creationism
pharyngula | February 9, 2011Rats, I have to miss it again. The Twin Cities Creation Science wackos are buggering up science and children's education again this weekend with a Creation Pseudo-Science Fair at the Har-Mar Mall, which will be temporarily renamed the Har-Har-Hardy-Har Mall in their honor. I'll be back in Minneapolis on Saturday, but I've already booked the shuttle home to Morris and really don't feel like it's worth rescheduling just so I can see a deadly dull string of poor exhibits assembled by sad kids who will be slapping on bible verses because the rules say they have to and who will "Pray [their]…
sporte | February 9, 2011Have you ever wondered if creationism was intelligently designed?
Most of my colleagues tend to dismiss creationism as generally nutty and not worth bothering about. But, every now and then, we did get the odd situation with a few students who disagree or state legislatures that get a little confused about the definition of science.
This video lecture is a bit long, but definitely interesting.
tfk | February 8, 2011Ophelia Benson doesnât see how the ontological argument for the existence of a perfect god even begins. The ontological argument basically argues that we imagine god to be perfect, and that something that doesn't exist can't be perfect, thus by imagining a perfect deity, we show that such a thing must exist. Or something. I've called it an awful argument before, and still think it is.
Benson's post is in the context of a new book coming out from Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse (on which more soon), where they use the ontological argument as a litmus test for how seriously atheists are…
pharyngula | February 8, 2011Albert Mohler, that deluded Baptist zealot, has written an analysis of the New Atheism that puts evolution front and center. I actually sort of agree with him — these New/Gnu Atheists are predominantly scientific atheists who consider scientific explanations to be far better and more satisfying and most importantly, more true than religious explanations. Mohler lards his summary with gloppy accusations of "worldview" and "dogma" and other such buzzwords that religious apologists use as insults when applied to atheists but virtues when applied to theologians, but otherwise, it's a fair cop.…
tfk | February 7, 2011Jason Rosenhouse takes a level-headed look at a brewing coynetreversy (a coynetroversy, like the verb, to coyne, involves adding heat, not light, while casting maximal aspersions, ideally to create a controversy where none need exist). Jason explains the situation:
Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers (here and here respectively) have taken note of a session at the upcoming AAAS Annual Meeting entitled: Evangelicals, Science, and Policy: Toward a Constructive Engagement. They object to this intrusion of religion into a science meeting. In the comments to their posts, Nick Matzke has been gamely…
pharyngula | February 6, 2011Bill Nye the Science Guy, humanist of the year, science educator and entertainer, and all-around interesting fellow, apparently stopped briefly at the Creation "Museum" to take a quick picture of the exterior, and then moved on. How do we know? Ken Ham was watching.
Bill Nye ("The Science Guy" of PBS-TV fame) visited the Creation Museum for...... 2 minutes this past week. He only stopped in front of the museum to take photos. In our photo attached, he is standing in the driveway in front of the museum. He did not go inside. Including the drive in and out the gate, he was on-site for a total…
tfk | February 5, 2011Popular Mechanics asks Bill Nye about anti-evolution efforts in schools:
It's horrible. Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don't believe in science, that's a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.â…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2011Recently, I claimned nothing in movement conservatism makes sense except in the light of creationism. One example is Paul Krugman's recent observation:
It's kind of shocking if you think about it. Here we have a huge, hard-won intellectual achievement [the recognition that depressions are caused by inadequate demand], one that accounts very well for the world we actually see, and yet it's being thrown away because it doesn't go along with ideological preconceptions. Once that sort of thing starts, where does it stop? The next thing you know, the theory of evolution will get the same…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011Remember how I told you that Eric Hovind was giving away free DVDs for Valentine's Day? And you all rushed over to place your order, and you got the sad notification?
We're sorry, the Valentine's DVD is now out of stock. Thanks to supporters like you, over 2,000 people will get to hear the gospel message!
We pray that the Holy Spirit will use these DVDs to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Awww, out of stock. Oh, well, that's fair enough, you thought, and you turned away to go back to the kitchen and turn the roast-baby-on-a-spit some more. But wait! There's something…
tfk | February 2, 2011John Pieret â who is to blame for the recent kerfuffles here â surveys the trouble he started:
As usual, there is much talking past each other.
