Stuart Pivar sues Robert Hazen

Stuart Pivar is on a rampage again — he has rallied his lawyers and is on the attack. Not against me, fortunately, but against Robert Hazen, biochemist and author of the excellent book on abiogenesis, Genesis. His crime is that Hazen said a few generous things about Pivar’s work once upon a time, Pivar inflated the remarks into a wholesale endorsement of his cockamamie theories, and when Hazen saw he was being touted as a True Believer™ in the evolution of balloon animals, he demanded that Pivar cease and desist.

Now Pivar claims this is a cruel attempt to silence the promulgation of his theory. I’ve put his full complaint below the fold.

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Speaking of paradise…

It’s not just Oklahoma — New Zealand apparently has no sick people. They have a brand new faith-healing clinic that fixes everything right up!

Rea said patients with problems as diverse as stroke paralysis, cancer or dyslexia were cured, usually within one 20-minute session.

Wow. Complete cures, in just 20 painless minutes. Doctors’ offices must be closing all over the place, and the hospitals must be empty.

Sorry, Tulsa, I was going to pack up my bags and move to your shining flawless city, but I think now I’m going to have to move to Christchurch. They’ve probably got more squid.

Tulsa, Oklahoma must be paradise

That’s what I must conclude from Anna Falling’s priorities. She’s running for the office of mayor, and her #1 most important issue, the one she’s made the centerpiece of her campaign, is to get creationist displays installed in the Tulsa Zoo.

For Anna Falling, the road to city hall runs through the Tulsa Zoo.  She’s made her Christianity central to her platform and now the exhibit depicting the Christian story of Creationism is her first campaign promise.

“Today we are announcing that God will be glorified in this city.  He shall not be shunned. Upon our election, we hereby commit to honoring Him in all ways that He has been dishonored,” said Anna Falling.

This was news several years ago when the zoo board rejected a proposal to add sectarian Christian messages to their exhibits. The rejection must have rankled, since Falling now thinks this is the Most Important Issue for Tulsa.

Besides being ridiculous, though, it does make me marvel. The economy must be booming in Oklahoma; the mayor doesn’t have to concern herself with recruiting and maintaining new businesses. There must not be any crime. Race issues have disappeared. Education…oh, never mind, creationists don’t worry about good education, anyway. City services must be flawless.

I hope you Tulsans aren’t so lulled by the easy livin’ in Oklahoma that you don’t bother to participate in the political process any more. Get out of your easy chair on election day, strap on your jetpack or get in your flying car, zoom past the gumdrop mountain and the drinking fountains that dispense free beer, and vote!

Oh, wait. The Tulsa World reports that she’s making creationism in the zoos her top priority “among city issues that also include violent crime, budget woes and bumpy streets.” How can this be?

Maybe bumpy streets aren’t that big a deal when you get to work on angel’s wings.

Our health care opponents are shamelessly stupid

Right now, the US is in a political struggle to get better national health care. One of the chief tactics of the opposition is, in addition to simply lying and pretending it would be horrible for poor children to get medical treatment, is to tell us horror stories about all those wicked socialist countries and their miserable health care, without the wondrous benefits of raging capitalism. Investor’s Business Daily, for instance, ran this interesting example of how bad the British health services are (it has since been corrected, with some acute embarrassment, I hope):

“The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary,” read a recent editorial from the paper. “The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script…

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

I guess they thought Stephen Hawking was an American. Maybe it was the accent.

For the record, though, Stephen Hawking: British. Not dead.

Ken Ham, on the air, LYING again

Man, he is annoying. He is making a number of assertions about the age of the earth that are patently ridiculous: he claims 90% of all dating methods contradict the idea that the earth is millions of years old. This is simply not true. The key point in acceptance of the age of the earth is the concordance of the many methods.

When a caller asked him to name a few, he really couldn’t. He mentioned the hoary old creationist assertion that the amount of salt in the ocean is inadequate to match a 4 billion year old earth — but salt levels are in a roughly steady state.

I tried to call in to do one simple thing: to recommend the book Bones,Rocks, and Stars by Chris Turney, which would correct his many lies. Unfortunately, the phone lines are locked up solid — you guys are all calling in, aren’t you?

I got through! What a waste — he simply denied the evidence that salt levels are in a roughly steady state, and then to my vast amusement, tossed in his strongest argument: PZ Myers is an atheist. Can you say ad hominem, boys and girls? I tried to explain to him that the dating methods used are independent of religion, that both credible Christian geologists and physicists as well as Jewish, atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever scientists have reached a consensus on this, but he just talked over me and claimed that those Christians have all compromised their faith. They are, apparently, not True Christians™.

Clearly, being an atheist does not discredit our opinions…but Fundamentalist Christians will so readily lie for Jesus that it does call their honesty into question.

Lisle is playing his word games again. Note: his book is titled “The Ultimate Proof of Creation”. He hasn’t even offered any evidence for creationism.

Very good question at the end: a caller asked, if the evidence is in support of creationism, why can’t they make an argument using just the science, leaving the Bible out of it? Lisle ducked it. He claims it’s a battle of worldviews, not just science — he’s basically conceding that he can’t do it.

Ouch

Jerry Coyne shows Mooney and Kirshenbaum the door. It’s a nice, succinct dismissal.

He makes the empirical argument that their strategy is nothing new and has been in operation for many years, and hasn’t worked — but I think just the fact that the scientists they most want to get to change their ways are finding their work both shallow and repugnant is a testimony to their failure as communicators, too. I guess they’ll just have to write us off.

I get email

Sometimes I get nice invitations.

My name is Nikki and I am a christian. I am 15 and very involved in my youth group and last week we were on a mission trip in kentucky. We went to the creation museum a few days before you did. I was looking for the museum’s website when i somehow found an article about you and your visit.. After looking at your blog i have come to the conclusion that nothing anyone says will change your mind on how you believe things work and about god.. Though being the gutsy girl i am, i am asking you to give me a chance and have a conversation with me about god and creation. I dont want to try to change your mind(because i know thats impossible) or anything, i just want to try to understand atheists opinions. I know you are busy being a professor and such, but i would really appreciate a response.

I’m not really interested in an email conversation, so instead I’ve sent her a reply with a link to this post right here, and a suggestion that she carry on a discussion with a whole group of atheists and agnostics and even a few of the Christians who hang out here.

If she shows up, try to be nice, and please…let’s avoid Prince references.