Someone at the Discovery Institute received a vaguely threatening email. If the writer is someone who reads this, you’ve done something disgraceful, and you should send an apology immediately; we do not threaten to silence or cause harm to the clowns of creationism. Laugh at them, dissect their arguments, explain that they are damaging education in this country…but you draw the line at intimidation and threats of personal damage. Got it?

That said, I have to also say that the DI’s reaction was amusing. This is the first time they’ve received a death threat? Overall, then, our side (with the obvious exception of this one violator) has been commendably restrained — I’ve been receiving email with that tone or worse for years now, several times a week. I wish the abusive jerk had not done this stupid thing, so that our record would be spotless.

The races aren’t quite over, but the good news is that the four non-creationists running for the Lincoln board of education have successfully advanced to the general election. Don’t forget to vote on 5 May!

Ray Comfort went off to New Zealand to have a debate — and wouldn’t you know it, he stood up there and repeated the same bunk he spouts on his blog. Oh, wait: he did change one thing. Instead of talking about elephants, he changed his animal that he claimed couldn’t possibly have evolved to a dog. Woo hoo. He also completely ignored his opponent’s arguments.

Ray Comfort is currently in the lead for top status in my list of dishonest, stupid creationists.

I keep telling people this isn’t only about biology — every scientific discipline is under attack. I’m sure physicists aren’t complacent: another teaching standard diluted into meaninglessness was one about the age of the universe.

Originally in the Texas school standards was this phrase: “concept of an expanding universe that originated about 14 billion years ago.” However, board member Barbara Cargill thought this wasn’t good enough. It was too definite. The standards now read, “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.” You can bet that the age of the earth is not listed in the Texas curriculum as about 4.5 billion years old — in spite of the fact that most of the people my age and older have known (or rather, estimated) this for years.

It’s too late and they aren’t going to listen to me anyway, but if I had to modify that particular standard, I would have changed it to “how we know the universe is expanding and originated about 14 billion years ago.” That would certainly cover the spirit of Cargill’s revision, forcing teachers to discuss methodology and evidence. Right?

Or does Cargill seriously want teachers to discuss 4.5 billion year old earth explanations vs. myths that say the earth is 0.000006 billion years old? Because that would be ridiculous.

Once upon a time, a creationist invented a brand new pseudo-scientific term, which he even presented at a scientific conference. It was a very, very silly idea called “ontogenetic depth”. I criticized the idea publicly and viciously, pointing out that the concept had no explanation, no methodology, and had produced no results, which prompted the creationist, Paul Nelson, to promise to present us all with a detailed explanation “tomorrow”.

We’ve been waiting for a little while for tomorrow to get here. Paul Nelson promised us an answer tomorrow 5 years ago.

Ever since, we celebrate Paul Nelson day every year on 7 April. Richard Hoppe jumped the gun and announced it last week, which is OK — Nelson did drag out the promises for quite a while, and the 7th was a somewhat arbitrary choice. Last year, I suggested a simple and appropriate way to commemorate the event.

In his honor, we should all make it a point to ask people “How do you know that?” today, and the ones who actually can explain themselves competently will be complimented by being told that they’re no Paul Nelson.

It’s kind of like the folk tradition of chasing away demons on certain days of the year, only what we do is terrify creationists by roaming about demanding that they fork over evidence, at which time they scurry away and hide. Have fun!

By the way, I said something else last year.

We’ll celebrate it again next year, I’m sure.

I’m a prophet. We’ll have another chance next year, too.

I confess, we residents of the USA sometimes have a bit of an inferiority complex when we compare our citizenry to those of other nations of the world — we look like such a collection of idiots next to places like Iceland and Australia and New Zealand and Germany and England and Canada and etc. (at least we feel a bit wiser than Turkey). Of course, none of those other countries are entirely exempt from having dumbasses pontificating on science, so we can still occasionally take a cheap, desperate shot at some furrin’ loon. Here’s a Canadian who has done his part to bolster American egos: James Lunney, conservative member of parliament. Take it away, Mr Lunney!

Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.

In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.

The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.

Impressive effort, Lunney. It takes great ignorance to pack so many fallacies into 3 paragraphs.

The mechanisms of evolution are reproducible and observable. We can even observe the historical specifics of contingent evolutionary events.

Mr Lunney’s choices of objections, plate techtonics [sic], polonium radiohalos, and polystratic[sic] fossils, reveal that he has read the erroneous creationist literature, but has never examined the scientific debunkings of his claims.

I have heard this claim that creationists use the same evidence to argue for creation. It is not true. They select a narrow subset of the evidence that superficially supports their claims, and then ignore the broader array of evidence that completely undermines them…as, for example, creationists who claim that plate tectonics, polonious halos, and polystrate trees refute evolution. There is more evidence out there than the tiny fraction that creationists choose to highlight.

Legislators in the fine state of Oklahoma continue to gnash their grim and yellowed Christian tusks in frustration that Richard Dawkins was ever allowed to speak. He not only spoke openly, but was allowed to leave the state unscathed — not a single rusty thumbscrew was employed, nor was he burned at the stake. The university thinks that is just fine, but these cornpone dullards pretending to be representatives of American freedom just don’t get it.

