Peoria needs some help

Someone is putting out feelers to see about building yet another creation museum in Peoria, IL. They’re looking for information about how much support they’d get, so they’ve made a creationist survey, asking if people would be willing to contribute to it. I don’t quite get the point of a survey for that; I presume they would only send the link to a friendly audience to get an appearance of broad support.

Of course, now the link has fallen into my hands, heh heh heh. And I’ve passed it on to you. I wonder what the final statistics on their survey will look like?

Fox News, always willing to defend bigotry with a poll

The theists are on a crusade to deny a legitimately elected city council member in Asheville, NC, his office because he is an atheist. His policies don’t matter, his competence doesn’t matter, the only issue being used to prevent Cecil Bothwell from taking his position is his disbelief in god, and that just isn’t right.

Fox News apparently think the rights of a minority should be determined by the prejudices of a majority, since they’re running a poll on the issue. Given that it is Fox news, the results shouldn’t be surprising…but they do need adjusting.

Should Atheist Councilman Step Aside?

Yes. The law may be inappropriate, but if it’s in their constitution, it IS law. Step aside, councilman. 64%
Maybe. I can’t say that religion – or lack of it – should deter fitness for public office because it opens the door to all sorts of beliefs. 4%
No. Look at the calendar – it’s 2009! Religion – or lack of it – should never be a factor in qualifying someone for public office. 31%
I’m not sure. 1%

What do Fox News and the Huffington Post have in common?

A fondness for quacks.

Fox News brought on a naturopath to peddle a random bit of nonsense, that coffee makes you fat. Any drug that tinkers with your metabolism can have some unexpected effects, but to claim that a cup of black coffee is “worse than five hot fudge sundaes” is irresponsible insanity.

In other woo news: Fox News invited Ann de Wees Allen to tell its viewers that black coffee will make you “fatter than a pig.” This segment is a textbook example of how not to do science journalism. The voice over identifies de Wees Allen as “Doctor”–without mentioning that she claims neither a medical degree, nor a doctorate. Her website says she’s a doctor of naturopathy. Fox also neglects to mention that Allen appears to have a sideline selling something called “Skinny Coffee”–an alternative to that fattening old joe.

Meanwhile, the HuffPo continues its adoration of homeopathy. No, not homeopathy: the quacks have come up with a new, impressive, pseudoscientific term for it now. It’s Nanopharmacology. It’s all wrapped up in a primer on quackery.

Homeopathic medicines are made through a specific pharmacological process of dilution and vigorous shaking. However, when skeptics say that there is nothing but water in homeopathic medicine, they are proving their ignorance, despite the incredible arrogance in which they make these assertions.

The skeptics aren’t making arrogant assertions: the homeopaths who are bilking people with useless nostrums are. Here’s a good reply to homeopathy:

i-f0338d1ce7b214dd2baf4ba0638cd672-homeopathic_webcomic.jpeg

It’s as rational as tradition, I suppose

You’re supposed to close your eyes and randomly jab at this picture to choose your deity for future worship.

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I tried it — just closed my eyes and spun around in my chair and reached out and touched the screen — and have discovered that I am now supposed to praise “System Preferences” on my laptop. All hail System Preferences! My System Preferences is mightier than your System Preferences!

I get email

Keep that recent xkcd in mind when you read this one. This is from a creationist who is convinced all those biologists have it completely wrong, because Clovis points are beautiful artifacts.

Im digging in Ancient mans kitchen

Why is it that the deeper I Dig , the more brilliant the artifacts become… Isn’t that opposite of the Darwin view? Clovis, First view, Plainview,… these guys were far advanced when it came to the quality of life.. I always was taught the older man was the dumber he was.. That’s not accurate in my pea brain view of what I am personally researching… My digging buds discovered written stones in association with Clovis man back in the 80’s.. the local “professionals” would not acknowledge our finds. They then proceeded (over the next 20 years) to claim our site for themselves and as recently as this year have come out and said, “We must rethink the intelligence of early man” da……….Ask Dr. Mike Collins, a Texas archeologist, about David Olmstead’s inscribed stones found in association with Clovis.. bet he doesn’t have much to say… over one hundred such stone were found at the Gault Site in Texas, where we used to dig…You will never convince me that early man wasn’t brilliant and by design. .. read the Bible man…are you afraid? Are you so “professional” you will not even look at another view? I hurt for you brainyacks.. thank God he has kept me simple that I might understand the leap of faith I have taken. He loves you to ya know… after all, He knew you before you were born….John Bishop

Well, this guy has a few misconceptions. Clovis doesn’t represent “ancient man”: these are artifacts on the order of 10,000 years old. It’s still far older than the standard creationist idea of the age of the entire universe, but they are still relics of relatively modern Homo sapiens.

Mr Bishop should stop listening to creationists. I don’t know of any biologists who claim that the older Homo sapiens are dumber than the more recent examples.

Clovis points are spectacular and beautiful, and I certainly don’t have the skill to make one. But I’d hold up an iPhone next to a chipped spear point and argue which is more “brilliant”. Our technology has progressed to an amazing degree, and Mr Bishop is simply in denial.

I also detect some anger. I suspect he found some stones with scratches on them and has decided that they are relics of ancient writing (see Ed Conrad for another example of grandiose misinterpretation), and is miffed that the professionals disagree with him. You can see some of these engraved stones — they’re interesting, but they aren’t Dickens.

Note also the typical pretense to modesty in the letter: he’s “simple,” he has a “pea brain,” yet he also thinks he so much smarter than those “professionals” and “brainyacks”.

The bad grammar and the bizarre punctuation, together with the inane god-walloping, are just the icing on the idiot cake.

It couldn’t happen to a sleazier guy

When Ray Comfort published his own version of Darwin’s Origin, he had to come up with some original content for the introduction. He couldn’t. Instead, he stole the first three pages outright from an essay by University of Tennessee professor Stan Guffey — those are the only reasonable pages in his 50 page contribution — and the rest is a mish-mash of standard creationist arguments that you can find on the internet. It’s actually kind of impressive that he reached so low on the stupid scale with this one; there isn’t one creative thought in the whole sloppy, plagiarized piece of work.

Now the good news: Stan Guffey is considering legal action. I hope he does, in that he really does have an open-and-shut case that Comfort copied his work. The one glitch, it seems to me, is that Comfort purportedly made no profit from his effort, and Guffey lost no income from use of an essay he gave away, so I’m not sure what kind of recompense he could get for the theft. Maybe some lawyers can weigh in here.