creationism
pharyngula | August 17, 2012I don't know whether it's by design or fortuitous incompetence, but creationists are masters of the fuzzy statement that opens the doors to all kinds of new opportunities for ignorance. Missouri, for instance, just passed a law giving themselves the freedom to pray (a freedom they already had, which is not in peril) and at the same time, just had to toss in this lovely and dangerous clause: no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs.
Raise your hand if you think you can spot the…
gregladen | August 11, 2012Barbara Forest Wrote Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Here is a recent talk by her:
gregladen | August 11, 2012Two days ago, according to the NCSE, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 2 which protects the right of citizens to pray and express religious beliefs, which was already the case because of the US Constitution. However, the Amendment will have other effects that were not mentioned at the voting booth. For example, "no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs." What do you think THAT is going to lead to?
pharyngula | August 6, 2012As we all know, now that the trivial and relatively uninteresting business of mere engineering has cleared a hurdle, Mars Curiosity can get to work on the important stuff: finding evidence of biology on Mars. This is where it's also going to get peculiarly controversial, because some creationists are feeling a bit threatened: there is a subset of creationists (definitely not all of them!) who are convinced that there can be no other life elsewhere in the universe. There's also a weird subset that believes there may be intelligent life elsewhere, but it must believe in the Christian god, and…
pharyngula | August 1, 2012Ken Ham's boondoggle in Kentucky is still mired in sluggish fundraising, but he still believes they'll be open in 2014…only now with an incomplete park. They're now talking about building it up gradually over a decade, starting whenever the can begin construction. Looking at AiG's numbers, though, I don't see why they're at all optimistic.
The first phase of the project will cost $73 million to build, and $6 million has already been spent on land acquisition and design. So far, Answers in Genesis has raised $7.5 million, with private investors pitching in an additional $15.5 million to the…
pharyngula | July 30, 2012I would have thought that it was a relief, a minor bit of unconcern, that Mitt Romney nominally supports evolution (he's one of those waffly theistic evolutionists, so he doesn't really…but at least he wouldn't be brazenly contradicting all of the evidence). But there's a potential problem looming: who will he pick for vice president? Who does he turn to advice on education? Ken Miller discusses the situation, and points out that his key advisor on education reform and potential VP pick is…
Bobby Jindal, creationist governor of Louisiana.
Jindal has an elite résumé. He was a biology major at…
tfk | July 27, 2012Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener: We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, He Folded, and Now He's a Darwinist Hero:
We called out Carl Zimmer, he kicked our asses, and now we're butthurt about it.
Klinghoffer is peeved that when knowledgeable people are asked to abandon standard tools of scientific discourse in exchange from an offer to "debate" Disco. staff on the Disco. blog, about a book written by Disco. staff, published by the Disco. press, those people offer a polite "I would prefer not." Klinghoffer's under the misimpression that "the debate about evolution is…
pharyngula | July 27, 2012The Institute for Creation Research is going on and on again about Haeckel and gill slits. It gets tiresome; I've explained so many times that Haeckel's theory was wrong and he skewed his drawings to fit his model, but that it really is true that human embryos have pharyngeal arches that are modified in a peculiar way to build the face and neck, and this really is evidence for our evolutionary history. Fortunately, this time, I don't have to go into it because Troy Britain has covered all the details. Yay!
But I do want to mention one really strange thing. The ICR is going on and on about…
pharyngula | July 21, 2012If you're looking for a meaty weekend read, look no further than Paul McBride's thorough dismantling of Science and Human Origins, the new bad book from the Discovery Institute, by Gauger, Axe, and Luskin. It's in 6 parts, taking on each chapter one by one: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, a prediction about what will be in chapter 4 before reading it, Part 4 (prediction confirmed!), and Part 5.
The creationists are howling. McBride's evisceration, with Carl Zimmer's detailed description of the evidence for chromosome fusion, all discrediting what they thought would be a hot new text on the scientific…
pharyngula | July 20, 2012I always have unwarrantedly high expectations of creationists. I know that there are some flamingly ignorant nutjobs out there, all your Hams and Hovindses and Luskins, but lurking in my mind is always this suspicion that somewhere there has to be one or two biologically competent ideologues on their side of the fence. And I am always disappointed.
For example, there's this one fellow, Douglas Axe, who has a legitimate and well-earned doctoral degree in chemical engineering, and several published papers in real science journals (not the fake journals creationists create). The Discovery…
tfk | July 19, 2012
Shorter David Klinghoffer, Disco. 'tute scrivener, We Called Out Darwinist Critic Carl Zimmer, and He Folded:
Why won't anyone play my game?
Klinghoffer is upset that no one will come to the Disco. blog, let Disco. staff ban any outside comment, and debate the merits of the book which several Disco. staffers wrote and which Disco. self-published.
