Poor Ardipithecus…exploited again

Perhaps I was too quick to declare that previous article the worst one yet on Ardipithecus…now the Family Research Council has weighed in. Would you believe that Ardi supports their anti-gay stance?

the article describes what C. Owen Lovejoy, an anthropologist at Kent State University, says about the social organization of this species:

The males, he argues, pair-bonded with females. Lovejoy sees male parental investment in the survival of offspring as a hallmark of the human lineage.

So, how long has marriage (i.e., “pair-bonding”) been a male-female union? About four million, four hundred thousand years, if this secular scientist is to be believed. And what was its purpose? To insure “male parental investment in the survival of offspring”–something which the advocates of same-sex “marriage” contend is now no longer necessary.

And what will we be discarding, if we change the definition of marriage from being a union of a man and a woman? Only “a hallmark of the human lineage.”

Marriage is not merely a religious institution, nor merely a civil institution. It is, rather, a natural institution, whose definition as the union of male and female is rooted in the order of nature itself. And it doesn’t take a Bible to prove it. In this case, evolutionary theory points to the exact same conclusion.

Wow. So much is wrong there.

  • Another characteristic of the human lineage is increased social behavior: Lovejoy could also talk about general male investment, or community investment. There’s this concept called inclusive fitness that means non-parental relatives can also benefit from providing care…and it doesn’t matter whether they are gay or not.

  • If you have same-sex marriage, you could have two males contributing to the success of their offspring. Male parental investment can occur in the absence of the females altogether! Another way to interpret this is that gay male parental investment is a further elaboration of this “hallmark of the human lineage.”

  • The naturalistic fallacy is still a fallacy. Even if this narrow (and inaccurate! Human sexual behavior has always been complicated, and there were almost certainly all kinds of homosexual behaviors going on) interpretation of what our ancestors were doing was correct, it says nothing about human behavior now. We have evidence of cannibalism in some fossils, this does not imply that we ought to start eating each other’s brains.

  • Most annoying of all to me is that the twit who wrote this piece, Peter Sprigg, also leads some of the FRC’s anti-evolution initiatives. This is the guy who promotes the creationist “strengths and weakness” approach to education. He doesn’t believe in evolution anyway!

  • Since when does the religious right use the sexual behavior of a couple of apes as a model for good Christian sexual relations?

So, basically, Sprigg is another liar for Jesus who hypocritically uses a mangled version of evolutionary theory to support results he likes, and wants it removed from our curricula when it leads to answers he doesn’t like.

The worst article on Ardipithecus yet

The dishonor goes to ABC News, which put together an appalling mess of an article that gives credibility to creationist denialists. Right from the beginning, you know this article is bunk.

But despite the excitement from the paleontology community, another group of researchers, many of them with advanced degrees in science, are unimpressed by Ardi, who they believe is just another ape — an ape of indeterminate age, they add, and an ape who cannot be an ancestor of modern man for a range of reasons, including one of singular importance: God created man in one day, and evolution is a fallacy.

The whole article is like that: they cite Creation Ministries International, the Institute for Creation Research, and Answers in Genesis, puffing up the credentials of these loons and credulously reporting their dissent. None of these fellows is any kind of researcher, all are looked upon as utterly crazy, and there is no reason to consult any of them on a science story, let alone dedicating a long article solely to their batty position (they quote one of the real researchers just once, saying that the discovery was an important find — but it is more to lend weight to the parade of nutcases declaring it trivial.)

They give a lot of space to Answers in Genesis, especially to one of their pet frauds-with-a-degree, David Menton.

“What creationists believe about human origins we get from the Bible,” said David Menton an acclaimed anatomist and also a creationist. “The creation of the world takes place on page one of the Bible. If you throw out the first page of the Bible you might as well throw out the whole thing. If you can’t live with the first page then pitch out the remaining thousand pages.”

Menton is not an acclaimed anatomist. His sole claim to fame is his weird belief that the earth is only 6000 years old. Although, I must say, I agree with his sentiment here: the first page is metaphorical, poetical nonsense and should be thrown out, and the rest should be tossed right after it. But what really annoys me is the patent disrespect for knowledge in these people. Ardipithecus is a genus that lived over 4 million years ago. Shouldn’t there be a little bit of awe at that? Not from the ICR.

“This is a meaningless discovery of another ape. As far as the creationist community is concerned, this is a big yawn. There is nothing about Ardi that has anything to do with the evolution of man,” said John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas.

Menton just keeps on bringing the dementia.

Menton believes scientists sat on the Ardi discovery for over a decade just to roll it out during the Darwin anniversary. He questions the ability to accurately date any fossils more than a few thousand years old, let alone millions, and he said the condition of the skeleton was so incomplete and fragile that serious research was almost impossible.

