Four bad arguments against evolution

Bryan Fischer claims that anyone is capable of defeating Darwin in 4 easy steps, all they have to do is remember his four “scientific” arguments. I’ve got an easier strategy for creationists: be really stupid, lie a lot, and ignore anything a scientist tells you. See? Only three steps, and none of them require any thought whatsoever. Besides, it’s really what Fischer has done, too. The only thing new is that he has distilled creationist inanity down to four easily dismissed lies, and they actually are fairly representative of common creationist misconceptions.

So here you go, Bryan Fischer’s easily trounced arguments.

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Catching up with Molly

I’m a bad, bad man — I’ve been neglecting the Molly awards for too long. Let’s fix that! For those who don’t know, the Molly awards are how we acknowledge valued and insightful commenters here, by allowing readers to nominate the names of the people they enjoy seeing in the comment threads, and the prize is that those names get enshrined on a web page.

The last round of nominations was in February. There are two winners for February 2008: Truth Machine and Mrs Tilton. Say “Huzzah!” and break out the champagne!

Now we’re a month behind, and we need nominations for both March and April. Maybe you can’t remember what anyone said in March, though, so let’s do it this way: everyone should make a general suggestion for someone you’ve known as a regular here for some time, and I’ll pick from those for the March award; and you should also make a more specific nomination for someone who has impressed you lately, and I’ll pick from those for the April award.

The whole idea seems nasty

Apparently, it’s a religious holiday called Passover, which refers to some horrible, awful series of afflictions a god visited on some unfortunate people, but passed over some others, so the survivors celebrate. It seems terribly mean-spirited to me. Anyway, here’s something “fun”: Passover-themed gifts. In this case, a collection of plagues for children. A bag of plagues, plague fingerpuppets, chocolate plagues — there’s a frog in that one. Which made me think of…

NCSE is sponsoring a contest!

You can join in, and many of you here are old pros at this exercise:

In promoting the creationist propaganda film Expelled, Ben Stein managed to stick his foot in his mouth over and over again, issuing what seemed to be a ceaseless stream of ignorant, offensive, and just plain daffy claims. Here’s your chance to set Ben straight. Send your favorite claim to setbenstraight@ncseweb.org along with a refutation. We’ll post the best for all the world to see. And five lucky entrants will receive a year’s subscription to Reports of the NCSE along with their choice of a book from NCSE’s shelf – including such useful books as Mark Isaak’s The Counter-Creationism Handbook, Eugenie C. Scott’s Evolution vs. Creationism, and the AAAS’s The Evolution Dialogues: Science, Christianity, and the Quest for Understanding. But you only have ten days, and a wealth of silliness to examine, so act now!

Read the more detailed rules. Note that you don’t actually have to see the movie to enter; Stein has opened his mouth at enough venues that there a multitude of opportunities available in the public domain.

The things you learn in the newspaper…

I’ve been profiled in MinnPost — and it’s mostly boring stuff I already knew, but the reporter apparently called around the Morris community, too, which is how I learned this:

Myers acknowledged that he is something of a curiosity in a Minnesota community of church-goers, many of them deeply committed social and political conservatives.

Still, Myers has created no big buzz in town, said the Rev. Tom Fangmeier, an Assemblies of God pastor who chairs the Stevens County Ministerial Board. One Lutheran pastor complained to the board about Myers, Fangmeier said, but “I haven’t heard about him in the cafes or anywhere else around town.”

How … strange. I wonder what exactly they would expect to hear about me? I’m sitting in the Common Cup cafe right now, and I don’t think I could generate much of a buzz. “Oh. He’s sitting. He has a nice laptop. He doesn’t slurp his coffee.”

It’s very amusing that I’ve been reported to the Stevens County Ministerial Board. Perhaps I will be defrocked.

Portrait of a president

I never thought I could actually like a portrait of George W. Bush, but this one isn’t bad. Go ahead and click on the link — the overall portrait is fine, and you may not notice anything at all disturbing (well, except for the fact that it is George W. Bush) on seeing it. You might not want to click on the links to details in the image, though; this picture is a collage made from pictures of anuses snipped out of porn magazines.

It ain’t pretty, but it’s art that speaks the truth.