creationism
evolvingthoughts | October 16, 2006In a nice bit of irony, the attention paid to the Dover, PA school board attempt to get Intelligent Design into schools gave a major boost to the success of the American Museum of Natural History exhibit on Darwin.
Niles Eldredge says the goal was merely to continue a series of New York exhibits on the world's great scientists. First came Leonardo da Vinci, then Albert Einstein. Why not Charles Darwin?
Somewhere along the way, a certain Pennsylvania school board decided that Darwin's theory of evolution had "gaps" and "problems," and the ensuing media spotlight was brighter than any museum…
razib | October 16, 2006Polish MEP calls for 'scholarly debate' on evolution:
'I am a scientist, I am a geneticist, my specialty is population genetics and I reject the theory of evolution on the basis of the field of science I represent. I find that in many fields of science there are scientists who reject the theory of evolution because in their fields they also find evidence against the theory.' says MEP Maciej Giertych.
I won't go through the blow-by-blow. Only two points:
1) It exhausts my creativity how one could reject evolution because of population genetics, seeing as how population genetics as a field…
mikethemadbiologist | October 16, 2006I was reading this LA Times story about the quashing of intelligent design creationism in Michigan, and I was stunned by this (italics mine):
Richard Thompson, leader of the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, said intelligent design should have a home in science classes. The center describes its mission as defending the religious freedom of Christians.
"It would make students more knowledgeable about science and more interested in science," he said in a phone interview. "Evolution is a theory. It's not a fact."
Evolution is a theory--in the scientific sense of the word. I am certain…
stcynic | October 16, 2006And it's from Michigan, from a blog that calls itself The Local Area Watch, run by William and Bridget Tingley (who have given each other funny titles like "executive director" and "editor". And they're not too happy with the school board's decision. Darwinism Isn't Science, they declare, and then proceed to show that they know next to nothing about the subject (which is hardly surprising to anyone who pays attention to anti-evolutionary screeds). The nonsense begins almost immediately:
There is a great deal confusion about evolution. For instance, what does the word mean? If evolution…
mikethemadbiologist | October 13, 2006...it's pretty clear the Republicans don't give a damn about America's children. There's growing evidence that the Republican political establishment doesn't believe in the Christian Right's lunacy. So all the hot air about putting intelligent design creationism into the classroom was crapola to placate the Christopath base. In other words, the Republicans were willing to degrade science education, waste time in the classroom, and divert teachers and scientists from doing their real jobs simply to maintain their grip on power.
Heckuva job, Bushists.
pharyngula | October 12, 2006Yesterday, I toured the Tower of London (among other things) with Larry Moran. For those of you who don't know him, he's one of the more ferocious combatants in the evolution-creation wars—he does not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise. He ended up in a few of my photos, in a disturbingly appropriate way.
I call this series, "Larry Moran contemplates armaments".
Keep these in mind if you get into an argument with Larry.
P.S. If you are a literalist who doesn't understand a joke, no, Larry really isn't planning to fire any creationists out of a mortar.
clock | October 11, 2006Meandering Musings on evolutionary psychology and many other things (from February 15, 2005)...
I remember when PZ Myers posted this exercise on his blog. The point was to show how much all of modern biology is based on and dependent on evolutionary theory because of oft-repeated bizzare claim by Creationists that this is not so.
Now Josh Rosenau has embarked on expanding this project and has started a pair of blogs just for this purpose. One blog, The Evolution Project will track recently published scientific papers that more or less explicitely are based on evolutionary theory, while its…
clock | October 10, 2006Except that getting elected for office is not a right and saying that a Creationist is not to be trusted with governing is not bigotry.
(Hat-tip: Lindsay)
pharyngula | October 10, 2006I have confirmation from both my son (who was there) and Eva that Patty Wetterling did address the question about whether ID ought to be taught in the schools in a recent debate. Here's what she said:
We need to teach the truth about science. Evolution is scientifically accurate. We can't let our science curriculum to be based on religious beliefs.
Exactly right. That's not hard to say, you know.
