creationism
pharyngula | February 4, 2009This is curious: apparently, the DVD of Expelled now comes with a little book of quotes which are supposed to support its thesis. Only they don't. Somebody ought to scan these in so we could all share the hilarity.
Not me, alas. Not only didn't I get to see the movie, the makers haven't even had the courtesy to send me a complimentary copy. Maybe they're anticipating that I'll be able to get one in my goody bag at the Oscars.
pharyngula | February 4, 2009Feel my pain. Listen to this ignorant young woman lie and lie and lie about evolution: Charles Darwin was a theologian who just guessed and didn't do any science, there are no transitional fossils, the cell is very complex and therefore could not evolve, yadda yadda yadda. She has been grossly miseducated, and she's parroting creationist dishonesty with extreme smugness.
There. Now I've ruined your morning.
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2009I think the creationist controversy sheds a lot of light on the conservative movement as a whole. So, in the comments of this post by Brad DeLong that wondered how in the hell anyone still seriously argues on behalf of the Treasury View in economics, I remarked that it reminded me of creationists:
....in biology, for example, the profession itself does not lend credence to creationism. The fundamentals, as opposed to the cutting edge (or arguments about the relative importance of various phenomena), are not in question. These are political controversies, not scientific ones. That is,…
pharyngula | February 2, 2009This gets better and better. President Daniel Fogel of the University of Vermont has given several interviews on the Ben Stein affair, and clarified quite a few matters. He explicitly says he did not ask Stein to withdraw from the commencement ceremonies, but when you read these comments, it's clear that that there was a lack of support from the UVM administration and that he was confronted with some serious objections, and Stein withdrew knowing that if he persisted it was going to get ugly. Here's one interview with Fogel:
I think the fundamental concern of the people that wrote to me was…
pharyngula | February 1, 2009Good news, all! Ben Stein has withdrawn from the UVM commencement. I think we can thank Richard Dawkins' clout for helping with this one.
Here's the letter from President Fogel. They asked Stein to speak as an authority on economics?
Dear Professor Dawkins,
As one who has been deeply instructed by your work and who applauds your scientific leadership, I was honored to find a personal email from you in my inbox, but very sorry indeed that the occasion was the decision to invite Ben Stein to be a Commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient. Although we have recently learned that Mr.…
pharyngula | February 1, 2009If you've been trying to complain to UVM about their decision to bring in Ben Stein as a commencement speaker, some of your arguments may have fallen on deaf ears. Richard Dawkins reports:
Someone with a real axe to grind had to have been on the committee
that picked this old fraud". Layla Nasreddin, posting on
RichardDawkins.net, has found the probable answer to the identity of
that 'someone'. Ben Stein is an old pal of the President of the
University of Vermont, Daniel Fogel. One is bound to wonder, therefore,
whether the letters that many of us have been writing to Fogel will cut
any ice.…
pharyngula | January 31, 2009A few people (actually, a lot of people) have written to me asking me to address Kirk Durston's probability argument that supposedly makes evolution impossible. I'd love to. I actually prepared extensively to deal with it, since it's the argument he almost always trots out to debate for intelligent design, but — and this is a key point — Durston didn't discuss this stuff at all! He brought out a few of the slides very late in the debate when there was no time for me to refute them, but otherwise, he was relying entirely on vague arguments about a first cause, accusations of corruption against…
clock | January 31, 2009Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction by Eugenie C. Scott.
Written at this time.
pharyngula | January 30, 2009Guess who UVM is bringing in to deliver their commencement address?
Ben Stein.
I am very sorry, seniors at that otherwise fine university. You're going to have a hack wingnut with a history of incompetence at economics, politics, and science standing up and giving you advice. I don't know what the administrators at your school were thinking; this is a man with no qualifications other than a droning monotone and a stint on a game show. It's an expression of profound disrespect to the students.
And I'm really sorry for the biology department at UVM — it's a real slap in the face for the…
tfk | January 29, 2009The endlessly entertaining Zero out of Five collects catastrophically wrong test answers.
