creationism
pharyngula | January 8, 2009This looks interesting: a group of geologists have organized to write a book that specifically shows the fallacies of intelligent design creationism from a geological perspective. This should be good.
pharyngula | January 7, 2009The letters to the editor section of our local newspapers is where you find the proud regalia of the American boob in prominent display. Here's a fine example of creationist inanity from Dothan, Alabama. Try to count the misconceptions about evolution here.
Grade school textbooks teach evolution as fact. It is a monstrous lie that harms our children.
The evolution theory says we evolved from the original Big Bang and later crawled out of a green slime from the ocean.
Here is one example of its ludicrous hypothesis.
Of all the mysteries surrounding evolution, the one that is most baffling to…
pharyngula | January 7, 2009The state of erv now has an embarrassing distinction: Oklahoma has put up the first anti-evolution bill for 2009. The year isn't even a week old and they're already pushing this nonsense.
Senate Bill 320 (document), prefiled in the Oklahoma Senate and scheduled for a first reading on February 2, 2009, is apparently the first antievolution bill of 2009. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," SB 320 would, if enacted, require state and local educational authorities to "assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses…
pharyngula | January 7, 2009Speaking of people who can't understand basic science, here's Denyse O'Leary:
A couple of years ago, after I had been following the controversy for several years, I found myself listening to a long lecture by a Darwinist, replete with bafflegab and pretty lame examples. Finally, sensing (correctly) that I was unconvinced, he proclaimed to me, "You just don't understand how natural selection works, do you?"
And suddenly, the penny dropped. What he meant was that I just don't believe in magic. I can't make myself believe in magic; I haven't been able to since I was a child.
Natural selection…
sa smith | January 6, 2009Why do scientists hate freedom so much?
Oh, maybe cause 'academic freedom' is the post 9/11 jingoist new buzzword radical Christians are using to squirt warm, salty Creationism, Global Warming Denialism, and pro-life arguments into public schools.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!
Via NCSE:
The State Board of Education, district boards of education, district superintendents and administrators, and public school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific…
pharyngula | January 6, 2009I am genuinely amused at this caricature of scientists from a creationist site. How many of you believed these things?
Everyone is biased. Scientists just happen to be biased in favor of reality, and have a set of tools that help them overcome predispositions that might lead them into error (Non-scientists have the same tools. Creationists just prefer not to use them.)
Again, they try to be objective.
Hah! Anyone who has done any science at all knows that a good part of the process is spent winnowing out sources of error.
He wears a…wait, what? In a list containing such grand and…
pharyngula | January 5, 2009Would you believe that Nick Lally has responded — well, reacted might be the better word — to our criticism of his silly letter? This is a reply to one of the editors to whom he had sent his original mail.
Dear "Yo", for lack of a name....since you have not yet given me yours while you put me out there for others to read.
With the exception of a few bright guys who challenged my facts, the rest of the responses were lame, personal and disrespectful. So typical of you atheists.
But I must admit, I did get a laugh of myself for miss-typing "Louis Pasteur".
But for now, allow me to explain my…
pharyngula | January 5, 2009A while back, I posted some email from Debra Rufini that had been forwarded to me — a long list of stupid arguments for creationism. Now, almost 6 months later, she has discovered my posting, and she is hoppin' mad.
Hello there Mr. Myers,
I must say that I'm incredibly flattered that you've gone to all the trouble to 'attempt' to tackle my 50 points. One would assume that seeing as tehy were so ridiculously stupid, that you'd rather fob me off as yet just another 'religious fool'. Had I written to you (Which I hadn't even done), representing the Flat Earth Society, I could guarantee that you…
sa smith | January 5, 2009Via PZ, a quote from Walt Ruloff, producer of EXPELLED:
The first version of Expelled leaned heavily on computer-generated images of cells, illustrating how their development relied on more than random mutation.
But alas, Ruloff said, "When we first watched that movie it was verrrrry boring."
So, with the help of Abbotsford screenwriter Kevin Miller, they made a more controversial film -- by splicing provocative black-and-white images in between Stein's punchy interviews with various scientists.
