I am reminded that Scalia wrote the dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard. I have been trying to forget.
The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger…. The evidence for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a scientific “fact,” since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is merely a scientific theory or “guess.”… It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it could accurately be termed a “myth.”…
Shocking, isn’t it? Who would have thought a Supreme Court justice could be such a pompous ignoramus?
The occasion for this unpleasant reminder is that Scalia gave a commencement address at a high school recently, and offered some evidence that he hasn’t learned a thing in 28 years.
Class of 2015, you should not leave Stone Ridge High School thinking that you face challenges that are at all, in any important sense, unprecedented. Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.
at least some 5,000 years
…multiply that by at least 20.
Somebody ought to let Scalia know that that 5-6000 year old Earth nonsense is a specifically Protestant idea, and not even all Protestants — just the particularly rabidly goofy ones. But maybe those are the people he identifies with.
Our Supreme Court. Once again, an international embarrassment.
Breathtaking inanity.
“The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that supporting evolution. “… “since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory.”
And I suppose creation science can be observed in a laboratory?
You guys must be really proud with such a thinker at the supreme court.
And hasn’t evolution been observed in a laboratory? That experiment that let some bacteria evolve away from needing some particular nutrient, to replace it with another? sorry to not remember the details, but this very site discussed it a great length. I could look it up, but I’ll take a cue from Egnor and just ask you all to answer my question to reduce my egnorance. /smirk
if only the impeachment procedure would allow SCjustices to also be vulnerable to impeachment. That “lifetime appointment” thing can be a good thing; but in some cases, not so much. Scalia certainly qualifies for such a procedure (in my OPINION, natch).
Dear Justice Scalia, in your case I think we’re observing evolution running backward.
Re: slithey tove @ #4…
On your second point…yes. SCOTUS justices *can* be impeached. They can also be convicted, and–thus–removed from office. However, the Constitutional reasons for impeachment and conviction (“high crimes and misdemeanors”) don’t include abject ignorance or stupidity. In concept, at least, those issues should be weeded out before nomination or caught by the Senate before confirmation. It doesn’t always work.
Actually, he didn’t say that.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/578#writing-USSC_CR_0482_0578_ZD
Search down a bit for the phrase, “may be stronger” and you’ll find he is citing someone else’s testimony:
re jaybee@7:
thanks for pointing that out. I’d still say that, by quoting those statements as part of his dissent, is essentially saying the same thing himself.
However, I’m biased against Scalia…
slithey tove @4
You’re thinking of Richard Lenski’s e coli experiment.
Andrew Schfly of Cönservapedia fame sent a snotgram to Lenski demanding all of his data and samples of the e coli or else. Rationalwiki has a writeup of the correspondence between Schafly and Lensi. It’s the general consensus that Lenski won three falls out of three.
Noah got the instructions wrong he was supposed to take the unicorns and leave the Scalias behind.
They don’t call him “the finest legal mind of the 14th century” for nothing!
I’m sure that Georgetown and Harvard Law are proud their alum. Can they ask for the degrees to be returned?
America, the place where even the Catholics are evangelical.
There is no “forward” in evolution.
Universities can revoke degrees altogether. But, in the US in particular, that usually takes evidence that the degrees were obtained by fraud.
It would be interesting to know how many English speaking Catholics in North America hold beliefs that actually come from Protestant sects, and are contrary to official Catholic doctrine.
The US Supreme Court has a majority of Catholic who are also out of step with Catholic teaching on the death penalty and taking care of the poor and minorities. I think the only issue on which the Court’s Catholics vote in accordance with Catholic teaching is abortion.
oh my fucking god this is hilarious and tragic at once.
First, a creationist website takes a Scalia quote out of context, in which Scalia is quoting someone else describing, not necessarily advocating, the arguments that the creationist side of the case made. Scalia does not at all make clear which specific arguments he found convincing, so the quoted argument may not represent his view.
But then, he made an off-the-cuff remark, which implies creationism, but doesn’t necessarily require it. So now we have people trusting a creationist out-of-context quote to interpret Scalia’s ambiguous remark.
You can’t answer that question with out of context quotes creationists selected in order to promote their view.
Can anybody show us where Scalia specifically claims that evolution is rock solid solid science and creationism is religious mythology? Or is it nothing but wishy-washy non-judgement?
Where’d these creationist Catholics come from?* Did I luck out growing up in an atypically liberal/reasonable parish, or is this anti-science bent shown by Scalia, Santorum, and seemingly most of the U.S. cardinals and bishops a new thing? And now they’re stuck with a socialist Pope with a chemistry degree. Ha!
