Doonesbury is perfect today. Ever had this problem?
Then what you need is…situational science!
The Discovery Institute should love it, too—respect for the side of the scientific argument that is completely unsupported by any evidence is exactly what they are demanding.
Ken Ham shows his sleazy colors a little more. Ham and Answers in Genesis have split from the organization that included Carl Wieland of Creation Ministries International. Big deal, you say; so what if a gang of creationist wankers can’t keep their act together?
The interesting thing is why Ham left the umbrella organization. It’s because Wieland insisted on “checks/balances/peer review” on some of their content. Where AiG formerly hosted a list of bad arguments that creationists ought to avoid, that list has been yanked from the AiG site at about the time they broke up with CMI.
I guess Ham didn’t want any constraints on his ability to lie for Jesus.
A significant revision and clarification: it wasn’t the ‘creationist arguments you should not use‘ article that was pulled, but rather a later article called “Maintaining Creationist Integrity” that directly confronted Kent Hovind.
Curse you, Orac. He had to pass along a link to a podcast interview with William Dembski. It was extremely aggravating—Dembski is dishonest bloviator of the first water.
Well, this isn’t a big surprise: Rick Santorum is writing a foreword to a book…this book, Darwin’s Nemesis, a volume that praises Philip Johnson, father of the Intelligent Design movement. Santorum has a very confused history with ID: he was the author of the Santorum amendment, an attempt to couple ID to the No Child Left Behind bill. It was stripped from the bill, but that has never stopped the creationists from claiming it was a legally binding requirement.
The really funny thing is that the day after the Dover decision came down, Santorum backed down fast. And now he’s endorsing a pro-ID book?
Repeat after me: FLIP-FLOP.
(via Atrios)
Never mind me, I’m running around with classes and meetings today…here are a few quick links.
In my talk on Tuesday, I suggested that if we really want to teach the controversy, we ought to put the Norse creation myth in our classes. I had no idea the plan would be so popular.
Some things are just too stupid for words, but lots of people are emailing me about this fool’s plan.
He wants to enshrine his ignorance in the Nevada constitution.
And he’s a democrat. Gaaaaa. Can we all just point, laugh, and turn our backs on this guy from now on?
Here are a couple of accounts of encounters with creationists that are amusing to read.
If you live near Austin, on 9 March there will be A Debate on the History of Life on Earth with Sahotra Sarkar and Paul Nelson. I scowl disapprovingly on the debate format: it means half the time is going to be wasted with some creationist babbling on stage. The topic, “Can the history of life on Earth be explained by purely natural processes?”, doesn’t sound particularly promising, and simply invites the creationist to say “no”, although he won’t have any evidence to support that conclusion. Go to hear Sarkar, though, which should be interesting.
New Yorkers can attend the Bridges symposium at NYU on 4 March. This is what I like: more young scientists presenting their work, with none of the creationist wibbly-wobbly nonsense in sight. Douglas J. Futuyma is the keynote speaker.
We laugh at the yahoos on the Kansas Board of Education who are dragging their state down the drain with bad science education, but don’t confuse that with laughing at Kansans. There are some very smart people down there. I am very impressed with this op-ed by Cassie Gentry—she very effectively takes down an Intelligent Design advocate…and she’s a college freshman in English.
I’d suggest that she ought to think about coming up to Minnesota and majoring in a science, but I think they need more like her right where she is.
