If you want to take a look at one of the sources of creationist thought, the workshop where the red-hot anvil of pseudoscience and the inflexible hammer of theology are used to forge the balloon animals of creationism, The Journal of Creation (formerly the Creation ex nihilo Technical Journal) is now online … or at least part of it is. They’re working on it. For now, it’s enough that you can browse through several issues and see how they put up this superficially persuasive façade of analyzing matters objectively and scientifically, while somehow coming to the weirdest and most nonsensical conclusions that flout the evidence but somehow always magically end up supporting Christian theology of some sort.
A perfect example, and favorite bit of insanity off their list, is a review of Carroll’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful* titled “Evo Devo refutes neo-Darwinism, supports creation”. It’s fairly typical: most of the articles that address modern science do this same process of complaining that nothing means what the science says it does, quote-mining a few fragments that are distorted to support creationist claims, and winding up with a triumphant fist in the air and a victory dance while they insist that evolutionary biology is actually a tent-revival meeting for Jesus.
Anti-creationists should browse it anyway. It’s amazing how many of these arguments will percolate into public discussions of evolution — while they can’t be troubled to read any actual science, creationists will devour the bullshit in The Journal of Creation and regurgitate it for you.
*Hey, I just noticed that my review of that book didn’t make the move over here to scienceblogs. I’ll have to correct that.
Imagine if you would attain tenure with that sort of dysfunctional academic rigor. ..oh wait, there is Liberty U.
Are the “balloon animals of creationism” in the same genus as the balloon animals of Stuart Pivar?
The “review” of that book is so, so, so very depressing. I think I’m going to go home and curl up into a ball until the new dark ages have passed.
The amount of bloviation and outright lying in the ‘review’ is pretty amazing, though not surprising. Four ellipses and a 3-page span of “Endless…” are necessary to accomplish one quote-mine represented in the review as a single paragraph/thought. But reduced to its essentials, the primary argument of the review is simply that evolutionary developmental biology doesn’t explain the origin of life – something that of course evo-devo doesn’t claim to do. What a waste of space!
I read the review of Ridley’s Evolution text – take a gander at this:
“Chapter 12 is an island of reality in the author’s vast sea of just-so stories. Here, Ridley admits,
‘sexual reproduction poses an evolutionary problem because it seems to be half as efficient a method of reproducing as its alternative, asexual reproduction’ (p. 314).
He continues,
‘If sex is to outweigh its twofold cost, the sexual female must by this procedure expect to produce a daughter who will be twice as fit as a simple copy of herself.’
The problem is therefore not trivial.”
And that’s it. No mention of the fact that Ridley then goes on to explain exactly how and under what circumstances sex is indeed better than asexual reproduction. Quote-mining scumbag.
I find it positively stunning that the writer of the article is intelligent enough to comprehend the basis of Caroll’s science (I’m not, but then I’m very weak in my biology) and to bizaarly apply it to his weird pre-assumed conclussion but not intelligent enough to recognize his weird ideas of creationism are codswallop.
Perhaps it’s a stubborn refusal to admit and a fear of facing that one could be wrong. I think I’m going to add “ability to admit one had been wrong” as a trait in evaluating a person’s intelligent. I’m as stubborn and arrogant as anyone else so I know it’s very hard to admit when I’ve been wrong but sometimes … Well, goddammit, absolutely *nothing* fits creationism (not even the bible as doctrine) without hammering it with convoluted logic. Rule of thumb: If you need a hammer, you are wrong [eg: ptolymetic cycles in cycles to explain retrograde motion]; If you trip and things land in place, you are right [e.g. ovoid flattening at the poles]
So how often have you been wrong? and what was your experience after admitting it to yourself? Informative and uplifting wasn’t it?
OK, I mostly lurk here now and then to keep tabs on what’s hip and trendy among today’s cephalopods, but I just have to thank you for “the workshop where the red-hot anvil of pseudoscience and the inflexible hammer of theology are used to forge the balloon animals of creationism.” That is quite possibly the best description of how the creationist side of the “debate” operates that I have ever heard.
In fact, now that I think of it, someone needs to put that phrase — along with appropriate imagery — on a T-shirt.
