creationism
laelaps | November 30, 2009
Eden, from The World Before the Deluge.
At least I know that, if I fail at everything else in life, I could write a book claiming to reconcile science and Christianity. People love them. No matter how many times the same old talking points are trotted out there always seems to be room for one more volume on the subject. And even if readers do not entirely agree with the content of such books many are still comforted by their existence. Among the "Things Christians Like" is to see scientists saying that hard evidence from nature supports Christian beliefs.
I do not say this to belittle the…
pharyngula | November 29, 2009There's no getting around it. I often hear creationists protest "Oh, we love science!", but then the weird process they describe after that looks nothing like science, and resembles something more like church with lab coats. At least Michael Egnor of the Discovery Institute doesn't hide his loathing in a rant that has to be read to be believed. Prompted by the hacking of an email server that revealed that climate scientists tend to be rude and crude in their private communications (a fact that does not diminish the science of climate change at all), Egnor goes on a tear, cussing out…
razib | November 25, 2009Last week I pointed to numbers on evolution and the Muslim world. The New York Times has an article up about the conference which inspired my investigation into that topic. The reporter focuses on the rote learning and creativity as the factors behind a lack of knowledge or understanding of evolutionary theory. Plausible, but really unlikely. East Asian nations have the same issues (which they are trying to reform), but acceptance of evolution is high there. In fact, even in non-developed nations such as the Philippines acceptance of evolution can be high. It is higher than in the United…
pharyngula | November 25, 2009Want another reason to avoid debating creationists? It's like giving a mangy, limping, scab-encrusted starving fleabait cat a saucer of milk — you'll never be rid of the whimpering dependent. Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association has taken to pestering me and Mark Borrello with his plaintive demands, and unfortunately I can't just stuff him into a carrier and drag him down to the humane society or the vet.
Here's his latest missive. He cuts right to the chase and Godwins with the very first word.
Hitler
Dr. Myers,
The most emotional audience response in the debate came…
pharyngula | November 25, 2009There is a Seventh Day Adventist college, La Sierra University, which has horrified church leaders because their biology department is infested with evolutionists. It just goes to show: educate an intelligent person in biology, and they can't help but accept evolutionary theory as the idea best supported by the evidence.
This has caused much anguish among the SDAs, and a website that moans about the problem is running a poll. As we all know, an internet poll is obviously the very best way to resolve scientific issues…so how about if you go help them out? They seem to be riven with dissent…
pharyngula | November 24, 2009The media can't let today pass by without doing something stupid, so here are a few unfortunate faux pas from our news outlets.
Newsweek has published a dozen reasons to celebrate Darwin. The first? Darwin wasn't an atheist! Huzzah! He also wasn't a Jew, let's celebrate that!
The second isn't much better. Darwin mentioned "the Creator" once in the second and subsequent editions, therefore you can find God in the story of evolution! Snap your fingers in the face of an atheist for that, believers! You can read the rest, but they're all rather pathetic.
CNN has also published a long piece of…
pharyngula | November 24, 2009So Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort showed up at UCLA to hand out their vandalized editions of the Origin, and Kirk got caught on video (with horrible sound and video quality, unfortunately) getting rhetorically bitch-slapped in an argument with a UCLA student. Be proud, California universities, you're doing a fine job.
This particular story has a poll attached to it. Here's the entirety of the poll and its results.
Kirk Cameron -- Master Debator?
Yes 100%
Good work.
pharyngula | November 23, 2009Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association has sent me the results of the survey that was given at the debate. He is trying to spin it as supporting the claim that this kind of debate was "useful" — but I'm unimpressed.
About 500 people attended, 290 returned the survey. The survey basically asked two questions about whether they supported teaching creationism in the classroom initially, and the same two questions to be answered after they listened to the debate, with a final question that asked whether the debate was held "on an intellectual level that can serve as an example…
pharyngula | November 23, 2009One of the peculiarities of my recent debate with Jerry Bergman was that he announced his definition of irreducible complexity, which he claimed to be the same as Michael Behe's…and under which carbon atoms were IC. It was utterly absurd. A reader wrote to Behe to get his opinion.
I recently attended a debate between Dr. P. Z. Myers and Dr. Jerry Bergman on the topic of "Should Intelligent Design be Taught in the Schools?" The topic of irreducible complexity came up, and Dr. Bergman had an interesting definition. His definition of irreducible complexity was "two or more parts are required for…
mikethemadbiologist | November 21, 2009Richard Cohen recently wrote that he would like to see an "Institute for the Study of Sarah Palin" receive funding. It's a pretty good piece (which just goes to show that even the dumbest squirrel can occasionally find a nut). But I do have one quibble. Cohen writes (italics mine):
On the other hand, someone else will point out that the very week Palin is promoting her book, the current president is abroad attending meetings in Asia, including a visit with our Chinese bankers. Could those who fault Barack Obama for being callow and inexperienced imagine Palin meeting with the Chinese or,…
pharyngula | November 19, 2009KKMS is a Twin Cities Christian talk radio station which has long been on my list of disreputable people and organizations peddling lies to the populace. They really pissed me off a while back when they brought me on to debate Geoffrey Simmons, and after I smacked him down hard, they invited him back for an unopposed free hour of lies. No, of course they didn't invite me back for a similar hour of discussion.
