creationism
pharyngula | April 8, 2007The movie 300 has finally arrived in Morris, and I saw it last evening. I'd heard a lot about this film, in particular that it was loaded with relationships to current events—the war in Iraq, in particular, with arguments for it being pro-war, anti-war, a jingoistic propaganda film, etc. The arguments are all wrong. I could tell exactly what this movie's hidden meaning was: it's a retelling of the creation-evolution struggle! "But of course!" you're all saying to yourselves, "It's so obvious, now that you mention it!"
Look at the beginning. It's all about how the Spartans are the products of…
evolvingthoughts | April 7, 2007
I cannot believe I didn't pick this up myself. Coulter's book Godless isn't what it seems to be - an ill-informed rehash of tired old creationist bafflegab. Instead, it's a Sokalesque hoax designed to make conservatives reassess their own rationality and to expose the idiocy of intelligent design! Read about it at Livescience.com in a piece of clever analysis by Peter Olofsson.
pharyngula | April 7, 2007I was just reminded that last year at this time I announced an anniversary. In March of 2004, I critiqued this mysterious abstraction called "ontogenetic depth" that Paul Nelson, the ID creationist, proposed as a measure of developmental and evolutionary complexity, and that he was using as a pseudoscientific rationale against evolution. Unfortunately, he never explained how "ontogenetic depth" was calculated or how it was measured (perhaps he was inspired by Dembski's "specified complexity", another magic number that can be farted out by creationists but cannot be calculated). Nelson…
mikethemadbiologist | April 7, 2007I've just finished reading Chris Mooney's and Matt Nisbet's Science article about communicating science to the general public. It's right on target.
When it comes to defending evolutionary biology, the success one will have is far less dependent on marshalling the appropriate facts than many scientists would like. Since the Scopes trial 80 years ago, the evidence in favor of evolution has only increased--one discpline that supports it, genetics, was in its infancy, and another, molecular evolution/population genetics, didn't even exist. Yet we don't really seem to have made a dent, if…
clock | April 6, 2007My SciBlings Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet just published an article in 'Science' (which, considering its topic is, ironically, behind the subscription wall, but you can check the short press release) about "Framing Science"
Carl Zimmer, PZ Myers, Mike Dunford (also check the comments here), John Fleck, Larry Moran, Dietram Scheufele, Kristina Chew, Randy Olson, James Hrynyshyn, Paul Sunstone and Alan Boyle have, so far, responded and their responses (and the comment threads) are worth your time to read. Chris and Matt respond to some of them. Matt has more in-depth explanations here, here and…
pharyngula | April 6, 2007Larry Moran criticizes a dramatic Youtube video that purports to show how evolution works. He asks if we think this helps or hurts the cause of evolution education. Speaking as an evo-devo guy (forgive me, Larry), I'd also say it hurts. Without understanding the mechanisms of morphological change underlying the simulation, it's useless. It doesn't explain anything about the roots of the variation it's demonstrating or the principles of the propagation of genetic change through a population — funny faces shift generation after generation, with no explanation given. It asserts change without…
pharyngula | April 6, 2007Jonathan Wells apparently felt the sting of my rebuttal of his assertions about Hox gene structure, because he has now repeated his erroneous interpretations at Dembski's creationist site. His strategy is to once again erect a straw man version of biologist's claims about genetic structure, show that biologists have refuted his dummy, and claim victory. The only real question here is whether he actually believes his historical revisions of what we've known about Hox genes, in which case he is merely ignorant, or whether he is knowingly painting a false picture, in which case he is a malicious…
tfk | April 5, 2007Taner Edis, a physicist at Truman State University, came to KU a couple days ago to talk about his research into creationism in the Muslim world. That research most recently led to his book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in Islam.
Dr. Edis grew up and went to college in Turkey, which is where a lot of modern Islamic creationism originates. Understanding why that should be the case, helps explain why sees claims of harmony between science and Islam as illusory.
A common trope in discussing the history of science relates to the era when science proceeded apace in the Islamic…
mikethemadbiologist | April 5, 2007From the archives comes this bit about the ludicrous (and willful) misunderstanding that creationists have regarding 'beneficial' mutations:
Whether they are young earthers or intelligent design advocates, one tactic creationists use is to claim evolutionary biologists-always described as "evolutionists"-think something which we do not. Over at Thoughts from Kansas, Josh had a very nice post describing the mechanisms by which mutations happen (among other things). Without fail, in charged a creationist:
The evolutionists make the claim that there are enough mutations that turn out to be…
pharyngula | April 5, 2007The transcript of last night's Anderson Cooper segment is available. My assessment: it was a pro-religion/pro-creationism show that gave undue reverence to nonsense. Tom Foreman, one of the reporters, was a pandering fool. Anderson Cooper was an obliging tool. Most of the interviewees were conventionally clueless. I've put a few choice bits below the fold.
There was a good amount of footage dedicated to Ken Ham, his creation science museum, and a family of ignorant homeschoolers who said evolution was not science. On the other side, the side of good science?
