Revealing clientele

Bill Nye the Science Guy, humanist of the year, science educator and entertainer, and all-around interesting fellow, apparently stopped briefly at the Creation “Museum” to take a quick picture of the exterior, and then moved on. How do we know? Ken Ham was watching.

Bill Nye (“The Science Guy” of PBS-TV fame) visited the Creation Museum for…… 2 minutes this past week. He only stopped in front of the museum to take photos. In our photo attached, he is standing in the driveway in front of the museum. He did not go inside. Including the drive in and out the gate, he was on-site for a total of 122 seconds. He was last year’s “Humanist of the Year” – see my blog: <http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2010/06/15/bill-nye-the-humanist-guy/”>>

You have to admit, though, Kenny…the lies inside the “museum” are obnoxious, the guard dogs and tasers aren’t particularly inviting, and now the revelation that the staff creepily obsesses over surveillance footage is more than a little off-putting. It’s an extraordinarily paranoid place.

Perhaps Ken will be happier with another guest, one who has begged special permission to visit the Creation “Museum”: Jeffrey D. Bornhoeft. He’s more of a Creation “Museum” kind of guy.

An Ohio man — who killed his ex-wife’s new husband but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2000 — has received permission to leave the state to visit the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.

It will mark the first time in 11 years that Jeffrey D. Bornhoeft will be allowed to leave Ohio for a trip his father said he is taking because he has become involved with a church since the shooting death.

The court-approved trip, which is scheduled for Saturday, is the latest step toward freedom for Bornhoeft since Nov. 7, 2000, when a Warren County jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting death of Jamey Johnson, 23, of Dayton.

During his trial, authorities said Bornhoeft had his ex-wife, Shawn “Candy” Johnson, on the phone as he fired three shots at close range from a .357-caliber revolver into the back of Johnson’s head while he slept in a Lebanon apartment. Bornhoeft then threatened to turn the gun on himself during a three-hour standoff that ended when he surrendered to Lebanon police.

He may be a cold-blooded murderer, but at least he’s not a humanist.

Oh, and just in case you were making plans…Saturday is probably not the best day to visit Ken Ham. Although I am looking forward to his blog post in which he brags about how Jeffrey Bornhoeft actually came all the way into the “Museum”, and just loved the exhibits.

Eric Hovind just can’t help lying

Remember how I told you that Eric Hovind was giving away free DVDs for Valentine’s Day? And you all rushed over to place your order, and you got the sad notification?

We’re sorry, the Valentine’s DVD is now out of stock. Thanks to supporters like you, over 2,000 people will get to hear the gospel message!

We pray that the Holy Spirit will use these DVDs to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Awww, out of stock. Oh, well, that’s fair enough, you thought, and you turned away to go back to the kitchen and turn the roast-baby-on-a-spit some more. But wait! There’s something mysterious going on here!

Try this. Click on this link

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

And you’ll get the sad “out of stock” message.

If instead, though, you copy this same URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser:

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

Presto! You show up at the old page that allows you to order the free DVD. You can have your DVD and your roast baby at the same time! Huzzah!

Sneaky Eric put up a redirect to intercept any visitors arriving from Pharyngula to his fake out-of-stock page. He could have been honest, and done exactly the same thing, but have the page say something like, “Please, we are making these DVDs available to our Christian customers. We’d appreciate it if you’d leave them for people who will enjoy the content.” And that would have been cool. I think most of us would have just sat back and let it slide by, no problem, dude.

But no! Eric Hovind must really like us, because now we get the roast baby, the free DVD, and we get to point at a creationist and sneer at his pathetic dishonesty! This calls for something more than just a “Huzzah”, I think I’m going to give you all permission to run outside with your pistols (loaded with blanks, for safety reasons, of course) and fire them madly into the air while screaming “Yeeeeee-haaaah!”.

Thanks, Eric. We knew you were a lying toad, but it’s always nice to get confirmation.

The bar is set very, very low

Creationist Steven L. Anderson is having an art contest. He is shocked and surprised that chickens and dinosaurs are related and wants some cartoons mocking the concept.

