It’s a b i g picture, slowly scrolling by, of a full-sized blue whale. Load it up and just let the whale swim past your window…it’ll take a while.
(via inkycircus)
Only the religious could turn a disaster into a mark in the plus column for God. Jim Downey has found an amazing series of books with some impressive titles, all with the point of giving credit to God for personal catastrophe:
Oh, no! What will happen to our intrepid commenter?
You’ll have to read My Confined Space to find out!
There’s a very good reason I reposted an old reply to a creationist today. It’s from 2004, way back shortly after I’d started this blog, and it addresses in simple terms the question of how ordinary biological mechanisms can produce an increase in information. I brought it up because Casey Luskin is whining again. He says the “Darwinists” have not answered any of the questions Michael Egnor, their pet credentialed creationist du jour, has asked.
Yet for all their numbers and name-calling, not a single one has answered Egnor’s question: How does Darwinian mechanisms [sic] produce new biological information?
Aww, I’m flattered; Richard Dawkins read aloud part of my Courtier’s Reply in his recent debate with Alister McGrath. You can listen to it online—I think I’m going to have to have Dawkins read all of my posts aloud, since he makes them sound so much better.
If you want to listen to just the section where he reads my article, here’s a 2.1 mp3 file.
A creationist, Rob McEwen, left me a little comment here which lists a number of his objections to evolution. It’s a classic example of the genre, and well illustrates the problem we have. The poor fellow has been grossly misinformed, but is utterly convinced that he has the truth. I’m not going to dismantle his entire line of blather (thanks to Loren Petrich, who has already briefly pointed out the flaws in his thinking), but I do want to show what I mean with one example.
The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Balancing Life. I hope you like mangos.
And it’s a right embarrassing spotlight to be caught under, I imagine. A couple of years ago, The New Republic polled various well-known conservatives about their position on evolutionary biology; Digby reviews their responses, and they’re a mess (I also summarized their views diagrammatically way back then). Most wouldn’t be caught dead admitting to believing the kind of nonsense Ken Ham favors, so they’re spluttering evasively and many are embracing with great relief the concept of Intelligent Design.
Digby is making the point that it reveals how uncomfortable the leaders of the conservative movement are with the actual beliefs of their base, but I think it shows something else, too. Intelligent Design has always been a bridge or enabler; it isn’t as tainted with snake-handlin’ bible-quotin’ old school fundamentalism as outright creationism, so the big shot conservative intellectuals are willing to harrumph over it and wax pontifical in its favor, without dirtying themselves with biblical populism; meanwhile, the creationist hoi-polloi can look up to it as an intellectually respectable, cleaned-up and pseudo-secular version of their myth. Very few people on either side actually believe it, but it won popularity as a middle ground where neo-con and religious right could meet.
I’ve heard rumors that there are some of those pharma shills hanging out around here…so this one is for you.
Ken Ham’s fabulous fake museum is going to open soon, on May 28. There are grounds for concern here.
But Eugenie Scott, a former University of Kentucky anthropologist who is director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, said the information provided in the museum “is not even close to standard science.”
Scott visited the museum recently as part of a British Broadcasting Corp. radio program. Although she didn’t get a tour, she saw enough to know that the museum will be professionally done. And, she says, that’s worrisome.
“There are going to be students coming into the classroom and saying, ‘I just went to this fancy museum and everything you’re telling me is rubbish,'” Scott said.
The Discovery Institute, despite its ability to generate PR, has always been a third-rate stalking horse for the real Godzilla of creationism, Answers in Genesis. The Intelligent Design creationists are an arrogant, stupid minority; the real face of creationism in America is evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity, a mainstream belief, and its adherence to biblical literalism. It’s everywhere. It doesn’t need to send out press releases to promote itself; it’s thriving in churches in every town in the country every Sunday.
Scott is right to be worried. This one museum is going to have a bigger budget than the NCSE, and it’s a load of shit in a slick package. It’s going to impress some people — stupid, shallow people, but there’s no shortage of them in the US, and there especially seems to be a surplus in the media, which will happily eat this crap with a glossy veneer and regurgitate it for the public.
For example, look at this contrast:
Daniel Phelps of Lexington, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, says the museum will embarrass the state because of the “pseudoscientific-nutty things” it espouses, and because it portrays evolution as the path to ruin.
But the Rev. Bill Henard, senior pastor of Lexington’s Porter Memorial Baptist Church, said that Sunday school classes and other groups from his church are likely to visit.
“I think people will enjoy … being able to see a different side from what some scientific findings have shown,” he said.
It’s not at all difficult to find people who will cheerfully enjoy lies — just open the doors and look inside a church.