I think Russell Blackford has, perhaps unintentionally, hit on the problem that we "accommodationists" see with the "incompatibleists." In defending Coyne, Russell says: the "anti-accommodationist camp ... see a genuine and serious difficulty in reconciling a worldview based on science and reason with worldviews based on religion." I agree!
But the question really is whether "a worldview based on science and reason" is the same thing as "science." I…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011Does failing to teach evolution qualify as bad teaching? Because, then, I might get behind the idea that teacher tenure should fall by the wayside:
Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.
Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011Creationist Steven L. Anderson is having an art contest. He is shocked and surprised that chickens and dinosaurs are related and wants some cartoons mocking the concept.
He's got a few examples at his site; they aren't very good, and they all miss the point. Chickens are not descended from T. rex. Chickens and T. rex share a common ancestor, and there are good reasons to argue from their morphology that chickens and T. rex shared a common ancestor more recently than chickens and people, or chickens and bananas.
Watching his idiotic performance, though, (and he's no slouch at the stupid: I'…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011Oddly, curriculum--what is taught--is rarely discussed when the subject of educational 'reform' is broached. It's odd, since most reformers, when trying to push their agenda, spend a good deal of time figuring out what to communicate and how to communicate it (like most of us). Yet, how one teaches and what one teaches never seems to enter into the discussion, even though it's pretty critical to educational success. So maybe the reformers could actually do something useful and tackle this problem:
We can now say how many high school biology teachers do a good job, teaching the…
pharyngula | February 1, 2011Aww, how sweet: Eric Hovind is offering a free Creation 'Science' Evangelism dvd for you to send to your sweetie. They'll love it. I'm hoping someone will care enough to send me one, because nothing says love like a dense collection of lies and misleading delusions.
Oops, did my inner cynic slip out there?
Anyway…free, totally free. Not even any shipping charges. They do get your name and address for their database of suckers customers, which may be more than you want to pay, but otherwise it's a good deal.
Well, it might also be a bit of a libido killer, which may not be a good idea for…
pharyngula | February 1, 2011The governor of Kentucky sees nothing wrong with promoting this charlatan's act, but watch this video of Ken Ham 'teaching' an auditorium full of children. It's appalling.
"What do you say when someone says 'millions of years'?" "WERE YOU THERE?"
Hey, kids, what do you say when someone says Jesus is Lord, the Grand Canyon was carved by a global flood, and Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs?
tfk | January 31, 2011John Pieret reads Jerry Coyne so you don't have to. He notes that Coyne's experience at a moderate church reading group sounds awfully accommodationist, and it does!
Of course, "accommodationist" is a highly mutable term, so I'm sure Jerry will say he isn't really, and the label doesn't really matter. The important thing is that Coyne's experience seems to have planted at least a little doubt in his mind about the need to undo all religion. There's a lot in there that I can agree with, and I'll have another post about that shortly.
But rather than bridge from snark to praise, I'll just…
pharyngula | January 29, 2011I chuckled at Ritter, the creationist suing a Pennsylvania school district, but now I've actually seen formal legal complaint, and I'm not giggling anymore. It's more like the kind of roaring guffaw that would make Brian Blessed sound like a feeble titterer.
I don't think he had any legal counsel in drafting that. At least he took the time to retype it from the original draft, which was probably done in purple crayon on a Big Chief tablet. Does he even have standing in this case?
That's not a lawsuit anyone needs to worry about, except perhaps for Tom Ritter, who will at best be publicly…
pharyngula | January 28, 2011I am completely unsurprised by the recent report on the state of evolution in the American science classroom. It confirms entirely my impressions from years of freshman college students and from previous studies of the subject, and puts specific numbers and issues to the problem.
The short summary: public schools suck at teaching basic biology. You already knew this, too, though, didn't you? The question has always been, "How bad?"
We can now say how many high school biology teachers do a good job, teaching the recommendations of the National Research Council and also, by the way, obeying the…