Another junk DNA denialist on a tirade

When I decide to take a break from the mad scramble of organizing my classes, I really shouldn’t follow a whim and take a peek at Uncommon Descent. The lead article has this astonishing opening paragraph.

Remember the dark days of vestigal organs? You know, back when there was a list of 180 vestigal organs? Or remember the days of junk DNA – when repetitive DNA, large regions of non-protein-coding DNA, and all sorts of mobile DNA were assumed to be non-functional simply because the investigators had assumed Darwinism rather than design?

I’m half a century old. I remember a lot of things, but I don’t remember those.

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And what else lacks evidence…?

Ali G interviews four people with opinions about religion. It’s a bit hit or miss, but listen for the bit at the end.

Ali G wonders why so many nuns work as strippers on the side, and the easily offended Catholic priest says, “I don’t think you can demonstrate that statistically…it’s an absurd statement that you’ve just made. …

I would really prefer that you move off this topic because I find it offensive. It’s not documented by any kind of evidence. It’s hearsay.”

Hilarious irony there.

If you thought Ray Comfort was vacuous…

… try Denyse O’Leary sometime. She’s now written a list of predictions from ID, and I don’t think she understands the meaning of the word “prediction” in a scientific context. Eight of the nine are variants on the theme, “there will be no natural explanations for X,” which, try as we might, reveals that our demands for positive, productive explanations from the ID crowd go unheard, and they’d rather just whine that they don’t understand something, so we must not, either.

The one exception: she doesn’t believe the eco-doomsayers who predict that we will destroy all life on the planet. She seems entirely unaware that a) no one claims that — what’s predicted is economic discomfort, displacement of human populations, some species going extinct and others thriving, etc. — and b) this doesn’t represent a prediction of intelligent design, either.

If your brain hasn’t recovered from the ablation it suffered from the laser-like stupidity of Comfort, though, I don’t recommend reading O’Leary — two such traumas on top of one another can be permanently damaging (I can only do it because years of reading this crap has turned my cortex tough as leather.)

So begins my descent into madness

It’s Tuesday, the 22nd of January, and this is the first day of classes at UMM. I’m teaching the introductory biology course again (Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development), my big core lab course in genetics, and an upper level class in science writing, and that’s enough.

As is usual for me, I tremble in a state of dread at the start of the long season of lectures and labs, but once I charge in and get started I’ll probably be surprised when I look up and notice it’s May already.

Ray Comfort: not even wrong

Ray Comfort has a blog, and one of his entries claims that the Bible is a science text, and that it is better than science. His style of argument is to first list a “fact” from the Bible (usually something that is completely open to interpretation, and he chooses to interpret it as being in conformity with modern science); then he mentions a corresponding fact derived from modern science, that always agrees with the Bible; then he lists something from “science then,” which is dead wrong.

It’s so clueless it hurts to read it.

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Minnesota shouldn’t be a problem this time around

Minnesota is going to be revising their science standards this year. Last time we went through this, it was a circus, with our education commissioner (the notorious Cheri Pearson Yecke) trying to pack the review committees with creationists and doing last minute swaps of committee-approved drafts with drafts edited by creationists. We had John Calvert show up at hearings, along with a few other home-grown kooks, including a guy with a replica of a giant leg bone that he claimed proved there were giants in the earth in those days.

This time around, though, we have guidelines that will limit the nonsense, we hope.

In its call for volunteers, the department offered a list of assumptions that will guide the committee. The assumptions deal with topics ranging from increased science rigor to new graduation requirements.

One assumption stands out. Assumption number seven: “Science standards will reflect the scientific facts, laws, and theories of the natural and engineered world and will not include supernatural, occult or religious ideas.”

Of course, I can hear the ID crowd right now: “ID isn’t about the supernatural — teach the alternative theories! Teach the controversy!” In that article, we already have Dave Eaton (another infamous local creationist) saying he he has no problem with the restriction. You know he’s already planning to try and subvert the process.

Hitchens has big brass ones

It takes some confidence to charge into this: Hitchens will be debating Jay Richards (of the Discovery Institute), with Ben Stein as “moderator”, in an event sponsored by the Stanford IDEA club. The creationists are stacking the deck against him rather thoroughly.

I’m not enthused about the idea — the only people who have anything to gain from this are the loons on the side of ignorance. But if there’s anyone who can pull it off, it’s a master of fiery rhetoric … or a comedian. The topic is purportedly “Atheism vs. Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design,” and since the creationists have no evidence, it’s got to be a tedious bore without someone on hand to skewer the fools.

Let’s hope there’s a video.