Michael Lemonick has an excellent reply to Sam Brownback’s recent attempt to weasel away from creationism.

What he ended up doing was demonstrating that he doesn’t really know much about science. If, writes the senator, “evolution means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence then I reject it.”

How curious. Does this mean that the senator also rejects the laws of gravity? Last I heard, they reflected that same view of the world. No scientist I’ve ever run into, nor even any senator, thinks that things fall to earth or planets orbit stars because God is there shoving on them. Yet many scientists do believe in God; they just don’t think he has to meddle with the physical universe to make things turn out right.

Which makes gods rather superfluous, yet they believe anyway…but correct, unless Brownback invokes a mysterious supernatural force intervening in every single physical process going on around him, that’s a silly statement that doesn’t reflect any rational interpretation of the world. Although I do wonder sometimes if the religious crazies aren’t living in an imaginary environment saturated with pixies and angels and devils and demons, all tugging away at every molecule around them — as if Brownian motion were named after Brownies.

What a delightful and well deserved development! The Australian sister organization to Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis is hammering him with a nasty lawsuit.

The Brisbane-based Creation Ministries International has filed a lawsuit in Queensland’s Supreme Court against Mr Ham and his Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis ministry seeking damages and accusing him of deceptive conduct in his dealings with the Australian organisation.

The suit focuses on a dispute over the Australian organisation’s production of a creationist magazine, sold in the US to more than 35,000 subscribers, and has led to revelations about the three-year battle between the two ministries.

A 40-page report, written by Mr Briese and obtained by The Australian, reveals a bitter power struggle across the Pacific that began with a challenge to the power Mr Ham allegedly wielded over the ministries.

I honestly don’t care who wins. The ideal conclusion will be that of the Kilkenny cats: mutual self-destruction.

Just in case you had any doubts about how the Intelligent Design creationists would react to the denial of Gonzalez’s tenure, here’s how Uncommon Descent illustrated it:

I like the little sign above his head: he’s being burned at the stake because he “believes in God”! I assure you that the fact that someone goes to church does not play any role in tenure decisions, nor does the penalty for failure to get tenure involve immolation, or even singeing. The reality is that Guillermo Gonzalez is being politely shown the door because he “believes in pernicious pseudoscience,” and more pragmatically, because he didn’t bring in enough grant money.

The president of Iowa State University has rejected Guillermo Gonzalez’s appeal for tenure, citing the fact that “he simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect.” That, alas, is the result I expected, and that everyone involved should have expected.

Now, if we expected a rational, productive response from the DI (not that I do), we should see them put down the hammers and nails and peel the poor fellow off the cross they’ve put him on. It’s time for Gonzalez to focus on the future and try to recover from the PR debacle his “friends” at the DI have put him through.

Time for another edition of “I get email”! Below the fold you’ll find a comprehensive example of the kind of exhortation I get all the time—this one is a long list of assertions that god is right, science is wrong, all transmitted in short sentences that aren’t in any particular order.

No, I didn’t reply to this one. He’s got 41 numbered points that he claims refute evolution, everything from “male nipples arouse women” to claims that Jupiter couldn’t form because gasses expand, and then there’s Pascal’s wager and lots of bible quotes. It’s a very silly list, don’t strain yourself over it.

[Read more…]

Now it’sEngland.

The Rev Jan Ainsworth, who is responsible for more than 4,600 CofE schools, said intelligent design could form part of discussions in science lessons under the heading of history of science.

They’re popping up everywhere, and now in
New Zealand:

A Trust which teaches schoolchildren about evolutionary and creationist views of the universe wants to build a $30 million dinosaur park and museum, probably on the Coromandel Peninsula.

The Dinosaurs Aotearoa Museum Trust is working with Wellington’s Weta Workshop, which created characters for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, to create life-sized dinosaurs in a 40ha theme park.

Founders Darren and Jackie Bush run a Wellington business called Dinosaurs Rock which runs programmes about dinosaurs and geology for schools, giving children both the scientific theory of evolution and the biblical view that the world was created by God in seven days about 6000 years ago.

May they all go bankrupt.