The fundamental cowardice of creationists

The Geological Society of America is the major national professional organization for geologists, and they recently had a meeting in Denver where, in addition to the usual scientific meeting stuff, they did what geologists do for fun: they took organized field trips to look at local rocks. Among these trips was a tour of the Garden of the Gods Natural Landmark in Colorado Springs, which sounds quite nice, except for one thing: it was organized by a team of young earth creationists who were attending the meeting, and they didn’t tell anyone. They were quite careful to hide their agenda.

Many attendees seemed unaware of the backgrounds of the five trip co-leaders: Steve Austin, Marcus Ross, Tim Clarey, John Whitmore and Bill Hoesch. Austin is probably the most well-known; he is chair of the geology department at the Institute for Creation Research, which describes itself as the “leader in scientific research from a biblical perspective, conducting innovative laboratory and field research in the major disciplines of science.” Austin has been very active in promoting a Noah’s Flood interpretation of the geology of the Grand Canyon.

Ross is a former Discovery Institute fellow, currently an assistant professor of geology at Liberty University in Virginia (the self-proclaimed largest Christian university in the world). The University of Rhode Island granted him a doctorate in geology in 2006 even though he professed that Earth was at most 10,000 years old. Clarey is a geology professor at Delta College, a community college in Michigan. Whitmore is a geology professor at Cedarville University, a liberal arts Christian college in Ohio. Hoesch is a staff research geologist with the Institute for Creation Research.

During the trip, the leaders did not advertise their creationist views, but rather presented their credentials in a way that minimized their creationist affiliations. Austin introduced himself as a geologic consultant. Hoesch said he worked “in a small museum in the San Diego area” (referring to his job as curator of the Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee, Calif., which was founded by the Institute for Creation Research and is now operated by the Light and Life Foundation). Likewise, Whitmore did not offer that Cedarville’s official doctrinal statement declares, “We believe in the literal six-day account of creation” and requires that all faculty “must be born-again Christians” who “agree with our doctrinal statement.”

This is deeply dishonest and cowardly. The clear presentation of a hypothesis is essential to doing good science; no rational scientist writes a presentation or paper in which he or she simply lists a bunch of observations, and then asks the audience to guess what he’s arguing about. If you’ve got a controversial hypothesis, you state it, you give your evidence, and then you listen and try to rebut challenges to your idea; you expose yourself to criticism, so that ideas are either discarded or strengthened. Austin, Ross, etc., were afraid to face a counter-argument.

Even more despicably, they then went home and crowed triumph, claiming that they had persuaded the scientists.

As the conference started, Whitmore and four of his colleagues, including Cedarville adjunct professor Steve Austin, Ph.D., took the Cedarville students and 40 other geologists on a field trip to Garden of the Gods near Pike’s Peak, Colorado. During the trip, the Cedarville leaders talked about alternative views for how the rocks formed, emphasizing short time spans and catastrophic formation of the rocks rather than slow formation over millions of years.

“The experts were skeptical,” said Whitmore, “but in the end, they conceded that the rocks we examined were deposited quickly and were deposited in water. We let the data speak for itself.” Whitmore also said the Cedarville students interacted positively with others holding opposing viewpoints. A peer-reviewed scientific paper was published describing the field trip stops and the new interpretations regarding the sites they visited.

They lied by implication. I’m sure many of the attendees on that field trip would be dismayed to hear that their authority is being used to endorse the patently ridiculous claim that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

Joe Meert also attended that same conference, and attended a talk by Marcus Ross. Ross is the fellow who got his degree from the University of Rhode Island for work on the distribution of mosasaurs in the Cretaceous — over 65 million years ago — while simultaneously claiming at creationist church meetings that the earth was young. He did the same thing here, presenting a credible science talk about “using ammonites as a correlation tool to put his mosasaur fossils in a stronger temporal framework”. His entire talk was about putting the data together to confirm the timing to many millions of years ago! So Meert confronted Ross directly in the Q&A.

After his talk, I asked the following question; “How do you harmonize this work with your belief in a 6000 year old earth on which a year long global flood took place?”. He was immediately flustered and then a bit tersely replied “My talk had nothing to do with a global flood or a 6000 year old earth so your question is irrelevant”. I then pointed out the fact that indeed his talk was completely counter to his public statements/creationist position because he showed correlation between strata/fossils, millions of year ages, evolution of mosasaurs and hiatuses in the rock record. He then replied (and I am paraphrasing to the best of my recollection) “Ok, for everyone in the audience who doesn’t know it, yes I am a young earth creationist who believes the Earth is 6000 years old and a global flood took place. However, I am not speaking as a young earth creationist here. When I speak at young earth creationist meetings I use a different framework than when I speak at the Geological Society of America meeting.”

