creationism
sa smith | October 27, 2008So I saw EXPELLED this weekend.
My review is two words: Thats it?
Thats it? Thats what caused a humagiganitisoid blagosphere hubub? OMG it was so boring! I got bored 15 minutes in, started cleaning the apartment while watching. Made it to 45 minutes in before just paused it and watched a documentary on Animal Planet 'Growing up Walrus' (really good, btw). Forced myself to watch another 30 minutes of EXPELLED, left to go see a documentary about Mardi Gras with some friends 'The Order of Myths' (really good, btw). Finally watched the rest of EXPELLED.
EXPELLED was boring.
I understand now…
pharyngula | October 27, 2008I've been asked to publicize another creationist quote mine. Gene Myers, a former vice president at Celera who was one of the leaders in sequencing the human genome, has been quote by Tom Abate in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying, "What really astounds me is the architecture of life…The system is extremely complex. It's like it was designed… There's a huge intelligence there." This quote is one of the stock items used by Muslim and Christian creationists everywhere.
He was interviewed by TonkaFocus, and asked flatly whether he was an Intelligent Design creationism supporter. His answer…
pharyngula | October 26, 2008Some teachers were at a workshop in Atlanta to talk about their experiences teaching evolution, and how to overcome some of the problems. They've had it worse than I have.
Some students burst into tears when a high school biology told them they'd be studying evolution. Another teacher said some students repeatedly screamed "no" when he began talking about it.
Other teachers said students demanded to know whether they pray and questioned why the had to learn about evolution if it was just a theory.
I get remarks on my student evaluations (last year, a group of students must have…
pharyngula | October 23, 2008"YOU cannot overestimate," thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, "how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."
Sound…
tfk | October 23, 2008This Saturday, my NCSE colleague Peter Hess and I will be speaking with the skeptics in Seattle, talking about "'The best preventive of the evils now most dreaded': Defending evolution in a religious society." We will speak about the threat creationist attacks on evolution education pose to our society, and about the ways in which religion can aid in the defense of science education. The talk will be at The Crystal Creek Cafe in Bothell, WA. For more information, check out the Society for Sensible Expectations website.
Then on Monday, I'll be talking about "Creationist Attacks on Science…
pharyngula | October 23, 2008Greg Lloyd attended the Northern Kentucky University mock trial of evolution/creation, and sent back a report. The scenario was that a teacher tried to advocate creationist theories in a public high school classroom, was fired for it, and is trying to sue for reinstatement. Here's Greg's account of the event.
Several Pharyngulites and I (ggab and his friend) attended last evenings mock trial at NKU. You can see pictures of the event here:
http://gallery.me.com/gllopc#100069
The pictures include the question the audience/jury was asked, and the results.
36% Believe she should remain fired
2%…
laelaps | October 23, 2008On this date, six thousand and eleven years ago (give or take a little due to the vagaries of how calendars are kept), the creation of the universe had just begun. That's according to the 1650 chronology determined by the Anglican Bishop of Armagh James Ussher, anyway, published in his Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, which you can read here if you're well-versed in Latin).
Today it's easy to heap scorn on Ussher's dates. Scientific tests have confirmed over and over again that the earth itself…
pharyngula | October 23, 2008Bill Dembski gave a talk at Baylor recently, and we have a rather thorough account of his lecture. Basically, it's the usual creationist rope-a-dope: ask for the impossible (give me every single step in the evolution of a process) and garbled distortion of useful concepts (in this case, of information), then declare that evolution has failed.
pharyngula | October 21, 2008The horrible Expelled is now available on DVD. I have no plans to view it. However, you can get it from a site called redbox, which has a bizarre synopsis.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Who better to interview fanatics than the hilariously deadpan Ben Stein? Here, the former host of "Win Ben Stein's Money" (and, it should mentioned, trusted Nixon advisor) hosts a documentary in which he sets out to ask the hard questions about the Intelligent Design theory to its most fervent believers.
I don't know what they were thinking when they wrote that.
pharyngula | October 20, 2008This video contains a nice breakdown of exactly who the wackaloons on the Texas Board of Education are, and will help you figure out who to vote for in the upcoming elections.
I always find it astonishing that Don McLeroy and Terri Leo actually have positions of responsibility in the Texas educational system. The system is really messed up down there, have you noticed?
pharyngula | October 20, 2008Reader wombat found a fascinating site in response to the creationist debate in Kentucky, led by Dr. Ben Scripture. It's an utterly bizarre page about a petrified human brain, and it is typical creationist tripe. They have gathered a collection of "authorities", where they make much of their pedigrees (don't blame me, the "Dr. X, Ph.D." is the redundant formula they use on the site.)
