Eric Hovind just can’t help lying

Remember how I told you that Eric Hovind was giving away free DVDs for Valentine’s Day? And you all rushed over to place your order, and you got the sad notification?

We’re sorry, the Valentine’s DVD is now out of stock. Thanks to supporters like you, over 2,000 people will get to hear the gospel message!

We pray that the Holy Spirit will use these DVDs to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Awww, out of stock. Oh, well, that’s fair enough, you thought, and you turned away to go back to the kitchen and turn the roast-baby-on-a-spit some more. But wait! There’s something mysterious going on here!

Try this. Click on this link

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

And you’ll get the sad “out of stock” message.

If instead, though, you copy this same URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser:

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

Presto! You show up at the old page that allows you to order the free DVD. You can have your DVD and your roast baby at the same time! Huzzah!

Sneaky Eric put up a redirect to intercept any visitors arriving from Pharyngula to his fake out-of-stock page. He could have been honest, and done exactly the same thing, but have the page say something like, “Please, we are making these DVDs available to our Christian customers. We’d appreciate it if you’d leave them for people who will enjoy the content.” And that would have been cool. I think most of us would have just sat back and let it slide by, no problem, dude.

But no! Eric Hovind must really like us, because now we get the roast baby, the free DVD, and we get to point at a creationist and sneer at his pathetic dishonesty! This calls for something more than just a “Huzzah”, I think I’m going to give you all permission to run outside with your pistols (loaded with blanks, for safety reasons, of course) and fire them madly into the air while screaming “Yeeeeee-haaaah!”.

Thanks, Eric. We knew you were a lying toad, but it’s always nice to get confirmation.

Oh, yeah, I’m doing Darwin Day, too!

Hello, Southern Illinois University Carbondale! I’ll be heading south next week for SIU’s annual Darwin Day lecture.

Thursday, February 10: A public lecture entitled “The Evolution of Cooperation” will be presented by Dr. Paul (PZ) Myers, associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Dr. Myers is the author of Pharyngula, one of the most widely read science blogs. The lecture will take place at 7 pm in Ballroom B in the SIUC Student Center; refreshments will be provided after the lecture.

It’s free, too…I am so cheap. Show up and I’ll talk science at you for an hour.

Peter Goodgold is a scam artist

I had no idea that ions combined to produce fungi and bacteria in water — I guess spontaneous generation isn’t dead after all. That’s one of the claims of a con artist named Peter Goodgold who sells magic water ionizers that cure all illnesses…because, as he says, there is actually only one disease, acidosis. It’s complete nonsense as the video below explains.

His gadget can’t work, and has to be doing a lot of things to the water that he isn’t telling anyone about. How does he respond to the demonstration of his incompetence and dishonesty? Why, he threatens to sue and files complaints to get any rebuttal videos taken down. The creator of the expose explain his situation here:

So yes, if you can, mirror the video. I’ll just do what I can to promote it and make sure that Goodgold’s bluster just means many more people will see him exposed.

The Not-So-Evil Atheist Conspiracy spreads its tentacles deeper into the fabric of American life

Good news! The Secular Student Alliance is now working to promote godless organizations in high schools. They’re going to be everywhere! There is resistance, of course, but the law is on our side, and the schools have to allow students to organize for meetings with a secular purpose.

Are you a high school student? Are you interested in gathering your fellow atheists together to promote critical thinking? Then you need to email JT Eberhard right now and ask for his help. He’ll get you started, and you, of course, will make him work very hard to earn the massive salary he probably receives in his new job as the Campus Organizer and High School Specialist at SSA. In fact, it’s perfectly OK if you try to get in touch with him any hour of the day or night — tell him I said you had permission.

Now that’s misogyny

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with an insect — a creature that shares no moral or rational assumptions with me. Now I’ve seen something close, at least, a fellow named Seth, discussing his obligations to his partners in sex. Basically, he feels none. It’s a long ranty comment, and much of it is more explicit than I’d rather post here, but it amounts to insisting that pregnancy and abortion are all the woman’s responsibility, because it is her fault that she demanded a penis enter her vagina.

You want a man inside you, it’s up to you to deal with the mess left behind. I won’t bitch at you if you have an abortion, but you don’t get to demand ANYTHING from me, certainly not child support. If you don’t like the mess, don’t invite me to the party.

How’s that for fair?

It’s a marvel of twisted logic, and really had me wondering if Seth was a virgin.

I have to agree, though, that his demands are fair, as long as it’s not his fault that he’s having vaginal intercourse, and as long as he was honest and specific in his expectations with his partner before hand. Who would then, of course, refuse to have sex with him, ever.

It’s in the Daily Mail, so I’m confident it got everything wrong

Actually, I know they got a lot wrong. The Mail reports that a study “proves” students believe everything they read on the internet. They cite some work done with the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site, which they claim was created as part of a study to test student gullibility. This is wrong; that site has been available for years, and it’s a satire and humor site; look at the rest of zapatopi.net to see what I mean.

Also, I actually use the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus every semester, in the first lecture of our introductory biology course! After giving an overview of the scientific method and how to ask good scientific questions, I use it as an example: I show them the page, read a few excerpts, and ask them what they think…and always the majority of students are skeptical. The few who will grant it tentative plausibility always follow up with specific questions about the site and about where they can get additional information to confirm it.

Then we discuss how to validate scientific information, what we look for to trust a source, and further, I ask them to think more deeply about how, if the website passed a routine sniff test, we’d also go on to test unusual claims in nature. My experience has been that students are much more rational and practical about evaluating material on the web than we’d give them credit for (of course, there are also always a few students who still turn in papers with wacky web sites cited as sources — but they’re a minority).

And speaking of sources that rely on the gullibility of readers for credibility…the Daily Mail should not be casting aspersions. If you want to know everything you need to know about the Daily Mail, read this horrifying story.

The bar is set very, very low

Creationist Steven L. Anderson is having an art contest. He is shocked and surprised that chickens and dinosaurs are related and wants some cartoons mocking the concept.

He’s got a few examples at his site; they aren’t very good, and they all miss the point. Chickens are not descended from T. rex. Chickens and T. rex share a common ancestor, and there are good reasons to argue from their morphology that chickens and T. rex shared a common ancestor more recently than chickens and people, or chickens and bananas.

Watching his idiotic performance, though, (and he’s no slouch at the stupid: I’ve mentioned his sermon on pissing) got me wondering. Who is the dumbest creationist in the country? There’s some stiff competition for the title, with Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Carl Baugh, and every podunk preacher with a bug up his butt about Genesis making asses of themselves, but Anderson certainly should be in the running. Maybe we should have a contest to name the craziest, dumbest, most venal, etc. creationist … leave your suggestions in the comments.