Shorter Marcus Ross: I am a hypocrite and a liar.

I’m sure that the creationists will cry that he had to do this, because science defends a dogmatic orthodoxy and won’t let them speak otherwise. This is totally false. If someone wants to defend heterodox ideas, they should state them openly, not hide them and present theories they do not believe so they can acquire false authority in a field, as Ross tries to do, or so that they can lie and pretend that they had convinced an audience, as Austin did.

And that’s all Marcus Ross is trying to do. He’s trying to build up credibility by presenting all of the data and interpreting it in a rational framework (he learned something at URI!) at scientific meetings, only so he can turn around and spend that reputation to endorse laughable absurdities at creationist meetings. It is contemptible.

How convenient

Gary Bradley, a professor at the Seventh Day Adventist college La Sierra University, has been under fire because he teaches evolutionary biology competently — he doesn’t accept the young earth creationism that SDA dogma demands. The battle is over, though, and he and several others have been asked to resign for great crimes.

According to the Spectrum article, Darnell met up afterward with Beach, Bradley, and Kaatz at a private home, where they watched a National Basketball Association playoff game and discussed the meeting. The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men. It captured “foul language, references to alcohol consumption and unflattering comments being made about board members, administrators, and church leaders,” according to the article. Darnell then sent the recording to a number of key members of the Adventist community, including The Spectrum, reportedly without knowing that it contained more than just the audio of the meeting. Eventually, the recording made its way to Ricardo Graham, chair of the board of trustees.

I think they’re all better off getting out of that crazy place. The absurdity of being pressured to teach lies in the classroom ought to have been reason enough to leave, but that they have employers who want to control what they do after hours in their own homes ought to convince anyone that it’s time to leave.

My talk at Glasgow Skeptics

Hey, it’s on youtube already. There may be a few moments where I look a bit strained — that’s because the video projector wasn’t working well, and we actually had it sitting on the floor kind of crookedly aimed at the screen, and a helpful fellow was maneuvering it to make sure the part I was referring to was on the screen rather than the wall or the ceiling. But fortunately for you, those clever folks who produced the video spliced my slides directly into the video.

It’s all about the real history of Haeckelian recapitulation and why evolution doesn’t predict the crazy stupid things creationists say it does and why Jonathan Wells is a perfidious dorkwad.

Creationists mocked, creationists whine

There’s a new musical production to be put on at Yale.

The Profit of Creation, featuring music by Tim Rosser, with book and lyrics by Charlie Sohne, will be directed by Evan Yionoulis, and music directed by Chris Fenwick. The musical concerns a liberal scientist who takes a bribe from a right-wing organization to head up the “Creation Museum” in Kentucky.

It’s already earned complaints from Ken Ham, so I think it may strike a little close to home for him. But what I really want to mention is the comment left at the link: isn’t this amazing?

I felt bad, so I decided to comment. Mainly since you guys get zero comments on most of your posts. I attribute it to you douchebagery and your almost clinical obsession with the Creation Museum. Seriously man get over it. Just get you Star Wars PJ’s on and go down into your lair in your mom’s basement and continue your sad,anime, internet porn, blogger sad little life. Maybe get up in the morning eat that fresh bowl of lucky charms your mom just poured for you and go help Joe find a Dermatologist to get that other head cut off his cheek. Who knows maybe you guys can go find big boy things to do instead of being, Oh i dont know….being little internet bloggers who think their incessant rants will somehow change the world. Thanks I love you, and look forward to your lame, sarcastic response.

I encourage Mr Anonymous to come over here where we get plenty of comments. If you’d like, you can put on your Star Wars PJs and leave some lame, sarcastic responses here for him, in case he does decide to pop on over.

You know, David Barton has a reputation for inventing quotes, but this is ridiculous

Let’s see…Darwin revealed the theory of evolution in 1859, and the United States declared their independence from Britain in 1776 — but our founding fathers were such magical geniuses that they foresaw the whole thing and debated the subject there in Philadelphia and resolved that evolution was a bunch of hooey. Right.

the founding fathers…already had the entire debate on creation/evolution…and you’ve got Thomas Paine, the least religious of the founding fathers, saying you got to teach creation science in the public school classroom, the scientific method demands it!

Hey, David Barton, could you find that quote where Thomas Jefferson explained mathematically how black holes form, and the the quote where Madison deduces the detailed chemical structure of DNA? I’m sure you’ve got it somewhere at your fingertips.