In a phone interview Thursday, Thomsen said the university has a right to bring any speaker it chooses, but is accountable to taxpayers. On behalf of his constituents, Thomsen wanted to present the opinion that Dawkins doesn’t represent Oklahoma’s ideals.

“They’re not in a plastic bubble that can’t be touched,” he said.

Dawkins’ approach doesn’t present freedom of thought and opinion, Thomsen said.

“His presence at OU was not about science,” he said. “It was to promote an atheistic agenda, and that was very clear.”

Was Mr Thomsen at the talk? I think not, or he’d know that he was giving his “Purpose of Purpose” lecture, which was about the perception of teleology in biology and evolution. Or maybe he just assumes that any talk about science is promoting an atheistic agenda, a presumption that would not surprise me at all.

I’m really getting jealous. The best rejection I ever got was getting kicked out of a mere movie theater…and Dawkins has casually stirred the ire of an entire state. Are there any small nations that would like to outlaw me? I have to keep up.

I thought that silly Intelligent Design blog, Uncommon Descent, was going to have a new and enlightened comment policy, in which people would be allowed to criticize ID without risk of deletion. That’s what they said, at least. You knew it couldn’t be true: they’re already sharpening the knives to get rid of a persistent critic.

Someone by the name of skeech is cluttering up UD with impervious sophistry and wasting a lot of our time.

His/her latest thesis is that “according to biologists…” there is a “credible possibility that small incremental changes could have developed massive increases in biological information in a short time — followed by stasis.”

So, skeech assures us that “biologists” are universally agreed upon this proposition?

How about this and this?

Yes, biologists are universally agreed upon that. Skeech was being very conservative in his description — it’s more than a ‘credible possibility’, both relatively rapid changes and patterns of stasis have been demonstrated. The “this and this” mentioned were links I won’t repeat to the absurd Phil Skell and some ID guy at an evangelical Christian college. I guess those are the “biologists” he’s talking about (Skell, by the way, is a chemist). I’ll have to remember to waggle my fingers in the universal air-quotes gesture whenever I’m talking about the “biologists” on the side of creationism.

Then the real foolishness begins.

Darwinian evolutionary theory is a boiling, ever-changing, amorphous cloud that is impenetrable and completely immune to critical analytical scrutiny. It was designed that way, for obvious reasons.

That’s an amazing glimpse into the creationist mindset — apparently, they see design everywhere. Evolutionary theory was not designed. It evolved. There are a great many contributors to it, all pushing the boundaries in different directions, which is why grasping the depth of the idea is beyond these guys — it takes a lot of work to keep up with the literature, and the details can be bewildering (just try keeping up with all the comparative molecular biology work on developmental genes, for instance; it’s a deluge of papers right now). However, the core principles are straightforward and can be grasped by most people with a little effort.

Now watch: the angry kook emerges. How often has poor Albert Einstein’s corpse been dragged out and made to dance in defense of every new loony idea?

It should be noted that the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century was the steady-state universe theory (that is, the universe is eternal, and has no beginning and no end). Those subscribing to the consensus were wrong (including Albert Einstein), and they put up a big fight until the end, when the evidence became overwhelming.

Continental drift theory was also ridiculed.

Wegener was the first to use the phrase “continental drift” (1912, 1915)… During Wegener’s lifetime, his theory of continental drift was severely attacked by leading geologists, who viewed him as an outsider meddling in their field.

Where’s Galileo? He forgot Galileo! We need to be able to use the “They laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown” line! I need closure.

Oh, well. The operative phrase up there is “the evidence became overwhelming”. The evidence for Intelligent Design creationism is less than overwhelming; it’s definitely not at the level of “impressive”. It hasn’t even reached “thought-provoking” or even “hmmm…maybe”. It seems to be stuck at “non-existent”. They can invoke Einstein and Wegener as patron saints when they actually have something persuasive other than their religious certainty that there must be a designer.

The criticism we always hear from Darwinists is: Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.”

You’re allowed to question it, of course. It’s just that when your criticisms reveal a dazzling degree of ignorance of basic biology, we’re going to laugh and dismiss your arguments out of hand. And of course, evolution is science — it’s not the ersatz “science” beloved of creationists.

The essence of Darwinian philosophy, presented as “science,” takes about 15 minutes to learn and understand: Random variation and natural selection explain everything — never mind the details, we’ll make up stories later to explain away the anomalies, contradictions, and improbabilities.

In the meantime, just have faith, and don’t ask any annoying questions.

This is not science, it’s religious indoctrination.

Wait, what happened to the “amorphous cloud”? Suddenly evolution is something you can grasp in 15 minutes. Yes, it’s true, though: random variation and selection are the basic principles that explain everything. But no, the details are important — we’ve got a century and a half worth of details, evidence, that we can go over. It’ll take a lot more than 15 minutes. We don’t need to make up stories (even though some do, admittedly), we can leave that to the defenders of myth.

I am amused that that little UD rant was prompted by a guy asking annoying questions, getting the administrators of UD to complain falsely that real science doesn’t let you ask annoying questions, while they do their best to suppress critics who ask annoying questions. The growing hypocrisy is just one more reason their blog is increasingly irrelevant…that and their vacuity.

Isn’t it nice of me to give them a link that will vastly increase their traffic? I should probably stop doing that.