Menton said Ardi’s skull and feet are exactly the kind of skull and feet you would expect an ape to have and have none of the features of modern humans.

“Evolutionists want to call Ardi ‘ape-like.’ This creature is ape-like, because she is an ape. Just call it an ape,” he said.

The biggest problem Menton has with Ardi is her estimated age. The Earth, he says, is no more around 5,000 years old, a number creationists have estimated by counting the generations of man named in the Bible from Adam to Jesus.

“Evolution is supposedly based on science, but the science does not prove what they want it to. Creationism is not based on scientific observation but on God’s word. God created everything in six days, and that’s it.”

Errm, the scientists all agree: Ardi was an ape. They say it right out. They’ll also tell ‘acclaimed’ anatomist Menton that, based on the anatomy, we humans are also apes. We also regard the even older last common ancestor of chimps (which are apes) and humans (also apes) to have been an ape. Therefore, any transitional form between an ancient ape and a modern ape is expected to be an ape.

What did Menton expect? A frickin’ giraffe?

As for the rest…anyone in the 21st century who rants about the earth being 6000 years old and unthinkingly accepts the scientific authority of an ancient book cobbled together by tribes of sheepherders really needs to be shuffled off to a rubber room.

So what is ABC News doing getting a story on a serious scientific issue from a series of lunatic asylums? I don’t know. Who is this ‘journalist,’ Russel Goldman, who scribbled up this gullible slop? I don’t know and I don’t care, except that I’ll know to throw anything else he writes in the rubbish.

An evening in Minot

The Minot meeting this evening was lots of fun; what made it especially entertaining was that it was attended by a few fervently deluded creationists who boldly asked questions at the end. I got a few variants of “you’re uncivil, so I think you’re wrong” (tough — peddle bullshit arguments, I’ll call you a bullshitter), the “you just have different presuppositions than I do” argument (which works wonderfully in arguments for the existence of Santa Claus), and the claim that “creationists and scientists look at the same facts and just interpret them differently” (not true, creationists selectively ignore most of the facts). I also got a few specific questions outside my field, like the one about the shrinking sun. Too bad I didn’t have my counter-creationism handbook with me, because this is a stunt they always pull: I talk about genetics and molecular biology, so they pepper me with misconceptions about physics and geology.

Anyway, I did show one amusing video at the end of my talk to illustrate creationist theology. Here it is:

Sometime, I have to get some sleep, though. And sometime, I have to drive all the way back to Morris. Oy, this has been a long week. What day is it?

Monday?

Oh, crap.

An entirely appropriate summary of Stephen Meyer’s talk in Oklahoma

It was very simple: DIRP.

I knew ahead of time exactly what it was going to be: complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, complexity, therefore, DESIGN. It doesn’t follow. The logic is nonexistent. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect a competent person with a Ph.D. in philosophy to recognize, but no, it’s the same ol’ thing, trotted out every time they get up to speak.

COMPLEXITY DOES NOT IMPLY DESIGN. You can build up an awesome mess of complexity by accident, so you need to demonstrate something other than complexity to demonstrate intent.

I get email

This is a lovely example of offended sensibilities that was sent to the University of Minnesota alumni association, as well as several other administration people and myself. I don’t think the author realizes it, but this is the kind of hate mail that makes me very happy.

Dear Alumni Association,

Due to the protest of the museum in August of 2009, I will no longer be contributing donations to the University. Actions have consequences — even free speech actions. I believe that tax payers of Minnesota have a interest in not having our professors at the public universities contributing publically to the coarsing of American discourse — and behaving silly (see the picture of the riding dinosaur)

I will also be telling my co-workers and friends to no longer contribute — especially those who went to Morris. I have attached a few links detailing the protest.

Thanks,
Bill Frische

This is PZ Meyers Blog
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/expelled_from_the_creation_mus.php

This is a more balanced report:
http://www.examiner.com/x-9090-NY-Atheism–Skepticism-Examiner~y2009m8d9-Atheists-expelled-from-Creation-Museum
(note that at the end of this piece it does say they were mocking the museum in the museum — which is why the museum says it asked one of them to leave, although I like the bucking bronco of the profession on the dinosaur, maybe that’s not really him, i don’t know for sure)

Here is the museums report:
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/2009/08/11/can-university-of-minnesota-professors-research-be-trusted/

Of course actions have consequences, and I am very pleased to see that my actions have led to a tiny diminution of the possible monetary influence of prating creationist dunderheads on university policy. I also think that people who attended our university and graduated with such a poor grasp of grammar and spelling might not be the best representatives for our mission, anyway.

