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(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography

We are, at last, almost at the end of the breathtaking inanity that is ACE Science* PACE 1086. So far, we’ve seen a really inept drilling project, watched them mutilate Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes, suffered through their igneous ignorance, had to spend two posts on their sedimentary nonsense, and dealt with their metamorphic misconceptions. At times, it’s seemed like we’ll never get through debunking this unfathomable ignorance. But we’ve only eight pages and two topics to go! Racer and his dad are finally flying home! Stick with us and we’ll get there – if the Loyaltons’ plane doesn’t crash. Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography”

(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography

(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static

Geez, if I were a fundamentalist Christian parent reading this chapter, I’d be getting pretty concerned that the Science of the Physical Creation writers are just phoning the creationism in. I mean, yeah, they’ve paid some lip service to God, but nothing really meaty. And now that we’re on to Transferring Charges, a quick glance through the pages turns up no obvious God-talk at all.

The first couple of pages is just straight-up talk of how inducing electrical charges works. Then they talk about detecting electrical charges, and pretty much my only complaint is that it might have been nice if they’d told us a bit more about Sir William Gilbert, who is one of those fathers of modern science who were doing fascinating things and bringing a branch of science into being. He happened to be doing so while Shakespeare was coining words and phrases and entertaining the masses. He’s one of the fathers of electrical engineering, and has a unit of magnetic force named after him. He also figured out that the earth is magnetic and has an iron core.

Neato. Continue reading “(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static”

(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static

(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power

It’s 1995, and Warren Jeffs is seizing more and more control within the FLDS. The cult was hideous before; it’s about to get exponentially worse.

Content Note for racism, spiritual abuse, physical abuse, miscarriage due to injury

Warren Jeffs is one of those people who knows how to use those around him for his own gain. He knows how to manipulate his elderly father, the current prophet, and get him to proclaim that Warren speaks for him. He knows how to push the fear buttons. And he knows that making something scarce and exclusive can increase desire for it. This is how he gets his awful recorded racist rants to spread. He tapes his sermons talking about how “the black race had been put on earth to preserve evil,” and how God’s gonna destroy everyone in North and South America except those who do this huge list of stuff, and then he releases a limited number of those tapes. Well, of course, not being able to have them means everybody wants a set.

Carolyn manages to find a set to listen to. She’s not so impressed. Continue reading “(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power”

(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education V: Wherein We Map for God

Honestly, you’d think something as prosaic as mapping could avoid Godification. Science of the Physical Creation doesn’t even bother with a chapter on cartography: maps are maps, and they’ve nothing to say about them.

Earth Science 4th Edition, however, devotes a whole chapter to the subject. And yeah, it gets goddy.

Image is a pastel-colored hand-drawn map of Jerusalem from 1650. ZION is printed in the bottom center-right.
Yes, possibly even as goddy as the Thomas Fuller map of Jerusalem. Image courtesy Geographicus Rare Antique Maps via Wikimedia Commons.

The chapter starts out fine: instead of a creationist cartologist, we get a nice demonstration of the power of maps, using, of course, Dr. John Snow’s cholera map. And the BJU staffers who wrote this chapter, at least, aren’t completely anti-vax. They discuss how government agencies use maps to track down areas with high disease rates, and say that targeting vaccination programs toward “areas with high rates of infections” is “far more effective and costs less than vaccinating a whole population.” Which may be true with rare or not easily transmitted diseases, I suppose, but I do wish their emphasis had been on getting everyone vaccinated for the common stuff. Herd immunity is an important thing. Still. At least they’re not taking this opportunity to say never vaccinate. Small mercies.

They do a fine job explaining what maps are, and scale, and perspective. But for some reason, there’s a textbox on Progressive Creationism right smack in the middle. I have no idea why. It’s nothing to do with maps, and they don’t even try to relate it. They just yammer. And it’s obvious they don’t like those progressive creationists, no sir. You can tell from this question: Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education V: Wherein We Map for God”

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education V: Wherein We Map for God

Adventures in ACE XXVIII: Windbags

Awright. We just did four pages out of a thirty-one page PACE and got only one paragraph of something resembling science out of it. Let’s see how we fare on page 5 (five) of ACE Science PACE 1089. (And no, the ACE writers spelling out the number, in parentheses, on every single page, will never stop being hilarious to me.)

We left Ace dutifully beginning to wash Dad’s car. As he begins to spray, he mentions that the ball kept getting blown off-course while he and Racer played kickball. Dad tells him “that God’s laws control wind and weather.” That’s just precious. I begin to wonder if they’d be more amenable to actual science if we started saying “God’s theory of evolution” and “God’s radiometric dating.” I’m going to do this the next time a creationist argues with me. “Well, God’s geologic column clearly shows there was never a global flood,” “God’s principle of original horizontality demonstrates that…” and so forth.

Report back to me if you do this, and I’ll do the same.

So Ace asks Dad to ‘splain “the factors that determine wind speed, strength, and direction, as well as other weather conditions,” which doesn’t sound like writers clumsily stuffing words in a character’s mouth at all. Dad launches into a very dull explanation of what he calls the “world-wide system of air movement.” Why he couldn’t just call them global wind patterns like most everybody else is beyond me. Sometimes, I think conservatives like these very clunky phrases because they think it makes them sound educated. Dad also has to dare to be different by talking about the direction the winds are blowing to, not from, as is customary. He also gets all fancy and says the earth “whirls to the east.” Someone needs to put Dad’s thesaurus in time-out.

