creationism
pharyngula | March 28, 2006Once upon a time, about two years ago, I dissected a claim by Paul Nelson that he had an objective measure of developmental complexity that he called "ontogenetic depth". I thought it was very poor stuff: no repeatable methods, no clear description of exactly what he was measuring, and actually, it looked like he was just plucking numbers out of thin air.
Note that today is 29 March 2006. On 29 March 2004, Nelson left a comment on the post, promising to address the issues I brought up.
Quick note—I'm drafting an omnibus reply (to points raised here and in Shalizi's commentary), with title…
pharyngula | March 27, 2006See it while you can: a good parody of a Jack Chick comic. Unfortunately, Chick Publications is a notoriously litigious outfit, and I expect cease and desist letters from lawyers will be arriving any time now.
(via Respectful Insolence)
pharyngula | March 27, 2006I am put to shame—the flying spaghetti monster gets far more entertaining hate mail than I do.
I learned this from an account in USA Today about the FSM, which also has this beautiful jewel of a quote:
"It's too bad that they'll get attention for this sort of drivel when we have a robust scientific research program that the media doesn't seem to want to write much about," Discovery Institute spokesman Robert Crowther said in an e-mail interview.
A "robust scientific research program"? Hee hee…I had no idea they had such comedians at the DI.
pharyngula | March 27, 2006Way back in the dim and distant past, like two years ago, there was a bit of a disturbance in the blogosphere, a minor contretemps after a certain Harvard law student, Lawrence VanDyke, published a "book note" in the Harvard Law Review. It was rank creationist nonsense, a work of pathetic scholarship, and it got publicly shredded by Brian Leiter, and I also got in the act. The book reviewed was an apologia for Intelligent Design by Francis Beckwith. In a later amusing twist, NRO published a defense of VanDyke and Beckwith by an anonymous "Texas free-lance writer", who it was later discovered…
pharyngula | March 26, 2006Sometimes, I feel very sorry for Paul Nelson. He's one of the few creationists who actually tries to engage his critics, and I think there's a very good reason for that: when creationists try to emerge from the hothouse environment of their "think-tanks" and institutions of ignorance, when they stand before audiences that weren't bussed in from the local fundamentalist church, they tend to get bopped hard. There is a good reason for that, of course —it's because they say such remarkably silly things. The exceptional thing about Nelson is that he keeps on saying such silly things.
And he's…
stcynic | March 24, 2006Over at In The Agora, in the comments on Eric's post replying to me about slavery and the Bible, a commenter named lawyerchik1 has cut and pasted a bunch of arguments for a global flood from the ICR. Like all flood geology arguments, they require serious ignorance of geology and the evidence in order to be viewed as the least bit compelling. Let's take them one by one.
Further, all the mountains of the world have been under water at some time or times in the past, as indicated by sedimentary rocks and marine fossils near their summits. Even most volcanic mountains with their pillow lavas seem…
pharyngula | March 24, 2006There was a "debate" between Michael Shermer and William Dembski at the University of Kentucky. I'm not a fan of these pseudo-debates—they're really just a pair of presentations, where the creationist can leech off the other guy's reputation—and I don't think Shermer is the best guy to defend biology, but this one seems to have had an interesting result.
Then came the question and answer session. The most striking thing was that every single question was for Dembski. People came prepared. They brought typed-up questions, asking him why he had been dismissed as an expert witness from Dover…
pharyngula | March 23, 2006The Arkansas Times has an excellent article on the difficulties of science teaching in that state (an article that was originally published in the Reports of the NCSE, too). It's darned depressing: the creationists don't need to get their laws passed in order to kneecap science teaching. Here's a geology teacher who has been muzzled by fear:
Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-word” (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptation” but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural…
pharyngula | March 22, 2006From the comments, here's something bizarre: creationists (at least the ones at Answers in Genesis) have defined life…and it excludes squid! I have yet another reason to reject the Bible, in this case for disrespecting perfectly wonderful invertebrates.
Many scientists make the distinction that vertebrates have hemoglobin,
hence red blood, and invertebrates contain other oxygen transporting
proteins, like hemocyanins, and do not have red blood. As far as
we've researched at this time, all vertebrates have hemoglobin and
invertebrates do not, though there may be exceptions we are not aware
of…
pharyngula | March 21, 2006Let us continue our Ben Domenech bashing. He's got this somewhat high profile gig at the Washington Post, and one has to wonder what his qualifications are. I think we can rule out "intelligence."
