Dembski’s cover is blown

There was a “debate” between Michael Shermer and William Dembski at the University of Kentucky. I’m not a fan of these pseudo-debates—they’re really just a pair of presentations, where the creationist can leech off the other guy’s reputation—and I don’t think Shermer is the best guy to defend biology, but this one seems to have had an interesting result.

Then came the question and answer session. The most striking thing was that every single question was for Dembski. People came prepared. They brought typed-up questions, asking him why he had been dismissed as an expert witness from Dover, why the Discovery Institute would not let Eugenie C. Scott use long excerpts of their material, why ID proponents don%u2019t publish or provide data, how the Discovery Institute can be taken seriously as an objective research organization when it had published a document in 1999 stating that it wanted to combat secularism (to which Demski pointed out the many pro-atheist comments made by people like Gould and Dawkins). Although Demski handled himself well, he seemed somewhat nonplussed. Meanwhile Shermer made a few rebuttals mixed with jokes.

Don’t knock the idea of getting the public informed. This is what we need: more intelligent, prepared citizens who are willing to confront these frauds and make them uncomfortable. Dembski is going to find himself increasingly isolated, I hope, and is going to find himself giving his lectures solely to sympathetic church-group audiences.

God hates squid

From the comments, here’s something bizarre: creationists (at least the ones at Answers in Genesis) have defined life…and it excludes squid! I have yet another reason to reject the Bible, in this case for disrespecting perfectly wonderful invertebrates.

Many scientists make the distinction that vertebrates have hemoglobin,
hence red blood, and invertebrates contain other oxygen transporting
proteins, like hemocyanins, and do not have red blood. As far as
we’ve researched at this time, all vertebrates have hemoglobin and
invertebrates do not, though there may be exceptions we are not aware
of.

So, animals that contain hemoglobin (vertebrates) and therefore have
red blood can be considered “living” and animals that contain
hemocyanin, or other proteins (invertebrates) and therefore have blue
(pink/violet or brown) blood can be considered “nonliving”. This is
further supported by Scripture since the Hebrew for “blood” (dawm)
is derived from the Hebrew for “red” (aw-dam). And with Genesis
1:20-22 and Leviticus 11:10, there is a distinction between
“living” creatures and “swarming/moving” creatures that teem in
the waters. So the logical conclusion can be made that a “living”
creature is one that contains red blood.

There’s much more, but it’s all masturbiblation, picking at words and extracting far more significance from them than is warranted, all to determine that squid actually aren’t alive*. There’s hairsplitting in Genesis, and a silly exegesis of the dietary rules in Leviticus.

What I’d really love to see now, though, is the rhetorical squirming they’d go through when it’s pointed out that human embryos do not develop red blood cells until about the 5th week of development, and therefore the early embryo, by their own definition, is not living. Heh.

One bit of good news: this definition greatly simplifies the project to create an army of death-ray-wielding undead squid-men.

Ben Domenech: creationist

Let us continue our Ben Domenech bashing. He’s got this somewhat high profile gig at the Washington Post, and one has to wonder what his qualifications are. I think we can rule out “intelligence.”

GWW made an interesting discovery: he’s a creationist. I don’t understand why the Right is constantly elevating these ignoramuses; there must still be a few conservatives who read this site (I can’t possibly have driven you all away)…aren’t you embarrassed by this kind of thing?

For instance, here’s some dumb-as-a-post reasoning:

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Archbishop of Canterbury, anti-creationist

Lots of people have been emailing me the story that the Archbishop of Canterbury backs evolution. I have to confess to mixed feelings.

On the one hand, it’s good to have a religious authority figure coming down on the side of sense. I applaud the sentiment of his statements, and hope they have some positive influence.

On the other hand, I don’t give a flying firkin what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks, and would question his authority to even make such a pronouncement. If people are going to accept things because someone who wears a funny hat on Sunday says so, where are they going to learn the critical thinking to question when said funny-hat wearer announces that crackers magically turn into meat or that an omnipotent invisible super-being is very fussy about where you put your penis? I simply do not recognize the foundation for his authority.

To be honest, I much prefer stories where religious people in ornate garments say crazy stupid things, because I want to see their authority diminished. I will be very worried when the Mormon elders, Desmond Tutu, the president of American Atheists, the Pope, a voudoun priestess, the Dalai Lama, JZ Knight, the Archbishop of Canterbury, some dessicated ascetic hermit from North Africa, the Raelians, Pat Robertson, the Unitarians, etc., all get together and announce that they are going to simply acknowledge and accept the scientific and natural explanations for the origin and evolution of life and stop meddling in the materialist issues to focus exclusively on the purely ‘spiritual’ life of their flocks. If that day comes, I won’t have any looney religious ideas to complain about, and there goes half the outrage that drives me to write. And I will also fear that the kooks and frauds are simply consolidating their power in claims beyond anyone’s power to test.

I have those suspicions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, too—I think he’s just trying to make sure his authority is based on ideas not subject to empirical testing.

Hovind in Dover

Kent Hovind has been giving his creation “science” seminars in Dover, and it’s a fairly revolting situation. He’s glib, he’s amusing, he’s popular, and he’s lying constantly. David Neiwert discusses his roots as a “right-wing extremist with a penchant for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.

The sad thing about the accounts are the little kids who are getting suckered by this shameless fraud.

Watch out for the mudghah on the sidewalk

Weirder. This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I have read yet on development from a creationist, from The Quran on Human Embryonic Development.

The next stage mentioned in the verse is the mudghah stage. The Arabic word mudghah means “chewed substance.” If one were to take a piece of gum and chew it in his or her mouth and then compare it with an embryo at the mudghah stage, we would conclude that the embryo at the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance. This is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that “somewhat resemble teethmarks in a chewed substance.”

Prepare to laugh or weep…here is the figure accompanying this pseudoscientific absurdity. I’ve tucked it below the fold to prevent fatalities; click through only if you are well-prepared and braced, aren’t elderly, infirm, or an infant, and have had all your vaccinations.

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A creationist pest

A certain creationist has been spamming me lately with these same questions over and over. I’ll answer them here, and I’ll send the link to JASE3217 and see if we can’t get him over here to “handle the truth.”

From: JASE3217
To: pzmyers@pharyngula.org
Sent: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:23:10 -0500
Subject: About evolution?

1. Is a theory a fact or a belief?

2. Where did the gases (big bang theory) come from?

3. After the water was formed, what was the first creature to come out of it?

4. Was it amphibious? Or did it run in and out of the water until it developed lungs?

5. If, yes why would it develop lungs under water?

6. What are the true mathematical odds (ask someone in your physics department) of something evolving? Of course you won’t because you don’t like the physics department, because they always prove biologist wrong.

7. If any of these questions are answered with a no, then using science they can not be facts at all!

This would make the cartoon completely hypocritical. You see if you just simply BELIEVE in evolution, then you have a religion! The religion maybe Darwinism, but if you answer I don’t know to any of the questions above then you have a faith based concept of how we as a planet came about. Not a fact based!

I would challenge you to answer these questions, and give me a reply! I doubt you will, because most of you people are only interested in your truth and not actual truth. Try reading LEE STROBEL, “A Case for Christ.”

I see you won’t answer my questions, but I figured you wouldn’t because most liberals can’t handle the truth.

Ho hum. I’ve put my answers below the fold.

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