This one got 0 points, but I think that a recently passed law in Louisiana (and similar laws introduced in Oklahoma and elsewhere this year) might make that grade illegal:
I think that illustration was copied from a Discovery Institute meteorology textbook. Surely that's worth partial credit. 1 point out of 2?
pharyngula | January 28, 2009The Humanist Community of Central Ohio sent out a suggestion to various towns to declare 12 February Darwin Day, in honor of the man and his science. Nice gesture, I think; it's a small token of appreciation that doesn't cost anyone anything. The city of Whitehall went for it, but then something odd happened — people complained.
So they watered it down to declaring February a month of science, and added Galileo's name to the list of honorees. OK, that's a bit craven, and their intent is transparent, but it's a reasonable compromise. Go for it!
Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for the…
pharyngula | January 28, 2009
Pity Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist, which published an issue in which the cover was the large, bold declaration that "DARWIN WAS WRONG". He has been target by a number of big name scientists who have been hammering him in a small typhoon of outraged private correspondence (I've been part of it) that his cover was a misdirected and entirely inappropriate piece of sensationalism. We're already seeing that cover abused by creationists who see it as a tool — a reputable popular science journal has declared Darwin to be wrong, therefore, once again, science must be in retreat! — and I…
mikethemadbiologist | January 28, 2009Seriously. The political tactics are virtually identical. From The Krugman (italics mine):
As the debate over President Obama's economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan's opponents aren't arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don't want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don't want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.
Some of these arguments are obvious cheap shots. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already…
pharyngula | January 28, 2009If you've been following the creationist strategy lately, you know that one of their efforts is to push a new and awful textbook, Explore Evolution, in conjunction with the various political bills to endorse a "strengths & weaknesses" theme in the public school science curriculum. Explore Evolution is the type specimen for that teaching technique; it contains nothing but imaginary problems in biology presented in a dueling opinions format, with creationists writing sloppy distortions of biological ideas coupled with creationists writing laudatory explanations based on Intelligent Design…
pharyngula | January 27, 2009We have another M.D. spouting off against evolution using bogus creationist arguments. Jeffrey Dach may also be embarrassing lefty-liberal types, since his page is hosted on Salon. It's very confused and poorly argued.
He first says that he believes in evolution, but that Darwin's ideas are outdated, and the new evidence suggests new theories of evolution, because Darwin's theory can't answer some big questions. OK, I thought, there are many unanswered questions…but then I read his four questions and realized he didn't have a clue about the subject.
1) How does random change (mutation) in the…
mikethemadbiologist | January 27, 2009Our Benevolent Seed Overlords ask "What is science's rightful place?" which refers to a line from Obama's inaugural address where he vowed to "restore science to its rightful place."
Since ScienceBlogling Jake discussed the importance of basing policy on evidence--as well as correctly recognizing that the method we use to solve problems does not shed much light on whether we should address those problems in the first place--I want to bring up one problem that science faces: it is, to a great extent, elitist.
Before all of the TEH SCIENTISMZ R EVUL!!! crowd gets all hot and bothered, what I…
pharyngula | January 27, 2009David Attenborough and I have something in common: he gets hate mail from creationists, too!
pharyngula | January 27, 2009Kirk Durston is a cunning wretch. How did he open his part in the debate here in Edmonton? By claiming that atheism was an amoral philosophy that led to the corruption of society, and to prove it, he cited a political scientist named Rummel, who he claimed, had shown that cultures built around a core of atheism had killed the most people in all of history.
If you actually go to Rummel's site, Freedom, Democide, War, you'll discover that he said no such thing. His thesis is that democracy is the critical factor in reducing war and the slaughter of civilians. This, of course, I could not do…
sa smith | January 26, 2009lol Not really.
(H/T AtBC) Some UD IDiot wrote a letter to OU pres David Boren (whos actually a pretty cool guy) bitching about how OUs Darwin Year celebrations dont have anyone from the Creationist Camp included!
As an institution of learning in the state of Oklahoma, it is my hope that OU would present to the public the full range of opinion that is present within science over Darwin's theories. In addition to the action of natural selection, many other theories as to the origin of the species have been considered and discussed, including, but not limited to, evolution by symbiogenesis (…
pharyngula | January 25, 2009As I was told last night, it's one of the rare times "reason" got some representation in that section. You can read it here — I've been on Calgary radio and newspapers this week, so I'm hoping it will draw out some opposition to my talk this afternoon — it would be great to get some argument going in the Q&A.