They're doing it again.
After that bizarre debate on Monday, KKMS is having Bergman on today to make excuses. I think their invitation to me must have gotten lost in the mail…maybe…
razib | November 18, 2009In the post below I pointed to an article which claimed:
It's hard to say exactly how much support the theory of evolution enjoys in the world's Muslim countries, but it's definitely not very much. In one 2006 study by American political scientists, people in 34 industrial nations were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the idea that human beings evolved from earlier life forms. Turkey, the only Muslim country in the survey, showed the lowest levels of support - barely a quarter of Turks said they agreed. By comparison, at least 80 percent of those surveyed in Iceland, Denmark,…
pharyngula | November 18, 2009Then take a picture of yourself with it and send it to Eric Michael Johnson. I think he's going to put up a collage of smirking evilutionists with Comfort's folly.
pharyngula | November 18, 2009Here we go again. Ross Olson is sending more patronizing email, so I guess I'll have to be mean and tear up his prior argument.
November 18, 2009
Dr. Myers,
Thank you for posting my comments and promising to comment on the questions
I raised. Here is the introduction I gave to your debate with Dr. Jerry
Bergman on the topic, "Should Intelligent Design Be Taught in the Schools?"
on http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/i_get_email_47.php
Although many of us on the ID side did not think our arguments were clearly
presented, we were pleased with the civil tone and actual intellectual…
pharyngula | November 18, 2009Apparently, because people had plans to counter some of Ray Comfort's Origin giveaway — which was announced to occur on the 19th — Comfort is giving them away today. I've been getting reports from various universities that his minions are at work right now, as in this photo from Oxford.
Get out and grab yours now!
I'm going to stroll over to the UMM campus, although I'll be very surprised if any were sent to our very small school.
Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron showed up at UCLA. It sounds like they flopped hard. I also got this email account from a UCLA student:
They showed up at UCLA today…
pharyngula | November 18, 2009Poor Adnan Oktar. The New Humanist published an exposé, and he and his organization are clearly freaking out. I've been getting several near-hysterical emails a day from the Turkish creationist mouthpiece, Seda Aral, insisting in many different font colors that the accusations are baseless and are a sign that the humanist movement is melting down. They've also come out with these stilted videos where Oktar goes page by page through the New Humanist.
Man. That looks like a really good magazine.
And then the creationists have produced a web page that claims to address criticisms of Oktar.…
razib | November 17, 2009There was recently a conference on evolution in Egypt. Some interesting numbers:
Dr Guessoum, who is a Sunni Muslim, said that in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia, only 15 per cent of those surveyed believed Darwin's theory to be "true" or "probably true". This stand was equally prevalent among students and teachers, from high school to university. Most alarmingly, he claimed, science teachers were misrepresenting the facts and theories of evolution by mixing it with religious ideologies.
A survey of 100 academics and 100 students that he conducted at his own…
pharyngula | November 17, 2009I wondered what the creationists were doing after last night's debate, when all the godless rationalists were partying down. They were composing a condescending letter to rationalize away their defeat!
Here's what Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association sent me and Mark Borrello and Jerry Bergman this morning.
Thank you all
Thanks to you all for keeping the debate on a courteous intellectual level.
Obviously not all the questions were addressed but the event illustrated that it can be extremely valuable to do so.
Dr. Myers, you have a unique position, with your immensely…
pharyngula | November 17, 2009Go to the NCSE's Don't Diss Darwin site, and download the flyers and bookmarks and information there. Then on 19 November, when the creationist goons descend on your campus, follow them around and hand out truth and humor to go along with Comfort's bogosity.
Easy.
pharyngula | November 17, 2009Well.
It was a strange event. Kittywhumpus and Greg Laden have good detailed breakdowns of the debate, so you can always read those for the audience perspective. As for me, I've learned that you can never prepare for a debate.
I tried. I had a focus — the topic, chosen by Bergman, was "Should Intelligent Design be taught in the schools" — and what I prepared for my side was a set of arguments on that point. I used my own experience teaching biology to lay down a few principles: to teach a subject as science, you need an explanatory mechanism or theory that provides a conceptual framework for…