Next time you hear the tornado-in-a-junkyard argument (almost as common as the why-are-there-still-monkeys argument!), remember this rebuttal:
Creationists seeking to argue against evolution often liken the evolution of complex organisms by natural selection to the building of a DC-10 by a hurricane blowing through a junkyard. Their conclusion? Since such an event is staggeringly unlikely, a special sentient hurricane must have built the plane deliberately.
That’s going to be handy!
Especially since some of the creators of these ideas seem to have confused “theory” for “brain fart”. The latest example: Zygote Theory!
Gather ’round, children, and dear old Unca Jack will explain to you how the dinosaurs went extinct. It’s not how you think. There were no meteors or comets, no egg-eating mammals, no saurian pandemics. It’s because so many plants died in the great flood.
The story of the Robert Marks debacle has now made the pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education. If the account is accurate, I’m going to do something you’ll only rarely see: I’ll take the side of the creationist.
Uncommon Descent must have noticed ERV’s comment that no one reads their site, because now they seem to be frantically chumming the waters with bizarre bait. I’ll bite; like a shark, I’m a mindless eating machine, exquisitely sensitive to the thrashing of victims and the scent of blood. And it makes for great street theater!
I knew this was going to happen, but I’m no prophet — it’s just what the creationists always do. Frank Pastore follows the lead of our national news media and declares evolution debunked because of recent discoveries in paleontology. You can probably guess which ones.
Oh, no! Now Tiny Frog is giving ammunition to the producers of Expelled by revealing The Stifling Dominance of Secular Academia! At least biologists aren’t being picked on in this case — it’s those biased secular theories of physics that are being blamed.
Check out the pulp edition of the Carnival of the Godless — it’s got pulp superheroes narrating the action. I never quite imagined Occam as a ham-fisted bruiser, but OK…
If you prefer a softer approach than those scary godless atheists, there’s also a Humanist Symposium available today.
As usual, Revere has a short, clear sermonette. He does make one mistake, though: he compares theology to a chess game in which there are many intricacies, but that the details don’t mean anything about how you should govern your life. “Chess” is the wrong answer. It’s more like Calvinball. That’s right, Calvinball. Calvinball is the correct answer. Otherwise, it seems to have garnered a lot of comments from the usual tiresome suspects who emerge to bitch and moan about bad, bad atheists who dare to say what they think without softening the blow.
Wilkins despairs. He’s discovered an archive of anti-creationist literature from the ’20s and 30s, and notes that nothing has changed, and his expectation that the religious would abandon creationism to strengthen their own agendas has failed. Buck up, John! No one expects rapid social change on something so deep-rooted, and even though I aspire to see religion reduced to nothing but a sad punchline to a bad old joke, I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime, or my children’s lifetime, or even my grandchildren’s (if any). Don’t moan about the distance to the destination, savor the journey! Or in this case, Oy! Enjoy the brawl!
Reed seems to think the good guys won in a battle over the dishonest phrasing of a description of the Creation “Museum” published in a Kentucky visitor’s bureau pamphlet. They’ve backed down and changed the wording…but I’m in agreement with Greg. What did Ken Ham get out of this? A little controversy, a little free advertising, and he still has the state of Kentucky promoting his lies for him. This is a victory?
(Note addendum to this post: the infamous Uncommon Descent memory hole is in operation.)
A while back, Bill Dembski was bragging about how he was going to be snuffling about Baylor University, affiliating himself with an ID research lab there. It was a strange situation: a serious lab working on ID problems? OK, we’ve been asking them to do this for a long time. But then to associate itself with a weirdo like Dembski? One step forward, ten steps back.
Here’s a fun interview with my friend and colleague Robert Marks. I hope you catch from the interview the ambitiousness of the lab and how it promises to put people like Christoph Adami and Rob Pennock out of business (compare www.evolutionaryinformatics.org with devolab.cse.msu.edu).
Yes, do compare. The MSU link takes you to the Avida group doing research on digital evolution; the other link…well, it’s defunct. It makes Dembski’s arrogant claim rather amusing, don’t you think? I don’t think his reputation as a prophet is holding up well.
Hey, residents of the North Mason School District on Hood Canal in Washington state! Don’t put John Campbell on your school board!
