Josh Rosenau is being proactive and is looking for help defeating the creationists on the Kansas Board of Education. He has a list of contested seats and recommendations of science-friendly candidates—Kansans can vote, the rest of us can send donations to their campaigns.
When I criticized that Ron Numbers article, I should have mentioned there were lots of other peculiar little comments that I didn’t bother to address. Jason Rosenhouse fills in the gaps. One of the things Numbers tried to argue was that creationists are pro-science because they pay lip service to science…but Jason squashes that idea.
Referring to creationists as anti-science is not meant as a description of how they see themselves. It is meant as a description of what they are. Just as the Devil can cite scripture for his purposes, so too can creationists use scientific sounding jargon in making their case. The fact remains that in both word and deed their actions drip with contempt for science and scientists. It is terribly naive for Numbers to pretend otherwise.
A reader sent along this tempting job offer.
| Job Title | General Education: Biology |
| Date | 6/1/2006 |
| Location | NATIONWIDE, |
| Min Salary | $2,100.00 |
| Max Salary | $3,500.00 |
| Job Type | Contract Part-Time |
| Job Description |
BIOLOGY Faculty compatible with a young-earth creationist philosophy to teach general education Biology courses. |
It’s from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, of course. Doesn’t it make you want to jump up, drop whatever you’re doing, and enter the exciting world of academia?
Aside from the demand that you teach biology as if the world were 6000 years old and with complete neglect of any research and evidence acquired in the last two centuries, I should mention that the salary offer isn’t that absurd. This is fairly typical for non-tenure-track college instructors: a university will give you a few thousand bucks to teach one course for a term. It’s your job to accumulate a living wage by gathering multiple contracts, which may be from scattered universities. You won’t get any benefits, you typically have no say at all in faculty governance, you’re treated like a peon, and there’s absolutely no job security.
Parents, don’t let your children grow up to be adjunct professors.
I hopped out of bed this morning, certain that someone would have bravely answered my challenge to support Coulter’s ‘science’. But no, the Coulterites have completely vanished from my mailbox, and the official tally of entries stands at
0
Maybe I just haven’t given them enough time. It takes a while to read a book when you have to slowly sound out each word, and when you’re constantly tempted to close it so you can gaze rapturously at the cover, drooling.
I’ll report back when we hit the one month mark. Will that be time enough?
Here’s a dilemma: I think Ron Numbers, the philosopher and historian of science, is a smart fellow and a net asset to the opposition to creationism, and I agree with him that a diversity of approaches to the issue is a good thing. My opinion could change, though, because I am experiencing considerable exasperation with the apologists for religion on the evolution side, and this interview with Numbers isn’t helping things. Here’s an example of the kind of nonsense that drives me nuts.
QUESTION: Are scientists in general atheistic?
MR. NUMBERS: The public often gets the impression that most scientists are non-believers. But, that’s not true. Just within the past year the journal Nature published a study that revealed even today roughly the same proportion of scientists believe in God as did 75 years ago. [The figure is almost 40%]
Official number of attempts to address my challenge of the science in Coulter’s book:
I seem to have drawn in one Coulter fan in the comments who can’t shut up, but he hasn’t got the guts to stand up for anything specific that she has said.
The National Academies or Royal Society web pages make a peep about it. It’s good news if it is confirmed, though!
This is why I should read the other science blogs before posting: Afarensis has the official statement.
Hank Fox reports that a pair of administrators who wasted the school’s time and money on Intelligent Design creationism are losing their jobs:
The Wilkes-Barre, Penn., Times-Leader reports that the Dover school board has “decided not to guarantee contract renewals for two top administrators who helped implement an intelligent-design policy that a federal judge overturned last year.”
“The Dover Area School Board voted Monday to open the jobs of Superintendent Richard Nilsen and Assistant Superintendent Michael Baksa to other applicants. Nilsen’s contract expires June 30, 2007, and Baksa’s contract expires July 1, 2007.”
Awww. Here’s the funny part, though.
Both men are allowed to reapply for their jobs, but Nilsen said after the board meeting that he is looking for another job and could leave before his contract expires. He said he had “no idea” why his contract was not being renewed.
The incompetent are often blissfully unaware of the reasons for their failure, that is true.
DaveScot is one of those genuinely deranged ID supporters, and I don’t like giving him any attention…but Richard Hughes just sent me a note mentioning this long defensive thread he has started at UncommonDescent, and he’s just done something so darned funny and stupid I can’t resist.
He’s arguing about gravity. At one point, he claims that “By the way, gravity is the strongest force in nature.” As you might guess, he’s jumped on for that, and so he rushes off to find some supporting evidence…and gets it, he says, from John G. Cramer, professor of physics. Here’s the part he quotes:
Curiously, in some ways gravity is also the strongest force in the universe. It always adds, never subtracts, and can build up until it overwhelms all other forces.
The hilarious bit here that is so characteristic of creationists is that this is a highly selective quote. He left out the first sentence of the article.
Gravity is the weakest force in the universe.
Doesn’t that just say everything about IDists approach to science?
A strange thing, after I clarified my Coulter challenge and requested that her fans get specific and tell me what they supported and why in her book…the e-mail from them all dried up. Pffft. Gone.
Maybe they just got bored with me, but it’s sad that no one has even tried to suggest a single good paragraph in all of Godlessssss. It’s as if they’re willing to play mindless cheerleader, but actually committing to thinking and supporting specifically a single thing she says…well, that’s just not going to happen.
