creationism
pharyngula | May 25, 2011Ken Ham is currently hawking his new book, Already Compromised, in which he whines about the way universities — even many bible colleges — don't take the Old Testament absolutely literally. This leads, of course, to students actually examining evidence and arguments outside the Bible, which inevitably leads to…atheism.
He preaches no compromise and accepting every single gosh-darned letter of the Bible in the plainest possible sense. This leads to logic like this at the Creation "Museum".
In Genesis 6:19-20, the Bible says that two of every sort of land vertebrate (seven of the "clean"…
mikethemadbiologist | May 25, 2011Every so often, a creationist will start babbling about "information theory", and thereby defaming a perfectly legitimate line of research. While I'm at the airport, waiting for my flight back from ASM2011, here's something from the archives, "Creationists, "Biological Information", and Cyber-Vitalism" about that topic:
In response to us foul-mouthed evolutionists, Casey Luskin asks, "Yet for all their numbers and name-calling, not a single one has answered Egnor's question: How does [sic] Darwinian mechanisms produce new biological information?" I've never liked the whole "biological…
pharyngula | May 24, 2011Larry Moran has a copy of the hideous Mr Wells' new creationist book on junk DNA, and he's going to be taking it apart chapter by chapter. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 are already up — it looks like it's a rather lightweight and superficial book, so I expect the Moran buzzsaw to shred it up fast.
The comments are a weird mix: the always informed and interesting Joe Felsenstein shows up, but there are some ranty clueless IDiots as well. Don't clutter it up more unless you've got something intelligent to say.
I'm seeing that I can pretty much dismiss Wells' bad book as worthless, so I'm in no hurry…
pharyngula | May 22, 2011The number one most common excuse I have been seeing for Harold Camping's failure, both before and after yesterday, is that he can't possibly forecast the time of the Rapture because Jesus said no one can know. You know what? That's the same stupid reliance on the authority of the Bible that led to Camping's prophecy. We know the Bible is inaccurate and error-filled, so you can't use its supposed inerrancy to disprove any interpretation of its contents.
In the same category, but amplifed to even greater heights of inanity is this, the most hilarious argument for Camping being wrong that I've…
gregladen | May 21, 2011The separation of church and state is dead in Kentucky Governor Beshear says he would welcome a "Mecca Theme Park" as well. He also says the Ark Park will be required to not discriminate in hiring. We'll see.
From the Courier-Journal:
A state contractor concluded that the proposed Ark Encounter biblical theme park will draw enough visitors to qualify for state incentives, prompting the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority to grant final approval for up to $43.1 million in sales tax rebates over 10 years.
The state tourism law spells out several requirements, including the number…
pharyngula | May 20, 2011That place is just a magnet for nuts. There is going to be a review of the science curriculum next month, and the creationists on the state board of education are gearing up by appointing more creationists to staff the panels. Furthermore, they're gathering specific curriculum materials, and skewing them towards lunacy.
One submission has come from a company called International Databases, LLC. It's a one-man operation run by Stephen Sample, who says he has a degree in evolutionary biology and taught at the high school and junior college levels for 15 years.
The material he submitted…
pharyngula | May 19, 2011Today was the day: Kentucky officially approved giving Ken Ham $43 million in tax breaks plus $11 million in road improvements. That's a nice number; it's about twice what Answers in Genesis sunk into their Creation "Museum" in total. Now they get double that back from the state, and they can use it to build their grandiose Ark Park.
There was only one surprise. Answers in Genesis brought up an alternative scenario, where they would build a slightly less flamingly insane version of the park. It doesn't seem to have mattered, because the state seems to have stumbled all over themselves rushing…
tfk | May 18, 2011Caroline Crocker taught creationism in some DC-area colleges, and the colleges didn't renew her contract, so she was put on wingnut welfare with a gig at the ID creationist IDEA center. There, she tells us, she helped create "safe houses" and fake identities so students could secretly come "out of the closet."
pharyngula | May 18, 2011The essay starts off stupidly enough.
In 1867 Karl Marx dedicated DasKapital to Charles Darwin.
Actually, no, he didn't. It's a fairly common lie in creationist circles, though, just like the others sprinkled throughout the story.
Modern creation science is led by an array of top-flight Ph.D. scientists, including biochemists, paleontologists, astronomers and geologists. It presents a formidable battery of evidence now knocking hundreds of holes in traditional evolutionary arguments. As never before, scientific creationism debunks the contrived "evidence" that evolutionary theory has fed on…
tfk | May 16, 2011Scientists Take Darwin on the Road | Miller-McCune:
"I want to send our scientists to rural schools and communities around the U.S. to talk about evolution for Darwin Day 2011." Jory Weintraub's words hung undigested in the silent air of the management meeting at our North Carolina center last July.
"You want to send our scientists where?" I jested. "On purpose?"
