creationism
tfk | May 30, 2010Shorter Billy Dembski: BEACON comes home with the bacon!:
Why doesn't the NSF give meeeeee $25 million?
"Wah!" would've been even shorter, but would limit my ability to distinguish this whine from every other post at Dembski's blog.
pharyngula | May 29, 2010Look at this: they've explicitly added creationism to the public school curriculum in Queensland, Australia. That's just nuts.
They're even doing it in an entirely bogus way — they're teaching it as a controversy in history classes.
In Queensland schools, creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies".
…
Queensland History Teachers' Association head Kay Bishop said the curriculum asked students to develop their historical skills in an "investigation of a controversial issue" such as "human origins (eg, Darwin's theory of…
pharyngula | May 29, 2010Jeffrey Shallit has an excellent post on the conceptual failure of creationists to grasp even the possibility of an absence of intent. You probably know the feeling — you are trying to explain some process in biology or chemistry, and your student is struggling to fit the story into his mental picture of molecules or cells with purpose and plan, and he can't move on to the next stage of understanding until he sheds the preconception of intelligent guidance to the reaction or interaction. Shallit compares it to a poor confused tourist to a computer lab who can't quite figure out where the…
tfk | May 28, 2010My review of Elaine Howard Ecklund's Science vs. Religion is online and will be in the print edition of your Washington Post this Sunday. I'm unaccustomed to reviewing books in 300-400 words, so there's a bunch I'd have liked to say but couldn't, and I felt like I should wait to blog the book until the Post review was out.
The very short version of the review is that the book is good. It's written mostly as guidance for scientists trying to sort out to deal with science and religion in their own lives, but there's valuable insight for nonscientists as well. I rather like the opening:…
pharyngula | May 27, 2010Nelson McCausland, Northern Ireland's blithering idiot in charge of culture, now gets his own poll.
Should creationism be featured in museum exhibitions?
Yes
46%
No
54%
Too bad they don't specify what kind of museum. A museum of psychopathology, perhaps, or a clown museum…I could say yes to that. But not an art or science or technology museum.
pharyngula | May 26, 2010The Culture Minister for Northern Ireland is a born-again Christian kook who has decided that the Ulster Museum is insufficiently respectful of the notion that a magic man in the sky poofed the universe into existence in 4004 BC — the farmers on the plains of Mehrgarh and the potters of Mesopotamia were probably greatly surprised to be conjured out of chaos so abruptly, their shock only exceeded by the later confused state of Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, which was simultaneously exterminated by a great flood from that psychopath, Jehovah, and also continued unbroken with no notice of their…
tfk | May 24, 2010Before they discovered Casey Luskin, the Disco. 'Tute's legal nerve cluster resided in Seth Cooper. Cooper offered his sage advice to the school board in Dover, PA, then left first for the staff of a state legislator, and then high-tailed it to a conservative legislative activism group in DC, leaving Disco. to Casey. Disaster ensued.
This is only relevant because I came across Seth Cooper's website, which includes this summary of his earlier career:
Prior to his work with ALEC, Seth worked in 2007 as a contract attorney in Washington State. He also served as a Caucus Staff Counsel in the…
tfk | May 24, 2010From Eric Hovind's twitter feed, we get a photo and a caption:
Hanging out with Dr Stephen Meyer from the Discovery Institute. Wow, smart guy!
For those who can't keep track, Hovind is the son of Kent Hovind, currently serving time in a federal prison on charges related to tax evasion. Hovind created "Dinosaur Adventure Land," a young earth creationist theme park, and adopted the stage persona "Dr. Dino" for his speaking tours. Hovind claims a doctorate from a diploma mill: Patriot Bible University. He also claims that creationism is excluded from schools because of a secret conspiracy…
pharyngula | May 22, 2010I've been following the reaction to the synthesis of a new life form by the Venter lab with some interest and amusement. There have been a couple of common directions taken, and they're generally all wrong. This is not to say that there couldn't be valid concerns, but that the loudest complaining voices right now are the most ignorant.
Hysteria and fear-mongering
Pearl-clutching and fretting over the consequences is fairly common, with a representative example from The Daily Mail (Stridently stupid 'journalistic' outlet).
