In case you were wondering about that lawsuit by JZ Knight in Seattle — she was claiming that a former student had stolen the teachings of her Atlantean warrior spirit guide for profit — it’s over now. Knight won. Keep that in mind if ever a channeler tells you some flaky secret knowledge someday: it’s protected, privileged speech and the ghostie can sue your butt off.
We’re going to be in big trouble when John Edward‘s spirits copyright the alphabet.
This is cute: college professor is preparing a lecture on homology, rummages about on the internet to see if there are any useful or interesting sources, and finds one that leaves him bemused and amused at the prospect of using it as an example in class…a bad example. The source is Conservapædia! The story concludes with a little understatement:
The Conservapedia entry on homology seems more concerned with acceptance of “custom and tradition” as a basis for “truth of religious matters” than with possible comparisons we might make among organisms. Indeed, it seems that the Conservapedia aims to dismiss important scientific approaches through superficial allusions. Perhaps we should be wary of trusting the Conservapedia, despite its subtitle.
It’s a nice example of using a creationist source to make a legitimate point in a science class, while not surrendering an inch of credibility to that source.
Any physics-minded people at Virginia Tech who would like to deal with some crackpots coming to your campus? There is a talk at Virginia Tech this Friday by Bill Lucas on his claimed biblical model for the structure of atoms. It looks like very weird stuff.
CAMPUS BIBLE FELLOWSHIP
INVITES YOUR ORGANIZATION MEMBERS
TO A
CREATION SEMINAR on the“EXPANDING EARTH: EVIDENCE FOR BIBLICAL CREATION”
PRESENTED BY
DR. BILL LUCAS, B.S., M.S., PH.D in Theoretical Physics
TO BE HELD ON
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2008
AT 7 P.M.
IN SQUIRES STUDENT CENTER, ROOM #341The presentation in is the form of a PowerPoint using many pictures to explain the new theory of gravity that supports a Biblical view of creation.
There will be opportunity following the presentation for questions and answers.
If you would like to check out the organization that Dr. Lucas works with, you can go to the website: www.commonsensescience.org
You really have to check out that Common Sense Science site — it’s very glib. They claim to have a new model for the structure of matter that involves spinning rings; nowhere do they explain what problems this model solves. I know, I’m not a physicist, so how would I know this isn’t really an exciting and revolutionary new idea? Well, there’s a couple of clues. First and foremost, it claims to be a new idea in physics, but there’s no math anywhere. That is very surprising.
Second, when you rummage around, you won’t find any scientific rationale for anything…but you will find repeated assertions that the model is compatible with Judeo-Christian beliefs. That’s an awfully feeble excuse.
And finally, if you expect their links page to give you some useful external sources to check against, think again. The only external sites mentioned are places like Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, etc. You will not find any credible physics at any of those sites — actually, you won’t find any science of any kind.
And of course, the flier is the clincher. This will be a preachin’ fraud who will try to bedazzle the audience with pseudoscience.
If any of you go, let me know what he says! There could be real entertainment value here. You might also want to get in touch with Freethinkers at Virginia Tech; they’re trying to coordinate some kind of response.
Let’s see…it must have a lot of accordions in it, or cowboys singing drunken love songs to their trucks, right? Just to blow your minds, my colleague with esoteric musical taste, Nic McPhee, is getting interviewed tonight, and he’ll be playing some of his favorite songs on the radio. This is our local university radio station, which has a limited license and can’t play anything that has cracked the top 40 in the last 10 or 20 years, but I don’t think Nic’s taste will conflict at all with the station rules.
So tune in to KUMM, 89.7FM, at 6:00pm Central and have those rural Minnesotan stereotypes broken. If you live farther away than Starbuck, Minnesota, you can also listen to the internet stream.
Well, well, well. Look what the Brunswick school board in North Carolina has been up to…
“It’s really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism,” county school board member Jimmy Hobbs said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The law says we can’t have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists.”
When asked by a reporter, his fellow board members all said they were in favor of creationism being taught in the classroom.
The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there’s no tangible proof it’s true.
“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”
The board allowed Fanti to speak longer than he was allowed, and at the end of his speech he volunteered to teach creationism and received applause from the audience.
How many fallacies can you find there? Evolution is a secular theory; it’s not our fault if atheists are copacetic with the evidence, while crazy creationists can’t abide it. Fairness is also not an issue here, since the reason evolution is taught is because it is the best explanation of the evidence. What would be unfair is bringing unsupported fairy tales into the science classroom and giving them a privileged place over hard-earned, well-supported science.
The facts of evolution, such as that the earth is old, there was a pattern of faunal succession, genetic mechanisms can account for variation, etc., are facts. Of course they should be taught! The parts of evolution that are theoretical, the way common descent explains observations in molecular biology, for instance, are no less valid and valuable for being theories. This guy is making the common mistake of thinking that calling an idea a theory is a demotion.
We do see organisms evolving now, in both the lab and in nature. We can indirectly see the effects of evolution even over time-spans which we could not live long enough to witness: we can infer evolution by comparing human and chimpanzee genomes, for instance, and by knowing rates of accumulation of mutations in populations, we can make estimates of the time course of change. Someone doesn’t have to be there to be able to assemble a convincing argument for physical events that have left physical traces.
