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.

Who do you think the brilliant minds at the Discovery Institute would recruit to review Sean Carroll’s new book, The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}? Somebody with some knowledge of biology, perhaps, some faint whiff of respectable biological credentials, who might be able to actually assess (and in the DI’s case, cunningly distort) the science in the book? They’ve got so many legitimate scientists to choose from!

So of course, the duty falls on Casey Luskin’s slender, slippery, snake-like shoulders.

Oh, man, it is an awful review. It goes on for a tedious 15 pages, carps on Darwin and Darwinism 47 times, and right from the starting gate is one long whine that Carroll is preaching Darwinism as a religion (here’s a wonderfully representative example of the kind of evidence Luskin uses: Carroll ‘interestingly always capitalizes the term “Nature”‘ [emphasis in original]. Damned by a convention of the English¹ language!), all in the most plodding prose. These are words that must be read in a nasal monotone for their full impact, I suspect.

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