The Strib has an article on Camp Quest of Minnesota, the secular summer camp that is starting up this week. It’s a fairly good story, although it’s unfortunate to see it overwhelmed by the gigantic rah-rah story on crazy Pentacostalism spread over the next two pages of the paper, by the same reporter.
By the way, I’ll be volunteering at Camp Quest on Friday, to show the kids how to deal with creationists.
Richard Gallagher is one of those guys I’m not ever going to like much. He’s the editor of The Scientist, yet he wrote an editorial encouraging us to embrace Intelligent Design in the classroom, in the perverse hope that by giving ID that much attention, students will naturally disregard it. That was crazy stupid enough, but where he lost my respect completely was in a published rebuttal to my criticisms where he maliciously distorted my point from one advocating the teaching of science as a process based on evidence (which is why ID fails in the classroom) to a false claim that I want to shield kids from critical thinking. Lies and misrepresentation to get ID into the classroom? The Discovery Institute loved it and republished his article.
Now he has published another editorial, one in which he finally realizes the danger of letting pseudoscience into the classroom, and finally he gets it right…but I’m going to be much less charitable than Tara. What finally motivates him to speak out for good science teaching based on reason and evidence is a perceived threat from “New Agers” and the “spiritual Left” with their wacky “mother earth sensibility.”
John McCain recently spoke out on evolution and ID. He just managed to demonstrate that he’s a dissembling fool.
Responding to a question about a report that he thinks “intelligent design” should be taught in schools, the senator mocked the idea that American young people were so delicate and impressionable that they needed to be sheltered from the concept, which says God had a hand in creation and which has been challenged by Darwinists as unscientific.
“Shhh, you shouldn’t tell them,” he said, mimicking those who would shield children from the fact that some people believe in intelligent design. The former prisoner of war said he also disagreed with Cold War-era efforts to prevent Marxist-Leninism from being taught in schools, saying it was better for Americans to understand their enemy. He noted that he didn’t say that intelligent design needed to be taught in “science class,” leaving unclear exactly what class he thought it should be taught in. He said he believed local school boards, not the federal government, should determine curricula.
“From a personal standpoint, I believe in evolution,” Mr. McCain said. At the same time, he said, “When I stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon and I see the sun going down, I believe the hand of God was there.”
First of all, no one is afraid of Intelligent Design, or thinks kids need to be sheltered from the concept. American kids as it stands now get more exposure to creationism than to science—in the home and church. The fight isn’t about hiding silly ideas from schoolkids. It’s about not allowing crackpots to waste our children’s time, and about promoting good, substantive science teaching. Do you want school to be a place where kids learn, Mr McCain? Or do you see it as a propaganda arm of the ideological apparatus of the state?
The comment about local school boards is what they all say. Local control has always been a disaster: school boards consist of elected officials who rarely have any competence in education, and who get into office on promises of keeping costs under control, for instance. They should not be in the business of regulating and defining educational content, but they all too often are. Who in their right mind would think the local hardware store owner, the retired bank clerk, and the part-time realtor are automatically competent to tell the high school biology teacher what she ought to teach in her classes?
As for that last paragraph…he’s a typical politician, trying to have it both ways and avoid antagonizing anyone. It didn’t work: I see a credulous twit who also lacks the courage of any convictions.
Every time I talk to creationists, I’m always stunned at the depth of their misconceptions. There are always the same old boring arguments that are ably dismissed with a paragraph from the Index to Creationist Claims, but there are also occasions when they get, errm, creative, and unfortunately they always take your gape-mouthed I-can’t-believe-you-are-so-stupid-that-you-said-that reaction as a triumphant vindication that they must be right.
Orac takes a right-wing idiot to task, and I don’t need to jump in—he’s done a fine job dismantling him—but I made the mistake of actually reading the ghastly blog article he’s criticizing, and even worse, reading some of the comments there. The very first comment will make your jaw drop at the combination of sublime arrogance and impenetrable stupidity. There’s a list of 7 objections to evolution, all wrong, but I’ll spare you and show just the first.
Kent Hovind really is a complete kook.
Sit down. Make sure you’re in a place where guffaws won’t disrupt the scene…although, actually, the amount of money this guy was raking in with his scam might mute the laughter a bit. Here’s more information on Hovind’s arrest.
This is funny, in a sad, pathetic kind of way: Helmut visited the Skyline Caverns in Virginia, and once the tour group was 200 feet down, the guide played a canned religious message at them. I’m not sure how I would react to such an occurrence, but I’m sure you’d all wish you could be there, with a camera.
I think I’d give an impromptu counter-lecture. I guess it would depend on the details of what the foolish sermon said.
Jodi Rudoren née Wilgoren, whose views on journalistic responsibility to accuracy and truth were encapsulated in this comment,
I don’t consider myself a creationist. I don’t have any interest in sharing my personal views on how the canyon was carved, mostly because I’ve spent almost no time pondering my personal views — it takes all my energy as a reporter and writer to understand and explain my subjects’ views fairly and thoroughly.
has been promoted at the NY Times.
Creationists are liars, and the current Intelligent Design campaign in Kansas shows that there seem to be few exceptions. Their latest effort down there is to claim all supporters of evolution are atheists, which is obviously false, and is simply a ploy to generate knee-jerk opposition to good science. Jack Krebs has been fighting the lies, which is good. Unfortunately, he’s also perpetuating the problem.
John Calvert has been instrumental in developing and promoting your science standards. Therefore, I want to go on public record here, in front of you, in asking that Calvert quit making these false accusations that those of us who accept modern science and evolutionary theory can’t also accept God. Many tens of thousands of religious Kansans are being painted as “tools of atheism” by these accusations, and they have a right to be insulted.
John Calvert is a sleazy, dishonest scumbag who will make up any lie that he thinks will advance the cause of state-sponsored ignorance, and please do point out that he’s misrepresenting the facts. But why should anyone be insulted at being called an atheist? If Calvert had declared that everyone at Kansas Citizens for Science was an Episcopalian, it would be just as ludicrous a lie, but would they then go on to deplore the terrible, horrible, insulting thing he had just called them?
Jeffrey Shallit scorches poor Pamela Winnick, an anti-science, pro-creationism writer who came out with a book titled A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion. Would you be surprised to learn she’s guilty of sloppy scholarship, misleading quote-mining, and outright lies? Just like the rest of ’em.
