Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
… try Denyse O’Leary sometime. She’s now written a list of predictions from ID, and I don’t think she understands the meaning of the word “prediction” in a scientific context. Eight of the nine are variants on the theme, “there will be no natural explanations for X,” which, try as we might, reveals that our demands for positive, productive explanations from the ID crowd go unheard, and they’d rather just whine that they don’t understand something, so we must not, either.
The one exception: she doesn’t believe the eco-doomsayers who predict that we will destroy all life on the planet. She seems entirely unaware that a) no one claims that — what’s predicted is economic discomfort, displacement of human populations, some species going extinct and others thriving, etc. — and b) this doesn’t represent a prediction of intelligent design, either.
If your brain hasn’t recovered from the ablation it suffered from the laser-like stupidity of Comfort, though, I don’t recommend reading O’Leary — two such traumas on top of one another can be permanently damaging (I can only do it because years of reading this crap has turned my cortex tough as leather.)
It’s Tuesday, the 22nd of January, and this is the first day of classes at UMM. I’m teaching the introductory biology course again (Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development), my big core lab course in genetics, and an upper level class in science writing, and that’s enough.
As is usual for me, I tremble in a state of dread at the start of the long season of lectures and labs, but once I charge in and get started I’ll probably be surprised when I look up and notice it’s May already.
Ray Comfort has a blog, and one of his entries claims that the Bible is a science text, and that it is better than science. His style of argument is to first list a “fact” from the Bible (usually something that is completely open to interpretation, and he chooses to interpret it as being in conformity with modern science); then he mentions a corresponding fact derived from modern science, that always agrees with the Bible; then he lists something from “science then,” which is dead wrong.
It’s so clueless it hurts to read it.
Minnesota is going to be revising their science standards this year. Last time we went through this, it was a circus, with our education commissioner (the notorious Cheri Pearson Yecke) trying to pack the review committees with creationists and doing last minute swaps of committee-approved drafts with drafts edited by creationists. We had John Calvert show up at hearings, along with a few other home-grown kooks, including a guy with a replica of a giant leg bone that he claimed proved there were giants in the earth in those days.
This time around, though, we have guidelines that will limit the nonsense, we hope.
In its call for volunteers, the department offered a list of assumptions that will guide the committee. The assumptions deal with topics ranging from increased science rigor to new graduation requirements.
One assumption stands out. Assumption number seven: “Science standards will reflect the scientific facts, laws, and theories of the natural and engineered world and will not include supernatural, occult or religious ideas.”
Of course, I can hear the ID crowd right now: “ID isn’t about the supernatural — teach the alternative theories! Teach the controversy!” In that article, we already have Dave Eaton (another infamous local creationist) saying he he has no problem with the restriction. You know he’s already planning to try and subvert the process.
It takes some confidence to charge into this: Hitchens will be debating Jay Richards (of the Discovery Institute), with Ben Stein as “moderator”, in an event sponsored by the Stanford IDEA club. The creationists are stacking the deck against him rather thoroughly.
I’m not enthused about the idea — the only people who have anything to gain from this are the loons on the side of ignorance. But if there’s anyone who can pull it off, it’s a master of fiery rhetoric … or a comedian. The topic is purportedly “Atheism vs. Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design,” and since the creationists have no evidence, it’s got to be a tedious bore without someone on hand to skewer the fools.
Let’s hope there’s a video.
The video clip below is from a game called Noah’s Adventures. It’s awful—Noah sounds like a drunk with brain damage, the graphics look like a preschooler tried fingerpainting with his feces, and the whole plot is ridiculous.
Now here’s the question: is this the work of a sincere creationist, or is this the product of the evil atheist conspiracy, made with the intent of making creationists look like talentless, tasteless hacks? I can’t tell.
Maybe “wacky” isn’t the right word — if you read through this collection of Russian jokes translated by Mark Perakh, you might find some are fairly funny, others are completely opaque and strange, and others drop with a leaden thump. One common seems to be finding a kind of morose humor in misery.
Having a strange sense of humor is the only way I can explain this: Pravda, the Weekly World News of Russia, has an article explaining Intelligent Design creationism, which fits right in with their usual fare of UFOs, girls in swimsuits, devils, and muscular bronze stallions with weird human genitalia, but just to add some real spice to the joke, it was written by babblin’ Babu Ranganathan.
I don’t know who the joke is on, Babu, ID, or people gullible enough to buy Pravda, but I know it’s not me, so I’m laughing.
Greg Laden, that romantic evolutionary gastronome has several good posts on the mess in Florida (and, by the way, here’s a map if you’re having trouble keeping track of all those counties). These are documents produced by the activist creationists down there, and they really reveal how inept and uneducated these wankers are.