Kirk vs. Cristina

This is hardly a fair fight. Cristina has about ten times the brains of Kirk.

In further news, Ray Comfort has announced that his give-away of the edited Origin of Species has changed: he’s going to give away 100,000 books at 100 universities, Darwin’s text will be left intact (although his page counts don’t add up), and he’ll be revising his 50 page foreword to be more fair to atheists and evolution. I’m beginning to suspect he’s lying to us.

Foil the depraved designs of a dastardly duo!

Back in June, I reported on this new sleazy tactic by Ray Comfort: he produced an abridged edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and then had the gall to tag on a preface that he had written himself, full of the standard creationist misconceptions. Comfort is astoundingly ignorant of basic biology; the best analogy to what he’s doing here would be if I were to give a chimpanzee a few blank sheets of paper and a convenient pile of his own feces and ask him to write a theological exegesis of the book of Genesis.

Oh, wait. On second thought, the chimpanzee would probably do a smarter job of his task than Comfort did of his.

Anyway, Ray and his polyp, Kirk Cameron, have a grand plan. They are going to give away their mangled edition of the Origin on 50 college campuses on 19 November, with the intent of allowing students to see the ‘alternative’ view. As if no one has heard of creationism, or as if it was a valid alternative to science.

There is a strategy to address this obscenity. They’re giving the books away for free: just get one or a few. Take them away and put them on a bookshelf, or rip out the introduction and donate the rest of the book to charity (which is a little impractical, I fear: these books will be very cheaply bound, and will not survive the mutilation). But anyway, let the intelligent, rational community sop up these sad mutilations of a great book and tuck them away from the gullible.

Alternatively, send copies to your favorite opponent of creationism on your campus. I know I keep a bookshelf full of creationist literature, and a Cameron/Comfort-edited version of the Origin would be a hilarious joke to have on hand. I doubt that the University of Minnesota Morris will be ‘lucky’ enough to get a team of these evangelical idjits on campus, though…so maybe one of you readers can get a copy for me? Get two, I’ll sign one and send it back to you so that you have an extra special version. Be sure to tell the people handing it out that you want an extra copy for an evil atheist!

A good first step

The director of the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History (the one hosting a Discovery Institute event) has posted an open letter about the program. I presume there will be more coming, because while it’s a beginning, I’m not too impressed yet.

Although the museum does not support unscientific views masquerading as science, such as those espoused by the Discovery Institute, the museum does respect the religious beliefs of all people. Moreover, the museum is obligated to rent its public space to any organization that is engaged in lawful activities, free speech and open discourse. The museum does not discriminate against recognized campus organizations based on their religious beliefs, political philosophy, scientific literacy, or any other factors.

It’s nice that they clearly dismiss the DI as unscientific, but they would have been better off leaving out the nonsense about respecting the religious beliefs of all people. They don’t have to come out and say they disrespect some religious beliefs, as I would, but they shouldn’t have pretended otherwise. No one should offer blanket respect to all religious foolishness — the kind offered by the DI, or any creationist group, is antithetical to the mission of a science museum. Do not offer them false comfort!

Their plan to address the bogosity that will be presented in their halls is currently a bit vague.

We invite everyone interested in an accurate description of how life developed over the last four billion years to visit our galleries. The well-organized and scientifically accurate exhibits illustrate – through real specimens and scientific methods – the fact of evolution by natural selection as first described by Charles Darwin and continually supported by all branches of science ever since that time. The museum also recommends that people interested in evolutionary science review the more than 1,000 publications by our curators and professional staff that are based in evolutionary biology.

The museum’s many galleries will be open for free before and after the showing of the Discovery Institute’s film “Darwin’s Dilemma” on Sept. 29 so the public can see that there is no scientific controversy in evolutionary science’s explanation of the development and history of Earth’s biodiversity.

“Read our publications” and “free admission before and after the presentation” will not do the job. I hope that more will be added later — but they really need to directly address the lies that the creationists will be peddling. With this minimal plan, I know exactly what will happen: most of the creationists will arrive just for the DI’s movie, and leave afterwards. They will tell their friends that they saw a movie about science in a science museum that proves that a god created all life on earth. Some might stay a little later and browse, but the DI will have their people there to provide a creationist spin to all the exhibits.

They need to address the dishonesty directly: stir up controversy of their own to get people to want to hear the rebuttals. Don’t claim to respect every religious belief out there; point out that this religious belief is incredibly bad science and rotten theology, and have people lined up to criticize it without the lame excuses. They don’t need to bring in a bunch of atheist hired guns to do that, either: they almost certainly have biologists on campus with religious views of all kinds who will happily agree that intelligent design creationism is garbage.