Humes on the talk-radio version of evolution

Edward Humes, the author of Monkey Girl, has an excellent op-ed in the Lawrence Journal-World.

The talk-radio version had a packed town hall up in arms at the “Why Evolution Is Stupid” lecture. In this version of the theory, scientists supposedly believe that all life is accidental, a random crash of molecules that magically produced flowers, horses and humans — a scenario as unlikely as a tornado in a junkyard assembling a 747. Humans come from monkeys in this theory, just popping into existence one day. The evidence against Darwin is overwhelming, the purveyors of talk-radio evolution rail, yet scientists embrace his ideas because they want to promote atheism.

These are just a few highlights of the awful and pervasive straw-man image of evolution that pundits harp about in books and editorials and, yes, on talk radio, and this cartoon version really is stupid. No wonder most Americans reject evolution in poll after poll.

This is really why scientists either get angry or dismiss creationism as a joke: the proponents are annoyingly ignorant of the ideas they are arguing against, so there is no reason to take them seriously. My first clue that someone is a babbling fool is when they start calling it “Darwinism”—then I know that I’m going to be wasting my time, because the first thing I have to do is clear the army of straw men out of the room, and even then, the joker probably isn’t going to pay any attention to what I have to say about evolution, because he still has that cartoon version of biology taught to him by his preacher whirling around in his head, complete with calliope music.

This is also the second time in a week I’ve heard talk radio brought up in this argument. I wonder if that’s an angle we haven’t been pushing hard enough—I know in those few instances where I’ve accidentally tuned in to some ranter on the AM side of the dial, I just go “Gaaaaa!” and turn it off. Maybe I shouldn’t do that; maybe some of us should be calling up the talk radio stations and offering to go on and discuss the non-cartoon version of evolution.

Greg Laden visited the creationist science fair so we don’t have to

As I might have guessed, it seems to have been rather unimpressive. No genuinely outré exhibits, just more average work with bible verses slapped on. He does observe that quote-mining the bible means these kiddies are going to burn in hell someday, which does add a little frisson of horror to the exhibit, but since it’s just as much an unsympathetic fantasy as the Christian belief that we godless people are hellbound, I’m afraid it’s still not enough reason to have compelled me to drive across the state to see it.

And the winner of the first Molly Award is…

…annoyingly hard to pick. You people just named almost everyone, and some of you seemed to name everyone in a single comment. It’s not like there was a runaway leader; it’s more like there’s this huge base of commenters that everyone likes. This is a good situation for the blog as a whole, but doesn’t make it easy to single out anyone.

So this time I’ve compromised and picked the top two, secure in the knowledge that there are many more from the Pharyngula pool who will be acknowledged in the future. They are:

  • Kristine Harley, who is widely appreciated for general good humor, pithy comments, and perhaps a little belly-dancing, although that doesn’t translate well to a text-only comment. Readers here have good imaginations, though. She’s all over the place, but her latest comments are here, here, and here.
  • Scott Hatfield, most people’s favorite even-tempered theist, who apparently has Job-like patience to be able to endure the routine scourging given to people with his beliefs here, and even has the temperament to be cheerful about it all. You can find some of his latest comments here.

Their names will be enshrined in a sub-page in the next day or two, and more will join them on a monthly basis.

Can we hound him until he resigns now?

Revere reminds us of the low esteem in which atheists are held, and specifically, that we are regarded as much less trustworthy than Mormons, a question brought up by the candidacy of Mitt Romney of Massachusetts (24% would refuse to vote for a Mormon for president, while 53% are against the idea of an atheist president). It’s hard to feel much solidarity with our Mormon countrymen, though, when one of their more prominent representatives can say something like this.

We need to have a person of faith lead the country.

It seems to me a little odd that people can have temper tantrums over a campaign worker criticizing Catholics, while a presidential candidate outright disenfranchising everyone in the country who rejects the nonsense of religious belief doesn’t seem to be stirring much concern at all. All together, everyone: Mitt Romney is a bigot who does not deserve to be in public office.

What use is an appendix?

Here’s an excellent and useful summary of the appendix from a surgeon’s perspective. Creationists dislike the idea that we bear useless organs, remnants of past function that are non-functional or even hazardous to our health; they make up stories about the importance of these vestiges. Sid Schwab has cut out a lot of appendices, and backs up its non-utility with evidence.

The study I cited most often to my patients when asked about adverse consequences of appendectomy is one done by the Mayo Clinic: they studied records of thousands of patients who’d had appendectomy, and compared them with equal thousands who hadn’t. (Back in the day, it was very common during any abdominal operation to remove the appendix. Like flicking a bug off your shoulder. No extra charge: just did it to prevent further problems: took an extra couple of minutes, is all.) The groups were statistically similar in every way other than presence of the worm. There were no differences in incidence of any disease. It’s as convincing as it gets, given the impossibility of doing a prospective double-blind study.

I have a personal interest in this: I was nearly killed by my appendix at the age of 9, and had it removed. I haven’t missed it since.

There are some things we shouldn’t do

Blake Stacey just asked me to pick on Scott Adams and the Dilbert blog some more—he wants practice taking potshots at fools. Well, Blake, I did a quick browse through the latest entries at the Dilbert blog, and I had a hard time finding anything with even a tiny germ of substance to attack. He spits up a lot of froth, you know, and there has to be at least a hint that he’s taking a stand on something in order to have an argument.

I did see that he is now calling what he does “philosotainment“, which I translate to mean “really stupid philosophy for the feeble-minded.” You might have more luck getting a philosopher like Wilkins to take umbrage at his diminution of a significant field of human endeavor. Or more likely, he’d refuse, as I do, on the grounds that it is impolite to interrupt someone in the middle of masturbation. Sorry.

Dr Michael Egnor challenges evolution!

Time magazine has a science blog, Eye on Science, and the writer, Michael Lemonick, doesn’t hesitate to take on the Intelligent Design creationists. A recent entry criticizes the Discovery Institute’s silly list of dissenters from ‘Darwinism’. Not only is the number that they cite pathetically small, but they rely on getting scientists whose expertise isn’t relevant.

[Read more…]