creationism
gregladen | March 13, 2010Accoring to Aubrea Wagner, the 17 year old winner of the Christian World View essay contest in which students were asked to write an essay on the following theme:
Write a letter to Charles Darwin explaining why you believe biblical creationism is more plausible and reasonable than Darwin's theory of evolution.
Aubrea's essay is here in PDF form. The web site with other essays, the rules of the contest, and additional information is here.
I invite you to review this essay and comment on its veracity and validity.
Hat tip: Scott Lohman
gregladen | March 12, 2010Fundamentalist Christian dentist promotes drastic curriculum change.
Click here then click "Texas Textbook Controversy part way down the middle column.
tfk | March 11, 2010Attention conservation notice: A couple thousand words of reply to questions about why I think NCSE does what it does, delivered in my capacity as a random blogger not as an NCSE staffer. People who don't care about accommodationism or about how I read the NCSE website should probably just go back to pondering diehard scientists.
In comments at Larry Moran's blog, I noted what I regard as a serious error in his description of NCSE's position about science and religion. He initially claimed "As you know, it's the official position of the National Center for Science Education" that "science…
tfk | March 10, 2010Upchucky award runner-up and Disco. 'Tute staffer Casey Luskin is upset. Last fall, we were on a panel together, and I mocked his defense of the neo-creationist "orchard model" described in Explore Evolution as claiming that life "poofed" into existence. In the course of one of Casey's regularly scheduled bouts of logorrhea, he decides to respond to this claim:
I presented some of this information discussed below at the St. Thomas conference last fall, and NCSE staff member Josh Rosenau repeatedly alleged that I was making a âpoofâ hypothesis for the origin of monkeys.
No. That is not what…
tfk | March 9, 2010Casey Luskin, intrepid Upchucky also-ran, is aflutter. Last week's New York Times story about creationists and global warming deniers partnering up has the whole Disco. 'Tute in something of a tizzy, but Casey's outrage is of a special sort.
Casey, you see, thinks the the Times misdescribed Selman v. Cobb County. The article states:
The legal incentive to pair global warming with evolution in curriculum battles stems in part from a 2005 ruling by a United States District Court judge in Atlanta that the Cobb County Board of Education, which had placed stickers on certain textbooks…
pharyngula | March 7, 2010Coyne was quoted in this article on homeschooling, which brought in an unexpected surge of email, including some rather nasty words from the Christians. This doesn't surprise me at all; criticizing religion, especially the more far-out beliefs that are clearly unsupportable and in contradiction to all of the evidence, is always a reliable trigger to start some kooks spewing.
Homeschooling is another trigger. People care very much about their kids, and so telling them that they're wrecking their children's future by giving them a substandard education poisoned with a falsified ideology is not…
pharyngula | March 6, 2010The NCSE has announced a new award, the Upchuckies, for the most nauseating creationist of the year. Their first slate of competitors was about as disgusting as an old cat box, more revolting than a snot bath with fecal chunks, and included Al Jazeera (bleh), Ray Comfort (gag), Casey Luskin (I think I'm gonna…), and Don McLeroy (huuuuuurl). Jeez, just reviewing their records would be an unpleasant experience in sleaze, slime, and stupidity.
The "winner" is McLeroy. I don't have a clue how they made the decision. Maybe they just weighed the puke buckets placed in front of their CVs.
pharyngula | March 5, 2010That recent atheists-hate-ken-miller piece had more words from Jerry Coyne than from me — and his situation was just like mine, saying mostly laudatory things about Miller, only to have our criticisms used to paint a false picture of the beleaguered Dr Miller.
The story did Miller no favors, either. His ludicrous argument about amputees is going to get wide circulation every time we feel in the mood to deflate theistic evolutionists.
Which is all the freakin' time.
tfk | March 5, 2010The Disco. 'Tute is displeased. Or perhaps not. They love attention, especially in a venue like the New York Times. But they hate having attention drawn to their agenda or the details of what they advocate. Thus, we getâ¦
Shorter Disco.:
Yes we think AGW and evolution are bogus, but how dare people draw attention to our views!