He’s got a few examples at his site; they aren’t very good, and they all miss the point. Chickens are not descended from T. rex. Chickens and T. rex share a common ancestor, and there are good reasons to argue from their morphology that chickens and T. rex shared a common ancestor more recently than chickens and people, or chickens and bananas.

Watching his idiotic performance, though, (and he’s no slouch at the stupid: I’ve mentioned his sermon on pissing) got me wondering. Who is the dumbest creationist in the country? There’s some stiff competition for the title, with Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Carl Baugh, and every podunk preacher with a bug up his butt about Genesis making asses of themselves, but Anderson certainly should be in the running. Maybe we should have a contest to name the craziest, dumbest, most venal, etc. creationist … leave your suggestions in the comments.

A Valentine’s day opportunity

Aww, how sweet: Eric Hovind is offering a free Creation ‘Science’ Evangelism dvd for you to send to your sweetie. They’ll love it. I’m hoping someone will care enough to send me one, because nothing says love like a dense collection of lies and misleading delusions.

Oops, did my inner cynic slip out there?

Anyway…free, totally free. Not even any shipping charges. They do get your name and address for their database of suckers customers, which may be more than you want to pay, but otherwise it’s a good deal.

Well, it might also be a bit of a libido killer, which may not be a good idea for Valentine’s Day. On second thought, maybe you should think carefully about whether you want to suffer with this thing.

Would you call this pedagogy?

The governor of Kentucky sees nothing wrong with promoting this charlatan’s act, but watch this video of Ken Ham ‘teaching’ an auditorium full of children. It’s appalling.

“What do you say when someone says ‘millions of years’?” “WERE YOU THERE?”

Hey, kids, what do you say when someone says Jesus is Lord, the Grand Canyon was carved by a global flood, and Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs?

Tom Ritter’s claim

I chuckled at Ritter, the creationist suing a Pennsylvania school district, but now I’ve actually seen formal legal complaint, and I’m not giggling anymore. It’s more like the kind of roaring guffaw that would make Brian Blessed sound like a feeble titterer.

I don’t think he had any legal counsel in drafting that. At least he took the time to retype it from the original draft, which was probably done in purple crayon on a Big Chief tablet. Does he even have standing in this case?

That’s not a lawsuit anyone needs to worry about, except perhaps for Tom Ritter, who will at best be publicly embarrassed and at worst might have to pay some court costs.

Bad science education in the US

I am completely unsurprised by the recent report on the state of evolution in the American science classroom. It confirms entirely my impressions from years of freshman college students and from previous studies of the subject, and puts specific numbers and issues to the problem.

The short summary: public schools suck at teaching basic biology. You already knew this, too, though, didn’t you? The question has always been, “How bad?”

We can now say how many high school biology teachers do a good job, teaching the recommendations of the National Research Council and also, by the way, obeying the requirements of most state science standards: 28%. About a quarter of our biology teachers are actually discussing the evidence that evolution occurred and using evolution as a theme to integrate the components of a good year of biology instruction. And since most school curricula only include one year of life science, that effectively means that only about a quarter of our high school graduates are even exposed to evolutionary biology.

There’s also another problem. 13% of our biology teachers are openly and unashamedly creationists who teach creationism in the classroom. That number varies, by the way, with the political leanings of the citizens of the school district: 40% of the teachers in conservative school districts reject evolution entirely, while “only” 11% in liberal areas do. This is a disaster. This is active, ongoing miseducation and misrepresentation of science by the teachers we entrust with our children.

What about the rest? 60% of our teachers do nothing: they teach the bare minimum of evolution that they can get away with, focusing on details of genetics and molecular biology that allow them to avoid the more obvious implications (which shouldn’t happen, either; the molecular evidence for evolution is powerful stuff), or they allow it to slip off the schedule of lesson plans. They’re afraid, and rightly so, of aggressive, nasty, privileged religious parents who will make their life hellish if they do their job properly.

The paper did surprise me in one way. It made a very strong statement about those timid teachers in the 60%:

The cautious 60% may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists. The strategies of emphasizing microevolution, justifying the curriculum on the basis of state-wide tests, or “teaching the controversy” all undermine the legitimacy of findings that are well established by the combination of peer review and replication. These teachers fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments, even if unintentionally.

