creationism
pharyngula | May 23, 2006I almost feel sorry for Nancy Pearcey. Almost. Nick Matzke shreds the poor woman, and I felt a faint twinge of sympathy…but such ignorance and mendacity deserves the treatment she gets.
pharyngula | May 23, 2006It seems that Skeptico has a copy cat—a guy who goes around posting under the name Skeptico, and who has started a blog of his own at skeptico.blogspot.com—but I don't think anyone will confuse the two. This new Skeptico is an evolution denier and global warming denier, and is your typical run-of-the-mill dumbass reactionary. He's more of an anti-Skeptico…no, a mini-anti-Skeptico.
I took a look at the work of the pseudo-Skeptico, and was surprised at his ignorance.
Well, it so happens that I am quite new to the ID-EVO debate, indeed to ID literature itself (although the controversy has…
tlambert | May 21, 2006The Washington Post reveals that Roy Spencer is the man behind environmentalist parody site ecoEnquirer.com:
Somewhere in an office about 600 miles southwest of here, former NASA scientist Roy W. Spencer is laughing. The 50-year-old, white-haired PhD dreamed up the spoof site -- sort of the Onion meets the Weather Channel -- because he thinks people are overreacting to the threat of climate change.
Now a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Spencer says human activities have "likely" contributed to climate change, but he argues that "since we do not…
pharyngula | May 20, 2006Uncritical journalists piss me off. Uncritical religious people piss me off, too, but it's their natural state at least. When the two converge, as they typically do on the religion pages, I turn purple and start shredding newsprint (which is why I usually avoid reading the religion pages). Today, the Star Tribune has an interview with Lee Strobel.
Q You mentioned Darwinism. Do you question the theory of evolution?
A Evolution is defined as a random, undirected process. But even scientists say the universe had to begin somewhere. Then you look at genetics, cosmology, physics and other fields…
razib | May 19, 2006In the comments below Jason Malloy took issue with John Hawks' contention that Creationists "will now cite Eric Lander in support of the idea that hominid fossils are not transitional between apes and humans, but instead are hybrids of apes and humans."
I don't know. Here is a short passage from Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust:
...after reading a bogus article on a new finding from the Dead Sea Scrolls that seemed to contradict Christian doctrine, religious respondents who also believed the story reported their religious beliefs reinforced (Batson 1975)....
My first reaction, from the gut…
pharyngula | May 18, 2006Clear off a space on the floor near you, because soon you'll be rolling around laughing on it.
You may recall that John A. Davison, infamous advocate of Intelligent Design, started a blog of his own, titled Prescribed Evolution, back in November of 2005. It generated a lot of hilarity because it consisted of one post. This is it.
I have my own blog now, only because I have been banned from just about all the others. Since I am computer illiterate, don't expect very much from me. I welcome any comments about my published papers including my unpublished "An Evolutionary Manifesto: A New…
pharyngula | May 17, 2006I'm going to link to a post on Uncommon Descent. I try to avoid that, because I think it is a vile harbor of malign idiocy, but Dembski has just put up something that I think is merely sincerely ignorant. That's worth correcting. It also highlights the deficiencies of Dembski's understanding of biology.
Dembski makes a strange argument for ID on the basis of a certain class of experiments in developmental biology.
For example, consider how SCNT (somatic cell nuclear transfer) works. You take a mammalian egg (which "just happens to be" a HUGE cell, very easy to experiment on). You take out…
pharyngula | May 17, 2006It's true: the Minnesota Senate has passed a modification to an education bill that would prohibit the teaching of intelligent design.
16.12 Sec. 4. Minnesota Statutes 2004, section 120B.021, is amended by adding a
16.13 subdivision to read:
16.14 Subd. 2a. Curriculum. Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, the Department
16.15 of Education, a charter school, and a school district are prohibited from utilizing a
16.16 nonscientifically based curriculum, such as intelligent design, to meet the required science
16.17 academic standards under this section.
This is not a law yet, and I don't…
pharyngula | May 16, 2006Rich Hughes has a prosperous future ahead of him as an Intelligent Design Theorist.
(Now with new and improved image!)
Who else sees this and shudders with the recollection of their training in FORTRAN?
pharyngula | May 15, 2006Sometimes they do tell the truth, but when they do, they just reveal their fallacies.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come from the article was a quote from Ken Ham, the founder of AiG:
All scientists start with presuppositions. If you're starting point is 'we can explain the origin of the universe without the supernatural,' that's a bias.