Disco had started calling for a wahmbulance even before yesterday's front-page-above-the-fold article about efforts to link global warming with creationism. Then it got published, and the calls to whine-one-one started rolling in. "Oh my ZOMG," the pearl-clutching…
pharyngula | March 4, 2010The other day, I got a request for an interview: a reporter was writing a story about Ken Miller. I was happy to do so — this was clearly going to be a friendly piece about Miller, and I thought it was good that he get some more press. I talked on the phone with this fellow for 20 minutes or so, and I told him what I thought: Miller is a smart guy, a great speaker, a hardworking asset to the people opposing creationism, and I also said that his efforts to squeeze religion into science were ill-founded and badly argued. I said, "It's an effort to reconcile a legitimate discipline with…
tfk | March 4, 2010James Hrynyshyn has a great response to John West's quote in today's New York Times article on creationism and global warming:
Any efforts to ensure science education is "balanced," in any subject, must be accompanied by reassurances that science classes will stick to science, and not embrace misinformation from ideological or religious think tanks masquerading as proponents of science.
How can one tell the difference? It can be challenging for dilettantes not familiar with doing a little work. For example, when John West of Seattle's creationist Discovery Institute says things like this:
"…
tfk | March 4, 2010The latest addition to LA's food scene is apparently Top Chef winner Ilan Hall's Scottish/Jewish fusion restaurant The Gorbals. According to The Oklahoman (!), Hall is catching some flack:
Ilan Hall received his first piece of hate mail a couple of weeks ago. The writer expressed disgust with the chef's sacrilegious take on Jewish cuisine, specifically Hall's decidedly unkosher matzo balls wrapped in bacon.
Clearly some people have not been reading TfK. Bacon goes great with matzo.
On tonight's menu: latkes with smoked applesauce; marrow with mushrooms and walnuts; and Manischewitz-…
pharyngula | March 4, 2010This is old news. The NY Times has an article on the expanding agenda of creationists to include denial of lots of other phenomena that make them uncomfortable. We've known this for years! It isn't just creationism; those beliefs have a surprisingly high correlation with denial of climate change, denial of HIV's role in AIDS, anti-vax nonsense, rejection of the Big Bang, dualism, etc., etc., etc. At the root of these problems is discomfort with modernity and change, resentment of authority, anti-intellectualism, and of course, goddamned religion, which is little more than a rationalization…
hrynyshyn | March 4, 2010Leslie Kaufman in the New York Times presents a disturbing tale of attempts by creationists to up their chances of slipping religion into science classrooms by piggy-backing it onto "balanced" instruction of climatology.
The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.
Yet they are also capitalizing…
tfk | March 3, 2010For the last year or so, I've been in touch with a reporter at the New York Times about a growing trend of creationists adding global warming to their enemies lists. Tomorrow, her story â Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets â hits the front page of the paper of record:
Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nationâs classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.
In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss…
pharyngula | March 3, 2010This one is in North Carolina, and I think it deserves some special attention. This ain't just a Creation “Museum” — it's a Christian bookstore, an antique tool collection, and a taxidermy hall of fame!
Ken Ham should be squirming with envy.
Note the fawning tone the television announcer takes — it's clear he thinks this concatenation of kitsch is simply wonderful.
pharyngula | March 3, 2010Answers in Genesis explains how you can use a "Biblical framework" to figure something out. In this case, they use the Bible to… derive the existence of Atlantis and peg the time of its sinking to somewhere between 1818BC and 600BC.
The phrase that comes to mind is "Garbage in, garbage out."
gregladen | March 3, 2010Which creationist was the most nauseating?
From the NCSE:
When it comes to dissing evolution (and science in general) there's no lack of volunteers. How to decide which among them is the worst?
Enter the intelligently designed UpChucky Award, which recognizes supreme achievement in the field of persistently rejecting evolution in the most stomach-turning way imaginable. This crown of cluelessness, this diadem of density, this badge of bullpucky isn't awarded to just any Darwin doubter. The UpChucky is bestowed on that one creationist whose efforts in the preceding year would inspire Darwin (…
pharyngula | March 3, 2010Texans can do things right, I tell you: they just booted Don McLeroy off the state board of education in the primary election. Yay!
It's a step forward, although the rest of the board is still a muddled mix of creationist loons and cautious conservatives.
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2010It would appear that the Coalition of the Sane is beginning to reassert itself--if only by a one percent margin (italics mine):
The surprising result of the night came from the State Board of Education District 9 Republican primary, as Thomas Ratliff defeated incumbent and former SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy. This particular campaign actually received national attention, as McLeroy received notoriety criticizing evolution and comprehensive sex education. During the campaign Ratliff presented himself as a moderate alternative, and McLeroy actually used that term as why the constituents of…