Sometimes I get requests for assistance with creationists. Usually, it’s because some unwarrantedly confident ignoramus has been lying his butt off. Here’s a perfect example:

I have a quick question concerning an encounter I had with a man last night who claimed he was a scientist (although, foolishly, I didn’t ask him what field).

He made the claim that the majority of biologist do not “believe” in evolution. (He also pulled out the standard canards of “no macro biology” and “evolution requires faith”; I’m not wasting my time or your with this.) He claimed he has a “list” of all the biologist who “disbelieve” in evolution. and the many books he has read show this to be true.

I know this false. I told him so, but really didn’t want to get into this. He claimed the media made it seem as if biologists accepted evolution.

I cannot for the life me understand exactly where he is coming from. Do you know anything about some “list” circulating apologists of biologist who supposedly don’t accept the theory of evolution. I know a few do, but isn’t the scientific consensus something on the lines of 95%?

I’m curious if you’ve heard similar claims before and what you make of them. Next time I see this made I would like to be able to simply, flatly explain to him that he is wrong. (When a “scientist” tells me that evolution is random chance, my BS meter goes off like you wouldn’t believe. But since I’m not a scientist, he can try to claim some sort of argument from authority over me, and I don’t want to be hypocrite and claim my own argument from authority.)

Of course I’ve heard of this list: it’s the infamous Discovery Institute list of “scientists who dissent from Darwinism”, parodied by the Project Steve list, and which contains a few hundred names, many of whom are not scientists — the list leans towards dentists and engineers and such. It is a tiny number of people…if the majority of scientists rejected evolution, it would be rather easy to get tremendous numbers of names signed on, don’t you think?

Even easier, though, pick a biology department, any department anywhere. Go in and ask the faculty what they think of evolution. You’ll discover impressive unanimity — virtually 100% of every department will tell you that evolution is true and useful. You will find an occasional exception, though: the Lehigh University biology department comes to mind, and even there, they post a disclaimer stating that Michael Behe is the sole dissenter who rejects their unequivocal support of evolutionary theory.

My correspondent’s mysterious “scientist” was that extremely common phenomenon among creationists, the guy who has no evidence and relies on blustering falsehoods, a complete fraud.

Speaking of creationist liars…how about Casey Luskin? The primary reason so many biologists accept evolution is that it simply works: it’s a useful theoretical tool that guides research successfully, and helps scientists get work done and published. If the ID crowd actually had a model that helped us understand the world better, we’d be flocking to it. In an email debate, a fellow named Rhiggs engaged Luskin on just this topic, asking for sources to positive evidence and experiments backing design. Luskin tosses out the usual creationist handwaving, and attempts to hijack the work of legitimate, non-creationist scientists as supporting ID…but completely fails to produce any of that primary research literature that Rhiggs is asking for.

There are quite lengthy exchanges going on there, with Luskin always evading the main point (I could have said this was a futile effort: Luskin is no scientist, and his ignorance is legendary). Finally, though, he gives an excuse:

I assure you that I don’t ignore arguments. You don’t know me and I am not that kind of person. In fact, I’ve been traveling a lot for work lately, but in the last week over the course of 2 long plane flights I’ve managed to find time to work on replying to you. I’m nearly done with the reply and I hope to finish it on another flight I have later this week. FYI, my reply is already over 5000 words, and it begins by saying, “Greetings after an undesired delay on my part. I appreciate the time you took in your extensive reply. Because you put in so much time, you deserve a reply. I apologize that it took a while to reply–I’ve been busy a lot over the past couple weeks, including much traveling, and in fact I’m finally getting some free time now that I’m on a flight.” Thanks again–I hope you will hear from me soon.

“Soon” is 13 months ago. Maybe I’ll have to post reminders to him on Paul Nelson Day — this is becoming expected behavior from that gang of propagandists.

Stop the presses! I was sent a better, more accurate, and more informative timeline for Intelligent Design creationism. Use this one.

You can see why this one is better. It goes into the future.

I hand out a geological timeline in my introductory biology course, and I expect the students to learn it. It’s a busy little sheet of paper. But have you ever wondered what the old earth creationist timeline would look like?

[Read more…]

Someone at the Discovery Institute received a vaguely threatening email. If the writer is someone who reads this, you’ve done something disgraceful, and you should send an apology immediately; we do not threaten to silence or cause harm to the clowns of creationism. Laugh at them, dissect their arguments, explain that they are damaging education in this country…but you draw the line at intimidation and threats of personal damage. Got it?

That said, I have to also say that the DI’s reaction was amusing. This is the first time they’ve received a death threat? Overall, then, our side (with the obvious exception of this one violator) has been commendably restrained — I’ve been receiving email with that tone or worse for years now, several times a week. I wish the abusive jerk had not done this stupid thing, so that our record would be spotless.

The races aren’t quite over, but the good news is that the four non-creationists running for the Lincoln board of education have successfully advanced to the general election. Don’t forget to vote on 5 May!

Ray Comfort went off to New Zealand to have a debate — and wouldn’t you know it, he stood up there and repeated the same bunk he spouts on his blog. Oh, wait: he did change one thing. Instead of talking about elephants, he changed his animal that he claimed couldn’t possibly have evolved to a dog. Woo hoo. He also completely ignored his opponent’s arguments.

Ray Comfort is currently in the lead for top status in my list of dishonest, stupid creationists.

I keep telling people this isn’t only about biology — every scientific discipline is under attack. I’m sure physicists aren’t complacent: another teaching standard diluted into meaninglessness was one about the age of the universe.

Originally in the Texas school standards was this phrase: “concept of an expanding universe that originated about 14 billion years ago.” However, board member Barbara Cargill thought this wasn’t good enough. It was too definite. The standards now read, “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.” You can bet that the age of the earth is not listed in the Texas curriculum as about 4.5 billion years old — in spite of the fact that most of the people my age and older have known (or rather, estimated) this for years.

It’s too late and they aren’t going to listen to me anyway, but if I had to modify that particular standard, I would have changed it to “how we know the universe is expanding and originated about 14 billion years ago.” That would certainly cover the spirit of Cargill’s revision, forcing teachers to discuss methodology and evidence. Right?

Or does Cargill seriously want teachers to discuss 4.5 billion year old earth explanations vs. myths that say the earth is 0.000006 billion years old? Because that would be ridiculous.

Once upon a time, a creationist invented a brand new pseudo-scientific term, which he even presented at a scientific conference. It was a very, very silly idea called “ontogenetic depth”. I criticized the idea publicly and viciously, pointing out that the concept had no explanation, no methodology, and had produced no results, which prompted the creationist, Paul Nelson, to promise to present us all with a detailed explanation “tomorrow”.

We’ve been waiting for a little while for tomorrow to get here. Paul Nelson promised us an answer tomorrow 5 years ago.

Ever since, we celebrate Paul Nelson day every year on 7 April. Richard Hoppe jumped the gun and announced it last week, which is OK — Nelson did drag out the promises for quite a while, and the 7th was a somewhat arbitrary choice. Last year, I suggested a simple and appropriate way to commemorate the event.

In his honor, we should all make it a point to ask people “How do you know that?” today, and the ones who actually can explain themselves competently will be complimented by being told that they’re no Paul Nelson.

It’s kind of like the folk tradition of chasing away demons on certain days of the year, only what we do is terrify creationists by roaming about demanding that they fork over evidence, at which time they scurry away and hide. Have fun!

By the way, I said something else last year.

We’ll celebrate it again next year, I’m sure.

I’m a prophet. We’ll have another chance next year, too.