The Second Edition of the Darwin is Dead carnival is up. I think we can declare that the “Darwin is Dead carnival” is dead now. Orac seems to have had a little problem tallying up the entries, but out of 7 links:

• Three are satires of ID and creationism.
• One is a press release from the Discovery Institute.
• One is more PR from the Institute for Creation Research.
• One is PR from Answers in Genesis.
• Precisely one is an actual blog entry from a sincere creationist (who, by the way, thinks “irreducible complexity” is a serious problem for molecular biology, and therefore has demonstrated that he is a clueless goombah), and even that one the carnival host had to go trawling through crap and invite him to submit it.

I’m sorry to say that the selection is pathetic. Try comparing this thing to the Tangled Bank (which has a new edition coming up next week, by the way)—creationists have another reason to be embarrassed.

Christian corruption at its finest: here’s a Florida Republican working to give a money-making park a tax exemption.

A biblical theme park in Orlando where guests pay $30 admission to munch on “Goliath” burgers and explore reproductions of 2000-year-old tombs and temples could get a property tax exemption written into state law.

A Senate committee easily passed a bill that would grant theme parks “used to exhibit, illustrate, and interpret biblical manuscripts … ” an exemption from local property taxes, like churches, even though the parks charge money.

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Brian Alters, of McGill University, had a grant proposal turned down for an unusual reason.

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A reader sent me a note about this rather well known and deeply stupid poster from Jack Chick…I’d already seen it and addressed it some time ago, but I thought I’d bring back this old article.

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Jack Chick, the author of the infamous Big Daddy anti-evolution tract, has an amusing poster he’s peddling.

It purportedly illustrates a series of frauds in the reported evolutionary history of human beings. The text is too tiny to read at this size, but it’s listed at Chick’s site, and I reproduce it below, along with my response.

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Many people have been writing me to tell me that the last episode of The Sopranos had an interaction between Tony and a creationist (hmmm…which is worse, a mobster or Kent Hovind?), but I only have basic cable so I haven’t seen it. Fortunately, One Good Move has the clip. It’s nice to see we’ve got the Mafia on our side.

(via Majikthise)

Just a few more examples: David P. Wozney, who doesn’t believe dinosaurs ever existed, and Tom Ritter, a Pennsylvania school teacher who wants to have a debate.

I just can’t keep up with them all.

I have to visit Loudon, Virginia someday. It’s where Corsair the Rational Pirate lives, and I think the streets must be humming with dancing clowns and village idiots twirling and a marching kazoo band. I’ve seen stupid creationist arguments before, but these, that were actually published in his local paper, take the cake.

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…but I’m not going to bother linking to his long-winded pompous tripe. Just read Wesley, who has the measure of the man and also has the facts in hand.

Hmmm. That creationist who emailed me a question the other day has sent me another. It’s like feeding raccoons—pretty soon they get the idea they should hang out in swarms around your house, they’re digging in the trash, and they’re pooping all over your lawn. Oh, well, one more time:

Here is another question for you kind consideration:

There are a very large number of species on earth; so many that no one has
been able to count them. Many of them are much older than humans, yet none
of them – not even one of them – evolved to a level comparable to that of
humans? What stopped them? Or, should I say, Who stopped them; and why?

First of all, Mr Creationist, both of your questions so far have been very, very poor—everybody has to start somewhere, I know, but they reflect a near total lack of understanding of anything about evolution or biology. Given that you know zip about biology, isn’t it rather arrogant of you to be questioning the fundamentals of the science? Aren’t you presuming a bit much to be pestering a biology professor with these things rather than cracking a book first and catching up on the basics? I have a list of recommended books; you might want to start with some of the kids’ books first. If you’re more ambitious, try Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)} by Zimmer—it’ll give you the overview you need, with more meat that you can dig into.

But to answer your question briefly now…

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