Creationism in Turkey

I reported on this survey of people’s attitudes towards evolution, in which the US was second to the worst. We beat Turkey. The point was to emphasize the poor shape of US education, but it unfairly made fun of Turkey … imagine, though, how awful it would be to be in their shoes. This week’s issue of Nature has a letter from several Turkish scientists describing their plight and what they are doing to fight it; I’ve put it below the fold.

[Read more…]

What’s wrong with this statement?

Something is odd about this comment:

…to help make his point that the bible was the word of god, he introduced the Dead Sea scrolls. He said that they were 3,000 years old and that scholars had found that they were identical to the modern day bible. In fact, he said, “Every dot over every ‘i’, every cross of the ‘t’, every comma, and every period is in the exact same place as in the bible in your hand” (quote paraphrased).

And to this day in Hebrew school, the children receive careful instruction in dotting i’s and crossing t’s.

Maybe it would be more miraculous if a huge stone Buddha appeared there

A miracle has occurred in Florida!

The Ten Commandments have appeared at the Dixie County Courthouse.

A six-ton block of granite bearing the Ten Commandments had been installed atop the courthouse steps. Inscribed at the base was the admonition to “Love God and keep his commandments.”

The concept of a Ten Commandments monument was endorsed by county commissioners.

A six-ton block of stone just “appeared”? As in “poof”? Were there angelic trumpets, perhaps, or an astonishing bolt of lightning, or an eclipse? I mean, if a miraculous manifestation of the will of the Old Testament god actually shimmered into existence magically, with a command to “OBEY” inscribed upon it, well, I’d just have to reconsider this atheism gig.

Of course, if it were actually just another gaggle of pea-brained Republican godidiots who commissioned the carving of a big rock and smuggled it into a government establishment, eh, not so much reconsideration necessary. I’m sure the newspaper would have said something if it were a mere exercise in all-too-human pigheadedness, right?

The unauthorized autobiography of George W. Bush

I get a lot of mail from publishers, and this one had me going for a moment…one thing I don’t get is much mail from right-wing sources (other than the usual excoriations, of course.) This one looks so much like authentic Republican PR that it took a moment for it to sink in.

i-c5e6ba143f1a8cec9f87f1b4aac1c9f5-destined_for_destiny.jpg

Speaking from the heart, not from the brain, this legendary Commander-in-Chief takes us on a journey through his momentous life. The great man we hear here displays his mother’s steely resolve and vindictive temper, his father’s keen mastery of language, and his own unique gift of deciding.

That’s a work of genius…satire that sneaks up on you. I almost trashed it before I realized what it was.

Don’t miss the movie! I may have to buy the book.

Luskin’s foolish credentialism

Chris Mooney gave a talk in Seattle, and you know who else is up there in my home town: the Discovery Institute. They tried to go on the offensive and sic their version of an attack dog on him…which was, amusingly enough, Casey Luskin. This is the kind of attack dog that goes “yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap-yap,” though, and annoys you by peeing on your shoes. His initial volley was this:

Why do so many people eagerly listen to a journalist with neither scientific nor legal training discuss a complex scientific and legal issue like intelligent design?

It is awkwardly ironic for an unqualified stooge of the Discovery Institute to question anyone’s credentials; if we start down that path, it’s going to lead to pointing out that very, very few of the people at that institute have any credentials in biology at all, and that maybe we should wonder why anyone should listen to a collection of ideologues with degrees in philosophy and law and theology when they pontificate on science (although, to give the other side of the argument, one of their favorite people, Ann Coulter, thinks “biologists are barely scientists,” so maybe they think the dearth of fellows with training in evolution is a plus).

But I’m not going to go down that path. I don’t think the formal credentials are as important as that gang of poseurs and con-men would like to believe.

[Read more…]

Mysterious Anonymous Wise Man supports ID!

Oh, great. Nelson is at it again. You know the DI is sweating bullets when Paul Nelson emerges to state his lugubrious ‘truths’, make his unfulfilled promises, and start citing mysterious, unnamed ‘senior scientists’ with profound insights into Intelligent Design’s promising destiny. He’s kind of the Thomas Friedman of the Discovery Institute, and just as trustworthy.

[Read more…]

This is why I don’t read The Scientist

i-e98f21365e668f1eccef3a34d464557b-onion1.jpg

Richard Gallagher is one of those guys I’m not ever going to like much. He’s the editor of The Scientist, yet he wrote an editorial encouraging us to embrace Intelligent Design in the classroom, in the perverse hope that by giving ID that much attention, students will naturally disregard it. That was crazy stupid enough, but where he lost my respect completely was in a published rebuttal to my criticisms where he maliciously distorted my point from one advocating the teaching of science as a process based on evidence (which is why ID fails in the classroom) to a false claim that I want to shield kids from critical thinking. Lies and misrepresentation to get ID into the classroom? The Discovery Institute loved it and republished his article.

Now he has published another editorial, one in which he finally realizes the danger of letting pseudoscience into the classroom, and finally he gets it right…but I’m going to be much less charitable than Tara. What finally motivates him to speak out for good science teaching based on reason and evidence is a perceived threat from “New Agers” and the “spiritual Left” with their wacky “mother earth sensibility.”

[Read more…]

IOKIYAC

So, has everyone read the latest investigation into Pat Tillman’s death already? I’m appalled at this astonishingly insensitive Christian bigot, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who basically slanders Tillman because he was an atheist.

“But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, ‘OK, it was an unfortunate accident.’ And they let it go. So this is — I don’t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs.”

Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans’ religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, “I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know.”

Huh. So, next time I’m at a Christian funeral, it’s OK if I go up to the bereaved family and suggest that they should have an easy time letting go since they’re religious, and their faith will make them happy, and they’re so lucky since they have it easier than us atheist worm dirt, and hey, it’s a good thing their gullibility will allow them to trust the system?

I think even I can tell that that is the kind of thing only an insensitive jerk would say. It’s OK If You Are Christian, though!

And isn’t he just the perfect person to have been in charge of the investigation?

Kauzlarich, now 40, was the Ranger regiment executive officer in Afghanistan, making him ultimately responsible for the conduct of the fateful operation in which Pat Tillman died. Kauzlarich later played a role in writing the recommendation for the posthumous Silver Star. And finally, with his fingerprints already all over many of the hot-button issues, including the question of who ordered the platoon to be split as it dragged a disabled Humvee through the mountains, Kauzlarich conducted the first official Army investigation into Tillman’s death.

One useful thing about all this is that we atheists are going to be able to make the case, if a draft is ever reinstated, that we wouldn’t be able to trust our fellow soldiers to refrain from killing us, and that we therefore must have a deferment. I know I would never allow any of my kids to go off to a war where they can’t rely on the raving religious fanatics around them…and commanding them.