creationism
pharyngula | July 31, 2006Catch 'em quick before they get deleted. In a post on Dembski's blog that is discussing their Kansas ad campaign to falsely portray the IDist's efforts as solely about teaching good science, there are a couple of interesting comments. Keep in mind that the Discovery Institute has declared that they aren't trying to sneak intelligent design into the classroom, they just want an "honest" discussion of the weaknesses in evolutionary theory.
Here's the first revealing comment, which plainly states that the goal of the Kansas science standards is to teach ID:
My hope is that ID will be taught…
pharyngula | July 31, 2006John Rennie deconstructs an IDist's own definition of Intelligent Design. Here's that definition:
ID is the claim that there exist patterns in nature that are best explained by intelligent agency. ID doesn't claim to be a default explanation. It is claimed to be a legitimate hypothesis, supported by a large body of evidence, that deserves consideration without being rejected on principle because of a preconceived metaphysical bias.
Sentence by sentence, that definition is untenable. Read Rennie for the big picture, but I just want to focus on that last clause: the "preconceived metaphysical…
pharyngula | July 29, 2006I'm not a cosmologist and I don't even pretend to be one on the internet, but as an evolutionist I hear far more about the Big Bang from creationists than I should…and it's everything from the Big Bang never happened to the Big Bang disproves evolution, and often both opinions are held by the same person, who will often also tell me both that the Cambrian is proof of sudden creation and that the earth is less than 10,000 years old (consistency is not a quality valued by most creationists). It's therefore rather handy to have a summary of misconceptions about the Big Bang all in one place.
pharyngula | July 28, 2006Some days, you just want to give up the arguing and go rest your head on the desk for a while. No matter how dumb you think the opposition is, they'll always manage to say something dumber than you can imagine.
pharyngula | July 27, 2006Forgive me, but I find it hard to take Casey Luskin seriously. He's a mouthpiece for the Discovery Institute who always reminds me of a voluble squirrel: he chatters away frenetically, but the brain behind his words is tiny and ill-prepared to cope with any substance. I always feel this urge to throw some peanuts at his feet to distract him. Anyway, his latest frenetic missive is a collection of angry chitterings, protesting that ID isn't about the supernatural at all (it's just about undermining naturalism…hasn't he read Philip Johnson yet?), and no, they aren't trying to sow doubt and…
clock | July 26, 2006 This is a long post from January 23, 2005, trying to tie in Creationism and conservatism through psychology:
I always loved animals and always loved science. I read the kids' science and nature books and encyclopedias, as well as adult stuff, like huge volumes about animals e.g., "The Life of Animals" by Alfred Brehm. The best present I ever got was a chemistry set my brother brought me from a trip to Egland.
I started learning English when I was five years old. No surprise here, as my parents met at the University, both studying English. It took a while until I was capable of reading…
pharyngula | July 25, 2006This is an excellent short article by Janet Browne (the Janet Browne who wrote the best biography of Darwin I've read, Voyaging(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and The Power of Place(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), both well worth reading) that discusses the reception of the theory of evolution by his contemporaries, and acknowledges the invaluable assistance of Huxley, Hooker, Gray, and Lyell. One important point is that opposition to his ideas was not driven by the crude Biblical literalism that we encounter so much today, but a more general conflict with a more enlightened religion that found no place for…
pharyngula | July 25, 2006Don't be surprised—it's just another couple of clueless creationists bumbling into science they don't understand, extracting single sentences out of context, and coming to faulty conclusions that contradict the actual results of the paper. Orac gets to have a little fun ripping up an easy creationist mark.
pharyngula | July 24, 2006
Mark Chu-Carroll has a post up that does two admirable things: it deflates yet another creationist and his grandly fallacious claims, and it gives me a new toy to play with.