So begins Craig McClain's account of the Darwin Road Show, a project he and his colleagues at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center undertook last February. McClain, who also blogs at Deep Sea News, describes the enthusiasm the…
pharyngula | May 15, 2011You may recall the furious debate among philosophers about a philosophy journal, Synthese, that made a tacit rebuke of critics of Intelligent Design creationism in an editorial added after acceptance of a number of papers on ID; it's not just that they caved to creationist pressure, but that the editors-in-chief went over the heads of the working editors who assembled that issue of the journal to criticize excellent work by rational philosophers like Barbara Forrest. There has been a boycott of the journal; links to various commentaries on the issue can be found on a status page.
Well now the…
tfk | May 12, 2011In Ophelia Benson's writeup of the Ron Lindsay/Chris Mooney discussion, there's a passage about the Templeton Foundation that jumps out as deeply problematic:
Then they talked about the Templeton Foundation, and Mooney's "fellowship," and the fact that it was controversial. Would you accept a fellowship from the Discovery Institute? Lindsay asked. No. Liberty University? Probably not. But they interfere with science, and Templeton doesn't. Templeton, he said, "are generating a dialogue about the relationship between science and religion." He thinks that's a good thing.
I don't.
On its own,…
pharyngula | May 12, 2011The Kamloops News has obligingly published a couple of reactions to my appearance in their fair city. There is a very abbreviated summary of what I discussed on Friday: Prof shoots holes in creationism. Yes, that's about right. I specifically addressed the fallacies of Intelligent Design creationism.
Now, though, the editor of the newspaper, Mel Rothenburger, has responded: Name callers are just stupid. He begins with this:
I didn't take in the presentation by American associate professor Paul "PZ" Myers, and I'm glad.
Gosh, I'm chastened already. He objects to the fact that I said…
gregladen | May 9, 2011Florida Senate Bill 1854 would have required a so-called "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution" which is code word in US state legislatures these days for "taught along side Intelligent Design Creationism as an alternative to established scientific reckoning of the nature and history of life on earth." Whe the state legislature adjourned a few days ago, that bill died a quiet death .
In 2009, before introducing a similar bill, SB 1854's sponsor, Stephen R. Wise (R-District 5), announced his intention to introduce a bill requiring "intelligent…
pharyngula | May 9, 2011Here's a new creationist argument for you. Rocky Ramsey asks,
If people die when hearts, kidneys and livers fail, then how did anyone live while those organs "evolved?" The obvious answer is that they didn't. Man began as he is today.
So apes and fish don't have hearts, kidneys, or livers?
pharyngula | May 4, 2011So you're tantalized by this strange obsession creationists have with junk DNA. It offends them mightily, I think because they find comfort in the idea that everything in the universe must have a purpose, because if it doesn't, maybe that means they are nothing more than spots of dandruff on a dead rock hurtling blindly through space, and we can't have that then.
It's true that the odious Jonathan Wells has written a whole book declaring that everything in the genome has a glorious function implicitly designed by his god, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Larry Moran has begun the process of…
gregladen | May 4, 2011I have always thought, naively and probably incorrectly, that what defined Accommodationist is what they think, not how they argue. At the same time, I have always thought that what defined a "New Atheist" is how we argued, and not what we think.
When I say "always thought" I mean for the last four years max, and when I say "naively and probably incorrectly" I might be only kidding.
The "new" part of "New Atheism" to me has always been this: You are willing to get up into some dude's face to make your argument because religion, with its centuries of experience in being on the scene for…
pharyngula | May 4, 2011Oh, yeah…didn't you know it was a crack team of Darwinist commandos who took out bin Laden, all to protect our secrets? David Klinghoffer doesn't go quite that far, but he does demonstrate just how insane the gang at the Discovery Institute have gotten. After all, he does claim that Obama delayed the raid on Osama in order to promote creationism.
President Obama is said to have known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden since September but chose to wait until May to authorize action against him. Why the delay? Could it perhaps have been to provide a super-timely news hook for the rollout of…
sa smith | May 3, 20111. Evilutionists say there is 'junk DNA'
2. 'Junk DNA' was used to ID Osamas body
3. 'Junk DNA' was therefore useful
4. Therefore, there is no such thing as 'junk DNA'
5. Therefore Evilution is false
6. Therefore humans were specially created by the Christian god 6000 years ago
LOL, wat?
File this under "Creationists are so stupid we cannot parody them, mostly because we cannot understand the incoherent thoughts coming out of their mouths".
LOL, wut?
I normally dont link to Teh Discovery Institutes crap, but I really have no idea wtf David 'Abbies eyes sure are purty' Klinghoffer is trying to…
pharyngula | May 3, 2011Another tawdry semi-biblical cesspit has opened, the Creation Museum of the Ozarks. Of course it gets horrible reviews.
Then I looked it up. It's located in Strafford, Missouri, which is a town 20 minutes away from Springfield.
Springfield. What do we think of when we hear Springfield, Missouri? No, not the Assemblies of God. We think…Skepticon. Hey, you know what that means…
ROAD TRIP. Make it so, Skepticon organizers. Set aside some time for a godless invasion of your local creation "museum".