*yes, I know that ultimately, they’re all creationist, but they used to be a lot more Ken Miller handwavey about it.
I don’t think that narrative is entirely accurate based on my understanding of where those dates come from. The creation date is derived from the genealogies of the Pentateuch and the chronologies of the kings in the books of Kings and Chronicles. That’s how Bishop Usher got his date of 4004 BC for the creation of the world.
It is thought by some scholars that the OT timeline was carefully constructed to put creation around 4000 years before the compilation/redacting/writing of the piece, which was at the time of the so-called “rededication” of the temple in Jerusalem by John Hyracanus.
This timeline was predicated on belief in the Anno Mundi, a cycle of creation/destruction of the world thought to be about 4000 years long. The constructed timeline meant the end of the world would occur soon after the temple was rededicated, sometime from the 2nd/1st century BC to 2nd/1st century AD.
Apparently, such apocalyptic notions were popular among various Jewish sects, but not limited to that particular flavor of religious mysticism. A lot of non-Jewish sects shared these beliefs. These apocalyptic narratives are well represented throughout the New Testament, of course, and play a significant role in that form of Judaic-Christianity we call Islam.
There was apparently some debate over the details of the events leading up to the end time, which led to there being a range of times when the end was expected…a range that could be as little as 40 years and as much as 400 years. When the end hadn’t come about within a couple hundred years or so of the expected time, Christians moved it out to 1000 AD, adjusting their predictions to better suit their experience.
Incidentally, the genealogies and chronologies of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament books put creation at about 6000 BC rather than 4004 BC.
@2, of course all the evidence for creation science can be observed in a laboratory. The Bible is very portable.
Cadfile@12:
Eeeuw. Who’d want a second-hand degree that had belonged to him?
Shocking ignorance and a lie!!!!
1. It’s been seen in the lab a bazillion times. Drug resistance, evolution of normal cells to cancer cells, etc..
2. FFS, evolution is the basis of our agricultural systems that feed 7 billion people .
3. Evolution is why you get a new flu shot every year. And why about once a generation, a new pandemic strain appears. And why current vaccines sometimes lose efffectiveness, antigen escape.
4. There is a whole field of experimental evolution outside at meso scales.
5. There are always natural experiments running, mostly when some ecospace becomes available. We usually see adaptive radiations.
Tasmanian facial tumor, canine venereal tumor, and the clam leukemia all represent de novo evolution of what some call a whole new phylum, infectious cancer cells.
Scalia just shows you can be an idiot and be appointed to the US Supreme court. A well educated high school student knows more than him.
Much has I despise Scalia I should point out that before that outrageous quote which is a summary of other people’s testimony Scalia says the following:
“Before summarizing the testimony of Senator Keith and his supporters, I wish to make clear that I by no means intend to endorse its accuracy. But my views (and the views of this Court) about creation science and evolution are (or should be) beside the point. Our task is not to judge the debate about teaching the origins of life, but to ascertain what the members of the Louisiana Legislature believed. The vast majority of them voted to approve a bill which explicitly stated a secular purpose; what is crucial is not their wisdom in believing that purpose would be achieved by the bill, but their sincerity in believing it would be.”
Actually a far better indication of Scalia’s bias in his dissent, aside from the extraordinary contortions he engages in to find a secular purpose and tout the good will of the Legislaters is the following from the decision:
“But we cannot say that on the evidence before us in this summary judgment context, which includes ample uncontradicted testimony that “creation science” is a body of scientific knowledge, rather than revealed belief. Infinitely less can we say (or should we say) that the scientific evidence for evolution is so conclusive that no one could be gullible enough to believe that there is any real scientific evidence to the contrary, so that the legislation’s stated purpose must be a lie. Yet that illiberal judgment, that Scopes-in-reverse, is ultimately the basis on which the Court’s facile rejection of the Louisiana Legislature’s purpose must rest.”
Further Scalia says:
“4.
