The Pagan Prattle has an article about the infection of the UK with a rather American sounding version of creationism/ID. It sounds as if the response has ranged from dismissal to dithering avoidance, so it doesn’t seem to be a big threat (yet—these nasty little strains can expand into chronic virulence fairly easily), so the most interesting thing, I thought, was some terminology.
There is an air of superficial plausibility about this, which is apparent in four lesson plans on Irreducible Complexity (Intelligent Design’s catchphrase), the Fossil Record, Homology and Natural Selection. As a geologist I will only comment on the Fossil Record Lesson Plan, where Pupils are introduced to the three theories currently used to interpret the fossil record: Phyletic Gradualism, Punctuated Equilibrium and Phyletic Discontinuity. These three are, of course, Darwinian gradualism, PE and essentially Six Day Creation. Both scientists and theologians contend, with massive evidence that it is disingenuous to present the last as a scientific theory.
Ooooh. “Phyletic Discontinuity Theory”. It sounds so…sciencey.
Maybe your title should be “truthiness in science.”
Well, it has more than three syllables, so it MUST be science!
Troy McClure: “Just ask this registered scientician!”
Scientician: “Ah-“
Well, it has more than three syllables, so it MUST be science!
Totally. In fact I can more beliefs that THAT scientific! Take my belief that Salma Hayek is in love with me. I’ll call it “The Erotic Bias Theory of Hayek”.
Absolutely and unambiguously scientific. If it suffers any scrutiny here I will promptly reference a list of completely unrelated an obscure philosophers as reasons why you are automatically wrong.
Your choice of the word “sciencey” is wonderful as it recalls the awful but subtle fictions of both “chocolatey” and “jazzy”.
You’re right, this group does sound rather American: it shouts “US political pressure group” right at you, and it’s obvious they’re trying to hide something, i.e. their creationist credentials (just google a couple of them).
They won’t get anywhere, except (if we’re lucky) the Newsnight studio, to be grilled by Jeremy Paxman. He’s the guy who started his Ann Coulter interview with “Well, I’ve read the first chapter of your new book. Does it get any better?”
Bob
Take my belief that Salma Hayek is in love with me. I’ll call it “The Erotic Bias Theory of Hayek”.
It’s not scientific enough. There are words in there that contain fewer than three syllables. For “Bias”, how about “Propensity”?
Science, after all, is syllables.
They won’t get anywhere, except (if we’re lucky) the Newsnight studio, to be grilled by Jeremy Paxman. He’s the guy who started his Ann Coulter interview with “Well, I’ve read the first chapter of your new book. Does it get any better?”
I’ve taken to watching BBC Newsnight when I can online. I’m becomming a huge Paxman fan. I think we should import him stateside once we in the northeast inevitably have to secede as our country rapidly continues to get dragged into being a theocratic American Jesusland.
Here’s that meeting of the minds. If what Ann Coulter has is really considered a “mind”.
She’s a complete waste of space. I wish someone would put a biologist up against her to flay her bullshit and completely embarass her again.
Okay, a bit of a revision.
My theory is now called “The Erotic Propensity Theory of Hayekian Sexuality”.
There, totally rigorous and scientific. I should be up for the nobel prize, or at least a full ride scholarship to MIT.
The situation in the UK is worse than that article makes out. There’s a man with a lot of money from a chain of car dealerships who’s a YEC, and is using the present government’s policy of setting up magnet high schools (“Academies”) with private investment to buy himself a string of schools. The one mentioned is one of his, and so far he already has a couple of others. Tony Blair is predictably indifferent to the danger.
As the Wikipedia article linked points out, Vardy distances himself publicly from teaching creationism, but the practice in his schools is deeply worrying.
For those of you who admire Paxman, may I also point you at John Humphries, of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme? For as many years as I can remember, every weekday morning, some politician had found themselves eviscerated as the nation had its breakfast. Only Michael Hesletine was ever any good at standing up to him, and he’s retired now.
Paxman sometimes does ‘Today’ as well.
The economist Friedrich Hayek (http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/hayek.htm) is probably spinning in his grave about now. :)
Can the northwest come too? Don’t leave us alone with them!
Speaking of truth in science, apparently the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker virus has infected some stooges at Auburn University in Florida:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/index.html
Browse that website and try to believe that what you are reading and believing is intended to be understood as “science.”
Creationists aren’t the only pretenders who abuse the rhetoric of science for their personal agendas.
And as always, I highly recommend http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/
to keep up on the ongoing shenanigans.
I’ve posted a reply to the “Prattle”, but FYI ….
We have a complex religious situation here.
People are, at last realising that some (a minority) of the muslims here are a serious menace.
