It is another mark of the incompetence of the ID movement that they actually hand out an award named after Casey Luskin. Pick the most ineffectual, uninformed, pathetic loser on the creationist side, and use his name to inspire the next generation of IDiots. It’s actually amusingly appropriate.
I note that the latest awardee is keeping his name anonymous. That’s hopeful — at least some of them can still retain a sense of shame and embarrassment.
One of the requirements is the demonstrated ability to perform a self lobotomy. The successful recipient probably doesn’t even remember his name any more.
The awardee is keeping his/her name confidential to prove that there would be discrimination by the Darwinian cabal is they didn’t.
See they’re using their paranoia to prove that they really are persecuted.
To steal an excellent pun from Reciprocating Bill
“It’s sort of a witless protection program”
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SP;f=14;t=5735;p=117879
I think that we should now institute our own award to the religious cretin who has demonstrated that rational thinking is no longer necessary and all further thought and action will be through the imaginary god of their all-encompassing derangement. I propose we call this “The Great Imaginary Cracker Award”, to be given in recognition of brainless ranting and puking to absolutely nothing.”
As if the award weren’t pathetic enough (named after Casey Luskin /shivers) — they give the wiiner $100, an autographed copy of one of Behe’s books (worth less with the autograph, I’m sure), and a plaque or something. Could it be any more pathetic?
I wonder if the award has a graphic of an attack gerbil, or a caterpillar, or they just went with your standard ID, Christ On A Crucifix theme?
Wow. Sounds like an award that would be given out for the dumbest comment of the month- the anti- Molly. “Congratulations, “Jezusrulz”, here’s your ‘Casey Luskin’ award.” Hereby to be known as “Jezusrulz, CL”.
As an historian – I DO NOT consider myself qualified to write on biology, evolution or “Intelligent Design” – but looks like that’s not a bar to winning this “Award”. Who will they give it to next? An English Major, A PoliSci graduate, the janitor?
“I think that we should now institute our own award to the religious cretin who has demonstrated that rational thinking is no longer necessary and all further thought and action will be through the imaginary god of their all-encompassing derangement.”
I think we should call it the Casey Luskin award.
I love the spin of “persecution” they’re attempting.
Uh, yeah, the only persecution is that we ask for evidence of people who can’t provide any.
The shame of supporting complete bollocks is the only reason the recipient is anonymous.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
“The recipient will receive a certificate of achievement, a $100 award, and an autographed copy of Dr. Michael J. Behe’s newest book, The Edge of Evolution: the Search for the Limits of Darwinism.”
Oh WOW! oh WOW! Oh goody gum drops!”
IIRC, one of last year’s winners was…Casey Luskin.
Other awards under development:
The Ken Ham Award for Excellence in the Geological Sciences
The Ben Stein Award for Integrity in Documentary Filmmaking
The Andrew Schlafly Award for Outstanding Online Journalism
This really is bizarre. I mean, I guess that since they suffer from the delusion of intelligence, it should follow that they want to be awarded, but still.
Oh, and all of the comments are awesome. You’ve made my morning.
IIRC, one of last year’s winners was…Casey Luskin.
“I, myself, am now proud to present this award to… MYSELF, for outstanding achievment in those areas which are crucial to me, myself. If not for me, I would never have been able to have received this prestigious award, which I named after myself. I’d like to thank the person who made this possible: me. I’d also like to send out a special thanks to myself for having the courage to allow myself to push myself to the levels of this fine achievment. Hooray, me! In closing, god bless me. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get down to Red Lobster so I can spend this award on dinner with myself.”
– Casey Luskin
Poe’s Law in action yet again. I read the IDURC Web page twice before realizing that it was not a hoax.
What they didn’t tell you, however, is that there was also a second-place award — two autographed copies of “Edge of Evolution.” (Thus demonstrating that two is not always greater than one.)
My own take on it (and blogwhoring, sorry):
Orwell would be proud.
The Kent Hovind Award for Fiscal Responsibility
Borrowing from an old joke about the Edsel, second prize is two Casey Luskin Graduate Awards.
Natural selection, baby! Only the fittest must pass their memes to the next generation.
PZ, how can you prove that Luskin is the most pathetic idiot in the ID movement? Even setting aside the impossibility of proving an universal negative, there remains the veeeery high competition from his peers.
I’m wondering, though. What proportion of, say, the DI members are dumb enough to actually believe what they say, and which ones are the true fanatics who are knowingly lying the whole time?