Uh-oh. He got applause. Now people are going to push for the inclusion of this nonsense in their curriculum. Yep, here it comes…
Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible for the board to add creationism to the curriculum if it doesn’t replace the teaching of evolution.
What kind of attorney is this? No, that’s not an acceptable legal solution. That state science standards mandate certain content in the public schools does not mean that if you meet the standards, you can then spin off any random line of baloney that you feel like. This was the Dover argument, remember: that they would just mumble some lip service to Intelligent Design, and all would be well.
Also like the Dover case, the proponents of introducing ID had already scuttled their case with public discussion at school board meetings of using it to introduce the religious concept of creationism, so the sectarian purpose was obvious to the court. Look here: Brunswick has already admitted that they’re floating this idea because some gomer was ranting about bringing bibles into the science class room.
Schools’ Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would do research.
Babson said the board must look at the law to see what it says about teaching creationism, but that “if we can do it, I think we ought to do it.”
Somebody from the ACLU or NCSE ought to inform these people fast that their attorney is all wet and they are about to screw over their school district badly…before they go down that familiar path to self-destruction. The law says that they can’t do it.
Now one Islamic cleric has declared that Mickey Mouse must die. He’s unclean, after all.
“Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases.”
Mr Munajid seems to be a little confused about what is real and what is fiction, but at least this is a step up from declaring that people should die.
And then there is this:
Last month Mr Munajid condemned the Beijing Olympics as the “bikini Olympics”, claiming that nothing made Satan happier than seeing females athletes dressed in skimpy outfits.
Looks like another bit of evidence that I am Satan, then.
Larry has briefly floated the idea of organizing a trip to London, visiting Down House, the Natural History Museum, etc. There isn’t much of a response — if you’re interested, let him know.
The Vatican has announced that they are having an evolution congress, and that no creationists or intelligent design creationists will be invited. Isn’t that sweet? They’re still inviting a swarm of theologians, though, so their exclusion is all window-dressing, a transparent attempt to sidle medieval peddlers of superstitious nonsense up next to some serious science for a photo op and a little propaganda. And they aren’t even trying to hide what they’re doing.
Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian, told Catholic News Service Sept. 16 that organizers “wanted to create a conference that was strictly scientific” and that discussed rational philosophy and theology along with the latest scientific discoveries.
Right. Strictly scientific. With theology.
He said arguments “that cannot be critically defined as being science, or philosophy or theology did not seem feasible to include in a dialogue at this level and, therefore, for this reason we did not think to invite” supporters of creationism and intelligent design.
What an out — they’re only going to allow arguments critically defined as scientific, oh, and theology. Those are two different things, you know.
I eagerly await the announcement of the associated banquet for the participants. They will only be serving the highest quality food, made by master chefs of Europe, using only the freshest, best ingredients, oh, and there will be dollops of runny, rancid fecal material splattered over the tables and dishes. But the meal will be a magnificent gourmet experience, and the world will know that Vatican shit deserves to be served to the greatest minds of science.
I’m sure they’ll get some good smart people to go along with this, because there is no shortage of competent scientists willing to compromise the public face of science by associating it with wishful thinking and the supernatural. And the Vatican will, of course, throw buckets of pomp and money and somber news quotes at this, all to decorate the rotting flesh of their decrepit dogma with the jewels of science.
And look! Their exclusivity runs the other way, too!
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the other extreme of the evolution debate — proponents of an overly scientific conception of evolution and natural selection — also were not invited.
“Overly scientific conception of evolution”? What the heck? So the problem with evolution, to these Catholics, is that there’s too darned much science in it? I guess Richard Dawkins won’t be pining by his mailbox, hangdog with disappointment that his papal invitation hasn’t arrived yet. Why, the whole problem with evolutionary biology is that we don’t have enough religion in it, to poison and distort and attenuate the science. But not just any religion: it seriously needs more Catholicism.
Phillip Sloan, a professor at Notre Dame, told the press conference the evolution debate, “especially in the United States, has been taking place without a strong Catholic presence … and the discourse has suffered accordingly.”
My usual position is that we need a diversity of approaches to getting science across to the people, and I’ll normally hold my nose and say that those who want to accommodate their religious beliefs to evolution and reach out to people of faith are a necessary part of the process, and that they should be encouraged (but always, also, criticized!). I cannot say that of this conference. Scientists who willingly participate in this obvious game of propaganda are not helping science at all — they are simply selling sectarian Catholic dogma by adding a false luster of rationalism to a body of rank nonsense. The Vatican is asking for a façade of superficially presented science and an illusion of selectivity to make their lies and fantasies look specially favored by the scientific community … and they have even admitted that scientists who reject their teleology and their doctrines and their lunatic beliefs will not be permitted to question.
The conference is a lie. It’s an attempt to pad religion’s résumé. It will get only a sneer of contempt from me, but watch: some scientists and the media and the public, all the people who really, really want transubstantiating triune gods and inherited sins that damn all to hell to be true will lap it up. The Catholic Church will frame it masterfully to serve their corrupt and dishonest ends.
