Parents in the Berkeley Unified School District are horrified to discover that one of their elementary school teachers is a creationist. Berkeley is like another weird world: this is so common everywhere else, and Berzerkeleyites are so shocked when it happens among their own. I was actually amused at what the creationist teacher did, though.

Parents said that Martin had listed Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Harry Potter under fiction on the blackboard, which promptly reduced some of the 8-year-olds to tears, after which she made the comment about God. [“the only thing they should believe in was God”]

They said that Martin then said that she didn’t believe in evolution or the Big Bang theory either.

Usually it’s us atheists portrayed as the disillusioning bastards who shatter small children’s happy consoling beliefs (and it’s true: nothing warms the shriveled valves and atrophied muscles of my tiny dark heart than to visit department stores at Christmas time and announce to the waiting lines of tots that Santa is dead).

But seriously, it’s about time the sheltered elite enclaves woke up to the fact that the creationist movement is working its tendrils in everywhere.

I received an email today that brings up a curious decision by Lund University: they have appointed a new head of the university who seems to have a few bats in the belfry, and there is some concern that they may be rabid. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that this newly appointed head, Per Eriksson, refuses to discuss some of his beliefs, even though these beliefs may well affect his performance on the job.

I’m hampered by the fact that all the news about this selection is in Swedish, and I can’t read a word of it. Here’s the short summary I was sent.

The Lund University board ignored the recommendation of an examination committee consisting of 90 university professors, students, and other concerned parties and appointed a renowned creationist Per Eriksson with strong connections to the Baptist movement in Sweden. When interviewed concerning the appointment the appointed headmaster candidate proudly pronounced publicly that he faithfully consulted his bible on a daily basis. Although religious freedom should be adhered to, the appointed headmaster candidate made a clear and conscious gesture by displaying his biases. The public pronouncement of his personal beliefs may be an indication of how personal convictions may influence and bias the Prof Eriksson’s judgement in his influential position controlling the largest seat of learning in northern europe.

If he is a creationist, this is big trouble, and ought to be grounds for tossing him out on his ear. You cannot properly administer a modern university while simultaneously believing that the science disciplines are fundamentally in error because they do not bow down to your bronze age myths. However, I haven’t yet found anything in which his creationism is made explicit. Mainly, I’m finding news stories where Eriksson is pretty cagey about avoiding any association with the tenets of his church.

For instance, here’s a story in which the science faculty unanimously oppose his appointment (google translation), explaining that he is a member of a pentecostal church which is “connected to the Swedish Baptist community and the Evangelical Free Church”—that’s a nice stew of crazy right there. This is an anti-science church with the stated belief that homosexuality is wrong, but nothing about creationism, other than that they say the bible is literally true.

Another source (google translation) tried to grill Eriksson on his own personal views on homosexuality and stem cell research: he’s stonewalling (google translation).

Anyway, it’s a strange situation. The Lund University board has selected a candidate who was strongly opposed by a committee of university faculty, and who has very suspicious affiliations with pentecostal/fundamentalist/evangelical religion. That’s all I know at this point, but perhaps some of our Scandinavian readers can dig a little deeper than I can and report back.

I just got a nice letter from the Science Research Foundation of Turkey, an organization founded by Adnan Oktar and with a name so duplicitous that our American Republicans are writhing with envy. Here’s their request and my answer.

[Read more…]

This is a very silly story.

Spring Hill resident Anita Koper thought she’d heard it all – until last week, when her 12-year-old daughter came home from school at Explorer K-8 and started asking her about “revolution.”

“She said her science teacher told the class that in some religions, if you are bad, you come back in another life as a dog, cow or pig,” Koper said.
She said she soon realized her daughter was asking about evolution, not revolution, and that her sixth-grade science teacher had mentioned the theory of reincarnation.

“He also told the class that if you are any religion, you can just go to a Catholic church and they will let you in if you give them money,” Koper said. “I am Catholic and this teacher should get his facts straight before he starts talking about religion. Unless he’s a theologian, he shouldn’t be preaching about this.”

Why should she object to tales of reincarnation? Isn’t it obvious that her daughter is the reincarnation of Gilda Radner?

As Florida Citizens for Science points out, this was a case of a teacher cursorily answering questions that students brought up, prompted by some obligingly vague mentions of alternative faith-based explanations for our origins in their textbook. The teacher was not promoting some kind of bizarre New Age Buddhist-Catholic Prosperity Fusion religion, he was simply trying to cope with a few off-the-wall queries from students who might have been sincere, or might have been acting the smart-ass. The story was further distorted by this young lady, who apparently wasn’t paying close attention, and only echoed the freaky strange bits of the class and even there, got them wrong.

This is not unusual. These are 12 year olds. Little distracted and easily distractible kids in 6th grade.

This, of course, is the milieu into which creationists think it would be worthwhile to introduce a welter of curious myths, superstitions, speculations, and maybe even genuine alternative scientific explanations for various phenomena (but probably not — creationists are allergic to real science), all under the great and sacred principle of “fairness” and the admirable ideal of exposing students to the immense range of human thought, without regard for the filters of likelihood that science tends to throw up. Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?

Texans can stand a little taller now — their scientists have organized into the 21st Century Science Coalition and are speaking out loud and clear.

