It’s a common question, and it isn’t easy to explain, since much of it is complicated while the simple parts are often counter-intuitive. But here’s a
comic that tries and illustrates the problem.
Here’s the correct explanation, that actually jibes with the evidence.
Here’s the ID/creationist explanation:
Then, of course, in the competition of ideas, the two hash it out and…well, you’ll have to read the whole thing yourself. Sad to say, the ending rings true, too.
Some Christian schnook visited a museum, read a sign, and complained to the museum. So what did the museum do?
An information sign, which is part of Abington Park Museum’s display about Charles Darwin and fossils, was covered up after a visitor’s complaint.
Two parts of the sign, concerning ‘Changing Attitudes to Evolution’, are obscured with black paper, but only four lines of text are actually covered over.
It details how Charles Darwin used the study of fossils to help formulate his theory of evolution, set out in On the Origin of Species, which angered fundamental Christians and Creationists.
But following a complaint to the museum, part of the sign was covered over to avoid giving offence and to conceal the poor prose.
Here’s the offending paragraph:
He used the same layers of fossils that had supported the Genesis view of evolution to show the slow changes that are taking place over the millennia of earth history, each small change enabling a species to the rigours of it’s (sic) environment – the struggle for survival through natural selection leading to the survival of the fittest.
Dang. Those apostrophe nazis sure are fierce.
If you’ve got the 29 August issue of Chemical & Engineering News, there’s an interesting editorial inside. It seems there has been a flurry of activity on C&EN on the issue of evolution; the editor dismissed the whole idea of intelligent design creationism back in February, saying that it was not an acceptable alternative to the theory of evolution and should not be taught in the schools. He got hammered with forceful complaints from pro-ID engineers, and many letters were published in the April issue. Uh-oh, I hear all the engineers out there groaning, here comes the Salem hypothesis again…
However, here’s the cool thing: those pro-creationism letters spurred an even greater response from the C&EN readership, a wonderful colossal roar of disapproval against the vocal subset who were endorsing ID, and a small fraction of the letters are published in the latest issue (I’ve got the print copy; the online edition is a bit behind, but keep an eye open for it.)
It’s reassuring. A noisy few cranks in engineering occasionally get all the news, but give them a chance and a voice and the majority do favor good science.
This story about the struggles of a high school biology teacher in Florida is depressing. David Campbell, the teacher, is a hero — but it’s the kind of hero sent off to suffer and fail in a misplaced struggle, who dutifully falls in battle, a victim of bad leadership and poor strategy. It’s the same old tactics the educational bureaucracy has been pushing for 50 years or more: tip-toe gently about the subject of religion, never challenge the idiocy students bring into the classroom with them, always strain to allow them to accommodate science to their personal superstitions…which means pretending that science doesn’t directly contradict their cherished myths. It doesn’t work and has never worked, and the problem gets worse and worse every year.
This clip is of a caller to the Atheist Experience who makes a series of assertions common among creationists.
Matt Dillahunty answers her well, but at the end he doubts that the caller was for real. Sorry, guy, I’ve heard those arguments a thousand times — they represent a kind of universal creationist ground state. It’s why we have Poe’s Law: because there are sincere people who actually promote this nonsense.
Even the lovely island of Malta is infested with creationists…who have somehow acquired positions of authority in private schools.
Far from becoming extinct 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids.
This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18.
I have to wonder what the point of licensing schools is when the process is so porous that flaming incompetents like Fenech can run them.
This is another wonderful example of the sloppy scholarship of the creationists. The always pretentious Berlinski made the interesting claim that John Von Neumann, the deservedly famous mathematician, thought that Darwinian theory was ridiculous. Douglas Theobald crushes that claim. Von Neumann was clearly on the side of evolutionary theory … but of course, whether he was or wasn’t is actually irrelevant, since we don’t judge ideas in modern biology by the authority of mathematicians from 50 years ago.
Greetings, fellow minions. Sastra OM, here, belatedly logging in as guest blogger #4. My smooth entry into the blogosphere was temporarily delayed by my fierce objections to signing Seed’s contract, which to my horror appeared to involve some sort of ritualized Cthulhu chanting to the Elder Gods. Turns out it simply needed reformatting. My bad.
Unlike some of the other guest bloggers this week, I do NOT have a strong background in biology and impressive credentials from prestigious universities and research labs. Instead, I have a BA in English Lit from Western Illinois University (everybody go OOooo) and a passing familiarity with various skeptic and atheist organizations and issues.
So I am starting out my guestblogging by passing on a link to a survey on the public understanding of evolution from Michael Shermer’s Skeptic Society at Cal Tech. It’s part of a study they’re doing “on general knowledge of and beliefs about evolution,” and it only takes a few minutes. So, by the powers of Pharyngula invested in me, I command you go forth. Only if you feel like it, of course.
http://www.evolutionsurvey.com/
One thing I found particularly interesting (and challenging) about this survey was that it
[Read more…]
I actually watched the entire appalling 10 minutes of this ghastly creationist video by Dr Ron Carlson, Learn How Evolution is Largely Based on the Silly Assumption of a Dead Lawyer. The whole thing is built around a completely false claim, that fossils are dated only from the geological strata, and that the strata are dated by the fossils found in them. He repeats his lie many times in this short video, and each time wanted to stand up and shout at him. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of dating techniques knows that while index fossils give you a quick and fairly reliable estimate of age, other techniques, such as radiometric dating, are used to verify ages.
That’s typical for creationists. Even worse to me is the ahistorical lie in the title. Guess who the “Dead Lawyer” is?
That’s right, this clown has simply misrepresented the most eminent geologist of the 19th century, and derogated his life’s work to a mere “silly assumption”. Lyell initially trained as a lawyer, but began his career as a geologist in his early 20s, and by the time he was 30 he was a full-time geologist at a time when there was little institutional support for the discipline. Since Dr Ron Carlson, before he was 2, wore diapers, by the same reasoning we can now address him as “Diaper Wearer Ron Carlson”. As for the claim that Lyell was an atheist who invented uniformitarianism to prop up the theory of evolution…absolute nonsense. Lyell was not an atheist at all, came up with his ideas long before Darwin, and at first equivocated and then offered only tentative support to the idea of the modification of species.
As for Dr Ron Carlson, to whose name the title “Dr” seems surgically grafted, I haven’t been able to find out what his degree might be in, or where he got it from. Somehow, I don’t think it was in geology.
John Freshwater, the Ohio science teacher who uses his classroom to proselytize and promote creationism, is following a familiar tactic: LIE.
Supporters of a middle school science teacher facing firing for burning crosses into students’ arms were in the majority at a central Ohio school board meeting.
They gave John Freshwater a standing ovation when he rose to speak Monday night during the two-hour Mount Vernon school board meeting. He attended the meeting to say he has never branded or burned anyone.
This reminded me of chapter 5, “Never said it”, in Lauri Lebo’s excellent book on the Dover trial, The Devil in Dover(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). This is the part of the book where the lawyers for the prosecution are trying to get an injunction to prevent the school board from going through with their attempts to promote ID in the classroom, and they bring in the defendants, Buckingham, Bonsell, and others, to corroborate the arguments documented in the press that they were looking for textbooks that blended evolution and creationism. And to the obvious consternation of the lawyers, they all simply lied and claimed that they’d never said it and the reporters had all made everything up. It was patently dishonest, but it essentially blocked the injunction and let them go ahead with their scheme.
Don’t worry, the chapter ends on a good note: Lebo gets footage from a local television that shows they lied, which will later come to good use in the actual trial.
It’s always disturbing to see how readily these creationists will lie for their own ends, and how happily their supporters will cheer for the lie.
