creationism
pharyngula | April 25, 2008You know how we all love to screw up online polls … here's another one. Scroll down to just below "What others are saying", on the left, where the poll question is:
Do you think the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system?
"Yes" is currently leading by about 3:1. If everyone goes over there and votes "no", it will raise Mark Mathis's blood pressure a few points.
(via Skippy)
pharyngula | April 24, 2008The recommendation I noted before has been officially and finally followed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: the Institute for Creation Research's application to offer an online master's degree program in creationist bullshit has been rejected. Bravo!
The ICR has said they will probably appeal. Don't slack off, Texas, and keep the pressure on.
Taurus: Great news! Soft drink executives are planning to market a new energy drink made from your urine, on the basis of vague, unfounded rumors of your vitality. This is not such happy news for the rest of us, however.
pharyngula | April 24, 2008Mark Mathis does not come off as a nice man in interviews. You may have listened to the SciAm interview, a truly painful experience in which he made claims about evolution and then backtracked when confronted with his mistakes…and admitted that he knew nothing about the subject. He's done it again in an interview with a Detroit weekly (scroll down to the "Unevolved" article on that page).
I confront Mathis with this point, and he counters that evolutionary theory is also untestable. This is patently untrue—to give just one example, scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new…
tfk | April 24, 2008Orac doesn't think Expelled's Nazi claims are a form of Holocaust denial. I disagree.
Orac has some good points, and "denial" may be a strong word. Orac gives the basic criteria of Holocaust denial as rejecting at least one of these statements:
1. The Holocaust was the intentional murder of European Jews by the Nazi government of Germany during World War II as a matter of state policy
2. This mass murder employed gas chambers, among other methods, as a method of killing
3. The death toll of European Jews by the end of World War II was roughly 6 million.
Expelled is either silent on or in…
tfk | April 23, 2008The video at ExpelledExposed.com highlighting Chris Comer's story was one of last week's most viewed and most discussed on YouTube. In a week, it basically tied the YouTube trailer for Expelled, and exceeded the viewership of the Dick-to-the-Dawk viral video put out by the producers of Expelled.
We don't know if the next three videos we're rolling out over the next few weeks will get the same response, but I'm very fond of the one we're highlighting this week:
gregladen | April 23, 2008But plans for the Institute for Creation Research Masters Degree in Creationistic Biology for High School Teachers is out of Texas.
Members of the Academic Excellence and Research Committee and the Participation and Success Committee voted unanimously to approve the recommendation of Raymund Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education, not to approve the Institute's application. The full Coordinating Board will vote on the committees' recommendation on Thursday.
"The issue before the Coordinating Board isn't about academic freedom or free speech. The issue is whether the state…
pharyngula | April 23, 2008You have rarely seen me say this, but…Texas did a good thing. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has voted against, I repeat, against approving the application from the Institute for Creation "Research" to issue degrees in Texas. The ICR will not be handing out Master of Science degrees in Texas.
Good work, Texans!
gregladen | April 23, 2008The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) has, some time ago, filed for approval to run a masters degree program in life science education. The purpose of the degree is to train educators to present biology in a way that is consistent with Christian Biblical beliefs, as opposed to actual scientific knowledge. The Texas board in charge of these matters is taking the proposal under consideration this week. (Please sign the petition linked below!)
The Texas Freedom Network has recently conducted a survey of Texas colleges and university faculty to get their opinions on this proposal.
The…
gregladen | April 23, 2008A bill designed to make it easier to introduce creationism into public school classrooms has passed in the Florida Senate by a 21 to 17 vote margin. The bill was proposed by Senator Ronda Storms, Republican, and is modeled after a template provided by the Discovery Institute.
Storms filed the bill shortly after the State Board of Education adopted new science standards that require for the first time the teaching of evolution. That was a controversial decision that upset many residents who argued evolution was unproven, in conflict with their religious beliefs -- or both.
But Storms said…
pharyngula | April 23, 2008Uh-oh. They pissed off Yoko Ono.
Yoko Ono, son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from continuing to use "Imagine" in the movie.
They are also seeking unspecified damages.
tfk | April 23, 2008Yoko sues Expelled filmmakers over Imagine | Entertainment | Reuters:
John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his sons are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission. …
Yoko Ono, son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from continuing to use "Imagine" in the movie.