But there are fears that the research, detailed in the journal Science…
pharyngula | May 22, 2010The evil bastards have gone and done it. The right-wing dbags on the Texas board of education have approved their decrepit curriculum — you know, the one that has decided that Thomas Jefferson was persona non grata, while Joe McCarthy is a true American hero. It's a tragedy for the nation, because, as we always point out, Texas clout is going to warp schoolbooks all around the country, but the worst thing is that there are 5 million kids in Texas who are now going to get a substandard education. OK, an even more substandard education.
There's not much we can do at this point, except keep up…
tfk | May 20, 2010For a long time, the Disco. 'tute insisted that "intelligent design" is science, and that questions about who did the designing are theological and beyond ID's scope. IDolators insist that ID can be evaluated without knowing anything about the nature of the designer.
This never made sense.
So in defending ID against a negative book review, Disco. Fellow Jay Richards distracts himself from denying global warming to launch a defense of ID as good theology:
Letâs imagine someone who does explicitly invoke God in explaining some feature of nature, someone like Thomas Aquinas. Does "inserting God…
gregladen | May 20, 2010Missouri's latest contribution to ruining science education has died a merciful death before even reaching committee. This did not happen by itself. This happened because we are keeping an eye on them.
We are watching you, Robert Wayne Cooper. And the rest of you. We are watching you too.
Read the happy details at the NCSE web site.
tfk | May 19, 2010First, my very favorite creationist in the wide world has an appropriately snarky (but optimistic) take on a new ID journal. He opens by noting, "The last time ID supporters tried their own journal was PCID, which seemed to whither and die five years ago." Indeed, they appear to have been unable to generate sufficient submissions to even complete their final volume.
I and others have taken this as a sign of the intellectual vacuity of ID. Even their own house organs cannot manage to maintain an appearance of vibrant research. And what papers they generate are simply absurd. But Wood, a young…
pharyngula | May 19, 2010Poor Ken. He so wants to be respectable.
He's complaining now that the Creation "Museum" tried to get in on some marketing deal with an outfit called Groupon, that advertises discount coupons or something, and he got turned down. They thought his "museum" was too controversial. So Ken Ham must whine.
Some of the businesses they feature for our area are attractions such as laser tag, spas, lawn care, etc. However, in other markets (such as Atlanta) they have featured the local natural history museum--which of course is totally evolutionary and teaches children that man is an evolved animal--…
pharyngula | May 18, 2010
I am really surprised at all the people who are saying the original letter had to have been an intentional joke. Haven't you looked at Ray Comfort/Kirk Cameron/Kent Hovind on YouTube? They say essentially the same things! For another example, I was sent this link (scroll down to where it says "What Are The Scientists Saying?") to a 50 page document full of nonsense, garbled science and creationism, and random invalid arguments against evolution, all just as silly as this.
Some simply don't understand Poe's Law. It states that parodies of fundamentalism will be indistinguishable from the…
sa smith | May 18, 2010Hey do you guys remember Michael Behe? Massive douche, wrote books about how EVILUTION IS IMPOSSI-BLEH! Gave school boards/teachers an excuse to teach Creationism in public school classrooms and pretend they were teaching science? He was like, the cock-of-the-walk when 'Darwins Black Box' came out, but then he made a total ass of himself testifying in Dover, and then he wrote that massive abortion, 'Edge of Evolution', and now dude has pretty much disappeared off Planet Earth?
Well, while Michael 'Lilo' Behe might be gone, he has not been forgotten!
Ancient adaptive evolution of Tetherin…
tfk | May 18, 2010
In the video above, you can watch Indiana's Rep. Mark Souder yammer about creationism with staffer Lisa Jackson. He crows about his on-screen experience in Expelled: No Intelligence, and his efforts to twist Smithsonian emails into a conspiracy.
Souder recently won his primary election, but just resigned from Congress after revealing that he carried on an affair with Ms. Jackson. Given that the two also made a video about the importance of abstinence, the affair is a little bit embarrassing. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
pharyngula | May 18, 2010Texas has been using their excessive and unwarranted influence on textbook content to insert right-wing propaganda and lies into the entire nation's school books. I am pleased to see that California has taken the first steps to reduce Texas wingnuts' influence. A California lawmaker has introduced Senate Bill 1451, a law that calls out Texas for its biased agenda, and mandates the formation of review panels to screen new textbooks for violation of the apolitical and non-discriminatory requirements of public school textbooks. Here's the relevant text:
(f) Section 60044 of the Education Code…