I’d do it, but after just reading that wonderful phrase I’m busy cleaning my monitor. The connection between creationism an balloon animals is priceless. My only nitpick is that the balloon animals of creationism are poorly executed.
I second Dan (#7, #8) and had the same reaction! Now we just need an appropriately vapid-faced balloon animal . . .
Except I really hate to use an actual non-human animal, because animals are pretty darn awesome. Maybe a balloon Behe?
“the workshop where the red-hot anvil of pseudoscience and the inflexible hammer of theology are used to forge the balloon animals of creationism.”
If you do, please un-mangle the metaphor. Forges are red hot, anvils usually aren’t. Make it “the unyielding anvil” and I’ll buy one. Or three.
Pieter, it’s a miracle; don’t question it!
LOL @ Tom [@[…]]
Mangled or not, it’s a chuckle-worthy turn of phrase. I like it. The more inanity implied, the better, if you ask me.
The ‘anvil as a metaphor for creationism’, hmm?
Perhaps that’s what Chuck Jones was getting at when he depicted Wile E. Coyote (science) being dragged into the chasm (superstition and pseudoscience) away from the Roadrunner (truth) by an anvil rather than the expected parachute (rationalism).
Or perhaps I shouldn’t eat any more of these brownies.
That creationist site is a good read if you want to have a good chuckle. I wish I could live one day where I didn’t have an open mind and I didn’t have to critically think about anything, just to see what it’s like to be a creationist. I’d probably be a lot happier, ignorance is bliss after all.
Well, I’m off to the bookstore to find another work of fiction I could devote my life to, and maybe I’ll try to convert some people to my new church while I’m waiting to check out.
Ah, cool, they’ve got my letter to the editor online.
That “Crackpot Index” you linked to is great! It is physics specific, but I suppose it could be adapted to any field, science or otherwise. I wonder what Bill O’Reilly’s score would be?
#16
Oh God! The letters to the editors (but not yours Jim)
“Mention is made ..[in].. Gray’s Anatomy … that structures like the nervous system are just as sophisticated in lower creatures as they are in man. … the way the wiring works, does not get better and better, does not change, does not evolve.”
…
“The first thing the station officer did was show these young children a video which was meant to show them that fire can be a friend or an enemy. In reality, it was blatant indoctrination in evolution. Fire started, they were told, when Stone Age man sitting in his cave needed warmth and some way to cook his meat.”
*sigh* how can we argue with that?
Um, what’s the creationist explaination of the origin of fire? Um, did Adam and Eve ever go through a “Stone Age” period? Oh, I know what he’s upset about! Adam and Eve were only “stone age” in the garden and in the garden they didn’t eat meat!
Ooops! I clicked on the wrong comment page! Is that random chance or the hand of the almighty? I can never tell.
I suspect Mrs Norma Taylor may be one of our better undercover operatives.
The insanity was just too elegant.
At the end of the review, it suggests several reasons why creationists should read the book. The last reason is:
“It clearly shows how bias can
blind us to what is staring us in the
face.”
Slightly OT but a good article in Open Democracy:
Science and Mysticism: a tainted embrace
Lippard said:Ah, cool, they’ve got my letter to the editor online.
Yeah, but then they disown it, claiming Brown really agrees with the crazy position.
It’s evident to the rest of us: Brown admits errors to anyone with a science/technical backgrounds who questions him, but then changes his face and denies he made the admission to his creationist friends.
Got a better explanation?
Shorter About us:
What we believe: nonsense
What we are: deluded
What we do: bother people
Who we are: a bunch of fucking idiots
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/69/80/
#17
Bill O’Reilly’s score…
Hmmm. Well 2-5) are too many too count. 6)Thought experiments contrary to real experiments are plentiful. Let’s give him a generous 50.
9) 10 points for each claim that
quantum mechanicsClinton administration is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).Let’s give him another generous 50. so for he has a stunningly low 100.
