Awww, Kent Hovind’s appeal has been denied. I feel a bit sorry for his wife, the poor dupe, but Kent will just have more time to convert “lost souls” in jail, so he can’t complain. Well, except for the fact that Satan is in bunk #22. That must be awkward.
(via The Austringer)
By the way, did you know that creationists hate cephalopods because they can’t stuff them in a sack and throw them in the water to drown? Also because they’re cute and lovable and beautiful.
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
In addition to being a contemptible ghoul who uses a tragedy to attack an unrelated concept, evolutionary biology (we are all on the same page, right? The evidence so far is that the Virginia Tech killer was a mentally ill young man with a confused Christ complex, not a ruthless atheist proponent of evolution who was following the advice of Charles Darwin’s ghost), this “full time creation evangelist” Grady McMurtry makes a revealing admission:
Therefore, he [McMurtry] asserts, people should not be surprised when mass shootings occur, such as the one on the Blacksburg university campus on Monday. “And at Virginia Tech, what do we have?” he asks rhetorically. “We have a person who, unfortunately, thought that humans had no more value than cats and dogs — and unfortunately, I think, probably felt the same way about themselves.”
The creationist continues explaining his premise. “And so what happens? If we are nothing but thinking animals, [and] if you have excess people, then you can just put them in a bag, throw them in the river the way you would too many kittens or too many puppies.”
What was that last line? Being an evolutionist means you’re as casual about human deaths as creationists are about killing kittens and puppies?
CREATIONISTS DROWN PUPPIES!!?!
Puppies?
And kittens?
I dare not contemplate what they would do to the cute little ducklings. And think of the bunnies! Dear god, don’t let the creationists near the adorable baby bunnies!
I have to go lie down, I’m so distraught.
I speak of Dinesh D’Souza, who seems to have noticed that his creepy and dishonest tirade against atheists won him some attention, so now he has upped the ante, and gotten even creepier and more dishonest.
There is considerable interest in a recent paper in PNAS that purports to have found some rather substantial homologies in the proteins that make up the bacterial flagellum. That would be extremely interesting if it were true, but it looks like there are massive methodological problems in the work. Matzke has put up a preliminary criticism; the gang at PT are working on a much more detailed analysis, and if half of what I’m hearing about the paper is true … well, it’s going to be rather thoroughly sunk.
If you are arguing against ID’s favorite example, the flagellum, do not use the data in this paper. It’s about to go kablooieee. Sorry, everyone, but that self-correcting stuff is the way science is supposed to work (and letting error-filled papers make it to press is not supposed to happen, but it does all too often anyway.)
Nick has posted more info — it’s still not the complete argument, but the problem in the author’s interpretation is rather stark.
It’s that time again … time to nominate your favorite commenters for the Order of the Molly. Leave a comment saying whose name you like to see popping up in the comments threads, a few words about why you think they’re molly-worthy would be nice, too, and on Sunday I’ll tally them up and bestow the honorable OM on someone. You can find links to previous nomination threads on the commenters page, if you want to see what deserving people were passed over last time.
Brian O’Brien of Gustavus Adolphus College has sent along an important message for those of you who like big flowers that stink of rotting meat—they’ve got one.
It was a tough decision in the contest to design a fabulous new Darwin Fish. I admit that I was partial to the designs that included cephalopods, but the other judges (who I was tempted to call Paula and Randy) kept coming back to those chordate-derived designs. We did finally achieve consensus, however, on an excellent fishy logo that I would be proud to slap on my car. And the winner is…
You’ll just have to go look to find out.
I’ve tried a different tack now — I’ve left several comments on Matt Nisbet’s very own blog, in the fading hope that he’ll actually pay attention to what I’m saying, rather than what he imagines I’m saying, or what other people tell him that they imagine I’m saying. Comments there are held up for moderation, so in case you really want fast feedback, I’ve tossed my comments below the fold here where you can savage them instantly … or you can head on over to Framing Science and state your piece there.