Of course, what that bias is called is "science" and Ham is ag'in it. That he claims he isn't tells you all anyone needs to know about his version of science and maybe all you need to know about his religion as well.
Someday, I want one of these…
pharyngula | May 14, 2006Phillip E. Johnson says, "his intent never was to use public school education as the forum for his ideas [Intelligent Design creationism]." Wesley Elsberry has a flock of quotes direct from Johnson that refute that.
If it were someone other than Johnson, I'd say he was just lying…but he's old, he's had a serious stroke, so it's entirely possible he's merely senile or brain-damaged. No matter what, though, it means you can't trust Phillip E. Johnson to speak the truth.
pharyngula | May 14, 2006Darksyde takes on the teaching of creationism in Missouri…let's see if readers here are clever enough to see the dishonesty in this quote.
[Mike] Riddle had been invited to Potosi High and John A. Evans Middle School by Randy Davis, superintendent of the Potosi-RIII school district, and his board to discuss science with science students. During an hour-long presentation, Riddle ... prodded the students to question established scientific principals and theories and encouraged them to think about a career in science.
Questioning scientific principles and theories is a good thing, and it's also…
pharyngula | May 14, 2006News from The Panda's Thumb: tonight, The Simpsons is all about the creationist pseudo-controversy, and Lisa gets arrested as an evilutionist. Let's all tune in!
I was unimpressed. There were a few good barbs thrown at the creationists, but in the end the matter is settled by something trivial (Homer looks like an ape; yet again, the lazy Simpsons trope of the stupid Homer resolves the story), and of course they caved and pandered to the false dignity of the dominant tribal superstition. Eh.
pharyngula | May 13, 2006DaveScot, the lunatic who rants at Dembski's blog, has just posted an appalling complaint. He's been falsely sliming Kevin Padian as a racist, and now he's attacking Padian for saying that the religious fanatics who kill abortion doctors are contemptible. You read that right: you are not allowed to regard anti-abortion extremists who murder in their cause as bad people, or DaveScot will whine about how you are a bigot who hates Christians.
It appears Kevin hates and fears religious fundamentalists of all stripes and considers them murderous fanatics. Note how he equates suicide bombers with…
pharyngula | May 13, 2006
I didn't think of this one, Dustin did—but take a look at this comparison of search volume for "pharyngula" vs. "discovery institute". There's perspective for you: one wild-eyed guy with a blog is gaining on a whole gang of creationists with millions of dollars in funding and a machine to churn out press releases.
There's an idea…to catch up more, maybe I need to call myself the Pharyngula Institute and start faxing press releases to the newspapers.
pharyngula | May 12, 2006Check out this amusing discovery on Stochastic—there's this new tool on Google, Google Trends, that lets you compare the frequency of various searches. A silly creationist got all thrilled because searches for "Intelligent Design" beat searches for "Darwinism".
You know where this is going. "Darwinism" is a term used by creationists, not scientists or anyone who knows more than diddly-squat about biology. Run a search for evolution, biology, and science vs. creationism and intelligent design, and the insignificance of the creationists becomes obvious. Once again, the designists are caught…
pharyngula | May 11, 2006The IDists are promoting a staged event at Biola—they are purporting to put their proponents "under fire"…at Biola. Right. This is the same kind of thing creationists always do, promoting their crap in venues that will guarantee a largely friendly, and largely ignorant, audience.
In this case, though, they are trying to salt the crowd with a few opponents. Most have wisely turned them down, since this is about feeding the creationist pretense rather than actually putting some pressure on the clown show. Michael Shermer reveals some of the restrictions; some of their 'guests' would be seated…
pharyngula | May 8, 2006Bad timing! On Wednesday morning, I have a meeting at the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, and then I have to drive to Madison to pick up my son…so I don't think I can possibly be back in time for this:
The Ecology Evolution and Behavior seminar on Wednesday, May 10 (4:00 p.m. in 335 Borlaug Hall on the St. Paul Campus—Coffee and cookies are served
outside of room 100 Ecology preceding each seminar 3:30 p.m.) is featuring Michael Ruse, who will speak on some variant of the evolution/creationism/ID debate.
Maybe some of you Minneapolitans/St Paulians who read this will be able to make it, but I…
pharyngula | May 8, 2006Weep for poor persecuted Kent Hovind. They've shut down Dinosaur Adventure Land.
County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county's actions.
"Scripture also says 'Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.' And right now, Caesar demands a building permit," County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.
On the other hand, these guys are criminal con-artists and scum, so hold back those tears.
Legal questions are nothing new for Dinosaur Adventure Land and the leaders of the church…