MIKE NOVACEK, PROVOST, AMERICAN…
clock | April 5, 2007Neural Gourmet and Blue Gal are organizing a massive blogospheric Blog Against Theocracy weekend:
I'd like invite you all to Blog Against Theocracy. This is a little blog swarm being put together by everybody's favorite panties blogger Blue Gal for Easter weekend, April 6th through the 8th. The idea is simple. Just post something related to, and in support of, the separation of church and state each of those three days. Something big, something small, artistic, musical, textual or otherwise. The topic is your choosing. Whether your thing is stem cell research, intelligent design/Creationism,…
pharyngula | April 4, 2007The poor fellow has an irresistible quote-mining reflex, unable to leave even the most innocuous statements alone. After his deplorable puppy-killing slander, he's trying to slime Darwin again, and coming out looking like a pathetic wanker himself.
pharyngula | April 4, 2007The Discovery Institute has challenged SMU profs
to debate at the "Darwin vs Design" event in Dallas. No takers so far; I'm not surprised, any scientist who participated would be increasing the DI's reputation immensely simply by sharing a meeting room with one of those clowns.
But the DI is in the mood for a debate, eh … so how about with Peter Irons, noted constitutional lawyer, Harvard Law School grad, Supreme Court bar member, and author of a forthcoming book, God on Trial(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which includes a chapter on the Dover case? He's going to be in the Seattle area at the end…
pharyngula | April 4, 2007Tonight on Anderson Cooper (CNN, 10pm ET), we're apparently going to get a preview of Ken Ham's shiny new pseudo-scientific creation "science" "museum". Tune in for a good laugh!
(via DefCon Blog)
Gaaaah! I managed to watch it for 20 minutes before giving up on it. It was one big load of religious tripe, with all the emphasis given to glowing candles, bible verses, and fawning credulity over creationists, religionists, anyone who believes. They showed Ken Ham preaching lying, lots of shots of creepy animatronic dinosaurs, and countered it all with about 15 seconds of Michael Novacek of the…
pharyngula | April 4, 2007If you were ever wondering what the slogan "Teach the Controversy" really means, Patrick Henry College explains it for us:
Creation: Any biology, Bible, or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will
teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God's creative work,
as described in Genesis 1:1-31, was completed in six twenty-four hour days. All
faculty for such courses will be chosen on the basis of their personal adherence
to this view. PHC expects its faculty in these courses, as in all courses, to expose
students to alternate theories and the data, if any, which support…
pharyngula | April 4, 2007Michael Egnor is the gift that keeps on giving. He's been responding to criticisms from us sciencebloggers with more and more inanities — it's like all you have to do is poke him and he starts puking up more and more transparently fallacious creationist talking points.
Mark Chu-Carroll schools him on his tired claim that selection is a tautology, something we've been hearing from creationists since at least the days of Gish. In response to Orac's challenge, requesting examples of how 'design' has helped modern medicine, Egnor coughed up … Watson's and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA…
pharyngula | April 4, 2007One recurring theme I have going on here is that creationists aren't necessarily stupid (although some are, very much so) — their problems are ignorance and arrogance. Those two traits reinforce each other; the ignorance allows them to think their pitiable store of knowledge is adequate and allows them to arrogantly assume they're competent, while their arrogance drives them to refuse to consider correcting their ignorance. It's an ugly spiral that locks them into what are genuinely stupid opinions.
Case in point: the creationist "For the Kids", or FtK, who makes little drive-by comments here…
pharyngula | April 3, 2007This evening, I am watching an episode of that marvelous and profane Western, Deadwood, as I type this; it is a most excellently compensatory distraction, allowing me to sublimate my urge to express myself in uncompromisingly vulgar terms on Pharyngula. This is an essential coping mechanism.
I have been reading Jonathan Wells again.
If you're familiar with Wells and with Deadwood, you know what I mean. You'll just have to imagine that I am Al Swearingen, the brutal bar-owner who uses obscenities as if they were lyric poetry, while Wells is E.B. Farnum, the unctuous rodent who earns the…
pharyngula | April 3, 2007We're building up a biased sample that damns an entire profession — Dr Guliuzza, Dr Egnor (who seems to be adopting a more traditional creationist stance), and now Dr Keith Holmes (submitted by Transcription Factor), and so many more — and I thought maybe I should correct that by inviting everyone to name M.D.s and other health care professionals who are not creationist loons. I suspect the majority of doctors (and engineers!) are sensible, intelligent, educated people who have no problem with good science and think creationism is crackpottery.
Let's have an open thread where the doctors and…
evolvingthoughts | April 3, 2007
Etiology is the study of the causes of things (usually diseases). In my own personal lexicon, etiobiology is the study of the causes and origins of biological processes. Usually, the search term is "origins of life", and recently some new papers have reinvigorated the field.
One is the rerunning of the Miller-Urey experiment done in the 1950s by Stanley Miller. Miller had assumed, based on the work of his advisory, Harold Urey, that the early earth had a reducing atmosphere, in which there is little or no oxygen. This is now thought to be wrong, so some (creationists, OK?) said that…