Are you a teacher who avoids the subject of evolution because of the crapstorm of chaos that follows from the public if you do? Consider yourselves rebuked. You really aren’t helping.

What are we going to do about this? The authors have two major suggestions, and here’s where I get to feel rebuked. One problem is that many of the timid teachers also do not feel adequately trained to address evolution well, and that’s a significant factor in their reluctance to press the topic (creationist teachers, on the other hand, are full of unwarranted certainty and lie to their students with confidence). So they recommend that there be more thorough training in evolution for pre-service teachers, with at least a requirement for one course in evolution. I think I can say that my university does a good job at that, at least: our secondary education majors get a rigorous exposure to evolutionary biology in our program. If you’re looking to hire new science teachers, look to UMM graduates!

Another suggestion, though, is that scientists and science organizations ought to be doing more outreach and assistance. That’s tough, since our time is tight, but we know that would be a good goal. When a group of us put together the Minnesota Citizens for Science Education, for instance, one of the goals was to provide speakers and yearly seminar courses to help teachers learn more about evolution, and we did a good job the first year. But that effort was made at a time when there was active pressure from creationist groups to influence the state science standards, and as that pressure eased off, so did we, and we’ve been slacking ever since. The framework is there so we could fire it up again quickly, but maybe we ought also to be maintaining good science education in these lulls between storms, too.

There’s an interesting interview with the authors on Ars Technica — check it out.

Berkman MB, Plutzer E (2011) Defeating creationism in the courtroom, but not in the classroom. Science 331:404-405.

Tom Ritter has figured out the path to scientific credibility

Tom Ritter has a dream. It’s a grand dream.

Tom Ritter dreams of a day when people recognize that he’s more than just a cranky high school teacher, and they realize that all the scientists in the world have been completely wrong, while Truth lives in the sweaty cranium of a harumphing gomer in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

He dreams of a day when everyone sees that he fills an important niche.

He dreams of a day when people realize that evolution is an unscientific theory, while Jesus is our Principal Investigator.

Ritter dreams of a day when the kids get off of his lawn.

He dreams of a day when modern medicine finally figures out how to remove that stick from his butt. You know, the one with the pointy end pressing against his brain.

He’s had these dreams for a long time now, but at last he’s got a shot at glory, one chance to maybe have one of his dreams come true.

Tom Ritter is suing Pennsylvania public schools for teaching evolution. Surely this won’t make him look like a deranged looney from the sticks, unprofessionally bellowing his rage at a world he never made and never understood? This is his opportunity! Fate can’t be so cruel as to continue to foster his reputation as the crazy, creepy chemistry teacher, the Milton Wadams of the Blue Mountain School District who sees evolution as his red Swingline stapler, his object of desire? No, of course not. Because his logic is sound, as strong as anything any creationist has ever come up with.

Here is his professional, scientific argument. I’ve taken the liberty of footnoting it so that you can see how deep it is.

Evolution is Unscientific1

“The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.” — Richard Dawkins, famous Atheist2

Biology studies organisms. It can also explain how organisms got that way, but studying organisms does not require explaining how they got that way3, and the theory of evolution is bad science.4

Evolutionists cannot demonstrate that three critical points are even possible, let alone that they actually happened:

(1) No one has demonstrated that life can be created from non-life.5 (Reports of artificial DNA do not alter this fact. Life is still required.)6

(2) No one has demonstrated that a new “sexual species” can be created.7 (Since the definition of species is contested, for these purposes it is defined as an organism that can breed with its own kind and produce fertile offspring, but cannot breed with its ancestors.8)

(3) Evolutionists theorize the human brain evolved from lower forms.9 Over 50 years into the age of computers, machines can crunch numbers far better and faster than humans, recognize and use language and tools, and beat us in chess. Yet science has yet to build even a rudimentary computer that can contemplate its own existence, the hallmark of the human brain.10 (Contemplating your existence is best understood as imagining what will remain after your death.) And no animal, no matter how “intelligent,” can do this either.11