Maybe most importantly, you should dig up a citation from George Washington in which he testifies that David Barton is a credible historian.

I get email

I am infested with the fleas of a thousand camels. One unfortunate side-effect of this trip to Ireland and the UK is that I have publicly engaged with Muslim creationists — there’s a bit of a dearth of them in Morris, Minnesota, and the few Muslims I have met there are there for the university, and are educated and intelligent — but now I’m on their radar, and my inbox has a new, exotic stench to it. Here is a sample.

Dear Dr. Myers,

In your recent exchange with Hamza you asserted that Quran contain no specifics when it comes to science. I will let you be the judge:
[The disbelievers are] like darknesses within an unfathomable sea which is covered by waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds – layers of darknesses, one above another. When one stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it. And he to whom Allah has not granted light – for him there is no light. [24:40]

In the underlined statements, this verse explicitly refers to two physical features of oceans:
“mawjun min fawqihi mawj” – which literally means “waves, above which are waves”
and “dhulumâtun ba’duha fawqa bad” – which literally means “darknesses, one above the other”

The first phrase affirms that the oceans contain a layer of internal waves beneath the surface waves, just as the surface waves lie beneath the clouds. The second phrase further describes these consecutive layers as progressive layers of darknesses.

Internal waves in the ocean were first discovered by John Scott Russell in the 18th century. These waves are completely invisible and imperceptible at the surface, but deep down in the ocean they are massive, with amplitudes ranging up to 100 metres and width of 1km. This explains the first Qur’anic phrase in the verse.

In terms of the description of darkness, the darkness of the Ocean is first perceptible at 200m below surface level and by the time you reach 1km there is no light at all. However, why does the Qur’an connect this description of darkness with internal waves in the ocean? What have internal waves got to do with the darkness of ocean? Modern science didn’t have a good answer for this… until:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/p…aves-0428.html

“The key insight described in this research is that pairs of these boundaries behave like giant interferometers: When encountering boundaries between layers that have different density gradients, internal waves undergo the same kinds of reflections and strengthening or weakening effects as light waves in an optical interferometer. As a result, these layers selectively transmit or block waves of specific wavelengths.”

This explains how the progressive darkness in the ocean is linked to the internal waves. Evidently, there is no way any human being could have known this 1400 years ago. The Qur’an is the revelation of the All-Knowing Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

[First, let’s get something clear: the two sentences cited are not about the physical and hydrodynamic properties of oceans; it is about the ignorance of unbelievers, and the writer has used a simile to poetically intensify the magnitude of the subject. OK? It really is a dead giveaway that someone isn’t reading a poem right when they obliviously ignore the actual theme of the passage to go haring off after a word and digging up oceanography press releases when they read “seas”. When people read Homer, do they see “wine dark sea” and go nuts trying to determine the optical properties of the Mediterranean? (Well, yeah, they do…and they’re missing the point.)

Secondly, the cited science reference (what? You think I wouldn’t read it?) isn’t about why the sea is dark: we know why that is, it’s about light scattering and being absorbed by particles suspended in it. What the paper describes is a method to study the arrangement of layers in the ocean using measurements of subtle shifts in wavelengths caused by boundary effects. So not only did you misread your own damned book, you’re misreading the scientific source you’re citing to bolster your claim.–pzm]

Here is another verse from the Qur’an:

So whoever Allah wants to guide – He expands his breast to [contain] Islam; and whoever He wants to misguide – He makes his breast tight and constricted as though he were climbing into the sky. Thus does Allah place defilement upon those who do not believe. [6:125]

How did a Bedouin 1400 years ago desert know how we breathe? I will let you infer what this says about pressure.

[How stupid are Bedouins? So stupid that they didn’t notice that their chests expand and contract when they breathe.

And again: it’s a freaking metaphor for accepting an idea, not a survey of respiratory physiology.]

In the end you are rejecting since you want evidence on your terms (emperical, falsifiable, etc.). The Qur’an respond to this as well.

And they say, “We will not believe you until you break open for us from the ground a spring.

Or [until] you have a garden of palm tress and grapes and make rivers gush forth within them in force [and abundance]

Or you make the heaven fall upon us in fragments as you have claimed or you bring Allah and the angels before [us]

Or you have a house of gold or you ascend into the sky. And [even then], we will not believe in your ascension until you bring down to us a book we may read.” Say, “Exalted is my Lord! Was I ever but a human messenger?”

I’m supposed to be surprised that a fraudulent old prophet writes down in his phony holy book an admonition to not expect evidence to back up his claims? “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I am the Great and Powerful Oz!”–pzm]

For your own sake, I ask you to think about Islam, and do not allow your reputation or money be the barrier to accepting the truth.

