Bachmann on ID

Eva sent me a link to a wingnut’s account of a debate between some 6th Congressional District candidates: Patty Wetterling (Democrat), John Binkowski (Independent), and Michele Bachmann (Rethuglican). It’s not a very good transcription—for one thing, the wingnut’s commentary is all tangled up with the words of the candidates, making it hard to tell who said what—but there’s one part of interest. They were asked the ID question.

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Science educator/evangelist needed for hazardous duty!

Salon has an article on a new up-and-coming star of the evangelical movement: Stephen Baldwin. Stephen Frickin-Dumb-As-A-Lizard Baldwin!

For Dobson, Baldwin and young Americans the nation over who yearn for the certainty this brand of Christianity pitches, the personal is political. Absolutism reigns in the new evangelical youth movement, shining through the chaos of modernity, global terror, media bombardment and glorious moral relativism. Baldwin pitches the ultimate dumbed-down fundamentalism, offering reductive, brainless theology. “I sleep good at night because I am totally content in the knowledge that God is in control,” he writes, a conviction glittered up with the fact that it sprung from the mind of an honest-to-God celebrity.

Intentionally or accidentally, Baldwin has braided together what young Americans seem to crave most today: fame, cool and answers. Answers to the questions of who will look out for them, who will love them, who will tell them how to live. Answers from a man who called himself the son of God, and another one who calls himself Stevie B.

…and calls everyone “dude”, and uses the word “gnarly” non-ironically.

Jebus, but we are in trouble. When someone with as little charisma and intelligence as Stephen Baldwin can be popular and draw in thousands of kids for right-wing fundamentalism, that tells us that the bar is set very, very low. And when we then note that no one on the evolution side can rise to that level…well. This is bad news.

We need a scientist who is willing to snort cocaine for a couple of years, sleep willy-nilly with models and any half-naked starlet with no taste, and bash himself repeatedly over the head with blunt objects until his IQ descends to perilously low Stephen Baldwin levels, all so that we can enrapture the precious skateboarding teenager bloc. Any volunteers?

(Paulie Z? Oooh. <shudder>. I just don’t think I’m brave enough to sink that low. I fear we also need someone younger, with the stamina to cope with the kind of abuse and degradation needed for this job.)

Evo-devo is not the whole of biology

Sometimes a plan just comes together beautifully. I’m flying off to London tomorrow, and on the day I get back to Morris, I’m supposed to lead a class discussion on the final chapters of this book we’ve been reading, Endless Forms Most Beautiful. I will at that point have a skull full of jet-lagged, exhausted mush, and I just know it’s going to be a painful struggle. Now into my lap falls a wonderful gift.

There was a review in the NY Review of Books that said wonderful things about Carroll’s work, and in particular about the revolutionary nature of evo-devo. This prompted Jason Hodin, an evo-devo researcher himself (whose work I’ve mentioned before) to write a rebuttal and send it off to NYRB…which they chose not to publish. So he sent it to me, with permission to post it.

(If Pharyngula is going to be second choice to the NY Review of Books, I’m not going to complain.)

Anyway, I’m almost as guilty as Carroll of hawking the wares of the evo-devo bandwagon and traveling roadshow, so this is a welcome balancing corrective. The complete text is below the fold.

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There is no separation of church and state

The NY Times has a long article that is basically a litany of the exemptions and privileges granted to religious organizations. A church-based daycare, for instance, has none of the licensing requirements of a private daycare, and doesn’t have to meet any of the standards of a non-religious establishment, nor does it have to worry about civil rights requirements…and it’s protected from lawsuits.

The practice of granting churches ever more special rights is accelerating, too, since legislators are always willing to hand over more to the pious frauds. Wouldn’t want to be thought disrespectful of religion, you know—so what if they’re greedily sucking up more and more money. That’s what Christianity is all about!

I say we should revoke the tax-exempt status of all religious organizations. They can ask for exemption for their charitable efforts (and only that part of their work; I don’t consider evanglism or missionary work to be charity) just like any secular organization, but simply having “Christ” in their name and mission statement and having a few guys running around with clerical collars is not sufficient justification. It’s time to end the sacred scam.

Consider the source

The usual suspects of Intelligent Design creationism came out with a book a while ago honoring the patriarch of the movement, that sneaky rascal Phillip Johnson. They had to shop around for someone to puke up some happy blurbs about the book; Duke Cunningham demanded too much money, Charles Manson had some standards, and Roy Cohn was both gay and dead, so they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel of sleazy criminals and came up with Chuck Colson. I have no idea how much he was paid, but they didn’t get their money’s worth.

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Watch these!

This morning, I’m off to the Unitarian Church of Willmar to talk about creationism. I’ll be back later, but ’til then, you kiddies can watch some TV. Flea has David Rakoff, if you want to laugh at the inanity of the right wing, while Crooks and Liars hosts the latest Olbermann, if you’re more in the mood for tragedy, in this case the unraveling of the Constitution.