Raymond Finney, MD of Tennessee wants to ask a bunch of pompous questions of his state board of education (“Is the Universe and all that is within it, including human beings, created through purposeful, intelligent design by a Supreme Being, that is a Creator?” etc., etc., etc.). Although I’m getting my fill of arrogant doctors lately, I really don’t have any problem with a stuffed shirt in the state senate asking questions, and now we learn that neither will the Tennessee courts—it’s not unconstitutional. As long as there is no penalty if the education commissioner doesn’t answer, or answers in a way Finney doesn’t like, it’s not an issue.

And of course, I’ve already written up the answers for the commissioner, helpful guy that I am. A simple “NO” will handle it.

Finney has admitted his actual goal now, though, and I do think that this ought to be smacked down hard.

Finney, a Maryville Republican, said he wants the department to say there’s no scientific proof for the theory of evolution and to let schools teach creationism or intelligent design.

That is a fundamental misconception, and one I wish we could somehow hammer into these gomers’ heads. There is no scientific proof of anything…proof isn’t something scientists deal with at all. It’s an inappropriate demand in several ways.

• It singles out evolution, but as I said, there is no scientific proof of anything. Why not question cell theory or electromagnetism?
• If Finney is going to demand “proof”, where’s the proof for creationism or intelligent design? He’s awfully inconsistent.
• The word Finney is actually looking for is not “proof”, but “evidence“. Evidence is what we look for in science classes. There is evidence for evolution; there is none for creationism or intelligent design. Case closed.

Finney is a kind of standard issue pretentious creationist boob, and he’s said what his kind always say … a load of codswallop. The real test here, and what I’ll be very interested to see, is Education Commissioner Lana Seivers’ response. This is where a competent and no-nonsense educator should simply cut through the crap and put Finney in his place. Or she can be a dithering political creature and betray the educational goals of the teachers and students of her state by sucking up to the grandstanding pol. I don’t know a thing about her, so we’ll have to see how she emerges from this little test of character.

The Discovery Institute seems well pleased with their new anachronistic acolyte, a modern neurosurgeon who harks back fondly to the ancient wheeze of Natural Theology from a few centuries back. He’s been promoted to being a regular contributor on the DI Media Complaints Division web page, and he manages to combine the arrogance of a surgeon with the ignorance of most creationist hacks in a way that I’m sure the other DI fellows envy — he’s like the apotheosis of the Intelligent Design ideal. Why, he’s got the dishonesty of Wells, the pomposity of Johnson, the ineffectual stupidity of Luskin, and the egotism of Berlinski, all wrapped up in one package.

Anyway, I’m not planning to waste much effort on the archaic old fossil, but fortunately, Mark Chu-Carroll, Mike Dunford, and Orac are gleefully sharpening their knives and are planning to make Egnor’s welcome to the blogosphere acutely memorable. Orac has a challenge up now, asking Egnor to present…

…instead of his usual evidence-free assertions brimming with unjustified confidence, some actual evidence to support his claims. Inquiring minds want to know: Will Dr. Egnor show us some of these wonderful insights into human biology and disease provided or facilitated by the design inference or will he simply keep repeating the same misinformation?

I predict he’ll keep babbling substance-free nonsense, with occasional detours into whining about incivility. This is a problem with the followers of Paleyism: they are actually satisfied with assertions that lack a mechanism or evidence, because they see mysteries and unsolved complex problems as testimonials to the greater power of their god designer, and every explanation and solution is heresy.

It’s a slide show! It’s a song! Watch and listen to Crowson’s Evolution Blues! You won’t know whether to tap your toes, laugh, or cry.

Trust me, this is really good — it gets it all exactly right.

Dave Thomas has written an op-ed opposing a bill in New Mexico that would promote Intelligent Design creationism in the classroom under the guise of academic freedom. This is a standard ID game; carefully word the bills so that they refer vaguely to some evidence that doesn’t exist, so that they can pretend they are asking for equal time for the same category of scientific story when it is actually a case of promoting the guesswork, handwaving, and religiously-motivated biases of the creationists to have equivalent status with the evidence of scientists.

Casey Luskin is on the job, though, and he tears into Thomas’s op-ed … or rather, he tears it into little pieces and rearranges the words until he’s got a pastiche he can criticize. It’s a shameful performance that puts the dishonesty of the Discovery Institute on display.

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David Menton, one of the ‘authorities’ at Answers in Genesis, has scribbled up another mendacious collection of nonsense about tetrapod evolution. Alas, poor Menton — he caught the attention of Martin Brazeau, a real scholar and researcher in sarcopterygian and tetrapod evolution, who did what creationists dread: he actually checked on the facts behind Menton’s claims. Would you be surprised to learn that there are not only dishonest quote mines that twist the author’s meaning, but that he is caught making up facts about the fossil? Brazeau even contacted Ted Daeschler, one of the authors of the Tiktaalik work, to check on some of those assertions … and there’s no way around it. David Menton is a liar.

It’s hilarious. Brazeau also takes care to document some of the real facts about transitional tetrapods — well worth reading even if you don’t care for the spice of schadenfreude.

…and some people think I have a posse. I guess it’s my fault the Creation “Science” Fair had reduced participation, and Greg Laden and I can share responsibility for them hiding away their photos.

Someone asked about the reason for the pictures coming down, so I looked again and found your question. I think there were in the mid 30’s number of exhibits this year, down from the 50’s last year. Last year P.Z.Myers had blasted creation as usual and our fair in particular. A small group of young adults, I cannot say if they were inspired or incited by him, tried to steal one of the exhibits and ran into a bookstore where they were trapped and eventually gave it back.

Creationists, fear me.

I would not encourage anyone to steal exhibits from the fair — take photos, of course, and document the silliness, but I think seeing the lunacy exposed is a good thing for us.

Members of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association are furious—they’ve ripped down the posted photos from the 2007 Creation “Science” Fair “Because Some Sick Atheist Used Them To Demean Kids”. Before you all jump to any conclusion…I didn’t do it.

It was Greg.

You really have to read the comments on that article. The uncle of one of the kids at the Creation “Science” Fair makes several comments, and the poor man is just nuts—incoherent and condescending at the same time. Ross Olson, a Twin Cities creationist and board member at TCCSA, makes an appearance. It’s like a whole collection of fruitcakes! (oops). I’m a little jealous that our local creationists don’t seem to show up here at all.

Unfortunately, in looking over the article and the comments, I could only find one instance of Greg demeaning kids. It was horribly egregious, though, an offense so great that I’m not surprised the creationists were shocked.

Funny, I don’t remember ANY of the 200 exhibits or so at the Brimhall Fair (see this on Julia’s entry) held earlier in the year just down the street at a Real School addressing creationist ideas. But when the kids enter into a creationist fair, they can’t seem to help themselves from doing some actual science.

Science. It’s like a disease that can infect your children.