The 21st-Century Science Coalition is putting politicians on notice that the science community in Texas will accept nothing less than the best education for our kids. We will not allow politics and ideology to handicap the future of our children with a 19th-century education in their 21st-century classrooms.

Any other scientists in Texas should sign their statement. The rest of us should give a clenched fist salute and promise to be as forthright with our local politicians as Texas scientists are with theirs.

The Brunswick school district in North Carolina was hurtling towards a lot of pain…and it’s all thanks to the intransigent arrogance of the ignorant. There are some signs that they’re going to see the light of reason, but there are holdouts, and as is usual in these cases, it’s a few uninformed individuals possessing only a furious conviction and the certitude of religion who are causing the problems. Joel Fanti seems to be one of the instigators of this stupidity, and he’s surprised that so many have been opposing him.

“It just amazes me some of those responses, how venomous they have been,” said Fanti, who sparked the debate by proposing at the board’s Sept. 16 meeting that the teaching of creationism share classroom time with evolution. “I don’t even know what their definition of religion is. I can argue their views on evolution are a religion, too, because it can’t be proven.”

The Rev. Brad Ferguson, Fanti’s pastor at New Beginnings Community Church in Shallotte, said he supports Fanti’s views.

“There is some scientific evidence supporting creationism,” the Southern Baptist minister said. “Kids should be presented both sides. … You can’t isolate disciplines. Science and faith – they go together.”

Fanti is clueless. Then everything is a religion: I can’t prove right this instant that my cats are at my house, but because I saw them there this morning and closed the door so they can’t get out, they almost certainly are…and if I saw one prowling around outside my office window, I’d quickly revise my opinion. But to Fanti’s mind, my expert, empirical, well-supported ideas about my cats ought to be considered a religion, obviously. Similarly, I’ve got some expert, empirical, well-supported ideas about evolution that I can back up with evidence — it is not a view held in the same way as a religion.

Ferguson is equally inane. There is no scientific evidence for creationism — go ahead, show me some. If he really believed that kids should see “both” sides of an issue, no matter how weak or fringy or patently absurd they are, then I hope his Baptist church sunday school is being taught by a cadre of Muslims, Scientologists, and Wiccans.

Science and faith are in opposition. Somehow, his faith is supporting the idea that the earth is 6000 years old, against all the scientific evidence that it is 4.5 billion years old — I think that renders his claim inoperative.

But here’s the good news. These two nitwits seem to be losing, and the school board is backing down, despite the sympathies of a few. And of course, the new strategem is to throw around the Discovery Institute’s favorite empty slogan, “strengths and weaknesses”. What weaknesses? Let’s hear specifics. If they’re willing to teach the strengths, how come they don’t seem to understand them?

After reading e-mails by people disgruntled about the idea of teaching creationism, hearing about the state’s point of view and consulting with attorney Kathleen Tanner, Babson said she thinks the board will not try to go against the law to teach creationism, although she would like to see it in the classroom one day.

Fanti said he learned about the court cases after addressing the board and now thinks the idea of teaching creationism as part of the curriculum will be crushed. But he plans to ask the school board to encourage “evolutionists” in the schools to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of their theory.

“Instead of making it a religious issue, let’s make it a scientific issue,” said Fanti, who identifies himself as a chemical engineer.

A religious engineer…somehow, I am not surprised at all.

No, that’s not right. It would be selfish for us as individuals to take advantage of this incredible windfall.

A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins’ official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.

Adnan Oktar said that he has “issued a call to all evolutionists” that he will give “10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution” – a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.

I had to look up the exchange rate. That’s $8,010,890,000,000. Eight trillion, ten billion, eight hundred and ninety million dollars. I could live reasonably comfortably on that.

Instead, though, I’m going to suggest something that will help out the entire country. The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums. Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan.

Unless…

You don’t think…

Adnan Oktar couldn’t possibly be lying about how much money he has, could he? And he couldn’t possibly by planning to weasel out of accepting any honest evidence, could he?

A reader just informed me that he saw that the Institute for Creation Research is advertising on Fox News. This is not at all surprising — all it takes is money, and these groups are always buying up ad space anywhere they can get it. There is some amusement in the ad, though: I didn’t realize that you could subscribe to ICR’s quarterly Acts & Facts magazine for free; I’m tempted, because it is always a source for hilarity. They also have a distance learning program in which you can get an Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate. I would love to have one of those certificates to hang on my wall, but it looks like that costs money…and I don’t care how little it is, it’s too much.

The Discovery Institute has been gearing up to pollute classrooms across the country with a new ‘textbook’ called Explore Evolution, which is to replace their old propaganda of choice, Of Pandas and People (which had its sorry creationist origins exposed in a little trial in Dover, Pennsylvania). John Timmer of Ars Technica has now reviewed the DI’s masterwork and…well, I hate to give the ending away, but he didn’t like it.

But the book doesn’t only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book, but its authors are expecting that legislators and the courts will be too stupid to notice that, or to remember that the Supreme Court has declared teaching creationism an unconstitutional imposition of religion. As laws similar to Louisiana’s resurface in other states next year, we can only hope that legislators choose not to live down to the low expectations of EE’s authors.

I’ve read it, too, and it is as awful as Timmer says. Don’t buy this book. Watch your local school board, and make sure they don’t buy it either. Some will be trying to do so.