creationism
pharyngula | October 16, 2009Way back in July, I proposed that an appropriate response to the inane creationist ads that were appearing on scienceblogs was for people to take advantage of one, an offer of a free booklet on creationism, and then we'd all tear it apart mercilessly. I ordered mine, a lot of you did likewise, and some of you have even written critical posts already.
I forgot.
It wasn't my fault, though. They didn't send me my booklet! I jumped through their hoops, I filled out their form, I did everything they asked, and I set the issue aside, anticipating that the arrival of tripe in the mail would be my…
pharyngula | October 14, 2009Atheists are familiar with the Grandma Gambit — it's a common tactic used to shut us up. We're told to keep quiet because our dear sweet devout Grandma couldn't possibly deal with the news; it would break her heart and you wouldn't want to do that, would you? What kind of callous rat would hurt a gentle little old lady!
It's a rather patronizing suggestion that belittles Grandmas everywhere. Both of my grandmothers were feisty types who would have relished a good argument (and one of my grandmothers, who died when I was 12, would probably have just said, "good for you"). Go ahead, break the…
pharyngula | October 13, 2009I am astounded. Usually AiG simply refers to me as "the Professor" or "the atheist", but in their latest screed they actually mention me by name…and they even spell it correctly! Of course, they get everything else wrong.
A well-known University of Minnesota-Morris professor who has a history of hate speech against creationists—especially Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum1—inadvertently admitted recently that we were not wrong. This was kind of a blessing in disguise and also reveals much about his character. Professor Paul (P.Z.) Myers said:
First, there is no moral law: the…
sa smith | October 10, 2009I understand DI fellows not knowing anything about science, because none of them are scientists.
I fail to understand how that collection of lawyers makes so many legal errors.
For instance, the Discovery Institute, via the American Freedom Alliance, organized a screening of 'Darwins Dilemma' at the California Science Center. But a couple of days ago, CSC canceled the screening, citing contract violations.
Oh, but the DI knows better, right?
EXPELLED!!! EXPEEEEEEEEEEEELLED!
Alliance president Avi Davis said the cancellation had nothing to do with contract issues, but rather a press release…
pharyngula | October 9, 2009Perhaps I was too quick to declare that previous article the worst one yet on Ardipithecus…now the Family Research Council has weighed in. Would you believe that Ardi supports their anti-gay stance?
the article describes what C. Owen Lovejoy, an anthropologist at Kent State University, says about the social organization of this species:
The males, he argues, pair-bonded with females. Lovejoy sees male parental investment in the survival of offspring as a hallmark of the human lineage.
So, how long has marriage (i.e., "pair-bonding") been a male-female union? About four million, four…
gregladen | October 9, 2009An item from the NCSE:
A special issue of the Journal of Effective Teaching, a peer-reviewed electronic journal devoted to the discussion of teaching excellence in colleges and universities, is devoted to the topic of teaching evolution in the college classroom. Featured are Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, and Alex Bates's "The Influence of Religion and High School Biology Courses on Students' Knowledge of Evolution When They Enter College"; Katherine E. Bruce, Jennifer E. Horan, Patricia H. Kelley, and Mark Galizio's "Teaching Evolution in the Galapagos"; Patricia H. Kelley's "A College Honors…
tfk | October 9, 2009It seems like a better hypothesis than that religion is epistemically incompatible with science. (Trying to replace political science with CNN? Really?)
Consider. Roughly half of scientists are religious, but fewer than 10% are conservatives. John McCain, the leader of the Republican party, denigrated astronomy education by calling a star-projector for a planetarium "foolishness" and "an overhead projector." His hand-picked successor suggested that fruit fly research should be defunded, and suggested that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together. By contrast, the Catholic church's…
gregladen | October 9, 2009You'll recall that it was recently reported that the Californial Science Center, which is loosely affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, had planned a screening of "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" which is apparently a creationist documentary.
Well, now, the venue has cancelled the showing and the ID people are all lathered up about it.
The group claims the cancellation was an act of censorship, made after the center was pressured by the Smithsonian Institution, but the center chalked it up to a contract issue, without elaborating.
