Creationists have been chanting, “Teach the controversy” at us for some time, to which most biologists simply look puzzled and ask “What controversy?” There is no ongoing debate about the ideas peddled by the Discovery Institute within the scientific community, because, well, there have been no data presented to suggest that it would be a worthwhile and productive discussion.

That’s what I say, but I’m just one peon in the academic complex. But now Bob Camp has done a comprehensive survey to assess whether there actually is a controversy. He wrote to the department heads of a number of biology departments, and asked this simple yes/no question:

Q: Regarding the issue of “Intelligent Design theory” vs. current biological consensus on the mechanisms of evolution – is there a difference of professional opinion within your department that you feel could be accurately described as a scientific controversy?

97% said no. Only one said yes, and that was from a theological medical university.

That’s a handy piece of information. When we’re told to “teach the controversy” in the future, one good answer is to reply that there is no controversy to teach.

Scale Model of a section of the Ark by Russ McGlenn

I blew it off again this year: I just don’t have a strong enough stomach for it. Every year, the Twin Cities Creation Science Association sponsors a science fair, and I tell myself I ought to go see it, but I know what to expect, and I just can’t bring myself to see a bunch of kids getting intellectually abused.

It’s pretty much like any other science fair, which means that 90% of it is utter dreck that kids have done because it was required of them, and 10% is real enthusiasm and an honest appreciation of good but simple science. The TCCSA science fair is a lot like ordinary science fairs, and plainly borrows heavily from the usual rules of science fairs, but it has a few differences.

Every exhibit is required to display a Bible verse.

The exhibits have an unusual goal:

Five things to remember:
1. Know your material.
2. Be Confident.
3. Communicate well.
4. Be thorough.
5. Pray your exhibit will witness to non-Christian visitors.

That is one of our main goals at the Science Fair.

Their questions are peculiar, and unfortunately, they have to lie about what evolutionary biologists do.

Evolutionists ask this question:
How can I prove that evolution is true (and God does not exist). This may not be stated in this way, but is inferred by their writings. Darwin and others have said that if evolution is true, there is no need for God.

Creation scientists need to ask this question:
What can I learn about myself, God, and God’s plan for the universe as I study His creation today. I believe true science is a way to learn more about God and ourselves. It is a living class room in which God is the Instructor and we the students. Jesus used common things in nature to illustrate his principles as he taught.

There is a list of suggested research topics that range from the trivial and inane, to reasonable science fair topics, to ludicrous religious babble:

3. Make a computer model of the Flood currents.
4. Statistical occurrence of giants, and midgets and dwarfs and giantism. Use Princess Flo, Goliath, and brothers. [Calling Jim Pinkoski!]
6. Build and run studies on a strata forming wave tank. This would confirm or disprove strata are all laid down at the same time. See http://www.icr.org/newsletters/impact/impactoct00.html and video tape Evidences: The Record & the Flood from Geoscience Research .
12. Trilobites prove Noah’s flood because they are curled up or not?
13. Do Lilydale closed clam fossils support a world wide flood? Collect 100 shells and compare.
35. Why does the Bible say there is one glory of the sun, one glory of the moon, and one glory of the stars?
52. What was the weather like before the Flood?
53. Were all the animals friendly to man before the Flood? Idea: raise several baby animals like snake and mouse together to see if they remain friends as they are older.
54. Why do they live longer before the Flood?
56. Why do plants and insects die in the Fall?
58. Why did God create the moon to control the tides?
72. What is God made of?
80. Why did God make pests like bugs and mosquitoes?
92. Why do some animals lay eggs and others bare babies alive? Why did God do it this way?
97. Why did God make birds to fly?
98. Were dinosaurs alive at the same time as humans?
102.Why do we have pimples? Did God goof?
103.Where was the Garden of Eden? Is it around today?
105.What are aliens and are there really any in our world? see Lamentations 5:2, Eph 2:12, Heb 11:34.
112. What is the difference between cold and warm blooded? Why did God do it this way?

There are photos of this year’s fair online. Browsing through them, I don’t see any sign of the kind of idiocy espoused above, and in fact it looks most ordinary: a mob of cute kids, and some goofy posters, some promising. It’s just too bad it’s all warped and run by a bunch of dingbats.

The Salem hypothesis is an old chestnut from talk.origins. It was proposed by a fellow named Bruce Salem who noticed that, in arguments with creationists, if the fellow on the other side claimed to have personal scientific authority, it almost always turned out to be because he had an engineering degree. The hypothesis predicted situations astonishingly well—in the bubbling ferment of talk.origins, there were always new creationists popping up, pompously declaiming that they were scientists and they knew that evolution was false, and subsequent discussion would reveal that yes, indeed, they were the proud recipient of an engineering degree.

Stating the Salem hypothesis was also a good way of stirring the pot, because there are always engineers around who have not succumbed to creationist nonsense, and they’d get all huffy and denounce the very idea. Of course, it doesn’t say that engineers are all creationists: it says that creationists with advanced degrees are often engineers, a completely different thing altogether.