They have prompted the xtian loonies to come crawling out of the woodwork.
It hasn’t been helped by Tony B. liar (Prime Minster) being an unctuous little chritian crawler.
Vardy is a known public liar. Unfortunately, he ahs LOTS of money.
In the broad population, agnosticism is on the continued increase, but US-style, and often US-led (and controlled) “churches” are making inroads into social classes C2 and below.
I love the confused proposals (shades of poor Ken Miller):
The result will be to confuse students, to increase the antagonism of non-believers, and to raise opposition to faith schools of any kind… Far too often the opponents of this pseudo-scientific nonsense are atheists, who then use this to ridicule faith. Will the church now wake up?
Wake up and do what? Ridicule faith themselves? Now, that would be a start. So would raising “opposition to faith schools of any kind.”
Geez, somebody who’s actually afraid to antagonize non-believers. I want to move to England!
If you enter “Phyletic Discontinuity Theory” into the Truth in Science search engine, the only result you get is a link to an outside site, “Biology Study Group” at Bryan College. As that site describes itself:
I like Punctuated Phantasmagoric Origination theory. It gets to the heart of the matter.
Such poisonous minds.
Katie,
How’s about something like this:
http://joolya.blogspot.com/2006/07/us-of-h.html
Well, I have actually spoken to Vardy. Yes, he is a creationist and a man who knows nothing about science. But it is also true that the schools he funds are much better than those they replaced. The pupils may be taught creationism, though this isn’t clear to me. I know the head of science at one of them is a raving nutter, and I have preserves his raving nutter speech on my website. I still don’t have evidence that this was actually taught in science lessons.
But the pupils in Vardy’s schools are also taught useful skills like reading and writing, which was not the case in the very bad schools that were there before. Parents queue up to get their children into them. That is all the government cares about.
Anyway, it is always a delight to see an ordained Christian minister quoted approvingly on the front page of Pharyngula; and the highlighted quote, through Pagan Prattle, comes from a Church of Enlgand vicar writing on an evangelical web site.
Off topic, but other-than-canucks might be interested in a debate the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired after Richard Dawkins’ The Root of All Evil. Dawkins is present by satellite and is not nearly as irritated as he seems in the documentary, though I enjoyed his quick dismissal of a “god is love” moderate.
“The new group catalogues among its supporters ‘young earth creationists’ such as the Rev George Curry, chair of the hard-line Church Society, and Andy McIntosh, a combustion theorist from Leeds.”
Andy McIntosh is a strange bird indeed. He’s a professor of combustion science at the University of Leeds, which is a fine UK university. Within his field he is well respected, but he’s also a literal six-day creationist. It’s as if he has watertight compartments in his brain that allows him to function on two mutually contradictory levels at the same time. I’m not psychologist enough to understand this. I just think it’s weird – very, very, weird.
GWW: Auburn University is in Alabama. Florida’s got enough problems – don’t blame us for what the neighbors do too!
Righteous Bubba,
Damn, I can’t see that video. It cuts off very shortly into it, but I want to see it because it looks interesting.
Anyone got a YT or GV link?
Carl Sagan on evolution.
Hmm…they might want to find a term that doesn’t have “dis” in it, sounds too negative.
Wandering further off along this tangent–I’d just as soon piss on Friedrich Hayek’s grave, but don’t get me started.
Salma, on the other hand…caliente!
Need more of a humanistic sounding title, like “Deconstructing Latina Sexuality/Identity and ‘Machismo’ in the filmic narratological image of Salma Hayek OR how Salma Hayek really does want to have sex with me the author in a post-Mort’d’auteur age”. (I swear I don’t write that way anymore, really!)
Ahem.
…Anyway, The BBC is often a beacon of rational culture in a stormy sea of contemporary unreason. I am and remain an unabashed Anglophile (though I am paradoxically very pro-Irish and pro Scottish/Welsh devolution).
…other-than-canucks might be interested in a debate the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired after Richard Dawkins’ The Root of All Evil.
I watched that, and thoroughly enjoyed the way the discussion crowd booed the evangelical minister who was making poor attempts at masking the reasons behind his organization’s entry into the Canadian political sphere. My wife, who is a “non-practicing” Jehovah’s Witness, certainly didn’t care for Dawkins’ documentary.
Since I’m already off-topic, and speaking of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’ve noticed their latest magazine has another diatribe against evolution, and apparently includes an interview with Mr. Behe. I haven’t actually read it, though.
Here is an update on the Ohio Board of Education election.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060924/EDIT01/609240344
It isn’t only about creationism, and as the comment concludes,
“That’s a chilling scenario that shows how dangerous it is for ideology to restrict intellectual integrity. Those who seek to turn election to the state board into a single issue mandate do a disservice to all voters and the cause of education.