The final version of Expelled includes chilling reels of the Berlin Wall, of soldiers, of machine-…
pharyngula | January 4, 2009A newspaper editor sent me this bizarre little letter. Apparently, the writer, a Mr Nick Lally, was spamming it all over the place, and his copy was also sent to addresses at these domains (actual email addresses stripped to protect the already put-upon):
@ncnnow.com, @krcb.org, @krcb.org, @californiaconnected.org, @humboldt1.com, @ksee.com, @telemundo.com, @koce.org, @cbs.com, @nbc4.tv, @angnewspapers.com, @modocrecord.com, @arcataeye.com, @pulitzer.net, @goldcountrymedia.com, @bakersfield.com, @bakersfield.com, @berkeleydailyplanet.com, @eastbayexpress.com, @canyonnews.com, @bhweekly.com, @…
laelaps | January 4, 2009
The best thing about Frank Peretti's 2005 novel Monster was that it was over quickly. I was able to zip through the 419-page yarn in about five hours, although after about five minutes I felt I had wasted too much time on this anti-evolution screed.
I was loaned the novel by a friend who thought I might enjoy it, but I already knew I was in trouble when I glanced at the Acknowledgments page;
Jonathan Wells, postdoctoral biologist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, whose book, Icons of Evolution, first got my creative wheels turning, and who helped me clarify my main idea over a…
pharyngula | January 4, 2009As Wilkins notes, they've admitted it now: the producers of Expelled lied to make their movie.
The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.
"We wanted to generate anger," Ruloff said.
"We always knew we'd get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle."
Nice guys. You know, it's pretty easy to get people angry with you by lying about them, but that doesn't mean it's a productive strategy.
It did get an uninterested middle to pay attention, though, he's right on that. Of…
evolvingthoughts | January 4, 2009Well, he admits that it was a theist diatribe from the beginning, and not the even handed interaction between science and faith doco he told Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers among others. Always nice to find out that those who assert that only with faith in God can we have morals behave as if morals were an optional extra. Not surprising, but there it is. You can lie for your religion, to nonbelievers who do happen to behave morally and ethically.
pharyngula | January 2, 2009This is just sad. Lately, Casey Luskin has been quaveringly protesting that poor Michael Behe got a bad shake in the Dover trial, and that Ken Miller misrepresented him in his testimony. Alas, this little mouse didn't just get caught in a mousetrap — he got blown away by an elephant gun. Ken Miller has a guest post at The Loom in which he demolishes Luskin. I almost feel sorry for him.
pharyngula | December 31, 2008Raise a toast to Kent Hovind, whose appeal has been denied.
By the way, another of his dialogs with God has been posted…he wrote it in August, so there seems to be a rather substantial lag in putting them on the web. That's a shame, since God has such a strong personal interest in Kent.
pharyngula | December 31, 2008Casey Luskin once again complains about the fact that the propagators of intelligent design creationism are not regarded kindly, and in fact, are frequently disparaged. He takes it very personally, even.
On a personal note, I am familiar with these kinds of attacks. In one single forum at Antievolution.org, created and owned by a former National Center for Science Education staff member, I have been called no less than "Bizarre ignoramus," "retarded," "suck-up," "Pathetic Loser," "attack mouse, gerbil, rat, or clockwork powered plush toy," "an orc," "Annoying," "a miserable loser with no life…
pharyngula | December 30, 2008He declares a bicycle to be irreducibly complex because it can't function if you remove one wheel.
You can guess where this is going.
Queue up the redefinition calliope, Casey! ‘But it's not a bicycle anymore, now is it?’
pharyngula | December 30, 2008No hard feelings, people, I lived there for a while…but Hoosiers sure can pick 'em. I was there when Dan Quayle was the hero of the hour, and I had no idea they could sink even lower. Here he is, though: Congressman Mark Souder, who claims that the highlight of his year was appearing in Expelled. Seriously, and with fervor.
I personally believe that there is no issue more important to our society than intelligent design. I believe that if there wasn't a purpose in designing you — regardless of who you view the designer as being — then, from my perspective, you can't be fallen from that design…
sa smith | December 29, 2008Creationists and HIV Deniers, gawd bless em.
So like, remember a while back when Andy Schlafly, Creationist of Conservapedia wrote PNAS demanding raw data, reagents, etc from Richard Lenski? And if Lenski refused to deliver that stuff to Schlafly (and his crack team of home schooled children) for 'peer review', then PNAS should retract the paper and Evilution is a Lie?
Well, HIV Deniers thought that was a friggen brilliant idea. Forty well respected HIV-1 researchers have gone and done the same thing, demanding Science retract a 24 year old paper of Robert Gallos because it doesnt suit…