William Crenshaw and Erskine College

I think I like this guy.

Science is the litmus test on the validity of the educational enterprise. If a school teaches real science, it’s a pretty safe bet that all other departments are sound. If it teaches bogus science, everything else is suspect…. I want a real college, not one that rejects facts, knowledge, and understanding because they conflict with a narrow religious belief. Any college that lets theology trump fact is not a college; it is an institution of indoctrination. It teaches lies. Colleges do not teach lies. Period.

That’s from William Crenshaw, who was an English professor at Erskine College. “Was”…no more. He’s been fired.

It turns out Erskine College is the Institution of Indoctrination for some fringe sect called the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which I find hilarious. It’s some dinky, smug, pretentious religious group that thinks their peculiar dogma dictates the laws of the universe. One of their big issues is that Crenshaw doesn’t think science ought to bow down before biblical literalism.

The conservative element has apparently been lobbying to give him the boot for years, and they’re celebrating now.

The ARP Talk blog called Crenshaw’s comments on science evidence that he is “functionally an atheist who, in his rabid, secular fundamentalism, preaches his views with as much vigor and determination as an old-time Methodist revivalist of 100 years ago.” The blog added that Crenshaw was “an evangelist of infidelity” and said that he encourages students to question faith with “his secular brain-dribble.”

I like him even more.

The school and the troglodyte alumni wanted him out because they claim he was “disloyal” and “discouraged potential students from enrolling at Erskine.” The ironic thing is that the actions of the college to muzzle faculty are a better reason to discourage students from attending Erskine.

Not that it’ll matter much, because I suspect most of their enrollment comes from Mommy and Daddy DumbThugChristian telling their kids that they have to go to Erskine, but I’ll chime in: you’re nuts if you go to Erskine. Pick a better school. If you’re already at Erskine College, TRANSFER. It’s not too late to get a degree with a name on it that won’t be quite so embarrassing.

(Also on Sb)

Unclear on the concept

Fox News carried out a phone survey to find out what people thought of god and science. Here are the results:

Which do you think is more likely to actually be the explanation for the origin of human life on Earth:

The theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientists 21%
The Biblical account of creation as told in the Bible, 45%
or Are both true? 27%
(Don’t know) 7%

It’s nothing at all surprising; a little less than half the American population typically answers these sorts of questions with dumb piety. The fact that a quarter are trying to claim compatibility is a little weird, but otherwise, whoop-de-do.

Ken Ham has commented on the results.

I’m sure many of you saw this poll. If it accurately represents the population in the USA, then why is evolution taught as fact in schools? Why do secularists have so much control over what is taught? I think there are a number of reasons and will comment later–but thought you would be interested to read this.

Somebody is unclear on the concept. Science is not determined by public opinion, and you don’t settle it by running a poll. Shall we vote on math, chemistry, physics, psychology, history, literature, and Spanish, too?

(Also on Sb)

Would you consider changing your life-status?

I know some of you out there are in that phase of your life where you are engaged in this painful process called “dating” (I have evolved beyond it, thank the blessed Mary, and have no interest in ever entering that high-anxiety stage ever again). Being an atheist would tend to add new levels of complexity to it all, I would think: not only does it make a majority of an otherwise attractive population repellent to you, but they’re likely to regard you as something nasty. This comic is for you (note: only part of the whole is shown here, follow the link to see the whole thing).

It made me think, though, that maybe zombification would be a good thing to go for if you were trying to make yourself more desirable to others.

Advertise gods away

As an exercise, a couple of Australian advertising agencies were asked to make some ads advocating the banning of religion.

The bad news: Most didn’t even want to do it as an exercise. The show apparently did some previous ad games, for instance advocating euthanizing everyone over 80, and that was acceptable…but getting caught suggesting that religion was a bad thing? Uh-oh.

The good news: The judges. They didn’t bat an eye and all seemed to think it was a fine idea (well, except for the last guy, maybe).

I liked the first video better than the second, myself. I’m not a fan of this idea that religions cause the majority of warfare. I don’t think it’s true, and I don’t think you could even argue that religion has been the pretext for a majority of war. Wars have had too many causes.

Ricky Gervais in the New Humanist

You’ve probably heard already that Gervais was interviewed by the New Humanist — he does give a great interview, stuffed full of juicy quotes. I like this one:

I always expect some people to be offended. I know I ruffle feathers but some people’s feathers need a little ruffling. And remember: just because someone is offended doesn’t mean they’re in the right. Some people are offended by multiculturalism, homosexuality, abortion, atheism – what should we do? Ban all those things? You have the right to be offended, and I have the right to offend you. But no one has the right to never be offended.

I don’t know about this, though. This is just showing off.

Creationism evolves by jerks

I think one thing Razib says is exactly right:

One of the most interesting things to me is the nature of Creationism as an idea which evolves in a rather protean fashion in reaction to the broader cultural selection pressures.

Creationism has evolved significantly, but it’s not exactly protean: it’s punctuated equilibrium. If we had a time machine and could bring a typical creationist who came to age after Whitcomb and Morris’s The Genesis Flood face-to-face with a pre-Scopes trial creationist, there would be a fabulously ferocious fight, because their theology and their basic beliefs would be so radically different. They do change in response to the environment, but reluctantly and not without a lot of hysteresis.

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