They are also seeking unspecified damages.…
gregladen | April 23, 2008Despite the fact that the producers of Expelled! have the most nefarious of motives in mind, and that we can expect more from them (we are waiting for the other shoe to drop), it is interesting to note how many conversations this documentary about Intelligent Design Creationism has sparked. Ultimately, the intended purpose of Expelled! is to silence real scientists and set back scientific research that is on the verge of filling one of the most important "gaps" in which the Christian God of the theistic evolutionist currently lives. In the long run, conversations that arise from movies like…
pharyngula | April 23, 2008There's an ugly case brewing in Ohio. A popular middle school science teacher has been ordered to remove his copy of the bible from his desk. On the face of it, I think letting a teacher have a bible on his desk or on his person should not be a problem — it's nothing but a personal tchotchke, and it's not worth fighting over. John Freshwater, though, has made it more than an expression of personal preference. He is proselytizing in the public school classroom. Freshwater is responsible for turning this into a church-state separation case; he's one of those particularly obnoxious Christians…
gregladen | April 23, 2008Evolving in Kansas provides a lie-fighting fact revealing review of Expelled!'s showing in Iowa.
The film debuted at the Varsity Theater in Ames, Iowa on Friday night (April 18). Ames is important because it is the home of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, the pro-ID astronomer, who lost his tenure bid at Iowa State. He contends that it was purely because of his Intelligent Design work, while his opponents contend that ID either was not a factor or it was not the most important factor.
In any case, the headline of the Discovery Institute reads "Expelled in Iowa gives Standing Ovation to Persecuted…
evolvingthoughts | April 22, 2008
One of the enduringly evil things done by Hitler and the Nazis was to pick a minority - Jews - and blame them for all the evils that had occurred in German society. Of course, all these evils had causes quite unrelated to the Jews, mostly caused by the overweening ambitions of the German militarists and industrialists who pushed the German speaking nations into the Great War. As Hitler was of the same ilk as those who caused the problems, he obviously couldn't blame his own kind. So he blamed the Jews.
Now, Ben Stein is doing exactly what Hitler did - picking a "minority" view and blaming…
tfk | April 22, 2008I'm still digging out of the post-Expelled craziness. Our video about Chris Comer has gotten more views than the Expelled trailer on Youtube or the rapping Dawkins video, and traffic keeps streaming in to ExpelledExposed.com.
If you haven't done so already, there's still time to locate a stupid statement by Ben Stein (from anywhere, not the movie) and refute it as part of NCSE's "Set Ben Straight" contest. Fabulous prizes!
Now get out there and enjoy this amazing planet of ours.
pharyngula | April 22, 2008A while back, I pulled down a pdf of something called the "Leader's Guide" from the Expelled website. I was agog. It's flat-out fundamentalist Christian creationism, through and through — quote-mines, sermon suggestions, etc., etc., etc. I was thinking that here's another nail in the coffin for the next time this garbage comes to trial, and that I should dig through it and pull out the tired old creationist quotes from it.
Now I don't have to: Troy Britain has put together a two-part dissection. Take a look, and be amazed. Henry Morris would be so proud.
gregladen | April 22, 2008Now that Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed, the movie, exists, we wait not so quietly for the other shoe to drop. I'll tell you in a moment what that other shoe is going to look like and where it is going to drop. First I want to make a couple of topically linked but otherwise discombobulated comments.
First, I want to express my heartfelt warm fuzzies for all those of you who have come out to tell me "Yes, Greg, you are an asshole, but that's OK. In fact, it's what we love about you" and shit. Appreciate it.
Second, you did notice that the take for Expelled! fell short of the expected…
pharyngula | April 22, 2008Michael Korn, the crazed creationist from Colorado who has threatened evolutionists with physical harm, keeps sending me email. His latest is an enumeration of the sins of evolutionists as exhibited in the movie, Expelled, which seems to have him quite worked up. He ranks us by evil; I'm #2*. I'm going to have to try harder.
At least Korn is getting better at making his threats oblique. After listing our wickedness and telling us he's looking forward to a "McCarthy-type campaign" that will take care of us for good, he offers us this heartwarming benediction:
Despite my disdain for all you…
gregladen | April 22, 2008Matching donations/memberships for the National Center for Science Education... still 75 bucks left as of this writing!
Check it out.
What a great idea!