Creation Science
gregladen | November 7, 2009From the NCSE:
The phenomenon of Islamic creationism was addressed by two major newspapers, The New York Times (November 3, 2009) and the Boston Globe (October 25, 2009), in the wake of a recent conference at Hampshire College on evolution in the Muslim world. (Webcasts of the conference presentations will be available on-line by November 15, 2009, according to the conference website.)
The Globe's article began arrestingly, with the news that the Arabic-language version of Al Jazeera's website -- a major news source in the Middle East -- triumphantly misdescribed the recently described early…
gregladen | November 6, 2009From the NCSE:
NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott was invited to debate Ray Comfort, a creationist in the news recently for his plans to distribute copies of the Origin of Species with his own introduction, on the God & Country blog of U.S. News & World Report. Comfort began the debate on October 29, 2009; Scott replied on October 30, 2009; Comfort responded on November 2, 2009; and Scott replied on November 3, 2009. The debate, according to Dan Gilgoff, who maintains the blog, elicited "more feedback than any other issue on this blog has received over any similar stretch in…
gregladen | November 3, 2009Please do me a favor. Start collecting those bogus-ized copies of Darwin's Origin being distributed by Ray Comfort. We're low on firewood up at the cabin. Oh, and if you see Ray, puke on his shoes for me, OK?
It's not that I like burning books. But this is not burning books. When Ray Comfort distributes a faked-up copy of The Origin, he's committing a kind of intellectual violence. Tossing the books into the wood stove is a parry.
If you want to reduce the effects of global warming, you could always bury them in your garden thus sequestering the carbon they are made from.
Here are the…
gregladen | October 20, 2009To answer that question briefly, it is really really old if you mean "how old are the oldest rocks that are exposed by the Grand Canyon," and it is probably just a few million years old (5 or 6 by some estimates) if you mean "how long did the canyon itself take to form."
An African peneplain elevated by doming along the Eastern Rift Valley. The original surface, once flat but now raised as "mountains" in the distance, is shown by the dotted line.
A repost
But Creationists, of course, have a different story, especially young earth creationists. I'm not going to recount it here. If you want to…
gregladen | October 9, 2009An item from the NCSE:
A special issue of the Journal of Effective Teaching, a peer-reviewed electronic journal devoted to the discussion of teaching excellence in colleges and universities, is devoted to the topic of teaching evolution in the college classroom. Featured are Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, and Alex Bates's "The Influence of Religion and High School Biology Courses on Students' Knowledge of Evolution When They Enter College"; Katherine E. Bruce, Jennifer E. Horan, Patricia H. Kelley, and Mark Galizio's "Teaching Evolution in the Galapagos"; Patricia H. Kelley's "A College Honors…
gregladen | October 9, 2009You'll recall that it was recently reported that the Californial Science Center, which is loosely affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, had planned a screening of "Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record" which is apparently a creationist documentary.
Well, now, the venue has cancelled the showing and the ID people are all lathered up about it.
The group claims the cancellation was an act of censorship, made after the center was pressured by the Smithsonian Institution, but the center chalked it up to a contract issue, without elaborating.
Coined "The Darwin…
gregladen | October 9, 2009A recently published statement on current scientific knowledge on cosmic evolution and biological evolution from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences concludes: "The extraordinary progress in our understanding of evolution and the place of man in nature should be shared with everyone. ... Furthermore, scientists have a clear responsibility to contribute to the quality of education, especially as regards the subject of evolution." The statement appears in the proceedings of "Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life," a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of…
gregladen | October 9, 2009This just in from the NCSE:
Will a Massachusetts bill entitled "An Act Relative to Protecting the Religious Freedom of Students" encourage the discussion of creationism in public school science classes? That's what a cosponsor of the bill, Representative Elizabeth Poirier (R-14th Bristol), told the Cape Cod Times (October 7, 2009). The bill, House No. 376, received a hearing on October 6, 2009, at which, according to the Times, "No one testified against the bill, which has bipartisan support and is expected to pass favorably through the Joint Committee on Education."
Evolution is in fact not…
gregladen | October 8, 2009This just in: Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the NCSE, has won the California Academy of Sciences Fellows Medal.
This is somewhere between an Oscar and a Nobel. Congratulations Genie!!!
Details...
DARWIN DEFENDER TAKES TOP PRIZE
California Academy of Sciences honors Dr. Eugenie C. Scott
OAKLAND, CA October 8, 2009
It's better than an Oscar. The NCSE's Dr. Eugenie Scott has received the California Academy of Sciences' highest honor: the Fellows Medal. The Medal recognizes Dr. Scott's "...many important contributions to science, education, and evolution, and for her tireless efforts…
gregladen | October 8, 2009Lately, creationist rhetoric seems to increasingly mention the idea that if scientists really understood evolution, life, and biology, then why don't they just create it themselves, as a kind of proof of concept? This rhetoric usually includes a statement like: "They can't even create a simple cell ... "
A repost
This is very annoying, and displays either creationists' excellent ability to frame their arguments or their utter stupidity. In fact, a cell is the most complicated thing going in biology. A cell is more complicated than an organism that is made up of cells, assuming that you don…
gregladen | October 6, 2009LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate premieres Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution. To view a trailer and clips from the film, please visit www.darwinsdilemma.org.
Darwin's Dilemma will be screened at 7 p.m. on Sunday, October 25th in the IMAX theater at the California Science Center, with a post-film discussion featuring Darwin skeptic Dr. David Berlinski, author of The…
gregladen | October 2, 2009The Louisiana Science Education Act opened the door for creationism to be taught in the state's public schools, and now the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is propping the door open, the Louisiana Coalition for Science charges. In a September 28, 2009, press release, the LCS noted, "On September 16, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) ignored the recommendations of science education professionals in the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) and allowed the Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), a Religious Right lobbying group, to dictate the procedure concerning…
gregladen | October 2, 2009The Medieval Religious State of Saudi Arabia has a school called King Abdullah's University of Science and Technology, which is co-ed (that is an extraordinarily progressive idea for Teh Kingdom) and very science oriented. The idea, obviously, is for Saudi Arabia to maintain it's old patriarchal relgious-oligarchic ways but at the same time not get mushed by the modern world by including some rational thinking and stuff. But a senior Saudi cleric has called for a vetting of the university's curriculum in order to remove "alien ideologies."
Evolution is an alien ideology, apparently.
"…
gregladen | October 1, 2009You've heard of Who is Your Creator. I first discussed them back on Oh Six. Then, they came up again in Oh Seven.
Then we heard from them more recently: New Creationist Videos Being Produced in Area High School. When I contacted them to ask about what high school was producing the creationist videos, I was told that I was not allowed to know that because I was part of the opposition.
Well, the latest news has just come down the pipes regarding Who is Your Creator Dot Com:
Within a couple of months, Who Is Your Creator will be rolling out our new campaign that will be offering free…
gregladen | September 30, 2009A lecture, by Dr. Don Bierle of FaithSearch International.... Sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ at UW-Superior. Dr. Bierle is a "former skeptic" and everything.
Location:
Kathryn Ohman Theater, McCaskill Hall
U. Wisconsin-Superior
Superior, WI 54880
10/04/2009 · 07:00 PM - 09:00 PM · (715) 394-8320
gregladen | September 24, 2009
The new film about Darwin, Creation, will be distributed in the United States after all, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter (September 24, 2009). The film is expected to be released by Newmarket Films in December 2009. Earlier the producer of the film, Jeremy Thomas, lamented to the Telegraph (September 11, 2009), "It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. ... It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America." A few days later, however, NBC Bay Area (September 15, 2009) reported that a…