The first part is a debunking of Granville Sewell, a mathematician and darling of the Intelligent Design creationists. Sewell actually is a professor of mathematics, so it's somewhat embarrassing to see a fellow professional humiliate himself with such ancient, bogus creationist complaints, such as that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics, or that stepwise change can't occur. I'll also recommend…
pharyngula | July 22, 2006My physicist friends will be embarrassed at this tale of a creationist
physics professor campaigning against science education. Maybe it's not the physics—it's the dairy products overdose.
pharyngula | July 22, 2006The Strib has an article on Camp Quest of Minnesota, the secular summer camp that is starting up this week. It's a fairly good story, although it's unfortunate to see it overwhelmed by the gigantic rah-rah story on crazy Pentacostalism spread over the next two pages of the paper, by the same reporter.
By the way, I'll be volunteering at Camp Quest on Friday, to show the kids how to deal with creationists.
pharyngula | July 22, 2006
Richard Gallagher is one of those guys I'm not ever going to like much. He's the editor of The Scientist, yet he wrote an editorial encouraging us to embrace Intelligent Design in the classroom, in the perverse hope that by giving ID that much attention, students will naturally disregard it. That was crazy stupid enough, but where he lost my respect completely was in a published rebuttal to my criticisms where he maliciously distorted my point from one advocating the teaching of science as a process based on evidence (which is why ID fails in the classroom) to a false claim that I want to…
pharyngula | July 20, 2006John McCain recently spoke out on evolution and ID. He just managed to demonstrate that he's a dissembling fool.
Responding to a question about a report that he thinks "intelligent design" should be taught in schools, the senator mocked the idea that American young people were so delicate and impressionable that they needed to be sheltered from the concept, which says God had a hand in creation and which has been challenged by Darwinists as unscientific.
"Shhh, you shouldn't tell them," he said, mimicking those who would shield children from the fact that some people believe in intelligent…
pharyngula | July 19, 2006Every time I talk to creationists, I'm always stunned at the depth of their misconceptions. There are always the same old boring arguments that are ably dismissed with a paragraph from the Index to Creationist Claims, but there are also occasions when they get, errm, creative, and unfortunately they always take your gape-mouthed I-can't-believe-you-are-so-stupid-that-you-said-that reaction as a triumphant vindication that they must be right.
Orac takes a right-wing idiot to task, and I don't need to jump in—he's done a fine job dismantling him—but I made the mistake of actually reading the…
pharyngula | July 14, 2006Sit down. Make sure you're in a place where guffaws won't disrupt the scene…although, actually, the amount of money this guy was raking in with his scam might mute the laughter a bit. Here's more information on Hovind's arrest.
A Pensacola evangelist who owns the defunct Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola was arrested Thursday on 58 federal charges, including failing to pay $473,818 in employee-related taxes and making threats against investigators.
"Defunct." Such a sweet, sweet word when applied to Dr Dino's Plywood Cutout Adventure land.
Of the 58 charges, 44 were filed against Kent…
clock | July 13, 2006. This is a post intwo parts - the second being a reaction to the responses that the first one engendered. They may be a little rambling, especially the first one, but I still think that there is quite a lot there to comment on.
Great Men and Science Education - Part 1
There is an interesting thread here about "faith" in science and the way science is taught. Why no science textbook is a "Bible" of a field. Here are some of my musings....
So much science teaching, not just in high school but also in college, is rote learning. Memorize Latin names for body parts, Krebs cycle, taxonomy of…
pharyngula | July 12, 2006This is funny, in a sad, pathetic kind of way: Helmut visited the Skyline Caverns in Virginia, and once the tour group was 200 feet down, the guide played a canned religious message at them. I'm not sure how I would react to such an occurrence, but I'm sure you'd all wish you could be there, with a camera.
I think I'd give an impromptu counter-lecture. I guess it would depend on the details of what the foolish sermon said.
pharyngula | July 12, 2006Jodi Rudoren née Wilgoren, whose views on journalistic responsibility to accuracy and truth were encapsulated in this comment,
I don't consider myself a creationist. I don't have any interest in sharing my personal views on how the canyon was carved, mostly because I've spent almost no time pondering my personal views -- it takes all my energy as a reporter and writer to understand and explain my subjects' views fairly and thoroughly.
has been promoted at the NY Times.