creationism
clock | September 11, 2008....is to read how Tiana and Kate had fun doing it:
Afternoon Delight With The Discovery Institute
In which it should have become clear that we were both drunk and lying
Dawkins and Myers, Websites and Pride, and Still More Lies
Dover and Dropping All Pretense
Good Manners
pharyngula | September 9, 2008We got one in the comments, a pompous ass named Darin Reisler who popped in to announce of evolution that "When the evidence is looked at beyond the surface level- it fails," and to back this up he offered a string of quotes from "prominent evolutionists".
Man, Darin is a contemptible liar, and incompetent on top of that. It's one of the things that annoys me most about creationists: they are anti-scholars, people who lie and distort to reinforce prior erroneous conceptions, and they really think they're scoring points by pretending that great minds in biology agree with them, when they don't…
evolvingthoughts | September 8, 2008
I am presently reading Fuller's Dissent over Descent, but here's A. C. Grayling's review in advance of mine. The money quote:
The demerits of ID theory itself – so woeful as to be funny: in this world of ours, with so much failed experiment of life, so much repetition and haphazard variety of endeavour to meet the challenge of passing on genes, to claim the existence and activity of a supernatural designer would be a sort of blasphemy on the latter, if it existed – are well enough known not to require the wasted effort of iteration; nor does the overwhelming security of evolutionary theory…
pharyngula | September 8, 2008I was sent the following argument by email.
A new breed of ID is in the process of supplanting the former fact-free versions on U.S. university
campuses. The new breed looks like this (from recent lectures on several University of California
campuses):
The following design argument does not require evolution to produce a specific result. It calculates the probability that evolution reaches a certain level of biological complexity (measured in terms of the number of protein-coding genes) and compares this probability with the number of trials available for evolution to that level.
Any of the…
pharyngula | September 8, 2008I like it. This is a perfect analogy to creationist argument.
The theory of childhood, also known as child origin, is a damnable, loathsome and indefensible lie. How can any thinking person suppose all humans used to be babies once?
There is no development path from babies to adults, no transitional forms between these two species. Show me even one baby with the head of a grown man on his body. Can you? No? Not even a bearded toddler? No adults with unfused skullbones, outside unfortunate disorders? Not even a tiny little newborn girl suddenly sprouting a respectable bosom? You can't find…
pharyngula | September 7, 2008When we last saw our intrepid (and inebriated) pair of godless ladies in Seattle, they had just buzzed the Discovery Institute's door and been admitted by the ever-eager Casey Luskin. Now read about how Luskin protects them from the Terrible Annika, and then, after getting loaded down with free propaganda, learn a deep dark secret from Luskin: Judge Jones, the infamous trial judge in the Dover case, wasn't a real Christian. Lordy. No wonder he was in the pocket of the ACLU, the devil's own lawyers.
mikethemadbiologist | September 7, 2008No doubt, many around these parts will see this as a bad thing, but I think it's very good that a Christian religious studies scholar is calling out--and forcefully--the 'teaching the controversy' canard (italics mine):
Is it "indoctrination" if we teach the history of the Holocaust and do not give equal time to the deniers of the Holocaust?Is it indoctrination if we teach astronomy and make no mention of astrology?Is it indoctrination if we teach the heliocentric view of the solar system without giving equal time to geocentrists?Asking for equal time for "alternatives" to evolution is in…
clock | September 5, 2008...clone of Professor Steve Steve? Ehrm, the 900th Steve on the listing of the Project Steve?
evolvingthoughts | September 5, 2008
One of the enduring objections to evolution of the Darwinian variety is that it is based on chance, and so for theists who believe God is interventionist, it suggests that God is subjected to chance, and hence not onmi-something (present, potent or scient). Darwin and his friend Asa Gray debated this issue in correspondence, and it ended up as the final pages of his 1868 Variation (below the fold). Effectively, Darwin argued that we cannot "reasonably maintain" that God intended for chance events that are useful to humans or to the species concerned. It is this that I want to discuss,…
pharyngula | September 4, 2008This is a danged ugly poll, accompanying an interview with the slimy Ken Ham. It asks,
Regarding creation and evolution, I believe:
The universe was created in six days as described in Genesis.
Evolution is true, but God began and/or directs it.
Evolution is true, and religion has nothing to do with it.
