Would you believe that Nick Lally has responded — well, reacted might be the better word — to our criticism of his silly letter? This is a reply to one of the editors to whom he had sent his original mail.

Dear “Yo”, for lack of a name….since you have not yet given me yours while you put me out there for others to read.

With the exception of a few bright guys who challenged my facts, the rest of the responses were lame, personal and disrespectful. So typical of you atheists.

But I must admit, I did get a laugh of myself for miss-typing “Louis Pasteur”.

But for now, allow me to explain my position on only one of the responses I read….and later I will respond to the other responses that are worthy:

Your writer wrote: “Actually, we do have transitions between single-celled and multi-cellular organisms. We do have transitions between invertebrates and vertebrates — look up protochordates sometime. Your ignorance of these basic facts is not evidence”

I tell you the following about Choanoflagellates: These one cellular animals are designed with a propulsion system that is similar to an outboard motor. They have a propeller (whip) shaft, etc, etc. Just look at this diagram and you would think you were looking at a motor. [he included a standard cartoon of the bacterial flagellum]

Now, just take away any one part of this motor and ask yourself: Could this machine work? The obvious answer is “no”. So my question to you atheists is simple: How could a one cellular animal that houses a complex design come into existence with all its parts working simultaneously through a natural process called mutation and natural selection?

Isn’t it clear to you that this machine was designed instantaneously by intelligence with a futuristic purpose…and a finished product in mind?

Yo, I tell you the truth: There is a designer. His name is God. I may not understand all there is to Him right now, but one day we all will understand.

Typical creationist, we should say. Note the usual evasion, focusing on the disrespect given to him rather than the content. Note also the goal-post shifting. He said there were no transitions between single-celled and multicellular organisms; I gave him one, the choanoflagellates, so what does he do? Ducks and runs and throws out a different claim, in this case falling back on the tired old ID claim that the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved (it certainly could have: it has homology to other organelles, and there are pathways by which it could have evolved).

Oh, wait…bacterial flagellum? Choanoflagellates do NOT have the rotary flagellum of bacteria. They have the eukaryotic flagellum (also called an undulopodium) which is completely different. Eukaryotic flagella do not rotate, instead consisting of a bundle of fibers that slide past one another to generate a bend in the whole structure.

He really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he was a science teacher?

A while back, I posted some email from Debra Rufini that had been forwarded to me — a long list of stupid arguments for creationism. Now, almost 6 months later, she has discovered my posting, and she is hoppin’ mad.

Hello there Mr. Myers,

I must say that I’m incredibly flattered that you’ve gone to all the trouble to ‘attempt’ to tackle my 50 points. One would assume that seeing as tehy were so ridiculously stupid, that you’d rather fob me off as yet just another ‘religious fool’. Had I written to you (Which I hadn’t even done), representing the Flat Earth Society, I could guarantee that you wouldn’t waste your time on a response. If you did, you’d look pretty stupid.

It’s obvious that you really loathe me without even knowing me, and to be honest with you, I reckon I’d be a pretty miserable, angry person with a chip on my shoulder if I also believed that I was no more than worm meat at the end of the day. I do find it interesting that almost all athiests tend to have this angry & patronising streak in them. If only you would find the love of Christ, and it would all be gone.

It’s not a very professional approach to call people rude names, simply because tehy don’t agree with you, is it?! Sounds like you were the sort of child who threw a tantrum whenerver he didn’t get his sweeties. I would have respected you far more, had you given an adult approach, and responded in a civil manner, in the process not making yourself look so immature.

This ‘thick as bricks’ author has the commpon sense to believe that a mind is responsible for the complexity of life, as opposed to a vast volume of mindless time. Unaided time alone cannot be the great magician that you seem to believe is the case.

It takes a fool to believe that a randomly chewed up piece of chewing gum plus a whole load of time – hey presto; da da – results in a fully functioning Porshe!

Jesus called us to love those who persecute us, so that’s exactly what

And it just kind of ends there.