The George W. Bush Award for outstanding national leadership.
The Bill Donahue Award for Freedom of Expression
The Cardinal Bellarmine Award for Religious Tolerance
Ok. Ok. Let me see if I understand right.
1. They offer an award for advocating ID…not for research, not for new ideas, but promotion. Keen.
2. This brave soul, this stalwart soldier for ID, this billboard for faithful and unfounded science, he who would dare buck the mainstream in his public display of misdirected affection…remains anonymous?
I…but…*sigh* dammit. My irony glands just blew out.
No, last year’s winner was also anonymous. But we all worked out it was Hannah Maxson anyway. I believe she’s presently in Mongolia.
This award is just ridiculous.
* Prize money is a mere $100.
* Recipient is anonymous…
* … and even his works are unknown.
* Besides, the award page flaunts more of the namesake of the award than of its recipient.
* It supposedly recompenses the “rigorous investigation […] of intelligent design”, which is an oxymore even if their theories were true (what is there to investigate if everything depends on the whims of a designer?).
I would hope it’s an award for Outstanding Quote Mining. I do like the idea of PZ giving out his own Casey Luskin Awards.
Along the same lines, we should redefine the phrases “Rapture Ready” and “Born Again” to mean something entirely different.
…
The two of them were tied to the bed post with their best leather on; all rapture ready and everything, when one of them started to do the whole born-again thing…
It has to be just as prestigious as The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence
I guess they mistook the reason the poor kid said, “Hey guys, please don’t tell anyone you did this…”
Yes, but I’m sure Luskin got an honourary Luskin award; perhaps it wasn’t last year, though.
Besides his universally-recognized ID work, Casey may be well on his way to being the second human in history to comprehend the wonders of Time Cube.
So, uhm, what achievements did he get this award for then? Is that some big secret?
At least the value of the award is proportional to the value of the criteria for receiving it.
The Bill Buckingham Award for Grace under Fire
I hear the certificate for the award uses a picture of drug resistant malaria parasites with a watermark that says “God’s Plan”
The awardee is keeping his/her name confidential
I wonder if the recipient of the award applied for it or otherwise knew s/he was being considered for it? It’s possible that it came as a surprise.
Imagine if you were a soon-to-graduate student who didn’t really buy into ID stuff and were maybe looking for an academic career… but something you did was twisted by these ID guys and they gave you an award. You might want to keep it quiet.
In case you didn’t know there’s several ID/creationist controversies rageing on http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com just now.
It’s heartening to know that the IDiots and their ilk are getting a metaphorical thrashing.
On a more sinister note a science educator has been fired for relaying(per E-mail)a seminar ridiculing “creationism”.
This should become a”cause celebre” as she seeks redress thru’
litigation.(once more see the aforementioned site for details.
Evolving Squid@35,
So maybe God’s a malarial parasite? The “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” was probably the cinchona – God didn’t want the lovely habitat he had prepared for those made in his image polluted with quinine.
Well you couldn’t expect them to give a Darwin award, right?
I took a look at the IDURC site http://www.idurc.org/studentwriting.htm to see what it was all about, but the most recent essay was written in June 2005.
The ‘What’s New’ link returned “The requested URL /whatsnew.htm was not found on this server.”
The FAQ page has been ‘coming soon’ since 2005
The ‘Project Watchdog’ page is also 404.
In other words the site is moribund. So from whence comes this award?
Is it just me or does this look like the main purpose of this award is to bring up the witless protection angle. If not the sole reason.
Yes, Casey is an ineffectual, uninformed, pathetic loser – but the most ineffectual, uninformed, pathetic loser on their side? He seems pretty run-of-the-mill to me.
To echo Holbach (above), I agree that we need an award of our own to honor closed-minded creationist foolishness. After reading PZ’s post, I’m convinced that the award should have the exact same name as this ID award: “The Casey Luskin Award.” There’s no way we could come up with a better name than that.
(Special thanks to the IDiots for supplying such a splendid idea.)
Aren’t we done with “Intelligent Design”? At this point ID’s pseudoscientifically camouflaged creationism has legally lost all standing and credibility. It’s followers are no more relevant now than the people who want children to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning in public schools.
As someone “from the outside” who is fairly new to all these debates, to me and to my community Intelligent Design lacks any presence. If all the science and skeptical blogs suddenly agreed to stop talking about ID and stopped responding to their silly articles, would the ID faithful just blend back into the Creationist murk from which they spawned?
