Bride of the Thread That Will Not Die

The endless thread continues. Our creationist cretins in the old thread are still jabbering away, making progressively less sense as time goes by, and various sub-themes continue to branch from it, but I can’t keep track of it all. Talk about whatever you want here.

One subject I might suggest is what to do with Alan Clarke and RogerS, the two babblers who keep this stuff going. I know, you’re like a bunch of tigers with a cat toy, and you’re all battering these guys back and forth, but they are getting old and stale — they’re clearly brain-dead, and Alan, a supposed computer professional, can’t even fix his web page. It’s nice that they’re confined to limited threads, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Scienceblogs is currently running on an old Commodore with a 1200 baud modem, so these bloated threads are a bit of a strain.

Keep them around for entertainment value? Boot ’em? Give Alan a deadline to fix his web page, or then kick his dilatory butt from the blog? You call it.

Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution

When I was growing up, I had no introduction to evolutionary theory. Sure, I assumed it was true, and I went through the usual long phase of dinosaur fandom, but I was never taught anything at all about evolution throughout my grade school education, and what little I did know was largely stamp-collecting. That all changed, though, when I went off to college.

I can’t credit the schools I went to, unfortunately: most of my undergraduate education (with a few wonderful exceptions) was the usual mega-survey course, where the instructor stuck a funnel in our heads and poured in facts for a term — so more stamp-collecting. What happened to me, though, was that I was struck by two thunderbolts at almost the same time. The hot science book that was published during my freshman year was E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology, and I bought it and devoured it and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was more buckets of facts, but in this case, these facts were deployed to illuminate an overarching idea about how the world works…and I found it wonderful.

The second thunderbolt was Stephen Jay Gould. He was doing the same thing, promoting ideas powerfully with evidence and rhetoric, and he was far easier to read than Wilson, and communicated even more clearly. It was also wonderful.

Of course, if you know anything about the intellectual landscape of the 1970s, you know that I had acquired as two scientific god-parents two warring camps who were hellbent against one another in a period of angry evolutionary ferment. I am the product of a broken home! It was especially tragic, because in my naiveté, I thought most of the conflict was a waste, that each side had an important perspective, and that the right answer was an appreciation of the power of selection and an understanding of the other modes of change operating over history.

I’ve long been interested in the battle royale that went on in that period — it’s like a child’s morbid dwelling on the scab of an ugly parental divorce — and in particular with that central figure, Steve Gould. Last week I was sent a copy of a book by David F. Prindle, Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), so of course I had to read it.

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A trite commercial with a scene that must be made

This is going too far. As you probably know, Apple has run a long series of ads where they personify computers: the Mac is the young, cool, hip dude, while the PC is the stodgy old loser. It has been a very successful campaign, and various other companies have tried to copy it or defuse it. But sometimes they are too slavishly following the concept and lose any credibility or any awards for creativity. Latest case: OpenBSD proposes a series of ads with their own personified operating systems. It’s never going to happen — they can’t afford the talent they want to use — and it’s also too overwrought. It’s got Vin Diesel as OpenBSD, and Yoko Ono as a Mac (yes, I am offended!), and no mention of Linux (Greg is offended!) but I still approve, because it’s got the only acceptable use of Ben Stein in a commercial, playing the role of a PC.

Ben Stein is shown knee deep in sludge at the bottom of a porta-potty tank. Stein waves up at the camera and calls cheerfully, “Hey there, OpenBSD!”

Vin Diesel wrinkles his nose and replies, “Uh, what are you doing down there, PC?”

In response, Stein cups his hands and scoops up a hearty mass of brown goop. Holding it close to his face, Stein says, “I’m trying out Vista!” He then buries his face in sewage, pulls out gasping and choking, and proceeds to vomit down the front of his shirt.

Diesel looks aghast and says, “That… doesn’t look very healthy, PC. I’ve heard some pretty bad things about Vista.”

A visibly shaken Ben Stein gathers himself and retorts sarcastically, “Yeah, Vista is bad, evolution is real, and I just traded the last unicorn for a bag of magic beans. Wake up, OpenBSD! There’s a whole wide world out here!” Stein stretches his arms wide in the dank confines of the porta-potty’s waste tank.

OpenBSD is a good OS, but I’m not excited by it…but man, I want to see this commercial made, just to get Stein frolicking in sewage. It’s never going to happen, alas.

Don’t go down this road, BBC

I’m warning you. It’s a disaster waiting to build: when the newspapers start reporting creationist versions of stories without questioning them, without providing explanations of the fallacies, and without even bringing in authoritative scientific voices to knock their claims down, all you do is feed the confidence of the creationists. It’s even worse than “he said she said” journalism. That’s exactly what the BBC has done, though, with a piss poor story about attendees at Ken Ham’s preposterous creationist “museum”.

I’m going to be charitable and assume the author intended to hang the creationists with their own words; the quotes from the people going to the “museum” do make them sound like ignorant hicks. In particular, one pull quote — Why is Darwin buried with kings at Westminster Abbey? He’s not a king. — is a great big flashing idiot light, and will be especially noticeable in the UK (hint: they don’t just bury kings in Westminster…unless, of course, Isaac Newton and Herschel and Lyell and many other scientists were crowned when I wasn’t looking).