10) 10 points. Claiming to have gone to school as evidence of sanity. (110)
13) 10 points. Offering reward money. (“If we find Sadam doesn’t have WMD I’ll quit my job and apologize to the American public”)(120)
14) 30 points. “No Spin Zone” “Fair and Balanced” “Who’s looking out for you”(150)
24) 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories(170)
25) 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the “The Evans Field Equation” when your name happens to be Evans.) (The Bill O’Reilly factor… I mean, come on!)(190)
26) 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.(210)
27)20 points for each use of the phrase “hidebound
reactionarydemocrat“.(270)28) 20 points for each use of the phrase “self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy”. (Hoo-boy give him at least 80)(350)
29) 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (Lessee, Jefferson wanted this to be a christian nation, washington thought we owed it to the world to democracize it, Teddy Roosevelt favored lifting environmental regulations. that’s 90.)(440)
30) 30 points for suggesting that
EinsteinJefferson, Washington, t Roosevelt, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate. (see above) (530)33) 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.(570)
34) 40 points for claiming that the “
scientific establishment” “liberal media” is engaged in a “conspiracy” to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike. (610)37) 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
Okay. 660 but I’m being generous.
Want as good as any explanation of people that [use their] red-hot anvil of pseudoscience/[pseudointellectualism] and the inflexible hammer of [their] theology/[meme’s].. ..to forge the balloon animals of [their]creationism/[delusions] read Bob Altemeyer’s – The Authoritarians.
A creationist acquaintance of mine once signed me up for a year’s subscription to the “journal” CRSQ and sent me some books every now and then. All of it, without exception, was garbage. The CRSQ journal was primarily made up of opinion pieces, book reviews, and creationist revisions of history, with “research” here and there. I have to dig it up, but if I remember correctly one study sabotaged itself by trying to date a dinosaur bone with carbon-14, and most of the other papers relating to geology were field trips to geologic formations where the creationist would conclude that “the Flood did it.” The craziest thing I have yet seen, though, came in a “Creation Matters” flier where creationist Paul Humber tried to say that radioactive rock is really a physical manifestation of God’s anger.
Ed D.: I agree with your interpretation of Brown’s position. Walter Brown is also a creationist who, in his book, presents both the argument that Archaeopteryx is a hoaxed reptile fossil (with faked feathers) and that Archaeopteryx is 100% bird, without seeing any problem with that. Whichever argument you like better against evolution, take your pick, seems to be his position–without addressing the fact that the one argument completely undermines the other.
Classic example of creo lying. There are numerous fossils of Archaeopteryx that have been found over 150 years. I forget the number of known speciments now but it is at least 7.
The accusation that it was hoaxed was first made shortly after it was identified over 100 years ago. It was proven false then and has been false ever since. These guys never update their list of lies.
Funny 100% bird, with a reptilian tail, no beak, and a toothy jaw. Never seen one like that in my backyard.
Anyone who has to lie to support their “religion” has already lost it. But we already know the cultists only have 8 commandments, having thrown out the ones about killing and lying.
10. The 10th was described last year and has brought a number of fresh insights because of the way it’s preserved; google for “Thermopolis specimen”.
10. The 10th was described last year and has brought a number of fresh insights because of the way it’s preserved; google for “Thermopolis specimen”.
I just read a couple of articles in the most recent issue. There is one, quartzite deposits west of the rockies, that is just like Laelaps observed. Visit some sites, ‘document the existence of quartzite gravels’, then claim it fits predictions of some flud model or the other. and then promise more data analysis in a forthcoming paper.
the other one is ‘does logic need faith’ and is a fun ride through the po-mo denialism of the modern presuppositionalism that got old after a page or so. i have been inundated with this particular phenomenon of late and I am trying to find the source of it. other than Godel as they claim here, who is just a useful idiot for their anti-realist presuppositionalist screed. yawn.
PZ how about picking a paper out of the archives every so often and shredding it?
Would be a lot of fun. I think the epistemology thing is important to understanding the creationist schizopathology but there is lots of good tard there about mutations, complexity, Duh Flud, fossilization, etc.
No, no, raven, it’s 7 commandments. The one about ‘thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’ is down the toidy, too.
I often wonder how many people who claim the bible is literally true got bored after the first chapter of Genesis and switched on “Survivor’ reruns instead.
I should have known you would know, LOL. Don’t these creos have internet connections and search engines? Most of them do by now so this must be another case of voluntary ignorance and delusion. It is an impressive specimen and will wind up in a town of 3,000 people in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming.