The Coriolis Effect is boringly explained. Then Ace trots out his mad logick skillz and says, “If latitudes between the equator and 30° north or south are known for their dependable winds, other latitudes must be known for their lack of dependable winds.” This allows Dad to repeat the old myth about how the horse latitudes were named.

People need to stop flogging that story. Seriously.

And all of this is so dreadfully dull that I’ve been alternating a sentence or two with long sessions on Reddit. Yes, I’d rather be reading about terrible boyfriends/husbands than putting up with this ACE shit. I have no idea how the kids who went through this curriculum survived. I see you, and I salute you. Extra salute for those of you who figured out this stuff is 99% pure crap.

At least the bit on “air tides” is slightly more interesting than the rest. Shame it’s only a tiny paragraph in their dry, pompous tones. It could’ve been awesome with better writers.

After a ho-hum but largely accurate description of land-sea and mountain-valley wind cycles, we’re on to temperature. I want to beat them over the head with this sentence:

“Our Earth is constantly receiving heat energy from the sun.”

Yes! It is! And this is why evolution doesn’t break the second law of thermodynamics, you jackasses!

Otherwise, there is nothing remarkable in their bit on temperature. It’s generally hottest in the afternoon, coldest just before sunrise, etc. blah. Ace gets to regurgitate learnings at Dad and get praised. I am so bored. Hey, did you hear about the dude who called his girlfriend selfish for making clear that she still didn’t want children even after he’d decided he did? Yeah, and he was somehow surprised she broke up with him. I’ll bet Ace would pull that shit without even 1/68th of this dude’s self-reflection. “She said she didn’t want kids, but God says we have to be fruitful and multiply! Reddit, why did she leave me just because I told her she’s sinning and has to start having my babies?!”

Gah. Focus. Must. Read PACE.

The next section is about moisture. It’s illustrated by a photo that claims to be fog, but actually just looks over-exposed.

Image shows downtown highrises. It's captioned "Fog," but there's little evidence of fog. The photo just looks a touch over-exposed.
They can’t even stock photo properly. How pathetic.

Ace’s dad explains how everyone’s a special snowflake:

“Even though snowflakes have some identical features, each one of the trillions of flakes is different from every other one. In the same way, though all men possess similar features, each individual is unique in the sight of God.”

And then he takes the opportunity to repeat the nonsense from a previous PACE about how “Snow and hail are mentioned in the Bible as ‘treasures’ reserved by God for judgement and war.” So, just a reminder: the next time you get caught in a hailstorm, God’s either trying to kill you, or you’re collateral damage, cuz it means he’s either delivering judgement or fighting a war. That’s just science.

The Facts from Science box has the least funny cartoon outside of jokes produced by MRAs.

Image shows a cartoon golfer in a kilt, with his golf club bag fallen over behind him. He's standing with his arms spread, saying "I didn't order any ice!" There's a huge lump of ice behind him with the word "WHUMP!" written on it, trying to indicate it has just fallen. There's a castle that looks more like a short pile of bricks, and a huge sun on the horizon.

Much clever. So wit. Wow.

Section One ends with a piece on low vs. high pressure, and it’s super half-assed and dull. Hey, did you hear about the boyfriend who’s obsessed with how often his girlfriend pees? Talk about high pressure!

Stay tuned. They’re going to be on about weather forecasting next. I get a feeling we won’t want any of them as our local weather dudes, if for no other reason than we’d fall sound asleep halfway through the forecast.

Image shows a black cat plopped down atop a carpeted perch with wooden sides. It's got its front legs draped over the sides and its chin down in the carpet. Its green eyes gaze into the distance with a very bored expression. Caption says, "UGH! So BORED!"

Adventures in ACE XXVIII: Windbags

(Repost) “My Baby and I Were Dying” – Escape Chapter 20: “Warren’s Rise to Power”

In our last installment, we saw Merril being a horrible, abusive ass. But we’ve not yet seen the depths to which he’ll descend. This chapter will make you rage so hard.

Content Note: Life-threatening pregnancy complications, medical neglect, spousal abuse, child abuse and neglect, spiritual abuse.

Carolyn is pregnant with her fifth child. She experiences what seems to be menstrual bleeding, which Shirley, the nurse practitioner at the clinic, says isn’t that abnormal. The baby’s heartbeat is fine, so they don’t start truly worrying until Carolyn wakes up in a pool of blood two nights later. Most people would have gone straight to the hospital, but this is the FLDS, where pregnant women are taught to suck it up and deal with whatever God hands out. Carolyn takes a shower, the bleeding stops, and she basically shrugs it off, figuring she’s miscarried. She doesn’t even take the following day off work. The only reason she goes back to the clinic a week later is because she’s still experiencing her horrible morning sickness. Continue reading “(Repost) “My Baby and I Were Dying” – Escape Chapter 20: “Warren’s Rise to Power””

(Repost) “My Baby and I Were Dying” – Escape Chapter 20: “Warren’s Rise to Power”

New at Rosetta Stones: Trump’s Disastrous Education Picks, and More!

Between Aunty Flow and trying to read up on Nazis, I’ve been a bit lax on blogging. But in case you missed them, here some spiffy recent Rosetta Stones posts for your reading pleasure: Continue reading “New at Rosetta Stones: Trump’s Disastrous Education Picks, and More!”

New at Rosetta Stones: Trump’s Disastrous Education Picks, and More!