If you look at my original post, you’ll notice that I didn’t waste any time on it — I just posted her list with little attempt to address the flamboyantly obvious inanity of her arguments. It was like a letter from the Flat Earth Society.

I am not surprised that atheists in the vicinity of Debra Rufini seem angry and patronizing. They’re probably also annoyed and exasperated.

Raise your hand if you think chewing gum for a long time will produce a fine German-engineered automobile…

Yes? You in the back? Oh, you were just scratching your nose.

Hmm. Guess there aren’t any fools here. OK, is there anyone here who thinks biologists believe in gum-to-car transmutation?

Debra! Of course! OK, there is one fool here. Maybe she’ll give us the joy of her commentary in the thread down below.

---

Hang on! I just got the remainder of her message!

Sorry, something happened there – don’t know what!

I was just saying that as Jesus taught us to love those who persecute us, I shall do the same. I pray for you, just as he did for those who crucified him.

Kind regards,

Debra.

P.s. This was typed in a rush, so should there be any spelling mistakes, it’s not because I have the intelligence of a flea. I would like to also point out to you that should this get put on your website, (as I’m sure you’d like to rip me to shreds even further), I shall be deleting any abusive or hate mail I receive either from yourself or any of your other bitter friends.

What a relief. It just wouldn’t be creationist hate mail without the “kind regards” signoff.

A newspaper editor sent me this bizarre little letter. Apparently, the writer, a Mr Nick Lally, was spamming it all over the place, and his copy was also sent to addresses at these domains (actual email addresses stripped to protect the already put-upon):

@ncnnow.com, @krcb.org, @krcb.org, @californiaconnected.org, @humboldt1.com, @ksee.com, @telemundo.com, @koce.org, @cbs.com, @nbc4.tv, @angnewspapers.com, @modocrecord.com, @arcataeye.com, @pulitzer.net, @goldcountrymedia.com, @bakersfield.com, @bakersfield.com, @berkeleydailyplanet.com, @eastbayexpress.com, @canyonnews.com, @bhweekly.com, @bigbeargrizzly.net, @paloverdevalleytimes.com, @carmelpinecone.com, @carmichaeltimes.com, @chicoer.com, @chicoer.com, @triplicate.com, @gte.net, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @svcn.com, @davisenterprise.net, @independentvoice.com, @ivpressonline.com, @herburger.net, @nctimes.com, @eurekareporter.com, @timesstandard.com, @dailyrepublic.net, @pressbanner.com, @fontanaheraldnews.com, @goldcountrymedia.com, @mcn.org, @fresnobee.com, @herburger.net, @gilroydispatch.com, @theunion.com, @hmbreview.com, @pulitzer.net, @thevalleychronicle.com, @freelancenews.com, @pinnaclenews.com, @hb.quik.com, @pe.net, @pulitzer.net, @valleysun.net, @kvsun.com, @recordbee.com, @compuserve.com, @lodinews.com, @pulitzer.net, @gazettes.com, @jewishobserverla.com, @laopinion.com, @dailynews.com, @DowntownNews.com, @latimes.com, @losbanosenterprise.com, @paloaltodailynews.com, @maderatribune.net, @maderatribune.net, @malibutimes.com, @MammothTimes.com, @mantecabulletin.com, @mcn.org, @almanacnews.com, @modbee.com, @modbee.com, @montereyherald.com, @morganhilltimes.com, @mtshastanews.com, @ktsftv.com, @sainte.tv, @indiancountry.com, @napanews.com, @marinij.com, @sierrastar.com, @ojaivalleynews.com, @dailybulletin.com, @dailybulletin.com, @ocregister.com, @palipost.com, @hax.com, @avpress.com, @paradisepost.com, .wilson@sgvn.com, @arguscourier.com, @arguscourier.com, @mtdemocrat.net, @bizjournals.com, @angnewspapers.com, @ptreyeslight.com, @portervillerecorder.com, @busjournal.com, @redbluffdailynews.com

That looks like he had found a directory of California newspapers and was sending his important missive to all of them. Lally is not from California, which makes me wonder if he flooded all the other states in the same way…let me know if you see some garbage with his name in it in your local paper.