GWW made an interesting discovery: he's a creationist. I don't understand why the Right is constantly elevating these ignoramuses; there must still be a few conservatives who read this site (I can't possibly have driven you all away)…aren't you embarrassed by this kind of thing?
For instance, here's some dumb-as-a-post reasoning:
I personally don't have a problem with evolution being taught in…
stcynic | March 21, 2006Kent Hovind performed (and I use that term intentionally) his seminar in Dover, Pennsylvania over the last few days. The York Daily Record has a report on the event. Included is this quote which demonstrates quite well why oral debates with Hovind are not only a waste of time, they're detrimental:
According to several in the crowd of more than 600, Hovind's charisma and humor got his message across: "The universe was created by God."
"Everybody's fighting over it," Frysinger, a 13-year-old who attends Dover's intermediate school, said of evolution versus creation.
"Actually, what he's saying…
pharyngula | March 21, 2006You have a couple of bills working their way through the state house that offer aid and comfort to the Intelligent Design wackos. You don't want that, do you? If you live in Maryland, are a scientist, teacher, or dependent on science research, sign the online petition to oppose these nasty little bills. Work fast, too, you don't have much time.
pharyngula | March 21, 2006Lots of people have been emailing me the story that the Archbishop of Canterbury backs evolution. I have to confess to mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it's good to have a religious authority figure coming down on the side of sense. I applaud the sentiment of his statements, and hope they have some positive influence.
On the other hand, I don't give a flying firkin what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks, and would question his authority to even make such a pronouncement. If people are going to accept things because someone who wears a funny hat on Sunday says so, where are they going to…
pharyngula | March 20, 2006Kent Hovind has been giving his creation "science" seminars in Dover, and it's a fairly revolting situation. He's glib, he's amusing, he's popular, and he's lying constantly. David Neiwert discusses his roots as a "right-wing extremist with a penchant for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories".
The sad thing about the accounts are the little kids who are getting suckered by this shameless fraud.
pharyngula | March 20, 2006Weirder. This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I have read yet on development from a creationist, from The Quran on Human Embryonic Development.
The next stage mentioned in the verse is the mudghah stage. The Arabic word mudghah means "chewed substance." If one were to take a piece of gum and chew it in his or her mouth and then compare it with an embryo at the mudghah stage, we would conclude that the embryo at the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance. This is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that "somewhat resemble teethmarks in a chewed…
pharyngula | March 19, 2006A certain creationist has been spamming me lately with these same questions over and over. I'll answer them here, and I'll send the link to JASE3217 and see if we can't get him over here to "handle the truth."
From: JASE3217
To: pzmyers@pharyngula.org
Sent: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:23:10 -0500
Subject: About evolution?
1. Is a theory a fact or a belief?
2. Where did the gases (big bang theory) come from?
3. After the water was formed, what was the first creature to come out of it?
4. Was it amphibious? Or did it run in and out of the water until it developed lungs?
5. If, yes why would it develop…
pharyngula | March 17, 2006I've been reading Hazen's Gen-e-sis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). I haven't finished it yet, but it led me to appreciate this post and this diagram more.
Isn't that the truth? What creationists see as a weakness, that we have so many ideas (and so many gaps), we see as a strength.
pharyngula | March 17, 2006Paul Nelson has actually responded to a challenge in a timely fashion. I am shocked. Of course, his response is ineffectual and wrong, so ultimately I'm not too surprised at all.
Josh comments on Nelson's reply. I'll just pile on.
Nelson complains that the question of whether ID should be taught in the schools was actually not the formal issue of the debate, and hammering him on that topic is inappropriate; OK, fair enough, but he has to appreciate that that is our immediate concern. ID itself is boring and uninteresting and various versions of it have been held by individuals for a long time…
pharyngula | March 17, 2006Kansas Citizens for Science has a troll who brought up a post of mine, and a reader asked for a clarification…so I made two short comments in reply. That prompted a comment here from someone named "Dave".
Mr. Myers, at Kansas Citizens for Science we are fighting a tough battle to have the present school board replaced.
When you, and Robert Madison who invited you over (and who is an outspoken atheist) link your atheism to science, going beyond anything science can provide, you are playing in to the hands of our opponents.
The primaries here are coming up, and having atheists swarming our site…
pharyngula | March 16, 2006We need more mathematical analysis to counter the claims of creationists, and here's a good one: Mark Chu-Carroll has started a new weblog titled Good Math, Bad Math, and it right now is an excellent post that takes apart Dembski's mangling of the NFL theorem. Recommended, and welcome to blogtopia!