Here’s an excellent example of the Salem hypothesis in the form of letters to the Electronic Engineering Times. Engineers, your honor is safe: for every foolish declaration that organisms are examples of design, there are a couple of sharply worded smackdowns.

Some Pennsylvania private schools have a new advertising campaign:

The billboard ads say “Intelligence … by Design” and show a Bible Baptist teacher and students.

The Harrisburg Christian radio ad features the voice of science teacher Stephanie Morris. She describes weaknesses in the theory of evolution and says, “The foundation of my biology course is a personal God and creator.”

Harrisburg Christian has 302 students and costs up to $6,600 per year. Bible Baptist, with 475 students, costs up to $4,400 a year.

That’s 777 students getting a sub-standard education in the sciences, and $4,083,200 getting flushed down a rathole. It’s an odd situation, where the wealthy yank their kids out of the public schools and put them in an expensive pit of ignorance by choice, and at the same time fight to underfund the public education they’ve abandoned and turn the schools the poor and middle class rely on into holding pens. We all lose.

Whoa. This is amazing. A NY Times reporter got a Discovery Institute press release, and he didn’t just accept it on their say-so—he actually went digging to find out how accurate it was. I have to give Kenneth Chang his due for going below the surface and investigating a claim.

The Discovery Institute has been circulating a petition since 2001, trying to get people to sign on to a statement of dissent from Darwin. They’ve now got over 500 signatures on it, but as the article shows, the majority are not biologists, and in interviews with some of the signers, many seem to have signed because of religious sensibilities. When asked, they did dig up two signers who were not religious, and one is David Berlinski, who is not a scientist but is instead a professional pompous ass and semi–supporter of astrology. The list includes Phil Skell, a major crackpot.

That’s why these petitions are meaningless: there will always be fringe characters who will sign on to anything that pokes the establishment in the eye.

As Josh Rosenau shows, there’s another reason the DI petition could get that many signatures: it’s meaningless and gutless. The thing is titled “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism,” for Odin’s sake…”Darwinism”? I dissent from “Darwinism”—it’s a theory that’s over a century old, that has been extensively revised, and Darwinism sensu strictu doesn’t exist as a major theory anymore. It’s a straw man that creationists flail at.

Look at the cowardly statement they ask people to sign:

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

That’s it? They can’t even mention their pet guess of Intelligent Design, but instead ask people to sign off on a statement professing the values of skepticism and careful examination? Weak, man, weak. Pathetic.

Hey, I’ve got this idea that Martians are zapping George Bush’s brain with their orbiting lasers, causing it to shrivel and collapse. Do you think the NSA, FBI, CIA, EPA, NCD and RRB will pay attention to me if I get enough people to sign a petition deploring neurodegenerative diseases?

This article by Catherine Tsai on ghastly creationist museum tours is getting syndicated all over the place, so I’m getting lots of mail from people complaining about this dreck appearing in the local paper. Basically, there is a group, Biblically Correct Tours, that is parasitizing museums, leeching money off people and leading them on tours through the museums while coughing up idiotic religious interpretations of their contents. It’s not just lying about the age of the earth, either; it’s accusing scientists of deep evil.

The tours are not all fun and games, with the guides claiming that evolutionist thinking supports racism and abortion. This happened on a recent NCAR tour, when Carter told a dozen children and their parents abortion was an act of natural selection carried out by humans.

Other tours suggest Hitler was playing his version of survival of the fittest by favoring whites, and note that museum dioramas of early humans have black “subhumans.”

“My contention is evolution kills people,” Jack said in an interview. “It’s not that evolutionists don’t have morality, it’s that evolution can offer no morality. Ideas have consequences. If you believe you came from slime there is no reason not to, if you can, get away with anything.”

One interesting comment is from one of the tour guides who is spewing this nonsense.

Carter, who has a degree in biblical studies, admits feeling somewhat intimidated when he first gave tours, knowing scientists were listening. “I used to think, ‘What are they thinking? Are they going to come out and correct me?'” he says.

I don’t think he needs to worry. Most people will simply ignore other people saying stupid things—why, it would be rude to correct misinformation—and even the people behind these museums make excuses for them.

Teri Eastburn, an educational designer at NCAR, said she would never engage in such discussions during a tour. She said the complex welcomes anyone, but notes in-house tours only espouse scientific views of the world.

“We try to explain it using evidence that we find in the natural world, whereas religion is dealing more with spirituality, ethics and morality, which science does not deal with at all,” she said. “It’s different ways of knowing. How people reconcile the ways of knowing is an individual choice.”

I would direct your attention to the quote a couple of paragraphs above, where the clueless twit from Biblically Correct Tours is telling people that the science of evolution is tied to abortion and Hitler and killing people. If religion is involved with “spirituality, ethics and morality”, this is a clearly a case where its influence is pernicious and vile. A museum is a place that is supposed to be dedicated to informing and educating the public (yeah, and making money…), and this is a case where a contemptible group is perverting its purpose to misinform and miseducate (and make money for itself.) I would consider it an obligation of the staff to speak out against it, not to make excuses.

