You can watch it online.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
You can watch it online.
Sometimes they do tell the truth, but when they do, they just reveal their fallacies.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come from the article was a quote from Ken Ham, the founder of AiG:
All scientists start with presuppositions. If you’re starting point is ‘we can explain the origin of the universe without the supernatural,’ that’s a bias.
Of course, what that bias is called is “science” and Ham is ag’in it. That he claims he isn’t tells you all anyone needs to know about his version of science and maybe all you need to know about his religion as well.
Someday, I want one of these guys to explain to me how they propose we do supernatural science.
Phillip E. Johnson says, “his intent never was to use public school education as the forum for his ideas [Intelligent Design creationism].” Wesley Elsberry has a flock of quotes direct from Johnson that refute that.
If it were someone other than Johnson, I’d say he was just lying…but he’s old, he’s had a serious stroke, so it’s entirely possible he’s merely senile or brain-damaged. No matter what, though, it means you can’t trust Phillip E. Johnson to speak the truth.
Darksyde takes on the teaching of creationism in Missouri…let’s see if readers here are clever enough to see the dishonesty in this quote.
[Mike] Riddle had been invited to Potosi High and John A. Evans Middle School by Randy Davis, superintendent of the Potosi-RIII school district, and his board to discuss science with science students. During an hour-long presentation, Riddle … prodded the students to question established scientific principals and theories and encouraged them to think about a career in science.
Questioning scientific principles and theories is a good thing, and it’s also good to encourage students to study more science, so what’s the problem? The problem is that the speaker is a representative from Answers in Genesis, the young earth creationist organization, and he’s using the language differently than scientists do. When we say we should teach good science, we mean that there should be an emphasis on evidence and rational interpretation of the work. When AiG says “good science,” they mean a kind of Christian apologetics that cherry-picks data to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, that the Earth is 6000 years old. He isn’t urging students to do science, he wants them to get out there and corrupt a process that contradicts his theology.
This is the new way of creationism: embrace the trappings and the language, which have favorable associations to most people, and use them to advance ideas contrary to good science. It’s creationism in a lab coat.
A reader from Kansas sent in another slogan, prominently displayed on a billboard:
TEACH DARWIN HONESTLY!
News from The Panda’s Thumb: tonight, The Simpsons is all about the creationist pseudo-controversy, and Lisa gets arrested as an evilutionist. Let’s all tune in!
I was unimpressed. There were a few good barbs thrown at the creationists, but in the end the matter is settled by something trivial (Homer looks like an ape; yet again, the lazy Simpsons trope of the stupid Homer resolves the story), and of course they caved and pandered to the false dignity of the dominant tribal superstition. Eh.
DaveScot, the lunatic who rants at Dembski’s blog, has just posted an appalling complaint. He’s been falsely sliming Kevin Padian as a racist, and now he’s attacking Padian for saying that the religious fanatics who kill abortion doctors are contemptible. You read that right: you are not allowed to regard anti-abortion extremists who murder in their cause as bad people, or DaveScot will whine about how you are a bigot who hates Christians.
I didn’t think of this one, Dustin did—but take a look at this comparison of search volume for “pharyngula” vs. “discovery institute”. There’s perspective for you: one wild-eyed guy with a blog is gaining on a whole gang of creationists with millions of dollars in funding and a machine to churn out press releases.
There’s an idea…to catch up more, maybe I need to call myself the Pharyngula Institute and start faxing press releases to the newspapers.
Check out this amusing discovery on Stochastic—there’s this new tool on Google, Google Trends, that lets you compare the frequency of various searches. A silly creationist got all thrilled because searches for “Intelligent Design” beat searches for “Darwinism”.
You know where this is going. “Darwinism” is a term used by creationists, not scientists or anyone who knows more than diddly-squat about biology. Run a search for evolution, biology, and science vs. creationism and intelligent design, and the insignificance of the creationists becomes obvious. Once again, the designists are caught fudging the data, and once again, we can see the triviality of their games.
As you might guess, though, throw sex into the mix, and the evolution-creation debate shrinks away. A little perspective is always useful!
The IDists are promoting a staged event at Biola—they are purporting to put their proponents “under fire”…at Biola. Right. This is the same kind of thing creationists always do, promoting their crap in venues that will guarantee a largely friendly, and largely ignorant, audience.
In this case, though, they are trying to salt the crowd with a few opponents. Most have wisely turned them down, since this is about feeding the creationist pretense rather than actually putting some pressure on the clown show. Michael Shermer reveals some of the restrictions; some of their ‘guests’ would be seated in the audience, and allowed only one question. You can guess how any critical questions would be answered, of course: with meaningless noise. Andy Groves, who sometimes comments here (Hi, Andy! Kiss, kiss) was one of the critics invited, and maybe he’ll tell us how he turned them down. Good for him on doing the right thing. I wasn’t invited, but I wouldn’t have gone even if they’d promised I could be the stock villain swinging a folding chair.
This is an escalation of the debating ploy, which was always intended to do one thing: put creationists on stage with real scientists, falsely amplifying the creationists’ credibility. Now they’re setting up a ‘debate’ with their own rules, stacking the situation until it’s as fake as pro wrestling. The event is on the 12th; I will predict that on the 13th, the Discovery Institute will be proclaiming victory by press release, and saying that they sailed through a trial by fire unscathed.
Bad timing! On Wednesday morning, I have a meeting at the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, and then I have to drive to Madison to pick up my son…so I don’t think I can possibly be back in time for this:
The Ecology Evolution and Behavior seminar on Wednesday, May 10 (4:00 p.m. in 335 Borlaug Hall on the St. Paul Campus—Coffee and cookies are served
outside of room 100 Ecology preceding each seminar 3:30 p.m.) is featuring Michael Ruse, who will speak on some variant of the evolution/creationism/ID debate.
Maybe some of you Minneapolitans/St Paulians who read this will be able to make it, but I think I’d have to drive at 180mph down I94 and back, and Connlann would have to break down his dorm room and load it into the car in 10 minutes flat. Somebody should stop by and chew him out for that nonsense he shared with Dembski a while back, though. Bring beer, and take a swig every time he accuses “Darwinists” and biologists of being fundamentalists, OK?
