Creationism and racism

When I visited the Creation “Museum”, one thing that shocked me was this display:

hamite

At the time, I pointed out the pernicious nature of this claim:

With complete seriousness and no awareness of the historical abuses to which this idea has been put, they were promoting the Hamite theory of racial origins, that ugly idea that all races stemmed from the children of Noah, and that black people in particular were the cursed offspring of Ham. If they are going to reject science because of its abuses, such as eugenics, they should at least be conscious of the evils perpetrated in the name of their strange cultish doctrines, I should think.

Boy oh boy, let me tell you…Ken Ham was indignant and outraged. How dare we connect creationism to racism? He was claiming that all races were one, descended from a common ancestor, Noah, 4000 years ago! Of course, what he neglects to mention is that the Biblical story claims that Africans are the product of a curse of servility placed on Ham and all of his descendants.

Well, and he also neglects to mention that the story is totally bogus, disproven by modern evidence, and has no relationship at all to the patterns of migration in human history.

Ken Ham is wrong and racist. The Biblical story of the origins of the diverse peoples of the earth is wrong and racist. It really is that simple. It takes a complex history and turns it into a pat partitioning of humanity into the chosen people, and the cursed people.

And just now people are taking notice. Schools in Texas are taking advantage of creationist curricula to incorporate instruction in racism into the schools. This is an actual image from one of the creationist textbooks.

RacialOriginsNoah

And this is what Texas schoolkids are being taught.

  • Instructional material in two school districts teach that racial diversity today can be traced back to Noah’s sons, a long-discredited claim that has been a foundational component of some forms of racism.

  • Religious bias is common, with most courses taught from a Protestant — often a conservative Protestant — perspective. One course, for example, assumes Christians will at some point be “raptured.” Materials include a Venn diagram showing the pros and cons of theories that posit the rapture before the returning Jesus’ 1,000-year reign and those that place it afterward. In many courses, the perspectives of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews are often left out.

  • Anti-Jewish bias — intentional or not — is not uncommon. Some courses even portray Judaism as a flawed and incomplete religion that has been replaced by Christianity.

  • Many courses suggest or openly claim that the Bible is literally true. “The Bible is the written word of God,” students are told in one PowerPoint presentation. Some courses go so far as to suggest that the Bible can be used to verify events in history. One district, for example, teaches students that the Bible’s historical claims are largely beyond question by listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe.

  • Course materials in numerous classes are designed to evangelize rather than provide an objective study of the Bible’s influence. A book in one district makes its purpose clear in the preface: “May this study be of value to you. May you fully come to believe that ‘Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.’ And may you have ‘life in His name.’”

  • A number of courses teach students that the Bible proves Earth is just 6,000 years old.

  • Students are taught that the United States is a Christian nation founded on the Christian biblical principles taught in their classrooms.

  • Academic rigor is so poor that many courses rely mostly on memorization of Bible verses and factoids from Bible stories rather than teaching students how to analyze what they are studying. One district relies heavily on Bible cartoons from Hanna-Barbera for its high school class. Students in another district spend two days watching what lesson plans describe a “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.”

Would you believe that they also teach that the Jews killed Jesus? Of course you would.

Creationism isn’t just a source of ignorance; it’s a major wellspring of ethnic bigotry.

(via Addicting Info)

Totally unsurprising

Chandra Wickramasinghe is on twitter, trying to defend that awful paper claiming to have found diatoms in a meteorite. When asked why he published in the Journal of Cosmology rather than a more credible journal, he replied “because the conclusion is tentative and awaits peer review. Have patience my dear son.”.

So JoC is unreviewed. Tell me, who is just blown away by that amazing revelation?

Relief for the heartsick

I am constantly dunned by email and tweets from the haters and sick scumbags, and I read stuff by my colleagues who get far worse, and at times it is just too depressing and dismal — there really are reactionary fanatics within atheism who refuse to recognize the responsibility to work towards equality. And I just want to give up.

But then…perspective. Step away from the smears and assaults and slime and look at the movement as a whole: look at the leading organizations of the godless. You know what you’ll see? None of them support these loons. They’re all progressive and committed to improving the diversity of the atheist community and broadening our engagement with the greater culture.

Really. Look at American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, the Center for Inquiry, Atheist Alliance International and Atheist Alliance America, the Secular Coalition, the Secular Student Alliance, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation. They are not supporting these petty, resentful snipers; they are working towards a future in which those goons are irrelevant.

That’s reassuring. There are loud, obsessive, creepy people who should not be ignored, but it’s always a good idea to step back and look at the bigger picture, and see that their skirmishing is born of desperation — they’re the past, they’re the failures, they’re the ones who have no productive role to play.

Rebecca Watson has a different perspective. She’s less sanguine about organizations (and particularly the RDF), and I’m not going to argue with someone who has been the target of so much hatred, some of it inspired by Richard Dawkins’ remarks. I will agree entirely that any virtue in these organizations rest on the efforts of individuals who have struggled hard to bring inherently conservative institutions towards a more just perspective, and we cannot rest — we all have to keep fighting that fight.

Trumped!

Lately, I’ve been marveling at the stupidity of my foes: I mean, really, the hate campaigns have been getting absurd. Reap Paden put together a crude animated video of me, caricatured with breasts (because, you know, feminist), and then another slymeclown named “Mykeru” is circulating on twitter a cheesy image he photoshopped together, putting my face on the body of a hairy fat man in his underwear. (The laugh is on him, though, because he made me look better! Trust me, if you could see the squamous batrachian horror that oozes and trembles obscenely beneath these clothes, you would all go mad.) These are their arguments; this is the quality of my opponents. They are desperately stupid.