Instead, critics are feeling free to explore the book's many failings on their own blogs, and in comments on Disco.-affiliated Facebook pages.
And when these critics offer a gentle "I would prefer not to" in answer to Klinghoffer's poorly-…
tfk | July 19, 2012As Steve Benen notes at Rachel Maddow's blog, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker draws his governing lessons from interesting sources:
Just imagine. Then imagine that Noah had to build his ark in a capitalist market economy, and had to be able to turn a profit on the deal simply in order to start construction. He might have to charge admission, treat it like a zoo or a theme park or something.
Now imagine that Noah's business plan didn't appeal to bankers, and even the people who supported his past ventures (like, perhaps, a museum about how the planet and all life on it was created a mere…
pharyngula | July 13, 2012A very familiar story: a creationist is told that her views are unsupported by any legitimate science, and in reply she rattles off a list of creationist "scientists".
Here we are told by a creationist housewife — as she describes herself — defending her belief that the Giant’s Causeway is only as old as the Bible says it is, a claim which assumes, of course, that there is a definite chronology in the Bible which can be used to date the age of the earth, and that this chronology, such as it is, supersedes all other forms of chronology, because the Bible is, after all, the inerrant word of God…
pharyngula | July 11, 2012I'm glad someone at the New Humanist is catching on: that little bit of performance art at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, in which the creationists got their falsified myth inserted into the National Trust's exhibits, is exactly how they operate. Every little advantage is pursued in order to falsify the existence of legitimate support. As Paul Sims explains:
The reference to creationism at the Causeway may only represent a small concession to the creationist view, but what the National Trust needs to be aware of is that winning such small concessions forms a key part of creationist…
tfk | July 10, 2012Shorter Disco. 'tute's David Klinghoffer: Paul McBride, Darwinist Hero of the Hour:
Why don't real scientists take our book seeking to throw out all of paleoanthropology – self-published by a lawyer, an insect geneticist, and a bacterium geneticist – seriously? That paleoanthropologist who tore it to shreds doesn't count: he hasn't got good enough credentials.
Honestly, here's David Klinghoffer's actual opening:
The debate about evolution is conducted in large part on blogs… Defending Darwinism from critics and advocates of alternative scientific theories like intelligent design should be a…
tfk | July 10, 2012Disco. 'tute blogger Ann Gauger wants to make something clear:
There seems to be an idea on the part of some critics that my analysis in Science and Human Origins means that humans arose four million years ago. That is not the case.
The very idea that anyone would think Gauger agrees with the scientific evidence on any matter is clearly offensive, and her umbrage is duly noted.
Gauger doesn't ever specify who these critics are that maligned her so, or what they actually said. She certainly doesn't link to the critics' work so that her readers can evaluate those criticisms themselves. Links…
gregladen | July 3, 2012Genie Scott's report from the front, from Texas textbook battles to the Texas Board's attempt to "creationize" the state's science standards. How will this affect the future of education in Texas...and the U.S.? Where: Texas Freethought Convention. When: 10/8/2011.
The books referred to are Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, 2nd Edition and Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.
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Photo of Eve and Adam by elmada
tfk | July 2, 2012At his blog Still Monkeys, Paul McBride has done yeoman work examining the shoddy claims of the latest book from the Disco. 'tute Press. This book, barely more than a pamphlet, really, purports to show that the last century of research on the roots of the human race are wrong, that evolution can't explain where humans came from, that there was no common ancestry between humans and other primates, and to "debunk claims that the human race could not have started from an original couple."
Typically for the book's authors – Disco. 'tute staffers Casey Luskin, Douglas Axe, and Ann Gauger – the…
pharyngula | June 29, 2012It's really a shame: the United States does have some very good things, like an excellent higher education system (which is declining with drooping support, but that's a different subject), a fine Constitution, and good pizza, but what is making headway in the rest of the world? McDonalds and creationism. Turkey has the creationism bug even worse than we do, and guess who infected them?
In the 1980s, Turkey was still reeling from a military coup d’etat. The socially conservative government that took control after the junta relinquished power changed the science curriculum in schools, Kence…
tfk | June 28, 2012At the time of YHWH, God's making of earth and heaven, no bush of the field was yet on earth,no plant of the field had yet sprung up,for YHWH, God, had not made it rain upon the earth,and there was no human/adam to till the soil/adama–but a surge would well up from the ground and water all the face of the soul;and YHWH, God, formed the human, of dust from the soilhe blew into his nostrils the breath of lifeand the human became a living being.
YHWH, God, planted a garden in Eden/Land-of-Pleasure, in the east,and there he placed the human whom he had formed.
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Now YHWH, God, said:It is not good…