A reader just informed me that he saw that the Institute for Creation Research is advertising on Fox News. This is not at all surprising — all it takes is money, and these groups are always buying up ad space anywhere they can get it. There is some amusement in the ad, though: I didn’t realize that you could subscribe to ICR’s quarterly Acts & Facts magazine for free; I’m tempted, because it is always a source for hilarity. They also have a distance learning program in which you can get an Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate. I would love to have one of those certificates to hang on my wall, but it looks like that costs money…and I don’t care how little it is, it’s too much.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
What does “Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate” give you for qualifications? Is it kind of like a “Moron Certificate”?
I was in the car early this morning listening to a religious news & views program opn BBC Radio 4. I heard that some high-level Christian nutjobs (bishops) here in the UK are starting a campaign to get people to go to churches.
In response to this call for more religious insanity, a woman has suggested that major High Street stores should have a chapel in-store.
So, if this came about, all customers would have to pay for this nonsense, through higher prices. If this idea starts to gather momentum, I hope that we can orchestrate a campaign to persuade the stores that they would lose a lot of custom. Fortunately, religion isn’t taken seriously enough here for this idiotic idea to gain much support.
Thanks, Canuck. I am now imaging the Three Stooges flashing their Creationist Amalgamated Union card and doing their motto.
We are creationists
Tried and true
We will do our cry for you
(Assorted strange sounds and facial contortions.)
//What does “Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate” give you for qualifications?//
You get a free shootout at the moose range followed by church dinner with Sarah Palin.
You mean you haven’t been signed up for that by rabid ‘fans’, yet?
Will wonders never cease?
For $20, I can send you an unaccredited Creationist Worldview Certificate based on your life experience of creationism.
I see no reason why you shouldn’t get your creodentials the same way a creotard gets his “PhD”.
Richard Harris@2,
I’m with you there. Any store that opens a chapel will not be getting any of my custom.
The Creationist Worldview Certificate is yours for only $695< /a>.
A bit high. They should move the decimal point over two places to the left.
Or one could just Do It Yourself. Judicious applications with a hammer to one’s own skull would result in a Creationist Worldview along with problems crossing the street and walking upright.
Less competent creos could buy an AIG(tm) Home Self-lobotomy Kit for $20 and accomplish the same thing.
I read Acts & Facts so that you don’t have to, but the only thing right about it is its price. The newsletter has been rather lame lately. I think perhaps ICR is bummed that AiG is getting all the media attention. Nevertheless, I solemnly declare that ICR is every bit as loony and wacky and dedicated to faux scholarship as AiG. Check out a delightful piece of pseudo-erudition about God’s importance in the founding of the United States (by an ICR “scholar” who can’t distinguish between the Declaration of Independent and the U.S. Constitution and seems to think that Thomas Jefferson was conventionally religious):
We the sheeple
“Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate”
How about that as part of a cartoon T-shirt with the appropriate art?
Funniest thing I’ve read all weekend!
From the description:
[b]A formal science degree is not required, and those who can benefit from the Creationist Worldview program includes, but is not limited to, Christian men and women who hold various positions of influence within the community, educators, ministers and church leaders, business and industry experts, professionals in medicine and law, government officials, leaders in the fine arts, and high school and college students.[b]
If nothing else, they know their target audience (non-scientists).
You might be able to make your own “Creationist Worldview Certificate” using photoshop. Then have everyone can have one.
Only $695 to accomplish the equivalent of blowing your brains out. Cheaper than years of pills and booze.
Very tempting.
“By entering submissions in the Program, such as essay answers to exam questions, you are granting ICR permission to use your submission and to publish your name and your occupation in connection with it.”
They’re really hoping someone will come up with a new argument for them, since theirs are all old hat. And they want you to pay $700 for the privilege of letting them use it.