I left a comment on Samuel Chen’s blog. As I expected the creationist retard reviews comments before they are published. I’m sure he rejects all anti-magic comments.
This is total bull. I’ve been tirelessly advocating the phlogiston theory for years – where’s MY recognition??
The Don McLeroy Award for Leadership in Science Education.
Old news, Pops.
Great! A poli-sci major and director of the Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center writes about the center’s graduate award named after a lawyer which is awarded to a history major.
But ID is all about science.
they’re not quite scraping the barrel until they start up the Sal Cordova prize for Integrity.
Poor Casey is merely a low-level hack for a creationist group.
His job depends on his ability to effectively lie to the ignorant in order to further the preposterous.
He should be awarded the Casey Lusin award for his lifetime achievement.
Personally, I think the prize package is awesome:
Nothing says “widespread promotion of intelligent design” better than giving a crappy award to an anonymous kid.
This IDURC org looks to be solely the work of Samuel Chen.
Did he *ahem* “award” this to himself?
http://doubtingdarwin.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=49
Yup – Casey Luskin received the Casey Luskin Award.
As far as I can determine Samuel Chen is IDURC. I really wonder who these recipients are, or if they actually exist.
Bostonian #43
Agreed… nominees?
The Billy Dembski Award for Outstanding Math Murderer?
I propose, rather than an actual award, we adopt a Luskin-system as a means to categorize the ineptitude of creationist antagonists. As follows:
A full Luskin: “We couldn’t have evolved from monkeys because there are still monkeys!”
A 7/8 Luskin: “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” (Getting 1/8 less Luskin for phrasing in the form of a question)
This would progress to a smaller and smaller fraction of Luskinity until you get to say PZ who could be categorized as 1/10,000 Luskin due to the fact he doesn’t COMPLETELY understand all the processes by which Epigenetics contributes to gene expression.
What a looser!
I think that the best way to identify the recipient of this award is to keep an eye on eBay for any autographed copies of Behe’s book that come up for sale.
However, it is also my fervent hope that the winner of this reward will announce that he submitted joke papers to the ID movement to see how gullible they really were.
My comment there that will likely never appear:
“You must be kidding.
Ben Stein’s movie, and related “help-help-we’re-being-oppressed” spin has been as thoroughly refuted as, well, all of the things Luskin has ever written.
Advocating an idea that has failed for the thousands of years that ID has failed is not heroic. It is not standing up for what you believe. It lies somewhere between denial and stupidity, and not only belies a deep ignorance of the evidence at hand, but the very nature of science itself.
You want to look for heroes standing in the face of conventionally accepted wisdom to speak the uncomfortable truth? Do not look to the ID advocates, look to the thousands of biology teachers across the country who are brave enough to teach the facts of evolution in the face of real threats, real violence, and real damage to careers and standing, not the made-up persecution presented by Stein and the Dishonesty Institute.”
Strangely enough, some of PZ’s hate mail came from a Bellarmine Catholic university in Kentucky.
Cardinal Bellarmine for those who haven’t heard of him, was the Cardinal that inquisiated Giordano Bruno and Galileo. Bruno was burnt at the stake and Galileo saw which way the wind was blowing and recanted. Both for advocating heliocentrism.
The unknowable question. What sort of morons name a university after a murdering torturer from the Dark Ages?
I have a feeling the students and faculty at Bellarmine U. are very, very orthodox and obedient.
“Dude, we’re giving you an award. Yeah, there’s a nice plaque, a book you’ll never read and, get this, a whole hundred bucks. It’s the Casey Luskin Award. No, it doesn’t matter who Casey Luskin is, nobody outside the Intelligent Design movement and readers of Conservapedia has ever heard of him. No, I don’t have the time to explain what Intelligent Design is. If you really want to know, read the book. Anyway, you’re getting this award. What’s that? You don’t want anyone to know you’re getting this piece of shit? Okay, here’s what we do, we’ll give you the award and keep your name anonymous. No, we will not throw a six pack in as well. Here’s your award. By the way, can I borrow fifty bucks?”
The Doubting Darwin also states that Stein got himself a Johnson award.Get this:It’s for liberty and truth!Now that’s funny.
Here’s what cracks me up the most: supposedly, they’re keeping the name of the recipient under wraps, because the Darwinist conspiracy will ruin this person’s career if it becomes known that he or she is an ID advocate. (“Or so the Germans would have you believe.”)