Anyway, you’d think that such a widely disseminated letter must contain very important information, but I doubt that the gang here will be surprised at all to learn that it is a poorly written collection of creationist crap. I’ve put it below the fold for your grisly appreciation.

By the way, the author claims to have been a science teacher. I wonder how many young minds were poisoned and how much inquiring curiousity was stifled by this ignorant know-nothing.

[Read more…]

As Wilkins notes, they’ve admitted it now: the producers of Expelled lied to make their movie.

The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.

“We wanted to generate anger,” Ruloff said.

“We always knew we’d get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle.”

Nice guys. You know, it’s pretty easy to get people angry with you by lying about them, but that doesn’t mean it’s a productive strategy.

It did get an uninterested middle to pay attention, though, he’s right on that. Of course, what most of those people quickly learned was that Ruloff was a dishonest fraud. That probably wasn’t his intent.

This is just sad. Lately, Casey Luskin has been quaveringly protesting that poor Michael Behe got a bad shake in the Dover trial, and that Ken Miller misrepresented him in his testimony. Alas, this little mouse didn’t just get caught in a mousetrap — he got blown away by an elephant gun. Ken Miller has a guest post at The Loom in which he demolishes Luskin. I almost feel sorry for him.

Raise a toast to Kent Hovind, whose appeal has been denied.

By the way, another of his dialogs with God has been posted…he wrote it in August, so there seems to be a rather substantial lag in putting them on the web. That’s a shame, since God has such a strong personal interest in Kent.

He declares a bicycle to be irreducibly complex because it can’t function if you remove one wheel.

You can guess where this is going.

Queue up the redefinition calliope, Casey! ‘But it’s not a bicycle anymore, now is it?’

No hard feelings, people, I lived there for a while…but Hoosiers sure can pick ’em. I was there when Dan Quayle was the hero of the hour, and I had no idea they could sink even lower. Here he is, though: Congressman Mark Souder, who claims that the highlight of his year was appearing in Expelled. Seriously, and with fervor.

I personally believe that there is no issue more important to our society than intelligent design. I believe that if there wasn’t a purpose in designing you — regardless of who you view the designer as being — then, from my perspective, you can’t be fallen from that design. If you can’t be fallen from that design, there’s no point to evangelism.

Well, there you go. The economy is a mess, we’re in a war, and the most important thing in the world to an Indiana congressman is proselytizing for Jesus in a crappy Intelligent Design creationism movie.

Now, how that occurred — whether you believe in the young earth theory, gradual evolution, or whatever — is disputed. Those become religious. But whether there was a fundamental designer who developed a complex DNA molecular structure is critical. Since I view that as the most important thing in the world, yes, being in a movie that advanced that cause was the personal highlight of the year.

Hey, I was in that movie, too! I still haven’t seen it, though. Maybe Souder’s performance would turn me into a born-again Christian if I saw it.

Nah…I predict that he was a corn-poney dope in the movie, just like he is in the interview.

I’ve been seeing this argument a lot lately: it’s a brand of exceedingly indiscriminate relativism that is being prominently peddled by Answers in Genesis.

Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians, all have the same evidence–the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.

The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions; these are things that are assumed to be true without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events.

It’s true, I do have some presuppositions. I think that explanations should deal with as much of the evidence as possible; they should avoid contradictions, both internal and with the evidence from the physical world; they should be logical; they should make predictions that can be tested; they should have some utility in addressing new evidence. It’s not too much to ask, I don’t think. “Darwin” is not one of my presuppositions, however. Charles Darwin provided a set of explanations that, after some modification, meet my criteria. I am quite prepared to throw Darwin out, however, if a better explanation came along or if evidence that contradicted his ideas were discovered.

I am not prepared to throw out logic and consistency. The creationists are.

Their cartoon version of equivalence highlights their problem. If we all have the same facts and just different interpretations based on what book we use as a starting premise, how do we discriminate between better interpretations? Are they all equally valid? Imagine “Darwin” replaced with “Koran” — do they really want to argue that the Islamic vision of the world is just as useful as the Christian view? (I would, of course, but that’s because I think both are foolish and narrow.) Swap in the Book of Mormon: that does not mean that suddenly there is truth to the notion of pale-skinned Hebrews warring across the New World in bronze chariots. The existence of Lord of the Rings does not imply that Tolkien fans should believe the world really was populated with elves and orcs, once upon a time.

There are presuppositions, and then there are presuppositions. We should at least try to test our premises, and I think we can all agree that it is possible to rank different presuppositions on the basis of how well they describe reality. Most of us can recognize that Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars are fictions, that what they describe doesn’t exist, and that they probably aren’t very good filters to use in evaluating paleontological evidence. That someone who has accepted The Force as his one true religion does not mean that his claim that Homo erectus is a Wookie requires recognition as a reasonable interpretation.

Similarly, the Bible does not hold up well as a rational presupposition. Its descriptions of how the world works (and, as every rational person knows, it was not intended as a science textbook) are inadequate and full of errors. The portions of the book of Genesis that creationists use as their sole source for the origin of life on Earth is only a few lines of vague poetry, with two self-contradicting accounts of the sequence of events…and it’s a sequence that does not correspond at all well to the observed record of events, and that blithely lumps fish and birds into one useless catch-all category. If this is their lens for viewing the world, it’s a cracked one that is almost entirely opaque.

And no, the fact that the Bible contains one line that mentions a mythical creature called Behemoth does not mean it adequately accounts for all of large animal zoology, nor can one simply claim it is equivalent to a dinosaur, and therefore the Bible is a complete account of the history of life. Dinosaurs were diverse. And shouldn’t it be a greater omission that the Bible fails to mention anything about bacteria?

The patently incomplete nature of the Bible’s descriptions of Earth’s history led honest creationists to admit that further understanding of the Creation required evaluation of the physical evidence. You can’t just claim that humans and dinosaurs coexisted 6,000 years ago: there is no fossil evidence that they were contemporaries, there is no sign of dinosaurs existing so close to the current time, and even within the period of the Mesozoic we can find evidence of faunal succession — the forms found in the Triassic are different from those of the Jurassic are different from those of the Cretaceous. It is not sufficient to simply claim the Bible is your presupposition, therefore you can freely invent facts to fit it — there ought to be some corroborating evidence that shows your interpretations are reasonable. There aren’t any.

And please, when your presuppositions lead to ridiculous assertions, it’s time to question your premises. One of the examples this silly AiG article uses to justify its peculiar relativism is the interpretation of dating methods. Can you see the glaring problem in this rationale from the disgracefully sloppy work of Russell Humphreys?

Consider the research from the creationist RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) concerning the age of zircon crystals in granite. Using one set of assumptions, these crystals could be interpreted to be around 1.5 billion years old based on the amount of lead produced from the decay of uranium (which also produces helium). However, if one questions these assumptions, one is motivated to test them. Measurements of the rate at which helium is able to “leak out” of these crystals indicate that if they were much older than about 6,000 years, they would have nowhere near the amount of helium still left in them. Hence, the originally applied assumption of a constant decay rate is flawed; one must assume, instead, that there has been acceleration of the decay rate in the past. Using this revised assumption, the same uranium-lead data can now be interpreted to also give an age of fewer than 6,000 years.

Using their Biblical presupposition, they need to explain away the evidence of the accumulation of radioactive decay products by assuming that decay rates were roughly one million fold greater in the recent past. They are making a “revised assumption” that would mean that the planet should have exploded into a great glowing cloud of hot vapor a few thousand years ago! Shouldn’t that sort of compel you to rethink your excuses? But no, these guys just sail past the glaring contradiction with empirical reality as if it didn’t exist.

There’s a good reason creationism is not regarded as a fair equivalent to the scientific point of view. It’s because the former fails to pay attention to the physical evidence, while the latter is built, not on presuppositions, but on that evidence.