Their ‘student requirements’ assert that you must be a christian – http://www.icr.org/cw/requirements/
Both the ICR and the Discovery Institute (DI) are Bible websites. The difference is the Discovery Institute avoids using the word ‘Bible’. Another difference is the ICR uses the word ‘creation’ instead of magic, and the Disco Institute uses the word ‘design’ instead of magic. Both the ICR and the DI are Christian creationist organizations, they are Liars for Jebus, and they want to destroy science education.
Attacking science education is treason. I am patiently waiting for Obama to get elected so he can put the professional liars of the ICR and the DI in prison.
They know where their customers are.
It would be more accurate to say their target audience is Christian non-scientists, especially the most uneducated Christians (about 50% of Americans).
A Creationist Certificate, on parchment or on vellum,
Is the perfect bit of pseudo-bling to hang upon your wall.
Your friends will think it’s beautiful (unless, of course, you tell’em
What it is) because it’s done by hand, calligraphy and all.
Your brain, of course, from frontal lobe to back of cerebellum
Will now seize itself in protest ’til your prostrate form will sprawl,
As it tries forgetting all it knows about, say, the flagellum,
And your cranial activity reduces to a crawl.
Your science is now up-to-date (that date is Antebellum)
Cos you dropped a bunch of money on a worthless bit of scrawl.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/09/certificate-of-lack-of-achievement.html
I would spend the sum they request but the requirements necessary to enroll
” * Students are expected to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10).
* Students are expected to desire greater biblical knowledge and Christian maturity (2 Peter 1:3-8)
* Students are expected to verify the course material through the Scriptures (Acts 17:11).
* Students are expected to develop a systematic understanding of biblical information (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10, Isaiah 28:9-10)
Educational Requirements
* Students must have good reading, writing and study skills in order to understand and follow directions and course material, as well as to organize concepts and compose paragraphs to answer questions in exams.
* Students must be self-disciplined. Courses will be completed in a self-paced format and adequate time must be allotted for each assignment.
* Students must have basic computer skills, including the ability to type, use a mouse, open and save documents, cut and paste text, use email and navigate the Internet using Internet Explorer.
* Students are to understand that the Creationist Worldview program adheres to ICR’s tenets (click here to view).
Technical Requirements
* Students must have a computer with access to the Internet.
* Students’ computers must run Windows with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later installed and configured to allow cookies and popup windows. For instructions, click here.”
were to difficult to make it worth my while
Out of curiousity, how would a “Official Creationist Worldview Professional Certificate” influence my chances at receiving tenure?
Yes folks, for only $695 you too can be an idiot!
Emmet Caulfield at #6 made me laugh immoderately. What we need to do is find someone willing to play the stooge, get them a fake ICR accreditation, and then have them very publicly spout some serious crazy – under the authority of their status as an “Official Creationist Worldview Professional”.
Cuttlefish- Brilliant as always.
“cut and paste text” — *snort*, yeah, that’s a MAJOR skill you need when learning how to become a quote-miner.
“navigate the Internet using Internet Explorer” — *hisss*
What I’m wondering though… how do they get enough material for a recurring magazine? or do they just assume people will have forgotten what they wrote 3 months ago and repeat the same old arguments over and over…?
Jadehawk.
These are people who return to church weekly for their Jesus “fix” so once every 3 months must be excruciatingly long for them.
I’d love to see one of those hanging on an outhouse.
Or a toxic waste dump.
I lived near the Institute of Creation Research for a while (thank goodness idiocy isn’t contagious) and these morons used to dial my phone no. by accident, frequently. They were too dense to understand that they dialed the wrong number! Yup, these are the folks I’d go to for a higher education. I tried to read one of their books arguing against evolution and found three glaring lies on the first page. I had to quit after the second chapter or my head would have exploded. Unless you have a strong stomach I wouldn’t sign up for their magazine. I never even went to their museum (although i heard it described by friends)because I knew how I would react, and assalt and battery are frowned on in San Diego County.
But someone might wipe their ass with it… and soil their ass.
The latest Acts & Facts also has another particularly ignorant screed by ICR’s president John Morris on horse evolution which I have dissected over at Playing Chess with Pigeons.
