Last night, Jeffrey Shallit debated a creationist. We must now shun him for violating the code of the evilutionist.

No, not really. But it’s another case where the best tactics aren’t clear and simple. On the one hand, we do want to engage the public in a discussion of the ideas, and sometimes a debate is a good way to do that; but on the other, it’s giving the anti-science opponent a platform and a good deal more credibility than he deserves. I’m confident that Shallit mopped the floor with the twerp, but that’s not the point — it’s that a creationist was given equal standing with science, which is not a good result.

Another concern is that if Shallit had a bad day and did not clobber his opponent, the creationist will have much to crow about. This is a game where the science has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Mark Hoofnagle has a very good discusion of the to-debate/not-to-debate dilemma. I’ve had a few requests to do this sort of thing, and I turn them down and suggest alternatives. If they’re going to give the stage to a creationist some evening, give it to me or another biologist the next evening; let us discuss the science without have to trudge through the drivel a creationist will yammer about. It also has the advantage of drawing in an audience that is willing to think and learn; creationist debates are typically stocked with committed yahoos from the local church, and the last thing they want to do is actually think.

Another reasonable alternative, if the creationist is going to be up there on stage whether you like it or not, is to propose that he give a short talk in which he gives his dreckspiel, and then bring a panel of experts on stage to handle questions from the audience…real experts in geology and biology and physics, who don’t give talks of their own, but are available to address any issues the audience wants to bring up. Turn the creationist talk into an oral defense of his thesis, followed by the kind of grilling to which scientists are accustomed. Remember, they are the ones with the very weak case, and they should be expected to work to defend their argument.

But these debates do happen, we can learn from them, and good for Jeff for taking a creationist head-on. I’m also going to be in a debate of my own in February (not on creationism, though, but on religion), so I can’t be too much of a purist on these matters. But we should be thinking of different ways of handling these public arguments with creationists other than accepting the format they choose to impose on us.

John Lynch seems to have about as little to say about this statistic as I do: 60% of adult, educated, normal Americans believe Genesis is literally true. Or, more accurately, 60% of Americans say they think Genesis is literally true.

There is a difference. There is an attitude that religious explanations must not be questioned that is common here: what we need to do, and what I think the “New Atheists” are most successfully doing, is waking people up to the idea that that is not true — you can argue with religious proclamations, and having a divinity degree does not make you smart, let alone infallible. In fact, theologians face an image problem if they keep throwing up these long-winded clueless twits to be chewed up by meanies like Dawkins and Hitchens.

I told you that the Discovery Institute was going to have conniptions over the Stein/O’Reilly interview. O’Reilly defined ID as the idea that “a deity created life,” and I could have mentioned this nonsense from Stein:

There’s no doubt about it. We have lots and lots of evidence of it in the movie. And you know Einstein worked within the framework of believing there was a God. Newton worked within the framework of believing there was a God. For gosh sakes Darwin worked within the framework of believing there was a God. And yet, somehow, today you’re not allowed to believe it. Why can’t we have as much freedom as Darwin had?

So now ID is a framework for god-belief. This is far off the reservation; the DI wants you to believe that there isn’t a shred of religious motivation behind their propaganda…a lie that was cleanly refuted in the Dover trial. It’s a lie that they want to continue to ask you to believe, however, but O’Reilly and Stein and all the happy creationists who freely associate ID with their theistic creationism haven’t got the message.

So the Discovery Institute Media Complaints Division has issued a hasty demurral. I knew it would be coming.

I wonder if the guys behind Expelled are doing a frantic rewrite right now?

Maybe not—there is something else to consider. This may be exactly what they want: official denials coupled to widespread public perception that ID supports their religion. If the Discovery Institute convincingly argued that their guess was entirely secular and had nothing at all to do with god, it would die away and disappear overnight. They’ve got to walk this risky tightrope of pandering to the religious for their support while struggling to maintain plausible deniability that they have a religious agenda. It’s got to be hard, poor fellas, but they may actually appreciate fronts like O’Reilly and Stein keeping the religious fervor going, while allowing them to remain officially aloof from it all.

Ben Stein and Bill O’Reilly.

Bill made a thousand creationist hearts flutter in dismay when he opened with his introductory definition: “intelligent design, that is, a deity created life”. It was, unfortunately, the last hint of intelligence in the whole segment.

Ben Stein is an astonishingly ignorant person. He goes on and on about several themes.

[Read more…]

That nice but batty lady, Denyse O’Leary, is teaching a course in intelligent design. At the University of Toronto. Woe, the devaluation of a great research university…!

Oh, but wait. It’s actually taught at St Michael’s College, a Catholic institution within the University of Toronto. And you have to look at the course entry to believe it. It’s a non-credit course under the category of “Scripture, Spirituality & Pastoral Care”, and the listing is buried in the middle of a lot of theology, mysticism, New Age nonsense, and gibbering madness.

it fits in perfectly.

Kent Hovind may be rotting in jail, but his son Eric is continuing the family tradition of lying to the public. Eric Hovind is going to be here in Minnesota on 28 October,
giving a talk at the Russian Evangelical Christian Church in Shakopee. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, but this could be interesting. Not Hovind — I understand he’s just doing his daddy’s same old patented high-speed babble with corn-pone jokes — but these new Russian evangelicals have been in the news lately, and have been exhibiting a particularly virulent strain of hate and ignorance. I know nothing about this particular Shakopee church, but I’d be curious to find out if there’s any connection to Watchmen on the Walls. If anyone goes, let me know.

Uh, and if you’re gay, you might not want to go. Just in case.

Tsk, tsk, Canada. I know you caught this disease from your southern neighbor, but still…
this is a sorry state of affairs.

The Alberta government has been quietly increasing funding to faith schools — to 100 per cent in the case of “alternative” programs — and allowing creationism to be taught alongside the Alberta curriculum.
Currently, this movement is most visible in the Ontario election campaign where Conservative Leader John Tory has promised a free vote on funding for all faith schools, pointing to Alberta as an example.

In response to a question, Tory said, “You know it’s still called the theory of evolution. But they teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs.” His comments show a dismal lack of scientific literacy.

It sounds like many people are working to correct this deplorable backsliding, but they haven’t gone quite as far as Sweden.

The Swedish government is to crack down on the role religion plays in independent faith schools. The new rules will include a ban on biology teachers teaching creationism or ‘intelligent design’ alongside evolution.

“Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism,” said Education Minister Jan Björklund to Dagens Nyheter.

Now that is clear, unambiguous, and forceful. Maybe Ben Stein should pay a visit to Sweden sometime.