The Kansas Board of Education is going to be re-evaluating the anti-science standards the formerly overwhelmingly right-wing crazy board had approved—they’ve since elected more moderate members—and the creationists aren’t happy about it. When reading the stories, there was this name that kept coming up: Doug Kaufman. I don’t know a thing about the man, but from all of his newspaper quotes, I’m getting an impression of a real Gumby, a fellow who has one thought in his head and who bellows it out at every opportunity. If only that thought weren’t wrong…

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Oh, man, we’re in trouble now—they’re catching on. Casey Luskin wags his finger at the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you know that when the sharpest tool (a phrase intending a variety of meanings) in the ID creationist toolbox notices the obvious, we can expect…we can expect…well, we can’t expect much, but we do get lots of gassy blitherings.

He makes much of the fact that he knows the FSM is supposed to be a joke (a joke that, personally, I think is getting well past its sell-by date), but he clucks primly at the fact that all these “Darwinist academics” are finding the joke humorous…yet the FSM “Mocks Judeo-Christian Religion”!

While much of this is witty and fun, these comments reveal an underlying anti-religious mindset by these Darwinist academics who “endorse” FSM in a tone which mocks traditional Judeo-Christian religion.

Some theistic scientists still manage to find the Spaghetti Monster amusing, though; I suspect it’s because most of the sarcasm is directed specifically at the Intelligent Design nonsense, and the irreligiousness is merely an incidental by-blow of the fact that religiosity is at the heart of ID. But still, that’s awfully perspicacious of the usually thick-skulled Luskin—he noticed that a lot of scientists do think it’s perfectly acceptable to laugh at religion.

It’s a positive development. It’s OK to kick Intelligent Design creationism, and we can see that it’s religiously motivated, which makes it more acceptable to laugh at religion, which is exactly what we godless scientists want. Thanks, Discovery Institute!

Today, it’s Peter Hitchens’ turn to make a mealy-mouthed appeal for an unearned respect for Intelligent Design creationism. This one is another generic whine, begging that people be fair and give some version of equal time to an underdog heterodoxy…creationism. After all, the only possible reason scientists could accept the idea of evolution is because they’ve mysteriously and unfairly acquired a dominant position, and this brand of pundit doesn’t stop to consider why it’s so popular. I think it’s a kind of projection: they’ve acquired this unearned position of authority, so they can’t imagine that any other idea could have gotten to where it is on merit.

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They’re befuddled over there in the UK—I know that when I visited, I seemed to down a couple of pints of that potent stuff every day, so I’m assuming the natives must also be living in a constant state of alcohol saturation. Right? It’s the only explanation I can think of for the latest burst of creationist foolishness in the UK. They’ve got the former head of some school out there coming out in favor of the shoddy pseudoscience that this creationist group, Truth in Science, has been peddling.

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If you want to see how the other side thinks, and I mean more than just the vocal leaders at the top of the creationist movement, there’s an excellent example at The Friendly Atheist. It’s written by a fellow who visited his local church, Parkview Christian Church, and reviewed a 25 page pamphlet on creationism put out by the pastor, Tim Harlow.

I have to be blunter than the Friendly Atheist (he’s friendly, after all; I have no such qualifier): Reverend Tim Harlow is sincere, caring, literate, and open to conversation, but his pamphlet is 199 proof distilled stupid, aged in oaken casks and decanted with love. It’s a collection of “scientific” creationism’s greatest hits, from “evolution is just a theory” to “evolution causes sexual deviancy and Naziism”, by way of quote mining, tornadoes in junkyards, Piltdown man, the Loch Ness monster, and every logical fallacy trotted out by the parade of fools we’ve heard from between Henry Morris and Phillip Johnson. This thing is a hotbed of quote mining. He’s quoting Richard Dawkins in support of Intelligent Design creationism; he quotes Carl Sagan to say evolution is impossible; he’s even got the infamous dishonest partial quote of Darwin on the evolution of the eye.

This pamphlet is written as a letter to his children’s teacher, and it’s presented as the work of a well-meaning parent begging a teacher to be fair. I’ve had students who ask me to be fair, before—it usually means they’ve thoroughly bombed on some test, and want some special consideration for their errors. That attitude holds true here, too.

So, as a teacher, you are bound to teach evolution. That is not your fault: it is simply the reality and I do understand that fact. I just want to try to keep you open to the idea that my child, and probably most children in your classroom, do not believe that “theory.” I am asking you to teach (or continue to teach) evolution as just that — a “theory,” and keep your classroom open to other theories of the origin of the world. The essential issue of the famous Scopes trial that started all of this was the fundamental right in a free country to study any theories of origin. At that point, the courts decided that evolution could be taught with creationism. Somehow the pendulum swing went way over to the other side. I would suggest that many people — some scientists included — would like to see it swing back.

Right there in his opening entreaty he demonstrates that he doesn’t know what the scientific meaning of the word “theory” is; I am not kindly disposed. The rest of the pamphlet is even worse, and there wasn’t a single paragraph I could find that was untainted by error. Sorry, Harlow, but it’s only fair that I flunk you.

I hope no teachers are taken in by his phony plea, either. Yes, you are free to learn any old stuff and nonsense you want—does anyone doubt that Harlow’s children are getting thoroughly and repeatedly indoctrinated into the baloney in his pamphlet? —but the job of the public schools should be to teach the best, established, superstition-free ideas, not echo the unscientific myths of ill-informed parents in the community, of whom Harlow is an excellent representative.

Harlow is also representative of the kind of authority figures standing at church pulpits all across the country, trading in fellowship and community good works, and handing out lies, nonsense, and ignorance with a happy glint in his eye. And people believe him—after all, would a preacher lie to you?

Now the scary part: there are pastors like Harlow in your town, right now. And they have congregations that listen to them, and vote, and harass your public school teachers. You should be afraid.

Five days ago, I wrote about a creationist letter that was published in Nature. At that time, there was a discussion going on in email with the gang at the Panda’s Thumb, and someone said we ought to get a pool going on how long it would take before the Intelligent Design creationists would use this to argue that their case was being seriously discussed in the pages of a major scientific journal. Four months was suggested; I said one week.

I should have put some money down on that.

It turns out one of the PhD alumni in biology from Moran’s school (University of Toronto), a respected scientist and pro-ID creationist recently had his letter published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. This is news in itself that creationists and ID proponents are getting airtime now in scientific journals…

That was the unctuous clown, Sal Cordova, of course. It was four days before they were trumpeting this crank letter as a triumph for Intelligent Design creationism.

John G. West of the Discovery Institute wants all you conservatives to know that the Debate Over Evolution Not Going Away, and that you need to join up with his side and question “Darwinism”, because of all those intolerant nasty dogmatists who want to suppress the truth. You know, people like me.

Biology professor P. Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota, Morris, has demanded “the public firing and humiliation of some teachers” who express their doubts about Darwin. He further says, “It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.”

Deja vu, man, deja vu.

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Jonathan Wells, the creationist who makes shoddy claims about developmental biology, has deigned to respond to my criticisms…but only indirectly, on another blog. It’s an interesting response, in that it once again reveals Wells’ misunderstandings of biology, and his sneaky way of inserting phony claims.

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The usual suspects of Intelligent Design creationism came out with a book a while ago honoring the patriarch of the movement, that sneaky rascal Phillip Johnson. They had to shop around for someone to puke up some happy blurbs about the book; Duke Cunningham demanded too much money, Charles Manson had some standards, and Roy Cohn was both gay and dead, so they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel of sleazy criminals and came up with Chuck Colson. I have no idea how much he was paid, but they didn’t get their money’s worth.

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