Ask anyone who espouses evolution if these three points are not true.12

If evolution is unscientific, why teach it?13 Because no Creator means no God.14 In other words, evolution taught without a possible alternative is Atheism.15

Now Atheism rests on an article of faith (A strong belief that cannot be proven but is nonetheless believed).16

Therefore Atheism is a religion.17

And it is illegal to teach religion in the public schools.18

(I am not defending creationism or intelligent design. But evolution has not proven its case, and until it does, saying it is the only explanation for present life is Atheism.)19

1Because Tom Ritter says so, and only about a million scientists know he’s wrong.

2And famous evolutionary biologist, but for purposes of Tom’s argument, that’s hardly relevant, where “relevant” is defined as “conflicts with my claim”.

3True Science™requires closing your eyes to questions that might produce answers contradicting True Faith™.

4See title.

5Except that we are pretty sure the world lacked life before it had life, therefore life had to come from non-life at some point. Or perhaps Mr Ritter is also arguing with the Old Testament?

6Similarly, any technology that allows life to be created doesn’t count. Therefore this statement is irrefutable! Huzzah!

7See previous unbreakable escape clause.

8Because that would be really icky. If they aren’t dead, they’re really old.

9For instance, I theorize that a small garden slug crawled into Tom Ritter’s ear one day, worked its way into his cranium, and is now rasping away at his motor nerves to evoke strange twitchy responses.

1050 years of computing certainly ought to be able to outperform 4 billion years of evolution.

11Well, obsessing over the imagined fate of a magic wisp of personhood that survives blunt force trauma (or cranial slug invasion) might be the hallmark of the Christian brain, but the rest of us…not so much.

12OK. They aren’t true.

13Aside from its explanatory power, the volumes of evidence in its support, its ability to guide further research, its practice by the overwhelming majority of biologists on the planet, and the necessity to understand the principles of evolutionary biology to understand taxonomy, physiology, development, cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, etc., etc., etc.? Well, no, aside from those, there really is no reason to teach it.

14Unless you’re one of those wacky theistic evolutionists who think evolution is the mechanism god used to create life…but they’re all like Mormons or Scientologists, non-Christians, and therefore atheists.

15This is a sweeping principle that will be expanded to cover other disciplines as well. Teaching auto repair without mentioning a magic car factory in the sky is atheism; teaching agriculture without discussing the angels who tug the shoots out of the ground is atheism.

16Which is also true for every single science, which makes them, by this definition, religions.

17Just like chemistry, physics, agriculture, and auto repair.

18More simply, it is therefore illegal to teach, period, in the public schools. QED. Brains explode. Society melts down. Zombies stalk the streets while rains of frogs and blood predict the End Times. Mission accomplished.

19Wait a minute there…Christianity hasn’t proven its case, either. Therefore Christianity is atheism?

Yes, indeed, we’re all going to take Tom Ritter seriously from now on! Because filing a federal lawsuit is something only a True Genius™ could possibly do. Next step: Nobel Prize.

Television alert!

According to Ken Ham, he will be appearing on Anderson Cooper tonight (10pm (9 Central time) on CNN), along with Barry Lynn of Americans United. It sounds a little odd — the day after the state of the union address, they bring on a creationist kook? — and they don’t say exactly what the topic is, although we can probably guess.

Ham is asking for prayers. They won’t help him much against Lynn, who is simply an awesome speaker. It could be fine entertainment.

Actually, prayers wouldn’t help him much if his opponent was Big Bird, either.

Barry Lynn was excellent, but then he always is. The best moment for me was after Lynn stated that what Ham was doing was getting subsidies for a ministry, Cooper turned to Ham and simply asked, “Are you trying to convert people?” Of course he is, but Ham can’t be honest about his intent, so he gulped and went into his spiel about how the Ark Encounter is run by a shell company as a for-profit endeavor. He didn’t answer the question at all.

And isn’t this game of separating the profit-making part of the park into a separate company rather devious? The profits will just go to Answers in Genesis, anyway.

Now you can watch it yourself if you missed it: