It’s an article about yet another Christian who was once an atheist, telling us how awful and unfulfilling life was until he found Jebus. The guy is a fool, and just to spice it up, they threw in…a poll! A poll that needs fixing!
Should creationism have a place in the curriculum?
54% are saying yes
46% are saying no
So fix it already. Go ahead and leave a comment there, too, although the comments so far all seem to be going our way anyway.
Someone at the Discovery Institute received a vaguely threatening email. If the writer is someone who reads this, you’ve done something disgraceful, and you should send an apology immediately; we do not threaten to silence or cause harm to the clowns of creationism. Laugh at them, dissect their arguments, explain that they are damaging education in this country…but you draw the line at intimidation and threats of personal damage. Got it?
That said, I have to also say that the DI’s reaction was amusing. This is the first time they’ve received a death threat? Overall, then, our side (with the obvious exception of this one violator) has been commendably restrained — I’ve been receiving email with that tone or worse for years now, several times a week. I wish the abusive jerk had not done this stupid thing, so that our record would be spotless.
The races aren’t quite over, but the good news is that the four non-creationists running for the Lincoln board of education have successfully advanced to the general election. Don’t forget to vote on 5 May!
Get ready, West coast: in two weeks I’ll be in Ashland, Oregon, speaking in the Meese Room, Hannon Library, at Southern Oregon University, at 7:00pm on 23 April. If you aren’t a student, you’ll have to pay a whole $10 to hear me — that’s more than I’d pay to see a Michael Bay movie, and I won’t have any car chases or explosions! This is a talk sponsored by The Jefferson Center, and you should check them out if you want to know more. There may be other events around that date — I know I’m doing a radio program one morning, and I’ll be there for a few days.
The subject of the talk is the legacy of Charles Darwin, and I’ll be specifically talking about “Darwin and Design“. It’s one of the annoyingly ahistorical properties of creationists that they don’t look at the evidence, forgeting all the arguments that went on before, and they don’t seem to realize that Darwin’s Origin is fundamentally one long argument against design and intent in nature. I’m going to talk about both the history of the argument, from Paley to Darwin, and the modern evidence that demonstrates the dysfunctional uselessness of this repackaged theology called “Intelligent Design creationism”.
It should be fun. It should be even more fun if a few of you Oregonians who read the blog can make it.
Ray Comfort went off to New Zealand to have a debate — and wouldn’t you know it, he stood up there and repeated the same bunk he spouts on his blog. Oh, wait: he did change one thing. Instead of talking about elephants, he changed his animal that he claimed couldn’t possibly have evolved to a dog. Woo hoo. He also completely ignored his opponent’s arguments.
Ray Comfort is currently in the lead for top status in my list of dishonest, stupid creationists.
I keep telling people this isn’t only about biology — every scientific discipline is under attack. I’m sure physicists aren’t complacent: another teaching standard diluted into meaninglessness was one about the age of the universe.
Originally in the Texas school standards was this phrase: “concept of an expanding universe that originated about 14 billion years ago.” However, board member Barbara Cargill thought this wasn’t good enough. It was too definite. The standards now read, “current theories of the evolution of the universe including estimates for the age of the universe.” You can bet that the age of the earth is not listed in the Texas curriculum as about 4.5 billion years old — in spite of the fact that most of the people my age and older have known (or rather, estimated) this for years.
It’s too late and they aren’t going to listen to me anyway, but if I had to modify that particular standard, I would have changed it to “how we know the universe is expanding and originated about 14 billion years ago.” That would certainly cover the spirit of Cargill’s revision, forcing teachers to discuss methodology and evidence. Right?
Or does Cargill seriously want teachers to discuss 4.5 billion year old earth explanations vs. myths that say the earth is 0.000006 billion years old? Because that would be ridiculous.
Once upon a time, a creationist invented a brand new pseudo-scientific term, which he even presented at a scientific conference. It was a very, very silly idea called “ontogenetic depth”. I criticized the idea publicly and viciously, pointing out that the concept had no explanation, no methodology, and had produced no results, which prompted the creationist, Paul Nelson, to promise to present us all with a detailed explanation “tomorrow”.
We’ve been waiting for a little while for tomorrow to get here. Paul Nelson promised us an answer tomorrow 5 years ago.
Ever since, we celebrate Paul Nelson day every year on 7 April. Richard Hoppe jumped the gun and announced it last week, which is OK — Nelson did drag out the promises for quite a while, and the 7th was a somewhat arbitrary choice. Last year, I suggested a simple and appropriate way to commemorate the event.
In his honor, we should all make it a point to ask people “How do you know that?” today, and the ones who actually can explain themselves competently will be complimented by being told that they’re no Paul Nelson.
It’s kind of like the folk tradition of chasing away demons on certain days of the year, only what we do is terrify creationists by roaming about demanding that they fork over evidence, at which time they scurry away and hide. Have fun!
By the way, I said something else last year.
We’ll celebrate it again next year, I’m sure.
I’m a prophet. We’ll have another chance next year, too.
I confess, we residents of the USA sometimes have a bit of an inferiority complex when we compare our citizenry to those of other nations of the world — we look like such a collection of idiots next to places like Iceland and Australia and New Zealand and Germany and England and Canada and etc. (at least we feel a bit wiser than Turkey). Of course, none of those other countries are entirely exempt from having dumbasses pontificating on science, so we can still occasionally take a cheap, desperate shot at some furrin’ loon. Here’s a Canadian who has done his part to bolster American egos: James Lunney, conservative member of parliament. Take it away, Mr Lunney!
Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.
In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.
The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.
Impressive effort, Lunney. It takes great ignorance to pack so many fallacies into 3 paragraphs.
The mechanisms of evolution are reproducible and observable. We can even observe the historical specifics of contingent evolutionary events.
Mr Lunney’s choices of objections, plate techtonics [sic], polonium radiohalos, and polystratic[sic] fossils, reveal that he has read the erroneous creationist literature, but has never examined the scientific debunkings of his claims.
I have heard this claim that creationists use the same evidence to argue for creation. It is not true. They select a narrow subset of the evidence that superficially supports their claims, and then ignore the broader array of evidence that completely undermines them…as, for example, creationists who claim that plate tectonics, polonious halos, and polystrate trees refute evolution. There is more evidence out there than the tiny fraction that creationists choose to highlight.
…Houston Friend, a student at ASU who got a bad grade on a paper and wrote in to blame the whole culture for it.
Last week, I got back a graded essay, which happened to be worth a significant portion of my grade. I got a C and was immediately upset because I had been somewhat proud of my work when I was writing it.
I soon perused the plethora of red marks throughout the paper and began to notice generally why I did poorly.
The principle reason I got a C was because I didn’t have enough “evidence,” as this particular paper required a certain amount of references to sources read throughout the semester.
The “plethora of red marks” is an indication that there might be a lot of problems with that paper, and it’s certainly true that we professors have expectations of a certain level of scholarship, that is, familiarity with multiple sources, in undergraduate work. It’s good that Mr Friend recognizes these shortcomings in his work. Or does he?
Mr Friend identifies a bigger problem. It’s not his fault, it’s the academic world, which demands…
The academic world our generation has grown up in gives an enormous amount of credit to empirical, tangible and scientific evidence.
Oh, really? That sounds reasonable to me. What does Mr Friend want?
I think we have been accustomed to perceive intelligence as a product of one’s ability to present concrete evidence, especially scientifically. Not to say this is completely wrong or ineffective, but I think we must consider the possibility of metaphysical realities. And maybe, just maybe, we live in world that can’t always be explained rationally.
I see. He wants to write an irrational paper that lacks empirical evidence and is built on intangible claims, and he wants to get an A for it.
Where does he think he is studying? Liberty University?
Legislators in the fine state of Oklahoma continue to gnash their grim and yellowed Christian tusks in frustration that Richard Dawkins was ever allowed to speak. He not only spoke openly, but was allowed to leave the state unscathed — not a single rusty thumbscrew was employed, nor was he burned at the stake. The university thinks that is just fine, but these cornpone dullards pretending to be representatives of American freedom just don’t get it.
In a phone interview Thursday, Thomsen said the university has a right to bring any speaker it chooses, but is accountable to taxpayers. On behalf of his constituents, Thomsen wanted to present the opinion that Dawkins doesn’t represent Oklahoma’s ideals.
“They’re not in a plastic bubble that can’t be touched,” he said.
Dawkins’ approach doesn’t present freedom of thought and opinion, Thomsen said.
“His presence at OU was not about science,” he said. “It was to promote an atheistic agenda, and that was very clear.”
Was Mr Thomsen at the talk? I think not, or he’d know that he was giving his “Purpose of Purpose” lecture, which was about the perception of teleology in biology and evolution. Or maybe he just assumes that any talk about science is promoting an atheistic agenda, a presumption that would not surprise me at all.
I’m really getting jealous. The best rejection I ever got was getting kicked out of a mere movie theater…and Dawkins has casually stirred the ire of an entire state. Are there any small nations that would like to outlaw me? I have to keep up.
