckelian recapitulation for 25 years, only mentioning it in 1995. Of course, Gould published a whole book in 1977, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, that laid out the failures of Haeckelian recapitulation in pedantic detail. Cashill also claims "…the Haeckel embryos which are…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007
A new book titled Flock of Dodos (a book, not the movie, and apparently the two have nothing to do with each other) is coming out, and Glenn Branch of the NCSE tells me it mentions something vile about William Jennings Bryan, the defender of creationism at the Scopes trial. That's his campaign poster to the right. Look closely, very closely — it's a rather small image — down at the bottom left. There's a cephalopod defending the American flag, and some kind of crazed scullery maid attacking it with an axe. Obviously, Bryan was no friend of biodiversity.
The description in the book of this…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007Some conservative named Patrick Hynes is unhappy that the Republican candidates were asked their opinion of evolution. His argument is two-pronged: it is reasonable to disagree with scientific opinions on the matter, and it is unreasonable to ask the politicians of his party what their opinion of a scientific issue might be.
And here's another tip for you, Skip: As I pointed out in In Defense of the Religious Right in a chapter titled "I Scream, You Scream, but We are The Mainstream," everyday Americans are firmly on the side of evolution skeptics:
Seventy-eight percent of all Americans…
mikethemadbiologist | May 10, 2007Remember the old joke that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged? By way of Ed Brayton, I came across this post by Kent Hovind about his time in jail. Both the post and some of the responses are fascinating (in a 'car wreck' sort of way) because they illuminate the authoritarian mind so well. Hovind has reached an epiphany of sorts about the criminal justice system:
At lunch last week, one of the inmates said, "If I could, I would bomb the Christian Coalition. They are the reason we are here." I was shocked by his statement! I love the Christian Coalition, but I understand the…
mikethemadbiologist | May 9, 2007Tristero makes an excellent point about Republican rhetoric, and I think it partially explains why so many scientists are opposed to the Bush Administration. Tristero compares the Niger 'evidence' for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with the rhetoric opposing the HPV vaccination (italics mine):
Why were we positive Bush was lying? Because no one who is telling the truth talks like this about such a serious subject. Notice the first five words. It's not that Saddam recently sought significant quantities yadda yadda, but only that "the Briitish government has learned." If there was any…
pharyngula | May 9, 2007A reader sent along an
an article from the Lancaster Sunday News, announcing a lecture on 17 May by John Morris, an infamously silly Young Earth Creationist. It's a little peculiar; it's written by Helen Colwell Adams, bylined as a staff writer for the paper, but it is completely credulous — she seems to have interviewed Morris and blindly written down everything he claimed, without so much as cocking an eyebrow and wondering if there were anything to these absurd claims. It's a wonderful example of very bad journalism.
Morris also panders to his audience with talk about how the Pennsylvania…
pharyngula | May 8, 2007Then you should sign this letter protesting the bogus creationist propaganda on display at Ken Ham's Creation "Science" museum.
(via Greg Laden)
pharyngula | May 8, 2007As a fan of Roy Zimmerman — I've mentioned his Creation Science 101 before, among other lovely songs about the modern world — I have two revelations for you. If you're a guitar player, he has released a short clip that is a tutorial on how to play Creation Science 101. There are fingerings and keys and chords and things that lost me. If you aren't a guitar player (like me!) you can still enjoy the wisecracks.
Secondly, he has a new YouTube video titled "Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual". Watch out, it's a little bit risque — he rhymes "schism" with … well, it's obvious from the subject…
clock | May 8, 2007If you are idle, retired or rich, if you live in (or are willing to move to) Oakland, California, if you have decent computer skills and if you want to help fight against Creationism, then this job is perfect for you:
From the National Center for Science Education:
Information technology technician needed by the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools, to maintain and expand NCSE's web presence, including maintenance of hardware platforms, determining software needs, and overseeing migration of content to a…
pharyngula | May 8, 2007Maybe. In his latest epistle from prison, Hovind has suddenly realized that the right-wing Christian position is unjust. It would be nice if he were undergoing a little actual consciousness-raising, but I expect it has more to do with his "me, me, me" attitude and the awful realization that he is the subject of his own old black-and-white beliefs.
At lunch last week, one of the inmates said, “If I could, I would bomb the Christian Coalition. They are the reason we are here.” I was shocked by his statement! I love the Christian Coalition, but I understand the man’s point. For years,…
Do you really want to know Ray Comfort's and Kirk Cameron's qualifications for discussing evolution?
pharyngula | May 7, 2007At least it's an easy answer: nonexistent.
pharyngula | May 7, 2007Would you believe a Nebraska community college is offering a course in creationism … and awarding science credits for it? If any McCook Community College students tried to transfer to my university, I'd argue that any who took that course ought to get negative credits because we'd have to assign additional corrective work to scour the garbage out of their brain.
The course is offered as a physics class. I'm getting a bit fed up with the arrogance of some physicists and engineers, could you please police your own? I can't imagine a biology faculty member trying to create a course that taught…
mikethemadbiologist | May 7, 2007By way of ScienceBlogling John Lynch, I read that George Gilder calls biologists "Darwinian stormtroopers." In the same NY Times article, John West claims (italics mine):
The [Darwinian] technocrats, he charged, wanted to grab control from "ordinary citizens and their elected representatives" so that they alone could make decisions over "controversial issues such as sex education, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and global warming."
While Gilder and West don't realize it, they have stumbled across our Evil Darwinist Plot:
That's why we want the embryonic…