The Council of Europe has put up a wonderful motion for a recommendation. Can anyone imagine this being discussed in the American senate or house of representatives? The Republicans would howl in fury against it, and the Democrats would rush to bury it, lest they offend the Republicans and annoy the ignorant members of their electorate. (The Council of Europe, by the way, is not the same thing as the Council of the European Union or the European Parliament, so it’s not really comparable to our congress. Europe says some very sensible things, but Europe is also very confusing.)

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Everyone did good: they met Scalzi’s challenge and then some, so now he has to go spend $20 and tour the horrid little place.

This will chap Ken Ham’s buns, too. Sure, he’ll have to buy a ticket, but he also raised $5,118.36 all of which will be donated to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Good deal!

A Cincinnati news weekly, the City Beat, has weighed in on the Creation “Museum”. They don’t seem to like it.

Here are some of the good quotes from the article.

Gene Kritsky, biologist:

it’s almost like intellectual molestation.

Not only is it bad science, it is filled with bad religion, and it’s also bad sociology and bad history, too.

Lawrence Krauss, physicist:

This is an institution designed to mis-educate children.

This is nothing but an institutionalized lie and a scientific fraud.

Edwin Kagin, lawyer:

What they are doing is no less an attack on the very way that science and enlightened thought works to produce the modern world. They want to substitute mythology for knowledge. Ignorance is a form of terrorism.

The local paper, The Cincinnati Post:

Frankly, we wish the Genesis museum had been built somewhere else. We wish the 250,000 men, women and especially children expected to visit this year were getting a view of science that comports with what science really knows about the world. Why? Because Greater Cincinnati is trying so hard to market itself, nationally and internationally as a hospitable home for a knowledge economy.

At least, I get the impression it’s not a favorable review. Maybe I need to read between the lines a little more carefully.

I mentioned before that there has been a peculiar silence on the ID blogs about Michael Behe’s new book, The Edge of Evolution. Behe was the one marginally credible biologist on the Discovery Institute team, the guy who got everything rolling with Darwin’s Black Box and their old magic mantra of “irreducible complexity,” and it’s been like an information blackout from Dembski and Luskin and West and Meyer on his latest effort.

Now John Lynch has cataloged the responses. There are some complaints about the critics, but almost no one is trying to defend any of Behe’s conclusions.

So far, this is nothing like the circus we got when Darwin’s Black Box was released—we were constantly slapping down little creationists who were enthused to pieces that they had this serious book that they were sure completely refuted all of evolution. I suspect there are two general responses from ID-leaning readers out there:

• “Wut? I din’t come from no monkey!”
• “How am I going to use his criticisms of random mutation and natural selection without endorsing common descent and this scary idea that god is intentionally creating every parasite and disease?”

That is, they’re torn between the clueless rejection of the parts of evolutionary biology Behe has accepted (which is probably the majority view) and the realization that Behe has said too much about the nature of their designer—so much, in fact, that it’s going to turn off their backers who want evidence that they are the creations of a loving god.

There may also be some reluctance for a proponent to do a thorough review because they’d feel compelled to criticize major parts of his claims…and doing that would be fomenting a schism.

We’ll have to wait and see if ever any of the fellow travelers in the ID movement ever get around to articulating their views.

Coyne not only dismantles Behe’s argument, he gives a nice primer in the basics of evolutionary biology. He also points out that Behe, one of the few biologists in the Intelligent Design camp, has conceded virtually everything to science, and is left clinging to one forlorn hope, that mutations are inadequate to produce the variation that is the fuel of natural selection.

I think he should have titled his book The Edge of Intelligent Design: Behe is hanging from the precipice by one trembling hand, and Coyne and nearly every other biologist in the world is stomping on his fingers.

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Whoops, if you can’t read that link, try this one. Hmmm. I don’t subscribe to the New Republic…does my university? I got it with no registration required.

Wise up, newspapers. You shouldn’t publish the drivel the Discovery Institute sends out — it’s not news, we’ve heard the opinion a thousand times before and it’s just as hokey, and they’re making you look silly. Do you also print without question the latest missives from the Raelians or Gene Ray?

The latest from the failed freakshow in Seattle is an extended whine by David K. DeWolf that touches on their usual themes: “it’s not faaaaaaaaaair that you won’t let us teach ID in the schoooooools.” “It’s not faaaaaaaair that Republicans were asked whether they believe in evolution.” Yeah, I agree — it’s not fair that you have to present evidence in a scientific argument. This isn’t about being fair.

It’s the same old tired drone that they’ve been making for years. The only part that caught my eye was the conclusion.

At the next presidential debate, I’d like to hear the following question: “Do you think public school students should be permitted to hear both sides of the debate about Darwinian evolution?” American voters want to know their answers.

Ummm, both? Both sides? DeWolf has just finished complaining that it was unfair to ask that question of Republicans because ‘”evolution” was never defined,’ yet here he’s left these strange “sides” undefined. He seems to be assuming that everything should be presented as the idea and its negation; like math class should teach “2 + 2 = 4” and “2 + 2 ≠ 4”. There aren’t two sides in this debate, unless you count presenting the facts as one side, and presenting a batshit insane lie as the other.

Besides, when I hear the words “teach the controversy,” I have this nightmare of me and Larry Moran getting dragged around to every high school in the country to argue about the importance of evo-devo. There are many controversies that scientists argue about, but this ginned-up bogus argument about whether evolution occurred or didn’t ain’t one of them.

Not that I was ever a fan of Archie comics, but I thought they were a little less inane than this:

You can read the whole thing online, if you want to. Sanctimony really doesn’t go well with corn, though.

(via Tikistitch)