But still, look at the article as a creationist would. It’s going to go in a scrapbook or on a wall of reviews at the “museum”, and the gomers will stroll through, read it, and nod approvingly. Those quotes affirm their own beliefs; all they’ll see is that the BBC approvingly quoted sentiments they share. And there will be readers in England, even, who will be oblivious to the very understated sarcasm, and will be cheered further in their support of creationism. And other reporters will see that as a perfectly reasonable way to write a news story, and the plague of bland reporting will spread.

This part was simply disingenuous.

President and founder Ken Ham stayed resolutely silent about the fossil, called Darwinius masillae, which scientists believe was linked to an early human ancestor.

I’m sorry, but if you go to the Answers in Genesis web site, Darwinius masillae is featured top center in a big full color banner. To claim that Ham was resolute or silent is false: he’s been lying noisily and frantically about the fossil record.

Trust me, it’s been happening over here. Every article about creationism needs to eschew the subtleties and pound hard on the obvious, that creationism is bunk and its proponents are ignorant, because the creationists don’t get subtlety.

An opportunity to query a deity

In an awesome development, I have been chatting with Mr. Deity (which, by the way, makes me officially a prophet. I’m working on letting my beard grow long now), and he has offered to answer almost any questions you might have. What would you ask an omniscient, omnipotent being? Leave your questions in the comments, I’ll pass them on, and then I’ll stroll down from the mountain with the answers chiseled on digital stone tablets.

I don’t want to catch any of you frolicking with golden calves while I’m getting the words of the Lord now, you hear?

And keep in mind that I’ll only pass along the interesting questions. Asking for lottery numbers…not interesting. And you know I’d keep those answers for myself, anyway.

Getting tired of Ray Comfort’s silly blog?

Ray has always been good for hours of hilarity — he writes amazingly stupid stuff. But now Ray has competition: Eric Hovind has a blog! It’s not quite as insane as Ray’s, but it does have more evil and stupidity.

For example, Eric likes a poem that he quotes — it’s a crude racist ditty that, I’m told, you can also find on the Stormfront web site. It’s written as if by some caricature of an immigrant, and ends like this:

We think America darn good place!
Too darn good for the white man race.
If they no like us, they can scram,
Got lots of room in Pakistan ..

Hovind has been shown that some of the statistics he used to justify vilifying immigrants were wrong, he’s admitted it, but he still likes the poem. That tells you a lot about him, right there.

On the evil side, he has a post called “The Evoluiton Hypothisis” [sic, sic]. He uses a diagram of what he calls the scientific method to argue against evolution’s status as a scientific theory.

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I don’t much care for the diagram — it’s too rigid in its simplistic model of how science works, and it perpetuates the misleading idea that hypotheses gradually become theories (usually, theories emerge to explain large bodies of information already accumulated, and don’t slowly expand up out of single hypotheses) and that theories become laws if they’re confirmed enough. But I’ll let it slide… you’ll find many similar diagrams in introductory biology texts.

Where Hovind is stupidly wrong is that he looks at that diagram, and baldly claims that the “concept of evolution has never gotten passed the Hypothesis stage”. Ridiculous. All those papers being constantly published in the scientific literature are tests of the theory. The primary research literature is crammed full of tests of evolution, and more keep coming. You have to be profoundly ignorant of the state of biology to be able to make such a ludicrous claim. Oh, wait…he’s a Hovind. Of course he’s deeply ignorant!

Oh, if any of you decide to hang about and laugh at Eric Hovind’s goofy claims, would you mind reminding him now and then that I’m waiting for my iPod Touch?

WhoIsYourCreator saves a soul…for Darwin

Regular readers here may be familiar with WhoIsYourCreator, a creationist who blows through here and The Panda’s Thumb now and then to dump a load of creationist cut-and-paste in the comments. WhoIsYourCreator is actually Julie Haberle, a deranged creationist whose chief accomplishment to date has been to erect foolish billboards all over the place. To date — but now she can take credit for another accomplishment. Her billboards and organization prompted a Christian to dig deeper into this evolution stuff, and what he discovered was that Haberle and others in the creationist movement have been lying all along, which led him to this simple conclusion, which he shared with Ms. Haberle.

I’m simply writing to say ‘Thank You’ and let you know by sharing with you the information I’ve discovered, your organization more than any other entity has been the primary factor in the shedding my faith. Keep up the good work as there is no doubt countless others have and will continue to do the same based on your efforts.

Dishonesty has consequences, and creationists are fundamentally distorting the evidence to fit their desired conclusion. That hurts them when people take a moment to actually examine what they are claiming.

Funny poll

This one is already going our way — and when you see the question, you’ll understand why — but if you would like to give it a little boost, please do.

Who makes for funnier comedians, atheists or believers?

Atheists — To fully appreciate the absurdity of life you have to accept the absurdity of a god. 68%
Believers — Hilarity is part of God’s plan 32%

They’ve got examples and clips at that link, and it’s no contest.

Who have the godless got? George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, and Eddie Izzard. You could stop the contest right there.

Who have the godly got? Dane Cook. I’ve never been able to stand him, and this is the first I’ve heard that he’s a Christian (I had no idea that Noxious Frat Boy was a sect in that religion!). Steve Harvey. Some gomer named Mark Lowry I’d never heard of before, but if you watch his awful clip, you’ll understand why. OK, they do have Stephen Colbert, but what makes him funny is that his schtick mocks the religious.

There are a few funny believers, but they just look stupid when they bring religion into their routines, so the good ones don’t. The atheist comedians simply have the huge advantage of being able to tap into the absurdity of belief.