But then it stopped being funny, and it sank in that women are always going to get it worse than I do. You should see the comment Ophelia got.

Maybe a vial of acid would do you some good. You already look like you were set on fire and put out with a wet rake.

That’s from some slymeguy named Jerry Conlon, and it’s chilling. Throwing acid at women who offend them…why, that’s what evil barbaric Muslims do!

Nope, now it’s what atheists threaten to do.

That’s my great disappointment. I’d once thought that atheism was a good first step on the path to living a rational, tolerant life. Clearly it’s not. That’s been demonstrated to me on a daily basis for the last couple of years.

I was wrong. Atheism is not enough.

Chandra Wickramasinghe replies…and fails hard

After the public scouring of Wickramasinghe’s claims that he’d found diatoms in a meteorite, the godawful HuffPo has, of course, given him a free and credulous article in which to defend himself. The amazing thing is that even in a puff piece that doesn’t challenge him at all, he shoots himself in the foot.

Plait claims that the diatoms Wickramasinghe found, "a type of algae, microscopic plant life," are simply a freshwater species found on Earth. Wickramasinghe doesn’t deny that the meteorite sample his team studied contains freshwater diatoms.

"But — there are also at least half a dozen species that diatom experts have not been able to identify," Wickramasinghe said.

Boom, we’re done. That is an open admission that his sample is contaminated. It doesn’t matter that some portion of his sample is unidentifiable — and most likely, it’s the stuff he calls ‘filaments’ and ‘red rain cells’ that aren’t even biological … he cannot claim that the only possible source of that material is outer space.

And then there’s this vague bit:

Critics have also asserted that the meteorite in question may not, in fact, be from outer space. Could it simply be an Earth rock?

According to Wickramasinghe, "This was also the guess of the Sri Lankan geologists who first looked at the rock. They had considered the possibility that the rock may be … a rock that was struck by lightning. We examined this possibility and found it to be untenable. From all the evidence we possess (and we are planning to publish this), I personally have no doubt whatsoever that this was a stone that fell from the skies."

So the expert geologists tell him it’s a terrestrial rock, and then declares on the basis of unpublished evidence that he won’t describe that it can’t be. Right. I’m unconvinced. It doesn’t even matter if it is a meteorite or not at this point — it’s contaminated, and he published it as if it were not.

Well, now you know what to blame

Michael Savage, the rabid far-right talk radio loon, has gone on a tear against vaccination. He’s ranting about how those damned Democratic politicians aren’t getting any flu shots (really? I kind of doubt that).

But then he also goes on to make claims of dire outcomes.

But when you’re older, he argued, “and you get ALS or Alzheimer’s disease or MS, or you watch your kid develop seizures, or your kid becomes autistic, God forbid, what are you going to say?”

You know, I’m getting older, and I’ve been getting my flu shot every year for years…but I just realized that’s not going to convince any of those kooks, is it?

Is football as corrupt as Catholicism?

I don’t know, it seems like the same stories: priests raping people, football stars raping people, neither one being held accountable. And what happens when you combine Catholicism and football? You get Notre Dame. You get cover-ups and suppression. You get this bizarre Manti Te’o publicity stunt.

mantigod

Maybe we need to stop believing in football as much as we need to stop believing in gods.

NECSS is coming up

That’s the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism if you didn’t already know — 5-7 April in New York City. I was there last year, and it’s a good meeting — check it out.

Unfortunately, I won’t be there this year, but there’s something even better than me: a discount. And let’s get serious here, what would you rather have: me, or an extra 10% in your pocket? So I was sent these instructions:

As Pharyngula readers you are entitled to discount registration at our annual conference, the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism. NECSS 2013 will take place on April 05-07 in New York City (more info here).

Registration for NECSS 2013 is now open and we are happy to provide you your registration coupon code: PZ2013. This code will give you a 10% discount on your registration price.

Please follow these steps to use your code:

1. Go the NECSS registration page.

2. Enter the code in the “coupon code” field at the bottom of the registration page and click “Apply Coupon”.

3. You will now see an option to purchase one member-priced ticket at the bottom of the page.

4. Select your member-discounted ticket and any other registration options.

5. Click “Checkout with PayPal” and continue to the payment screen.

NECSS is where the SGU gang hangs out, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

It’s not just Louisiana

The contagion is spreading! Zack Kopplin has documented how vouchers abuse taxpayer investment in education in many places, not just Bobby Jindal’s corrupt little wanna-be theocracy.

Liberty Christian School, in Anderson, Indiana, has field trips to the Creation Museum and students learn from the creationist A Beka curriculum. Kingsway Christian School, in Avon, Indiana, also has Creation Museum field trips. Mansfield Christian School, in Ohio, teaches science through the creationist Answers in Genesis website, run by the founder of the Creation Museum. The school’s Philosophy of Science page says, “the literal view of creation is foundational to a Biblical World View.” All three of these schools, and more than 300 schools like them, are receiving taxpayer money.

Vouchers are nothing but a way to uncouple schools from a responsibility to meet educational standards, and the worst schools love ’em: they can get money for teaching garbage.