Some excerpts from the link:
Critical thinking. That’s the part where creationists learn to be critical of science that contradicts their interpretation of the holy texts.
Their objective is to establish a Theocracy by infiltrating all levels of society. This would include the Judiciary, the Legislative and the Executive, no?
Looks like treason to me.
* Students’ computers must run Windows with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later installed…
Bugger that.
And it puts you into the running for the “Twit of the Year” prize.
It’s only right, if one actually paid $695 to be a certified twit.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
P. Z.! How did you miss their ad for their vacancy? They need an assistant professor of science education at the ICR Graduate School: http://www.icr.org/jobs/
And it’s right up the alley of, um, well, people who survived lobotomies! If you have a Nobel Prize, or if you are a member of the National Academy of Sciences, or if you have ever done research under a federal grant, or if you are an Eagle Scout, I gather they don’t want you to apply. One of the requirements is that you check your mental gonads at the door:
And, of course, there is this, which definitely excludes Nobel winners in the field:
Plus, the winning candidate must be someone who never reads the newspapers, rather like the new mortgage loan writers they are hiring at Washington Mutual this week. ICR still doesn’t have permission to grant the degree this person will be professing to candidates about.
I like how the creationists have embraced post-modernism in their desperation. As if labeling factually incorrect beliefs as a worldview makes it more credible. It is such blatant imbecility.
#19 I am so wise
Well, potential employers may be impressed by the flexibility of the required mental gymnastics?
“Creationist Worldview Professional”
http://www.lifeisajoke.com/pictures388_html.htm
[The] Institute for Creation Research is advertising on Fox News.
This is amusing, since the Fox News website has a somewhat respectable page devoted to evolution.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/evolution/index.html
Cuttlefish, this just might be your best effort ever… PERMAMOLLY for Cuttlefish!
I’m tempted, because it is always a source for hilarity.
Hey, it also drains a tiny fraction of their cash, so have at it, good Professor!
here it is, the hook in the bait.
>>>>Students’ computers must run Windows with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later installed and configured to allow cookies and popup windows.<<< popup windows? I have to see the gd popup adds they are going to be pushing at me. the $700 is not enough! what other crap are they not telling the "suckers?" money and power and keeping the con game going I'm in favor of a exact copy of one of the cirtificates offered free on line with no requirments.ugh
Ah, so as well as $695 to ICR (Imbeciles, Cretins, and Retards), one must pay a tithe to the God of Redmond to get the Official Feeble-Mindedness Certificate.
Wait a minute!!!
“The Assistant Professor will teach online courses in the Masters in Science Education Program”
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board turned down their application to have a Masters in Science education program because this Board was smart enough to know that they were not qualified to teach such a program.
http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/AAR/PrivateInstitutions/PressReleaseICRBoardMtg42408.pdf
Was at the EmTech conference at MIT today and suffered through a panel led by Robert Scoble with four geeks (Facebook, Six Apart, Plaxo, Twine) talking about the future of the Web. No prepared remarks, just totally random conversation. Basically they all just spewed whatever came into their heads, at top speed, interrupting each other and oblivious to the fact that an audience was sitting there, glazing over. A few people got up and asked questions and the geeks did manage to (sort of) address one or two but then they forgot about the questioners and just started rambling again, talking to each other and forgetting about the audience. It was like watching five college kids with ADHD and an eight-ball of coke trying to hold a conversation.
————
Tanyaa
Internet Marketing
Uncle Frogy – “here it is, the hook in the bait.
>>>>Students’ computers must run Windows with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later installed and configured to allow cookies and popup windows.
popup windows? I have to see the gd popup adds they are going to be pushing at me. the $700 is not enough!”
A lot of legitimate educational websites use pop-ups in their program – not for ads, but for additional material or to separate a learning tool or subsection. This is one of many signs, in my opinion, that they hire substandard programmers for such sites, but is not an automatic reason to condemn this particular one.
There’s plenty of other reasons, of course.
@Emmet Caulfield: at least the “God of Redmond” isn’t an idiot:
“Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” -Bill Gates