Although appellees and amici dismiss the testimony of Senator Keith and his witnesses as pure fantasy, they did not bother to submit evidence of that to the District Court, making it difficult for us to agree with them. The State, by contrast, submitted the affidavits of two scientists, a philosopher, a theologian, and an educator, whose academic credentials are rather impressive. See App. to Juris. Statement A-17 – A-18 (Kenyon); id. at A-36 (Morrow); id. at A-39 – A-40 (Miethe); id. at A-46 – A-47 (Most); id. at A-49 (Clinkert). Like Senator Keith and his witnesses, the affiants swear that evolution and creation science are the only two scientific explanations for the origin of life, see id. at A-19 – A-20 (Kenyon); id. at A-38 (Morrow); id. at A-41 (Miethe); that creation science is strictly scientific, see id. at A-18 (Kenyon); id. at A-36 (Morrow); id. at A-40 – A-41 (Miethe); id. at A-49 (Clinkert); that creation science is simply a collection of scientific data that supports the hypothesis that life appeared on earth suddenly, and has changed little, see id. at A-19 (Kenyon); id. at A-36 (Morrow); id. at A-41 (Miethe); that hundreds of respected scientists believe in creation science, see id. at A-20 (Kenyon); that evidence for creation science is as strong as evidence for evolution, see id. at A-21 (Kenyon); id. at A-34 – A-35 (Kenyon); id. at A-37 – A-38 (Morrow); that creation science is educationally valuable, see id. at A-19 (Kenyon); id. at A-36 (Morrow); id. at A-38 – A-39 (Morrow); id. at A-49 (Clinkert); that creation science can be presented without religious content, see id. at A-19 (Kenyon); id. at A-35 (Kenyon); id. at A-36 (Morrow); id. at A-40 (Miethe); id. at A-43 – A-44 (Miethe); id. at A-47 (Most); id. at A-49 (Clinkert); and that creation science is now censored from classrooms, while evolution is misrepresented as proven fact, see id. at A-20 (Kenyon); id. at A-35 (Kenyon); id. at A-39 (Morrow); id. at A-50 (Clinkert). It is difficult to conclude on the basis of these affidavits — the only substantive evidence in the record — that the laymen serving in the Louisiana Legislature must have disbelieved Senator Keith or his witnesses.”
Scalia’s bias is painfully obvious.
From https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/578#writing-USSC_CR_0482_0578_ZD
A huge amount. They all claim to be the One True Xian Cult and then steal beliefs from each other all the time.
1. To take one example, birth control use in relevant cohorts of women are 99% general population. It’s 98% for…Catholics.
The vast majority of US Catholics have rather sensibly decided the Pope is just flat out wrong.
2. Studies show that gods are just sockpuppets. Every believer modifies their beliefs to agree with their sockpuppet god which is actually themselves.
whheydt (#6) –
If “high crimes and misdemeanors” are justification for removing one of them, then why is Clarence “there’s a pubic hair in my coke” Thomas still there?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/04/clarence-thomas-criminal-behavior-on-financial-disclosure.html
That’s rhetorical, not asked specifically to you.
Raven, No. 22, the creationist response to that would be that yes, bacteria develop drug resistance, but they don’t evolve from bacteria into something other than bacteria. You don’t see bacteria become amoebas or paramecium. Likewise, yes, non cancerous cells can become cancerous, but they don’t become a new species. So if you’re going to make the claim to creationists that evolution is still ongoing, you’re going to need to give examples of ongoing macro evolution that produces a completely different organism.
And I personally don’t know enough about the science to know if that kind of ongoing macro evolution is observable or not.
@eeyore
We don’t have to observe a salamander sprouting wings or plants developing eyeballs in order to prove that evolution happens. Creationists tend to misuse the terms “microevolution” and “macroevolution”. Actual biologists use microevolution to refer to changes within a species, and macroevolution to refer to any change that results in the formation of a new species.
There have been multiple observed examples of new species forming in the wild, particularly in ciclids. In all of these cases, the new species and the species that it branched off from differ in their anatomy and lifestyle, along with being reproductively isolated.
The problem with creationists is that they expect scientists to observe stuff like the formation of complex organs or radical shifts in body type over the course of a few decades. Those types of changes take thousands, if not millions of years to happen, so asking a scientist to observe a population of dogs developing prehensile tongues or the like doesn’t make sense.
This issue is also irrelevant considering that the minor changes that we do observe and the major changes that we infer happened via genetic evidence are both produced by the same underlying genetic mechanisms. The same types of genetic mutations and trends in population genetics that produce different species of ciclid are just as capable of producing the radically different clades of organisms we observe. In the latter case, there are simply a larger number of mutations.
I should also point out more generally that I find it difficult to accept that a “scientific theory” that basically amounts to “God poofed every living thing into existence instantaneously with magic” is supposed to be more scientifically valid than a theory like evolution that actually works through observed biological processes, and has scientists involved that actually form models of how it happened.
