Once more unto the frame

You’re bored with it? I’m bored with it. All bored now. But since the discussion is still going on everywhere, and I’m frothing rabid (as everyone knows) and always ready to snarl and bite even when (especially when?) I’m beset with ennui, I’ll call your attention to Greg Laden again. He’s pointing out that Nesbit/Mooney have poorly framed — I swear, I never want to use that word ever again — their argument for the evolution-creation conflict, which might explain why they are being so poorly received by some of us who are focused on that ugly mess. That, and the fact that parts of their report read like a pious Discovery Institute press release, which sets our jangled immune systems on fire like a bee sting triggering anaphylactic shock, and no one’s slinging any epinephrine our way.

It looks like they talking about approaches more like we find in Kennith Miller’s “Finding Darwin’s God: A scientist’s search for common ground between god and evolution.” This needs to be clarified, and if this is in fact what they are talking about, then there is something very important that they don’t get, and they need to be flogged, then ignored. If, on the other hand, they are just kind of talking vaguely about this issue and are not explicitly arguing for a god/science chimeric view, then they should be very eager to be educated on this and then to move on with framing but using a very different approach.

We can’t use an approach that brings god into the evolution picture. This is not because of atheism (though that position would make this same argument). It is because it is a) bad science; b) a wedge for bringing various forms of creationism into the classroom and c) illegal.

OK, Greg has put up some very specific issues and questions that fans of the f-word should deal with it. Please do.

Now, since I’ve bored myself again, but since I did mention “rabid” and “flogging”, I’ll recommend that everyone read this article. It’s much more entertaining, even if the thought of 103 literally rabid Christian fanatics gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s alright if you’d rather talk about that than the f-word, too.

Crud. Laden has added a link to an interview with Nisbet. How would you f-word the idea that the earth goes around the sun for Copernicus? He gives an answer I guess I should have expected.

Hey, I’m like a biblical patriarch!

You recall that nice scarlet letter “A” for atheism t-shirt? I like it so much that I’ve decided to get it tattooed on my forehead. And this is so important to me that I’m also dragging my kids into the tattoo parlor to have it done to them. After all, my beliefs are important and this minor procedure will make my children more attractive, so they shouldn’t object — it’ll also make it easier to find partners with a similar cultural background. This is a win all around; I really don’t understand why Skatje is hiring a lawyer to oppose me.

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Creationist humor?

Zeno makes an obvious point: creationists have no sense of humor. He singles out this tedious comic strip running on the Answers in Genesis pages, called CreationWise, and of course when anyone thinks of an unfunny religious apologist with a strip, they think of Johnny Hart. But even worse than any of these is Dan Nuckols. Seriously, if you enjoy cartoons, if you have any sense of humor or even an appreciation of the skill it takes to put together an amusing story in a few panels, don’t follow that link; it’s like snorting ammonia, it’ll ruin the flavor of everything for a few days.

Zeno does point out that sometimes they are inadvertently funny, in ways the artist doesn’t intend. This strip doesn’t make any sense from a religious perspective, but it is mildly amusing if you imagine someone like me behind the door.

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Nah, it’s not particularly funny even then. Just true.

OK, since Blake hinted at it, here’s a link to his improved version of the cartoon.

Veeery interesting…

Zachary Moore had a casual conversation with a Discovery Institute staffer at one of their “Darwin vs. Design” conferences, and it sounds like said ID drone spoke a little bit too openly.

In fact, it was so friendly that as I was waiting in the auditorium lobby for the conference to start, I struck up a conversation with Todd Norquist, one of the Discovery Institute’s employees in the Center for Science and Culture (the department that advocates for Intelligent Design). I asked him how many of these conferences were planned by the Discovery Institute, and he seemed hesitant, telling me that he didn’t know if any more of them were going to be possible, since the costs were too high for the Institute to handle. He mentioned something about it costing $70,000, although I don’t recall if that was the amount to produce the Dallas event alone, or if that was the current cost for the whole series thus far (the only previous event being in Knoxville). He complained that there had been virtually no money allocated for advertising, the sole contribution being $1000 paid to Scott Wilder for an “interview” of Stephen Meyer a week previously. He then told me (quite openly, also, which I thought was odd) that the financial situation of the Discovery Institute was grim, and that they were “bleeding money” and were “barely able to keep the lights on in Seattle.”

Now that could be an example of pleading poverty as part of a pitch for more donations, or it could be a revealing peek at the DI’s declining status after Dover. I suspect it’s a real symptom of the slow collapse of the Discovery Institute — even if you were sympathetic to their aims, wouldn’t you be reluctant to back a dog of a losing organization like the DI right now?

Virginia Tech on everybody’s mind

Here’s what the various ScienceBloggers are saying about Virginia Tech.

I’m not personally enthused about turning the whole ugly episode into a rallying cry for whatever cause you favor right now, but I do side with Dunford: of course this is a time you should express your positions. This is a good time, when events have made the concerns more immediate and when people are looking for answers. It’s not a good time to act on those positions, because emotions overwhelm sense, but they are also good indicators of what is important to people.

For instance, if you see this as an excuse to cage all the foreigners, I’d like to know so I can stay upwind of you at all times. If you’re concerned about what we can rationally do to prevent these tragedies in the future, even while distraught about the evil that has been done, then OK, I’ll try to remember that you are a fellow signee of our mutual social contract. So please, keep it civil, and remember that we are a community of civilized beings, not a mob of barbarians.

Fist vs. Chi — who will win?

This is an amusing (but somewhat violent) movie that is an apt metaphor for the strengths of science. It starts with a Kiai Master, one of those woo-woo martial artists who claims to have the power of knocking his opponents flat with his mystical chi—and it’s awfully funny how all these martial arts students come running up and do pratfalls when he waves his hands at them. Then, in a fit of hubris, derangement, or just plain stupidity, he challenges someone to come against him with ‘mere’ natural, physical combat skills. The results are predictable and a little bit cringe-inducing.

The woo sure looks impressive when it’s performed with a mob willing to play along, but it only takes a few seconds for reality to flatten “let’s pretend”. Keep that in mind, creationists: it’s easy to find obliging crowds in your churches, but the rest of the world isn’t going to play the game with you. When the United States deludes itself into thinking creationism is legitimate, we’re setting ourselves up for another nation to knock us down with a single punch of solid science.