Coined "The Darwin…
gregladen | October 9, 2009A recently published statement on current scientific knowledge on cosmic evolution and biological evolution from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences concludes: "The extraordinary progress in our understanding of evolution and the place of man in nature should be shared with everyone. ... Furthermore, scientists have a clear responsibility to contribute to the quality of education, especially as regards the subject of evolution." The statement appears in the proceedings of "Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life," a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of…
pharyngula | October 9, 2009The dishonor goes to ABC News, which put together an appalling mess of an article that gives credibility to creationist denialists. Right from the beginning, you know this article is bunk.
But despite the excitement from the paleontology community, another group of researchers, many of them with advanced degrees in science, are unimpressed by Ardi, who they believe is just another ape -- an ape of indeterminate age, they add, and an ape who cannot be an ancestor of modern man for a range of reasons, including one of singular importance: God created man in one day, and evolution is a fallacy…
gregladen | October 9, 2009This just in from the NCSE:
Will a Massachusetts bill entitled "An Act Relative to Protecting the Religious Freedom of Students" encourage the discussion of creationism in public school science classes? That's what a cosponsor of the bill, Representative Elizabeth Poirier (R-14th Bristol), told the Cape Cod Times (October 7, 2009). The bill, House No. 376, received a hearing on October 6, 2009, at which, according to the Times, "No one testified against the bill, which has bipartisan support and is expected to pass favorably through the Joint Committee on Education."
Evolution is in fact not…
mikethemadbiologist | October 9, 2009I've said it before, but I'll say it again: everything you need to know about movement conservatives, you can learn by watching creationists (and admittedly, there's substantial overlap between the two groups). Think about creationists, and then consider this column by Neal Gabler:
In their postmortems, liberals have placed blame on the way they frame their message, or on the right-wing media drumbeat that drowns out everything else, or on the right's co-opting of the flag, Mom and apple pie, which is designed to make liberals seem like effete, hostile foreign agents.
It's understandable…
gregladen | October 8, 2009This just in: Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the NCSE, has won the California Academy of Sciences Fellows Medal.
This is somewhere between an Oscar and a Nobel. Congratulations Genie!!!
Details...
DARWIN DEFENDER TAKES TOP PRIZE
California Academy of Sciences honors Dr. Eugenie C. Scott
OAKLAND, CA October 8, 2009
It's better than an Oscar. The NCSE's Dr. Eugenie Scott has received the California Academy of Sciences' highest honor: the Fellows Medal. The Medal recognizes Dr. Scott's "...many important contributions to science, education, and evolution, and for her tireless efforts…
gregladen | October 8, 2009Lately, creationist rhetoric seems to increasingly mention the idea that if scientists really understood evolution, life, and biology, then why don't they just create it themselves, as a kind of proof of concept? This rhetoric usually includes a statement like: "They can't even create a simple cell ... "
A repost
This is very annoying, and displays either creationists' excellent ability to frame their arguments or their utter stupidity. In fact, a cell is the most complicated thing going in biology. A cell is more complicated than an organism that is made up of cells, assuming that you don…
pharyngula | October 7, 2009Be warned, this tribute is a song in Satan's genre, that loud rock music.
tfk | October 6, 2009The Disco. 'Stute is upset. Not only has disco been overtaken by that rap music, but you can't even hear the good stuff any more. Also, no one returns their phone calls.
Atheist Richard Dawkins dodges Debate Challenge:
Ray Comfort, author of the Amazon.com’s best seller, You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think – is offering $20,000 to Richard Dawkins (probably the world’s most famous atheist) simply for Dawkins to appear in a public debate on the issue of the beginnings of the universe with him. However, it seems Prof Dawkins would rather keep his tirades against God…
gregladen | October 6, 2009LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate premieres Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution. To view a trailer and clips from the film, please visit www.darwinsdilemma.org.
Darwin's Dilemma will be screened at 7 p.m. on Sunday, October 25th in the IMAX theater at the California Science Center, with a post-film discussion featuring Darwin skeptic Dr. David Berlinski, author of The…
pharyngula | October 5, 2009The Minot meeting this evening was lots of fun; what made it especially entertaining was that it was attended by a few fervently deluded creationists who boldly asked questions at the end. I got a few variants of "you're uncivil, so I think you're wrong" (tough — peddle bullshit arguments, I'll call you a bullshitter), the "you just have different presuppositions than I do" argument (which works wonderfully in arguments for the existence of Santa Claus), and the claim that "creationists and scientists look at the same facts and just interpret them differently" (not true, creationists…