Yeah I know but it is irrelevant.
1. Evolution doesn’t say or predict that bacteria will become amoebas in any time we can observe.
Bacteria to amoebas in anything less than a billion or so years isn’t evolution. Same thing with cats turning into dogs and so on.
Seing baceria turn into amoebas in real time isn’t evolution. Seeing cats turn into dogs isn’t either. They are miracles. Which is another reason why we won’t see them.
It is and we’ve seen in rarely due to the constraints of human lifespans and the time the human species has been looking for it. Lizards in the Adriatic developing a new digestive system, Tasmanian facial tumor, clam leukemia, teosinte turning into corn and so on.
But it’s pointless to spend much time pointing that out. Creationism is a Presuppositionalist religious belief and they will ignore it or move the goal posts.
Presuppositionalist religious beliefs are immune to data, reason, or logic.
But they do and we’ve seen that. I gave examples, Tasmanian facial tumor, canine transmissable venereal tumor, and clam leukemia. These aren’t just new species. Some put them in a new phylum.
Not really. Evolution is defined as life changing through time and how.
Drug resistance mutations or new plant varieties fit right in.
The burden of proof is on the creationists, not the scientists. The creationists failed over a century ago and it survives today solely as a religious belief.
Creationism sort of got laid aside by the xians.
Their newest hobby horse has been, gay hate.
You can see why. Creationism is esoteric and science requires education and thinking. But hating a small minority is easy and anyone can do it.
It says a lot about the fundie perversion of xianity that all they have is hate and lies.
Left0ver1under, #25
Can be isn’t the same as will be. Thomas probably could be removed from office on those grounds, but almost certainly won’t be, because it would take, IIRC, 2/3 of both houses, and the President, to all agree to.
” Actual biologists use microevolution to refer to changes within a species, and macroevolution to refer to any change that results in the formation of a new species.”
Sorry, no. Actual biologists do not use those terms at all, AFAIK, since they refer to the same thing, and the distinction between them is arbitrary & meaningless.
Evolutionary theory flat out states that no organism can ever evolve into a “completely different organism”. A series of stepwise changes means that every new step shares features with what existed before. And the shared characteristics of organisms go right down to the root of the tree of life. Right back to LUCA.
The creationists also always move the goalposts as to what they mean by “completely different organism”.
http://www.theonion.com/article/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl-2879
Enough said.
@27 emergence
Nope…
raven #28:
Yet this is what creationists quite often demand as ‘proof’ of evolution. Even with my layman’s understanding of evolution, it is somewhat amusing to note that many creationists so completely misunderstand evolution that they demand scientists provide evidence against evolution to prove that it happened.
Creationist believe new species poof into existence by the will of the creator. They stupidly think evolution works like they believe their imaginary deity does, and new species poof into existence fully formed. Nope, just another fallacious presupposition from professional liars, who can’t understand why they get laughed at.
Scalia’s comment is merely another sample of what has become a multitudinous accumulation of evidence why the right-wing political machine is so dangerous to American education, government, and social progress.
Represented by the modern tea-party inspired GOP, it has become painfully apparent to rational observers that if the “Flynn effect” is a true phenomena, then it is an effect that has completely passed them by. They remain, as predicted, in the abject state of nineteenth century religious ignorance.
Scalia – he’s no Alito.
Nerd of Redhead:
Creationist believe new species poof into existence by the will of the creator. They stupidly think evolution works like they believe their imaginary deity does, and new species poof into existence fully formed. Nope, just another fallacious presupposition from professional liars, who can’t understand why they get laughed at.
Creations- their version of evolution is more Pokemon than science.
Evolution is defined as descent with heritable modification.
The distinction between them is arbitrary & meaningless, but that took quite some time to find out. The two terms have been used by actual biologists, and still are to some degree – you’ll find wording like “macroevolutionary patterns” for such things as diversification rates that change across tens of millions of years.
And beyond; LUCA is the Last Universal Common Ancestor.
Regarding the the dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard, this comment by Anthony Cesario from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/06/scalia-commencement-speech-supports-young-earth-creationism/ sums it up – Scalia was summing up someone else’s arguments, not his own:
Although I thoroughly disagree with much of what Scalia says, this quote supposedly said by him in Edwards v. Aguillard is an excellent example of quote-mining. Scalia NEVER said this. He wrote in his dissent that SOMEONE ELSE was saying this. In fact, the quote is actually a summary of several other people’s arguments….