There were a few comments in that prior thread that were trying to argue that, since the 6th district has a conservative population, Wetterling was a bad choice to run there—that the DFL should have…
evolvingthoughts | October 9, 2006A new organisation, following the lead of the National Center for Science Education in the United States, has been formed to monitor and lobby against the introduction of creationism and intelligent design in the United Kingdom. It's called the British Centre for Science Education, and its webite is here, with an extensive list of all the players in the political movement currently underway to convert state schools to fundamentalist schools, with the apparent support of the current (and temporary) PM, Tony Blair.
It is very sad that the shining light that is British education is under attack…
pharyngula | October 9, 2006Eva sent me a link to a wingnut's account of a debate between some 6th Congressional District candidates: Patty Wetterling (Democrat), John Binkowski (Independent), and Michele Bachmann (Rethuglican). It's not a very good transcription—for one thing, the wingnut's commentary is all tangled up with the words of the candidates, making it hard to tell who said what—but there's one part of interest. They were asked the ID question.
Q5: Should "Intelligent Design" be taught (along with Darwinian Theory) in the p science curriculum in public schools?
Bachmann: "We need to trust teachers and the…
pharyngula | October 9, 2006Salon has an article on a new up-and-coming star of the evangelical movement: Stephen Baldwin. Stephen Frickin-Dumb-As-A-Lizard Baldwin!
For Dobson, Baldwin and young Americans the nation over who yearn for the certainty this brand of Christianity pitches, the personal is political. Absolutism reigns in the new evangelical youth movement, shining through the chaos of modernity, global terror, media bombardment and glorious moral relativism. Baldwin pitches the ultimate dumbed-down fundamentalism, offering reductive, brainless theology. "I sleep good at night because I am totally content in…
pharyngula | October 9, 2006A reader sent me some email asking if I knew anything about this book by Hugh Ross, Creation As Science: A Testable Model Approach to End the Creation/Evolution Wars(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll).
No, I don't.
That is a very interesting and ambitious title, though, so I went digging on Ross's website, Reasons to Believe. You'd think that with such a promising statement, and the proposal that they actually have a scientific, testable model for creationism, that their model would be prominently featured somewhere. If you dig deep enough, you will find it, and you will be deeply disappointed. Here's…
pharyngula | October 8, 2006The usual suspects of Intelligent Design creationism came out with a book a while ago honoring the patriarch of the movement, that sneaky rascal Phillip Johnson. They had to shop around for someone to puke up some happy blurbs about the book; Duke Cunningham demanded too much money, Charles Manson had some standards, and Roy Cohn was both gay and dead, so they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel of sleazy criminals and came up with Chuck Colson. I have no idea how much he was paid, but they didn't get their money's worth.
This feisty Berkeley law professor became the unlikely spearhead of…
mikethemadbiologist | October 7, 2006The pro-science, anti-intelligent design creationism group Floridians for Science is writing a response to a creationist screed published in a Florida newspaper. Please stop by and help them draft their response.
pharyngula | October 6, 2006Florida Citizens for Science is asking for your contributions to a rebuttal they're working on. The organization got an op-ed published decrying the recent ID BS at the Sundome, and the local newspapers have published a series of replies that are stupefying in their ignorance. This should be easy.
One writer simply lies:
The scientific evidence for intelligent design would fill several editions of this newspaper. The scientific evidence for macroevolution, the formation of a new species by random mutation and natural selection (Darwinism), would not fill the period at the end of this sentence…
pharyngula | October 5, 2006The US has done wonderfully well in collecting Nobel prizes this year, but there's no reason to be complacent. There's a lot of momentum in our science establishment, the result of solid support for many years, but there are troubling signs that the engines of our advance, the young minds of the next generation, aren't going to be propelling us as well. Take this report by science educators, for instance:
"We are the best in the world at what we do at the top end, and we are mediocre — or worse — at the bottom end," said Jon Miller, of Michigan State University, who studies the role of…
tfk | October 5, 2006I doubt that the research that produced Nobel prizes in Chemistry and Medicine/Physiology cost $4 million combined. I don't really know for sure, but some of the most fundamental discoveries cost quite little to make.
I point this out only because the DI's "Mr. Suave" aka Rob Crowther, is bragging that the "Discovery Institute Has Put Over $4 Million Towards Scientific and Academic Research into Evolution and Intelligent Design in the Past Decade":
“In 1996, it was almost impossible to receive funding to do scientific research related to intelligent design,” says Bruce Chapman, President of…