Creationists
stcynic | June 9, 2005Reading this StopTheACLU page and some of their sister pages has proven to be good fun. One of the pages it links to is AmericanProtest.net, which contains this breathtakingly bad essay by Wayne Boettcher that attempts to debunk evolution. Even by creationist standards, this is really, really bad stuff. He can't even repeat creationist canards accurately. It begins with this amusing statement:
Casting doubt on evolution theory inevitably leads to...accountability. For if Darwin was wrong, we may indeed be held responsible for our actions while on earth, and possibly face judgment for them at…
stcynic | May 30, 2005Our old friends at the laughably named intellectualconservative.com are back with yet another ridiculous article on evolution. This time it's the tried and false "evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" nonsense. For crying out loud, how many times does an argument have to be soundly disproven before it dies? This is an idiotic argument based solely on a bad definition of the 2nd law and it has been demolished a thousand times. PZ Myers has an appropriately blistering response.
stcynic | April 22, 2005From Kathy Martin, Kansas State Board of Education who is pushing for inclusion of Intelligent Design in the state's science curriculum, making the folks at the Discovery Institute tear their hair out while she lays the smack down on their attempts to pretend that ID is just about science, not about religion:
Some scientists claim that ID is thinly disguised creationism with a hidden Christian agenda at its root. Martin agrees that the agenda is not well disguised.
"Of course this is a Christian agenda. We are a Christian Nation," said Martin. "Our country is made up of Christian…
stcynic | March 29, 2005My friend Wesley Elsberry has received the always amusing Jomo challenge. Joseph Mastrapaolo is a cantankerous and endlessly ridiculous old academic associated with the Institute for Creation Research who plays Batman to Karl Priest's Robin. Priest sends out emails challenging evolution advocates to put up $10,000 and take their case before a judge. You can see the actual text of the challenge here, and more correspondence with the intrepid Mr. Priest here and here. More importantly, see Wesley's response on the Panda's Thumb. Welcome to the "debate dodgers" list, Wesley!
stcynic | February 11, 2005Last night, Christopher L. Colegrove left a comment after a post I wrote last week about the Worldnutdaily pimping a book that claims that the pyramids around the world were built by the Nephilim, the demonic giants mentioned in Genesis. Here is his comment in full:
I think the book gets at something I've been researching for a couple of years. As to the dimensions of these "giants". Try the Book of Enoch (non-biblical, but an interesting Hebrew read from antiquity), which--I believe--says they were "9 ells" in height. Bones have been unearthed of giants with human genetic makeup over 7 feet…
stcynic | January 4, 2005Casey Luskin, one of the folks behind the IDEA center, has written what is surely the most absurdly misaimed criticisms I have ever seen with his article, A Holiday Truce: A Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out. The purpose of his article is to point the finger at those of us who have compared those who deny the validity of evolution to those who deny the truth of the holocaust and say "shame, shame". Says Luskin:
As the debate over intelligent design and Darwinian evolution has become increasingly publicized, some have unfortunately resorted to rhetoric which stirs hateful passions rather than…
stcynic | December 19, 2004Just when you think Joseph Farah can't get any more absurd, he does. Exhibit A: this column about evolution and creationism. I especially like this tidbit at the beginning:
I was stunned the other day when I asked evolution-believing listeners to my nationally syndicated radio show to call in and tell me why they believed.
"Just give me one reason why you accept the theory," I said. "Just give me the strongest argument. You don't have to give me mountains of evidence. Just tell me why I should accept it."
Not one evolutionist called in.
Meanwhile, the phone banks lit up with dozens of…
stcynic | December 9, 2004DarkSyde has the 6th installment of his Know Your Creationists series up at Unscrewing the Inscrutable, this one introducing Hugh Ross, the old earth cosmologist, and Ken Ham, the young earth Amish impersonator. He cites me in this installment, but just for the record, I did not come up with the puddle analogy he mentions myself. I believe it was originally Richard Dawkins who used it, but I may be mistaken. Still, it works well.
stcynic | December 7, 2004Kelly Hollowell, columnist for the WorldNutDaily and head of Science Ministries (there's two words that don't belong together), has come in for a good bit of bashing here at Dispatches. She's a virtual fountain of stupidity, whether she's writing about the founding fathers or evolution. But not only is she a young earth creationist (YEC), she's not even smart enough to avoid the mind-numbing stupidity of the good "doctor", Kent Hovind. She even reprints his Questions for Evolutionists on her webpage. Given the fact that Hovind's "doctorate" is a complete fraud not worth the paper it's…
stcynic | December 3, 2004I have been remiss in linking to DarkSyde's series on ID creationists published at Unscrewing the Inscrutable. In Part 3, he looks at Phillip Johnson. In Part 4, he looks at Jonathan Wells and Stephen Meyer. Well worth reading.
stcynic | December 2, 2004I've got an anonymous creationist (AC) who keeps piling one absurd statement on to another in the comments on a post below. I'm going to move the discussion up here to keep it from getting lost. This post is addressed directly to him.
The problem at this point is that you think you're not being taken seriously because you're a "skeptic" of evolution. The truth, however, is that you're not being taken seriously because your arguments are really, really bad. Let me give just a few examples of the statements you have made that are either incoherent, false or meaningless:
Examples of adaptation…
stcynic | November 29, 2004Doug Patton, a freelance writer for mensnewsdaily.com and gopusa.com, has written a column on evolution that is so abysmal that it might well qualify him as the Idiot of the Month if I didn't already have one. Perhaps I should wait a day and give him December's award. I especially like this passage:
I believe in creationism. I believe that God created the earth and everything on its face, including human beings. I think it takes a great deal more faith to believe in Darwin's theory of random selection than it does to believe that an all-powerful Supreme Being created all this with a purpose…
stcynic | November 23, 2004DarkSyde has the second installment of the Know Your Intelligent Design Creationists series up at Unscrewing the Inscrutable. This one focuses on a couple of young earthers, Carl Baugh and my old pal Kent Hovind. While anyone with an IQ over room temperature, including most of their fellow creationists, looks at them as little more than carnival barkers on the scientific midway, they are among the most influential of all creationists. Baugh has a TV show on Christian networks around the country, while Hovind is tireless, traveling all around the nation to speak to packed churches and give his…
stcynic | October 23, 2004The Church of Critical Thinking has a pretty good couple of posts up fisking my old pal Kent Hovind and his followers. Hovind is a marvel to behold, a one stop shop of stupidity. Naturally, he has thousands of followers.
stcynic | August 15, 2004Anyone familiar with the talk.origins newsgroup remembers Ed Conrad. He's a first class kook from Pennsylvania who has been claiming for years to be the victim of a grand scientific conspiracy. He claims to have found human remains in a coal seam that dates long before humans were around, and of course it goes without saying that the Darwinian Establishment wants to shut him up and will stop at nothing to silence him, etc, etc. PZ Myers shows his latest incoherent screed on his blog, aimed at PZ. He's convinced that PZ is part of the conspiracy and that Temple University, his former employer…
stcynic | June 12, 2004I've spent some 15 years involved in the evolution vs creationism dispute, as any reader of this blog knows by now. Contrary to what some of my fellow evolution defenders say, all creationists are not "created" equal. They fall into quite a wide range of competency, intelligence and honesty. At the top of the credibility scale are people like Kurt Wise and Art Chadwick. While I obviously think they are completely wrong, these are very intelligent and well-educated men whose work should be taken seriously. On the other end we find some who are outright frauds, like Kent Hovind, and some who…