Unless you can cite where he says “evolution is a scientific fact, end of story”, how can we tell what he thinks personally of evolution versus creationism? Until I see evidence, he is a creationist based those he sympathizes with.
That’s fine, 43, but it doesn’t justify attributing quotes to him that he demonstrably didn’t say or write. We’re supposed to be using better standards of inquiry than that.
I would have thought that the accusation of “quote-mining” is applicable only if the lack of context misrepresents Scalia’s views. Feel free to disagree with that. But in any case, I read the whole thing. While it is true that Scalia is summing up other peoples’ arguments, those quotes are not inconsistent with his own views. Scalia asserts that the Court is wrong to assert that the Act in question, stating clearly
which I find comprehensible for only non-secular values of “secular”.
Speaking in his own voice, he does say this:
(emphasis added by me).
Summarising : Scalia clearly, himself, believes that there is sound evidence contrary to evolution. That on its own is a huge problem.
Yup, it is. So let’s quote him accurately to demonstrate it.
Not sure why this is difficult.
Because his voicing support for religious beliefs refuting evolution tells us all we need to know. Otherwise, he would acknowledge the religious beliefs are irrelevant to the scientific argument.
Yes, it did tell us all we need to know.
So why then do we need to hear further things, that aren’t true, to further convince us of what we needed to know? We don’t. So we shouldn’t participate in the internet’s collective bad habit of trading in bogus quotes.
Seriously, wtf. I keep saying we shouldn’t pass on bogus quotes, and people keep responding that Scalia is wrong. There is quite literally no connection whatsoever between those two things.
If Scalia actually said something that was quoting someone else, but it still matches his own beliefs on the matter, it’s not quote mining.
Since you won’t/can’t show that the quoted material and ideas does not represent Scalia’s thinking, it can’t be quotemining. It is simply an example of the religious tripe he is willing to accept as secular thinking that refutes the science of evolution.
Now, either show us Scalia doesn’t believe in creationism, in which case it would be actual quotemining, or shut the fuck up.
In this context, yes it is. If he had said something, quoting someone else simply to borrow their eloquence, what you are saying would have merit. For example, if he had written something like “As Lincoln said, ‘This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it'”, we could reasonably say that he “said that the people can ‘exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow’ the government”.
This circumstance is nothing like that. Here, he wrote an opinion, and quoted these passages, introducing them with: “Senator Keith and his witnesses testified essentially as set forth in the following numbered paragraphs:”. He’s not even trying to use the passages to show that what’s written in them is true, merely that Keith and others in the legislature believed them.
It absolutely is quote-mining to use such a passage against the author who’s quoting it. Whether it “matches his beliefs on the matter” is not relevant. Many people have demonstrated here in this thread that it does match his beliefs on the matter by using other, legitimate, quotes. That is legitimate. It does not rehabilitate the use of the quote-mined “quote”. The OP should retract it, apologize, and put up some of the other, legitimate, quotes (even from the same opinion!) showing Scalia to be a creationist ignoramus.
Fallacy of quoting out of context AKA quote mining
Nothing from the material PZ quoted distorted its intended meaning. Scalia was supporting the quotes. Therefore, it was not quote mining.
Before Scalia’s infamous summary other people’s testimony Scalia says:
“Before summarizing the testimony of Senator Keith and his supporters, I wish to make clear that I by no means intend to endorse its accuracy. But my views (and the views of this Court) about creation science and evolution are (or should be) beside the point. Our task is not to judge the debate about teaching the origins of life, but to ascertain what the members of the Louisiana Legislature believed.”
Now one can argue that Scalia is being disingenuous but quoting Scalia’s summary of other people’s testimony without adding further evidence of Scalia’s views is unacceptable given that in the decision Scalia claims that the view he is summarizing are not necessarily his own.
Nope, his job is to ascertain the truth, not what people believe, because beliefs can be based on delusional thinking. That people are sincere in their belief should be irrelevant. So, by seeming to be willing to accommodate folks based on something other than the facts shows his real views.
pacal’s 53 is pretty devastating to 52, broadening the context even beyond the bit I had quoted (which in itself was more than enough). This is quote mine, clearly, by 52’s own definition. That Scalia expresses similar sentiments elsewhere in the decision doesn’t mean that quoting this one as if he were speaking in his own voice doesn’t “remove[]” it “from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning”. It does.
Quote the other bits where he says the same thing in his own voice! It’s so bleeping simple.
In my opinion this isn’t even close to the gray area, this is a blatant quote mine. I’m sure it was accidental but it is still bad form.