Answer 2 is winning, with answer 3 dead last. Can you all fix that, please?
pharyngula | September 4, 2008Cindy McCain is not running for high office, fortunately…but this still seems to be the predominant attitude among the Republican leadership.
Couric: How do you feel about creationism? Do you think it should be taught in schools?
McCain: I think both sides should be taught in schools. I think the more children have a frame of reference and an opportunity to read and know and make better decisions and judgments when they are adults. So, I think you know I don't have any problem with education of any kind.
What about miseducation, Ms McCain? Do you have a problem with that? Apparently not…
pharyngula | September 2, 2008A couple of ladies in Seattle decided to just up and visit the Discovery Institute. No appointments or anything…they just walked up to the door, buzzed the intercom, and got a tour from Casey Luskin.
They're a bit of a tease, though, posting this in multiple parts. I anxiously await reading more of their encounters.
pharyngula | September 1, 2008It's a common question, and it isn't easy to explain, since much of it is complicated while the simple parts are often counter-intuitive. But here's a
comic that tries and illustrates the problem.
Here's the correct explanation, that actually jibes with the evidence.
Here's the ID/creationist explanation:
Then, of course, in the competition of ideas, the two hash it out and…well, you'll have to read the whole thing yourself. Sad to say, the ending rings true, too.
pharyngula | August 31, 2008Some Christian schnook visited a museum, read a sign, and complained to the museum. So what did the museum do?
An information sign, which is part of Abington Park Museum's display about Charles Darwin and fossils, was covered up after a visitor's complaint.
Two parts of the sign, concerning 'Changing Attitudes to Evolution', are obscured with black paper, but only four lines of text are actually covered over.
It details how Charles Darwin used the study of fossils to help formulate his theory of evolution, set out in On the Origin of Species, which angered fundamental Christians and…
laelaps | August 29, 2008As far as my vote in the upcoming election goes, John McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin makes no difference to me. I'm voting for Barack Obama. What everyone is all a-twitter about on the science blogosphere, however, is the fact that during a debate in 2006 Palin said that if the issue of creationism came up in the classroom it should be discussed alongside evolution. Here's the actual quote from the debate;
Teach both [evolution and creationism]. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of…
sa smith | August 29, 2008Young Earth Creationism is quite possibly the stupidest thought ever thunk-ed. Its not just about the earth being 6,000 years old-- It involves talking snakes and Noahs Ark and zombies and all sorts of crazy ass shit. Old Earth Creationism has all of the crazy ass shit, minus the 6,000 year old Earth.
YEC and OEC are fantastically stupid ideas.
But they are still 'better' than Intelligent Design Creationists.
Why?
They try to perform science. Sure its border-line retarded, but at least they are trying. I was perusing my blog-fodder folder last night and found a nice entry at Middle-Aged-…
mikethemadbiologist | August 29, 2008There have been a lot of comments on this post about using molecular evolution to teach evolutionary biology. A couple of people were worried that creationists will look at molecular data and claim that it is 'microevolution' and thus compatible with creationism (I've dealt with the creationists' macroevolution canard before). I'm not worried about this issue.
First, even when a study (or project) is focused on a single species, if you're building trees, then you typically need an outgroup (sequence from another species). And now, once again, we're in the world of common descent....and…
pharyngula | August 27, 2008If you've got the 29 August issue of Chemical & Engineering News, there's an interesting editorial inside. It seems there has been a flurry of activity on C&EN on the issue of evolution; the editor dismissed the whole idea of intelligent design creationism back in February, saying that it was not an acceptable alternative to the theory of evolution and should not be taught in the schools. He got hammered with forceful complaints from pro-ID engineers, and many letters were published in the April issue. Uh-oh, I hear all the engineers out there groaning, here comes the Salem hypothesis…
clock | August 25, 2008It is so nice teaching biology to adults when there are no (obvious) Creationists in the classroom. It does not always happen that way - I have had a couple of cases in the past - but this time it was really nice as I could freely cover all topics deeply within an evolutionary framework (not always seen in my public notes, though, as I try to gauge the class first and then decide how overtly to talk ebout everything in evolutionary terms). It is always a conundrum. If there is a potential resentment of my lectures, I have to thread carefully. I have to remember that I am not trying to…