I just read a couple of articles in the most recent issue.
I did too but different ones.
The article on Polar Dinosaurs is particularly useless even by creationist standards. Gyst was dinosaur fossils were found in arctic regions and high altitudes although we don’t know anything about dinosaur physiology to explain how they could survive in cold climates. The point seemed to be reinforcement of denying plate tectonics by never even mentioning them. Conclussion: Flood did it.
Then I read the stuff about astronomy. Creationists seem to be fascinated by astronomy which seems both understandable and bizaar. Appearantly we don’t observe gravity lens when viewing radiation background which, if true, is odd. They think it deflates (*chuckle*, *chuckle*) the big bang theory entirely. On the other hand they completely toss of the Copernican principal and conclude a “galactocentric” universe with a local time dilation field around the solar system. They don’t realize abondoning the Copernican principal rules *all* astronomy useless and introducing a local time dilation field around the solar system renders their sacred “creation week” utterly meaningless.
It’s a bit wierd to be reading an article with science jargon and then to suddenly read references to the creator and ‘this was done by God during the creation week”. Amusing but I figure it probably gets old really fast.
I have always been curious as to the possible applicability of the concept of ‘suspension of disbelief’ (historically used in suggestion / hypnosis studies) as it might be applied to the creationist’s irrationality. What does the latest science tell us about how the human brain can sustain irreconcilable beliefs?
Weirdest FAQ ever. Under ‘Environmentalism’ they drag up the Pianka brouhaha, and have the unbelievable gall to accuse scientists of ‘Doomsday Glee’. Pot calling kettle grimy-arse.
This immediately makes me think of something I’ve been calling the Alphane rule, from Philip K. Dick’s novel Clans of the Alphane Moon. It was presented as a rule in psychology, the gist being: If the subject offers two mutually contradictory explanations for their behavior, then the true impetus of their acts will be neither of those given, but a third explanation, which the subject is (also) repressing.
I wouldn’t claim that this is always true, (hey, it’s from a novel by a mad genius) but it does make a useful “probe hypothesis”.
I’ve harped on “willing suspension of disbelief” in the past. We all do it. This is how we can watch TV sitcoms, read novels, and watch movies like star wars. The creos have just decided to make their vacation from reality permanent.
From reading their bogus pseudoscience, they aren’t even trying to make it correspond to reality. All they want are rationalizations so they can believe their mythology. Really, they could care less what the truth is.
By itself this would be harmless. Except that they want to force it on our children in their science classes of all places.
#29 Raven,
I guess it would be too much to expect that they might have looked a little further than Archaeopteryx to find feathered dinosaurs. Reality is available to be examined by all, as in this wonderful exhibit I recently had the privilege to view with my 12yr old. Then again I guess you could conclude that there are legions of hoaxers employed full time forging fossils all over the world.
“The Miami Science Museum has joined with the venerable Beijing Museum of Natural History to exhibit 14 enormous articulated dinosaur skeletons and 52 spectacular individual specimens, including 8 of the most rare feathered dinosaurs and birds from the fossil beds at Liaoning. Unique fully-sculpted models, interactive, multimedia experiences, and a children’s paleo-discovery area, bring these magnificent creatures to life!”
That is one of their weaker claims. On the level of “satan planted those fossils”. Anyone who makes it has just donned the sacred “M” for moron and can be expected to act accordingly.
The earth’s surface after 3.6 billion years is covered with fossils. In places the deposits are a few miles deep at least. Estimating an exact number of fossils would be impossible but it must be in the billions or trillions. Without making much effort, over the years I have accumulated odds and ends from various places and no one was planting hoaxed fossils on the beaches and in the cliffs of the rockies.
The universe is a vast and old place, very mysterious and fascinating. The creos insist on looking at it through a pinhole. Some old guy waved his hands and poofed it into existence 6,000 years ago. The earth is it and the rest of the universe is just a backdrop. It will end any day as he “poofs” it out of existence again for some arbitrary reason involving whatever.
I often wonder how many people who claim the bible is literally true got bored after the first chapter of Genesis and switched on “Survivor’ reruns instead.
Can you really blame ’em? After Adam and Eve get voted off the island, all those “begats” get tedious real fast.