Yet the award is named after someone whose entire career is based on proudly and loudly associating his name with the ID movement! Being associated with the ID movement can’t be the career-killer that the IDers want it to be — after all, look what it’s done for Luskin!
I should add that I knew Luskin, somewhat distantly, at UCSD — he’d in fact invited me to be a part of the IDEA club as part of the loyal opposition to intelligent design. He struck me then as basically a nice guy, good with people, very engaging, and not really interested in examining his own ideas or beliefs. I’m not surprised he became a lawyer. From my limited vantage point, the ID movement is the best thing that ever happened to him.
Who will they give it to next? An English Major, A PoliSci graduate, the janitor?
Hmmm, does the janitor have a custodial engineering degree? Because that would be PERFECT.
Unless, that is, one wants a career where honesty is enforced and lies regularly exposed–like in science.
Luskin’s own career depends upon making the best case regardless of the truth (and this is not to fault lawyers for their invaluable ability to give people a defense), and he is at the Dishonesty Institute to boot. In his current position truth-telling would be the real career killer.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Does Luskin know he’s a compulsive liar, or does he really believe in magical creation?
Does it seem odd to anyone else that the Director of the Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center, this Samuel Chen fellow, is a philosphy/poli sci major? Is this really a phil/poli sci sortof subject? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for him to be like… um… I dunno… a BIOLOGIST?
Timothy Wood #67
Shirley you’re jesting. That would require Chen to actually know something about biology. You can’t expect an IDer to be familiar with the subject he claims familiarity with. That would be cheating!
Pharyngula has already bestowed the Pastor Ray Mummert Award on numerous well-deserving creokooks for their stalwart defense of True Believers against “the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.”
While Luskin certainly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with PRM, he has yet to emit any statement approaching the latter’s concise delineation of the threat they mutually confront.
Yes, knowledge is far too prejudicial to be used to produce ID science.
The best sciences are made without the encumberances of knowledge of the subject. Laymen, engineers, mathematicians, and metaphysicians are by far the best makers of any science. Just read what’s written on UD, if you doubt me.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
The Duane Gish award for Scientific Integrity
hey jojo,bust a gut funny
1 suggestion:
The spoof version of this award should be for $200.
Setup some sort of PayPal dontation link and it should be easy to gather up 200 bucks for a shameless sham award to honor IDiocy.
Timothy and Shirley are both jesting! ;)
IDers (oh dear – that is a phonetically perfect Southern US twang for ‘ideas’) do science the same way they do their bibles: skip to some random page, locate something they agree with, quote it, wait until next Sunday, repeat.
hey jojo, nix borrowing 50 bucks. awardee should have enough money to go to a movie-alone.
I feel cheated! How the hell am I supposed to work toward winning next year’s award if they won’t tell us what this year’s winner did?
Are you guys SURE this isn’t a joke?
My award is anonymous and also eponymous.
#14 Celtic_Evolution wrote:
Not so fast!
These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
-Leviticus 11:9-11 (KJV)
I was thinking, instead, we could give an annual award called “The Marilyn vos Savant Award For Malicious, Deliberate Mathematical Ignorance”. Marilyn vos Savant would, of course, receive the first award. Dembski can get it next year.
Of course… if you have no intention of actually doing research to support ID but rather… to run a propaganda machine to promote ID in the public sphere… well then Phil/Poli Sci is actually the perfect field.
Maybe it’s not a sign if ignorance or a poor choice of director… maybe we’re just judging it with the wrong criteria.
I’m loathed to admit I share a university with this clown. I covered his antics last year with the 2007 Samuel Chen Award for Scientific Do-Nothingness.
Greg said”As if the award weren’t pathetic enough (named after Casey Luskin /shivers) — they give the wiiner $100, an autographed copy of one of Behe’s books (worth less with the autograph, I’m sure), and a plaque or something. Could it be any more pathetic?”
Second place winner gets two copies of Behe’s books.
@ Shaden Freud #77
Dammit, how could I have been so careless…
god hates shellfish.
Or maybe it’s that god loves shellfish and doesn’t want us digesting them.
so god hates real fish.
Eh. Either way it seems stupidly arbitrary to me… then again, consider the source, eh?
BobC @66 “Does Luskin know he’s a compulsive liar, or does he really believe in magical creation?”
The reason you and some of the others are confused on this issue is that you are trying to interpret a pathology thru the filters of sanity. The Creationist Fundamentalists I grew up with clearly worked very hard to avoid unpleasant questions or facts, lying freely and misinterpreting as necessary. but at the same time, they gave every indication of being unaware of doing so.