That nice article by Matthew Nisbet I cited earlier has a fourth point: GOING ON THE OFFENSIVE IS GOOD. This is an excellent example of a place where the public and scientists and our institutions ought to be going on the offensive: when one of these tour groups goes through, and some biblical studies major babbles stupidly and misstates a scientific fact, everyone around him should turn around and shout, for the benefit of the group, “THAT’S NOT TRUE!” Make ’em sweat. Make the tour groups realize that all these smart people visiting the museum are looking at them like they’re a mob of dumb hicks and gomers, if they aren’t willing to listen to legitimate scientific explanations. And take the time to tell them what those scientific explanations are—they’re far more interesting and satisfying than the Biblically Correct Nonsense the guide is giving them.

I’m going to back up John Lynch on this one. The Flock of Dodos guy, Randy Olson, has a list of “TEN THINGS EVOLUTIONISTS CAN DO TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION”, and I have to say I’m not excited about them. While they’re well-intentioned and would be good things to do, it’s too glib and unrealistic. I’ve got a couple of comments over there, but I’ll just repeat one here to summarize my complaint.

I think another twist on this is to point out that maybe one reason you found it so easy to list problems is that you’ve picked the obvious, including some problems that we’re already well aware of. It’s like having a general inspect the army and create lists of shortcomings—they’re too few in number, they don’t have enough ammo, the new recruits are poorly trained—and just declaring “fix those, and we’ll win.” Well, yeah. Finding weaknesses is easy. Declaring that the way to achieve victory is to be flawless in all matters is obvious.

What is more useful and far more difficult is to rattle off a list of strengths (I suspect science might have a few) and explain how those might be exploited in spite of deficiencies elsewhere to achieve that victory.

That’s what we’re looking for now. Telling scientists that they have to be witty and humorous and media-savvy and rich and less intellectual is nice (maybe we should also all have ponies, too, and hey, Very Large Breasts are always a plus), but it doesn’t help. What we need are accurate assessments of what we do have, and what we can capitalize on.

Maybe it’s my own high dork factor talking, but I’m not too receptive to people telling me I need movie star qualities to be able to support science, or that we have to pander to superficial sensibilities to communicate a message. Our strengths are depth, intelligence, evidence, history, the whole damn natural world, and just plain having the best and most powerful explanation for its existence. Don’t tell us to dumb it down and glitz it up—I think people should be smart enough to understand it, and there’s grandeur enough in it that dressing it up in rhinestones is just silly. We need to know how to communicate real science, not Hollywood cartoon science, to people.

I must immediately urge the Social Affairs Unit to consider confining their essays to social matters, or affairs, or units, because dang, when they start chattering about science, it’s like watching monkeys do philosopy—they really aren’t suited to it, and it all boils down to a comic-opera poop-frolic no matter what.

The latest effort is by one Myles Harris…the same Myles Harris who invented bogus criticisms of evolution a while back. Now he’s written a little misbegotten parable about a medieval kingdom where a strange artifact is dug up: a “box made of an unknown, shiny metal” with “an arrangement of what look like keys,” and inside, “a network of tiny green boards covered in gold, copper and silver wires.” He’s trying too hard to be clever; just say a laptop computer and be done with it. After all, he’s willing to plainly call the truth-quashing villains of his story “evolutionists”—this is a primitive kingdom with a ‘priesthood’ of evolutionists, apparently.

The box, evolutionists say, is obviously a product of chance. The common people should not, just because it is so complex, be misled into thinking it is anything else than a sophisticated natural object. If they do they will be falling for the “watch heresy”. Many years ago a noted theologian suggested that if you came across a pocket watch in a forest you would be correct in thinking it was designed by an intelligent hand. This was proved to be quite wrong because many natural objects are far more complicated than a pocket watch, and they arose by chance. Because this object was a million times more complicated did not mean it was designed. Evolution was perfectly capable of creating objects even more complicated than the metal box.

It’s embarrassingly bad, full of obvious logical flaws. If a machine-like artifact, even one whose principles of operation were sophisticated beyond our comprehension, were dug up, “evolutionists” wouldn’t be arguing that the rules of the biological world applied to it unless it exhibited properties resembling those of life. Harris is reduced to inventing characters with views stupid enough that he is capable of coping with them (which means they have to be awfully dim), such as this idea that evolution is about complicated things arising by chance.

Harris himself sent me the link to it. I guess he likes attention, even if it is of the sort we give to circus monkeys. Weird little people over there at SAU…

Michael Behe’s reputation is spiraling down the drain a little more. He denies the ongoing research on his favorite scientific examples, the flagellum and the immune system, and I think Les Lane has the right idea—his favorite icon, Mt Rushmore, needs a little more undermining, too.

That first link above includes an excellent quote from the prescient and thorough Charles Darwin; he had the Behes pegged over a century ago.

[I]gnorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.