I missed it, but Angry by Choice, Tangled Up in Blue Guy, and Greg Laden visited the Creation Science Fair yesterday, and Greg Laden already has a write-up. It was as tawdry as expected, with every poster lauding Gawd with bible verses. It was also very small.
There is another reason we go: To keep the creationists honest(ish). A few years ago, a group of us went to the fair and noted 20-something posters, and in that year the organizers, unaware of our presence, reported a much later number, thus lying about the level of participation in this event. When I pointed out on my blog that among all the photographs they took and we took one could not count any number of even close to that suggested by them, the organizers of the creationist science fair deleted all their photos from their web site and accused me of being a child abuser.
Total poster count this year: 23, in all age groups. See? That’s why it’s hard to get up the enthusiasm to drive 3½ hours to see little kids dressing up science with Jesus.
This is a good thing. The fewer participants, the higher the scientific validity.
Ogvorbis #1
Are you suggesting that creation science is homeopathic?
Rodney:
No. More like an infection. Or a poison. The less there is, the better.
Notice how much editing effort went into the instructions: you needed to have your writeup done by today in preparation for a fair that was over yesterday.
I wonder if they’ve found the time machine Obama used?
what does this mean
You know, the one he used to plant those birth announcements in the Hawaiian papers when he decided to run for president…
Wait, you mean they lied and then hid the evidence when they got caught lying?!
Shocking. I cannot believe that creationist would lie.
According to Laden’s article, my suspicions were correct. Finding a Bible verse to tie in to a science display was easy peasy. First you decide what you want to do — and then you look through the Bible for a sentence or two which vaguely sounds like it might fit as a description.
The hard part is learning to think of this process as an amazing congruence between Biblical and scientific revelations. But your ministers will no doubt help you with that.
ahh
Re: Rev. BigDumbChimp @ #5…
It means that you don’t read _Dispatches from the Culture Wars_, where it comes up fairly frequently.
Still 23 too many :-/
Translation: you don’t have to know anything about science to be a judge in a creationist science fair.
Wouldn’t knowing about science be a handicap when judging creationist science fairs?
@jnorris
Indeed. Any judge at a Creationist “Science” fair possessing both a conscience and a modicum of scientific knowledge would be forced to award a zero to every exhibit. Since they lack both, however, the event caries on.
@5: Obama’s Magical Time Machine, in addition to being used to plant birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers, has also been used to cause the recession in 2007-2008 – including, for example, closing an auto plant in 2008.
“Obama’s Magical Time Machine”, in general, can be used to refer to any case where conservatives blame him for a problem that started before his administration. There are a depressingly large number of applicable accusations – conservative pundits seem to have a high level of confidence that their audience will never set foot outside the Fox News epistemic closure.