The habits are taught early, and drilled into toddlers as soon as they can speak. All of the techniques of brain washing I have ever seen or heard of are used, except sleep deprivation (when you have them from birth, there’s no hurry). Thought stoppage, evasion, and denial are perfected over years. So is Luskin lying? Yes. And does he believe them? Again, yes.
I skipped ahead of reading all the comments so far…
(Has anyone suggested the “John Yoo Award for Legal Honesty”?)
But – the point that just struck me is —- TAXES.
You have some organization providing money to someone, and no paper trail. What about the Tax! Who pays it? Who doesn;t have to? Get the IRS into this NOW!
(I return to ~comment 20 or so to continue laughing..)
(signed) marc
I loved how PZ eviscerated this one id wingnut on youtube – you should see it – it is a whole debate where the guy claims there are no transitional fossils and PZ lets him have it saying “your ignorance of the fossile record is no reason to be claiming there are holes in evolutionary theory”
it’s really great, just youtube pz myers and you’ll find it – I recommend it!
Dustin @78:
I was thinking, instead, we could give an annual award called “The Marilyn vos Savant Award For Malicious, Deliberate Mathematical Ignorance”. Marilyn vos Savant would, of course, receive the first award. Dembski can get it next year.
Uh, why?
vos Savant is most famous for the Monty Hall and the Two Dogs problems – and, in both cases, *her answers are correct*.
Is there a further part of the story that I’m not aware of?
Well, looks like our friend Sammy is making liberal use of
the memory holecomment moderation.Cowards, every single one of them. Of course, it makes sense. Hardcore religionists are afraid of the Big Scary Universe, hence their adherence to myths from a time when the universe was small and existed exclusively for our benefit.
Heh. The other day I was walking through an empty apartment with a double handful of tools and stuff and paying more attention to balancing the unstable load then to where I was going and I gave the dining room chandelier a header that sent it swinging and I reeling. Now I know how to describe such a thing:
It was a luskin moment. I pulled a luskin. I got luskinned. I gave it some luskin, or, put some luskin on it. Luskinized!
Had the fixture actually fallen, or had I lost my load (neither happened), that would have been a double luskin.
Had the fixture fallen and caused a unforeseen but inevitable (due to a previous, unfortunate modification by an unknown agent) short circuit damaging the wiring system of the entire apartment, that would be a triple luskin.
Anyone who reads this far and hasn’t at least chuckled has just luskinned, or had some luskin put on them, and probably does not know it.
I posted this on PT a few minutes ago before I came here. Because I am a lazy man I am just copying it over here with but minor changes. But I’m not lazy on the job. Really.
I don’t get it. The awardee doesn’t want anyone knowing what he did and yet…
I’m so confused.
The William A. Donahue Award for Outstanding Advocacy of Anthropophagy
(more commonly known as “The Hosties”…)
From the information given at the site, and after doing a little googling, I bet the award winner is a guy called Tristan Abbey.
This site says that he majors in history:
http://www.stanfordreview.org/About/Staff/tabbey.shtml
And he is associated with IDEA and IDURC
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/718
(I know this is conspiracy talk, but funny how, of the two persons, his name-link doesn’t work)
http://www.idurc.org/studentwriting.htm
Disclaimer: I cannot conclude anything with any certainty. This is nothing but a hunch. I’m probably completely wrong on this.
This reminds me of the “Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth”, the recipients of which have been Phillip E. Johnson, Anthony Flew and Ben Stein.
ajani57 said:
This is clearly some new and hitherto undescribed definition of “courage” that is only now being released on to the unsuspecting public.
Seriously funny though – this is like the (very) poor man’s Templeton Award, at least the recipients of that are willing to acknowledge that they’ve got one (just)!
#60 : “What sort of morons name a university after a murdering torturer from the Dark Ages?”
Well, it’s a good question, actually. But still, it has nothing to do with the Dark Ages. Historians call this period Renaissance. Yes, the great era of crazy demonology and witch-burning. But some guys started to copy Greek statues, so…
#76: most excellent comment!
And if Luskin was to launch his own magazine, it would be called “Luskin Mag”, and his ignorance would appear naked in it.
(Good pun? Not sure…)
The Lee Spetner Award for Most Creative Use of Statistics
Winner will be chosen at random from the 1 x 10^50th applicants per year.
Clearly, the winner is the most deserving and qualified, because it would be impossible for such an outcome to be predicted in advance.