If you could but see when they are made to stand before the Fire and will say, “Oh, would that we could be returned [to life on earth] and not deny the signs of our Lord and be among the believers.”

But what they concealed before has [now] appeared to them. And even if they were returned, they would return to that which they were forbidden; and indeed, they are liars.[6:27-28]

[So predictable: if the claims are implausible and the story is incredible, close with a threat of Hell. That’ll clinch it. Not. –pzm]

Jamal

Those are not specifics about science, revealing the presence of divine revelation in the mind of Mohammed. Those are poetical allusions which have been mined by deranged apologists for evidence (odd, isn’t it, that the believers scrabble so desperately for something their holy book dismisses) that their prophet was something special. The feebleness of their post hoc rationalizes persuade me otherwise.

Hey, why not emphasize instead the lovely language of the book? Oh, that’s right: because nobody doubts that the human mind is capable of generating art.

The full Muslim monty

Can you bear more blithering Muslims? I showed you that partial clip from my encounter the other day, but you missed the first chunk. I had gone outside to get some fresh air and take a look around Dublin, when I got ambushed by a trio of Muslims with a camera, and the crowd just gradually developed and surrounded me, with some of them taking pictures (hi, Rebecca!). This is the recording from the Muslims themselves.

Some of my favorite weird pseudo-philosophical babble were his claims that he had evidence, but that it was “conceptual evidence”, and imbedded in one long spewage was this claim, that “occam’s razor must be uncaused, therefore it must be eternal”. I was frequently bemused as he started regurgitating long strings of rapid-fire memorized arguments.

Another interesting moment is when they deny that the Quran contains the story of the great flood, when AronRa brings it up. Either they were lying or they don’t know their own holy book: see Sura 11.

Near the end of the clip, they have a fellow named Rashid asking a question of Maryam Namazie after her “hate-filled” talk. Strangely, they don’t show any bit of her talk, and they don’t bother to record her answer…probably because she slapped him down hard. You catch a bit of the audience laughing, too, because his arguments were so ridiculous.

Then at the very end, they had briefly snagged Richard Dawkins, who patiently explained his position, but was clearly a bit exasperated with that babbling ninny. He takes the opportunity of an interruption by a certain someone* to walk away and do something more interesting.

*It’s Rorschach!

I grow concerned for your craniofacial integrity

I’m going to do it again. You’re all about to facepalm once more, just as you did yesterday. By now, you should know this blog and be conscious of the need for deliberation and caution when putting your hand to your face.

I was sent this example of science proving atheism wrong. Perhaps you should gently place your hand on your forehead before you start reading, to forego the possibility of slamming your palm into your face with great force.

i-fc355a03c9d933a3f1479eff79dd0c57-waterproof.jpeg

So…this clever calculation is contingent on the premise that there has been 6 billion people on the earth for 3 billion years, and, tragically, that every drop everyone drinks stays in their body and disappears when they die. Hey, I’ve been visiting pubs here in England, and I’ve noticed that every pint I take in is followed a little later by a pint flowing out to, eventually, the sea. Which has led me to a complementary calculation that similarly disproves atheism.

Let’s assume that 6 billion people have been hanging out at the pub every day, and right after last call they stagger to the pisser and evacuate two liters of urine. By that calculation, there ought to be roughly 10 times as much water as we observe on the planet, and we ought to be completely submerged and swimming in pee. We are not, therefore we can conclude that there must be something wrong with my estimates, and since I am an idiot, I will assume that it can’t possibly be a failure to recognize an important concept like physiological homeostasis, and must be because one parameter, the length of time, must be fudged by 6 orders of magnitude to fit the innumerate presuppositions of bronze-age goat molesters.

New documentary about the LaClair case

A couple of years ago, a student, Matthew LaClair, exposed his teacher, David Paszkiewicz, as an evangelical creationist who was using a public school classroom as a pulpit. He did this by the simple expedient of bringing a hidden voice recorder into the room and catching Paszkiewicz preaching instead of teaching (the recording is on the web).

Now a documentary has been made about LaClair and Paszkiewicz.

The movie is going to be shown on Sunday, June 12 at 2 p.m. at the New York Ethical Culture Society at 2 West 64th Street in New York — I wish I could go. There’s also going to be a Q&A with both LaClair and Paszkiewicz in attendance. I’ve met Matt LaClair, who seems like a sensible, rational person; what I’ve seen of Paszkiewicz is that he’s a close-minded, rather dim Dominionist bigot. There could be an interesting clash.

Someone smuggle a recorder into the event!