Dr. Suzanne Vincent, Ph.D., a neuroanatomist(!) at Oral Roberts University
Dr. Ross Anderson, Ph.D. of The Masters College
Dr. Bedros Daghlian, M.D., a retired doctor
Dr. Ben Scripture, Ph.D. in biology
Dr.…
pharyngula | October 20, 2008Northern Kentucky University is going to have a mock trial on teh creation/evolution debate. They say the intent is to legitimately explore the issue.
"It is part of the mission of the Scripps Howard Center to conduct public forums," said Mark Neikirk, the Center's executive director. "I've heard President Votruba state many times that a college campus should be a safe place for difficult conversations." Neikirk said that while the evolution/creation science debate is a difficult and polarizing topic, the mock trial format is designed to provide structure for a civil, informative exploration…
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2008Minnesota's Republican congressional representative, Michelle Bachmann, isn't exactly popular around ScienceBlogs for many reasons, including her creationist beliefs (sadly, that might be the least awful thing about her). Over at AmericaBlog, Joe Subday writes:
Yesterday, I posted a video of Rep. Michelle Bachmann's insane rant on MSNBC. It was one of the most bizarre and disturbing performances I've seen this year. When I linked to the ActBlue page of her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, his total raised was under $4,000. But, across the progressive blogosphere, there was a visceral reaction…
pharyngula | October 18, 2008That's the only possible explanation for their curious anachronisms. The Institute for Creation Research has just claimed that Mendel published his paper on genetics in 1866 to refute Darwin's theory of pangenesis (which, by the way, was published in 1868). Furthermore, Mendel's paper was initially rejected for publication by editors who were in thrall to the dogma of pangenesis, which, as was mentioned, wouldn't be published for two years.
Wait…that means just about everyone in the 19th century must have had time machines!
pharyngula | October 18, 2008This is really weird. Dr Imad Hassan claims to have proven Darwinian theory from the Qur'an and the Bible. Only…his version of Darwinian theory is a bit eccentric.
Then we disclosed that the word 'Adam' is a simple Arabic term for 'convertible' or 'adaptable'. It is a collective description by God in the scriptures for a species of lower creatures which became 'adaptable' for radical change after long evolutionary processes.
We followed the description of modifying the 'Adams' and arrived at the conclusion that there were many individuals, males and females, who were converted to…
tfk | October 17, 2008Texas is gearing up to revise their state science standards. This is a big deal, because the standards Texas sets determine how textbooks are written not just for the Texas market, but for the rest of the nation. The fight over science standards now is a prelude to an imminent and much bigger fight over textbook adoptions. And the Texas Board of Education is currently run by creationist Don McLeroy, who runs a bloc of 7 of the 15 board members, a bloc which often draws in enough swing votes to allow bad policy to be pushed through.
The panels of experts selected to put together the new…
gregladen | October 15, 2008The creationist-biased Texas Board of Education has assembled a committee to 'review science curriculum standards.' This group includes a few actual scientist types, and ... pay attention folks .. Wisconsin based ID creationist Ralph Seelke, Baylor creationist chemist Charles Garner, and Stephen Meyer, vice president of the Discovery Institute. Yes, you read that right. The Texas Board of Education has appointed the President of the Discovery Institute to a committee to review the state's science standards.
un be-fucking-lievable.
There is clearly something you can do to stop this now.…
pharyngula | October 15, 2008If you're concerned about the escalating creationist activity in the Texas Board of Education, then SIGN THIS PETITION. Now. Let's send a message.
pharyngula | October 15, 2008The Texas Board of Education has named the six people who will be on a committee to review science curriculum standards. Texas, you've got trouble. The people are:
David Hillis, professor of integrative biology and director of the Center of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the University of Texas at Austin;
Ronald K. Wetherington, professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence;
Gerald Skoog, professor and dean emeritus of the College of Education at Texas Tech and co-director of the Center for Integration of…
pharyngula | October 15, 2008My colleague at the Twin Cities branch campus of the University of Minnesota, Randy Moore, has won an award from the Discovery Institute: The Award for Most Dogmatic Indoctrinator in an Evolutionary Biology Course. Congratulations to Randy! He won it for this paragraph:
The evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming and comes from diverse disciplines, such as molecular biology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, ethology, and biochemistry. There is no controversy among biologists about whether evolution occurs, nor are there science-based alternative theories. Evolution is a unifying…