It’s time for the Ohio Board of Education to move on to more substantial issues – and for Ohio voters to elect fair-minded, pragmatic members to that board.”
“But the pupils in Vardy’s schools are also taught useful skills like reading and writing, which was not the case in the very bad schools that were there before. Parents queue up to get their children into them. That is all the government cares about.”
Well, that and the £2m quid that Vardy stumps up for each of his academies. As for whether they teach creationism, here’s a lengthy quotation from an Emmanuel Schools document, Christianity and the Curriculum:
Gah. Everything after “Christianity and the Curriculum” is a quote.
As for evangelicalism in the UK in general, there are two main strands to it (I’ll leave aside the growing influence of Islamic revivalism for the moment), both of which are broadly Pentecostal. The most prominent one draws heavily on the US, and indeed many churches are run by Americans. This strand is probably most visible through the somewhat extremist organisation Christian Voice, which famously protested the BBC’s showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera. As an organisation they are actually much smaller than their profile would suggest, however. Most UK evangelicalism in this strand isn’t as political as it has become in the US.
The other major strand is driven by the African churches, and doesn’t get as much attention, possibly because of (unconscious?) racism and possibly because economic disparities mean that their congregations don’t have as much clout and their leaders can’t fund as many schools. It has relatively little impact on mainstream political discourse, but it has a huge impact on the debate within the Anglican Church and is enormously influential at the grassroots level in some communities.
Parents queue up to get their children into them.
Except, of course, where they campaign actively to prevent them being set up.
I don’t think this is so uncommon. At the U of M, I studied fluid mechanics under Christopher Macosko — a chemical engineering professor that PZ Myers certainly knows well. The guy is truly a world-class chemical engineer, who literally wrote the book on fluid mechanics. However, at the same time, he’s also a born-again Christian, with a lot of goofy ideas about natural history and biology. When he’s kept on topic, he does a lot of useful work; however, when he’s allowed to talk about origin of species… things get a little less productive.
Tyler,
I quote you:
“My theory is now called “The Erotic Propensity Theory of Hayekian Sexuality”.”
Ah such sophomoric inanity. Of course your vile and trite “hypothesis” cannot be true and I refer you to the evidence:
a) Selma Hayek is a woman
b) I am irrestistable to women*
c) A threeway with my wife and Selma Hayek is an undisprovable future probability based on the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics and Bayesian statistics.
d) Anything that gets in the way of me having a threeway with Ms Hayek and the Mrs is part of a global authoritarian conspiracy designed solely to oppress me personally.
Thus my fully developed and evidencially support theory of “A Quasi-Hegemonic Model of Selma Hayek’s Bisexuality and Unique Pheromonic Signature Derived Nymphomania: A Quantum Mechanical Derivation of Actress Group Sex and Desire” is proven beyond reasonable doubt.
*I do not have to provide any pathetic level of detail to support this section of the evidence.
Convinced?
I thought not. Damn and mine sounded sciencerrific and everything. I even got hegemony in there for the social science bods.
Louis
On a serious note, check out the truth in science website. Truth it ain’t.
Frightening it is!
Louis
“… Christopher Macosko — a chemical engineering professor… truly a world-class chemical engineer… at the same time, he’s also a born-again Christian…”
What is it about engineers and creationism?!
Maybe they picture god as an engineer too?
Do engineers tend to be narcissistic?
I have notified The NAtioanl SEcular Society, several other organisations, and Prof. David Colquhoun, FRS – which should stir things up a bit.
BTW, I can recommend the latters “Jurassic Theology” page at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/jurassic.html
Chris y. I have been to the school in Doncaster and talked to the teachers, and the protesting pupils, walking alongside them on one of their protest marches. It would be nice to report that creationism was what they cared about. But it wasn’t. As the headmaster said in that story you qouted: “The main argument against it was the lack of local democratic accountability. I believe in working in partnership with the LEA, and that local people should have a say in their local school.
“The vast majority of my staff were opposed to this plan and I would say they’re very pleased with this decision.”
What they really cared about was the position of the union, and the fact that the new school could be run pretty much directly as the sponsors wished, though still forced to teach the national curriculum.
I wrote a long article about this, at the time, for _Prospect._
This morning’s _Guardian_ has a big supplement pegged around the fact that there are more than a million functionally illiterate adults in Britain today. This represents a monstrous failure of the state educational system: one which would have been incredible when it was set up. If the Academies can change that, then the government will back them. So will the parents. The teaching of science is to both parties a secondary problem.
“Phyletic Discontinuity Theory”, I cant believe its not science!