creationism
pharyngula | October 31, 2006I have to disagree with Red State Rabble and his announcement of the demise of Intelligent Design. We're seeing signs of a shifting of strategies, the fading of a few personalities, and a little confusion on the part of our enemies, but it is a colossal mistake to be predicting their end at this time. Intelligent Design was nothing but the mask worn by one of the blank faces of ignorant creationism, and all we've accomplished with victories like the Dover trial is to take a slap at the façade. We've made them briefly recoil, and at best what we can expect is a brief respite while they try to…
pharyngula | October 31, 2006In the ongoing Hovind trial, no new revelations except for more details about how rich the creationist con artist and tax evader is. He makes $50,000/year in speaking fees, and with his wife, sells $1.8 million/year in "Christian merchandise" (tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?).
They still deny that they earn salaries, and claim that they have no income at all.
pharyngula | October 31, 2006A reader in Canada just let me know that CBC Radio 1 will broadcast a program on creationist museum tours sometime this morning (between 9:30 and 10...the timezone is unclear). I won't be able to listen because I'm going to be lecturing the freshmen on the perfidies of creationism, so if anyone catches it, let us know how it goes.
pharyngula | October 30, 2006After a week long hiatus, the Hovind trial continues in Florida. This week, we learn about the virtues of Christian charity.
Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. But he believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren't subject to taxation.
Schneider testified this morning that Jo Hovind requested financial help for her bills from Baptist Health Care, claiming that she had no income.
Schneider also said the Hovinds wrote checks to their children from their Christian Science Evangelism account. They also withdrew money from that account…
mikethemadbiologist | October 28, 2006I stumbled across this great creationist parody site: The reDiscovery Institute. You'll definitely have a few laughs with this.
mikethemadbiologist | October 27, 2006Lance Mannion notes that Rush "Big Pharma" Limbaugh uses words in the same way creationists do: as weapons. From Mannion (italics mine):
Fox's offense was making campaign commercials for candidates who will vote to expand and fund stem cell research, but Limbaugh doesn't care about that. What he cares about is that those candidates are Democrats who will also vote to make it harder for rich white guys like Rush to get away with whatever they want to get away with.
Rush's anger and outrage are real; the words he used to express them weren't. This is why if the Republicans find a disabled…
clock | October 26, 2006Rev. BigDumbChimp alerts me that Ken Miller will be in Raleigh on November 6th, giving a lecture at NCSU at 7pm. Tickets are free but you have to have one in order to attend. You can get your tickets here.
pharyngula | October 26, 2006The NY Times is reporting that Ohio scientists are nearly unanimous in mobilizing for the school board election there—and they aren't on the side of creationists like Deborah Owens Fink. It's interesting that we're seeing such activism from scientists; the response from the creationists is also enlightening.
But Dr. Owens Fink, a professor of marketing at the University of Akron, said the curriculum standards she supported did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Rather, she said, they urge students to subject evolution to critical analysis,…
evolvingthoughts | October 25, 2006There's a fair bit of to-and-fro going on with the Sciblings about Richard Dawkins' latest book The God Delusion, which, being at the edge of empire, I haven't yet seen. When I do, I will read it and comment, of course.
But I want to ask a general question - is religion in itself a malign influence on society? For example, any number of Islamic Imams, including the leader of Australia's Muslim community, think that women who don't dress "modestly" (which can mean anything from wearing a long sleeved top to the burka) are to blame for being raped.
And attacks on the moral influence of…
pharyngula | October 25, 2006Look who's coming to campaign for Michele Bachmann: the home school kids of Patrick Henry College and Generation Joshua.
Abram Olmstead- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Meredith Schultz- Student, Patrick Henry College
Adrienne Cumbus- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Ioanna Lily Cornett- Student, Patrick Henry College
Nathan Martin- Student, Patrick Henry College
We've also got a team of young evangelicals on their way to help out Mark Kennedy. Doesn't it just make your heart do a little happy pit-a-pat dance?
There is a Kansas connection here: one of their leaders is Ned Ryun, son…
pharyngula | October 25, 2006Remember those silly Chuck Norris Facts? Ever wonder what Chuck Norris thinks of them (well, actually, I didn't…so don't feel bad if you didn't care)? It's sad to see that we had to find out, since all we learn is that Norris is as dumb as a brick.
Chuck Norris actually responds to the jokes—in an article on World Nut Daily, of all places. Here's one example.
Alleged Chuck Norris Fact: "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live."
It's funny. It's cute. But here's what I really think about the theory of evolution: It's not real. It is not the…
razib | October 24, 2006 US author offers 'Vedic alternative' to evolution theory:
Offering a "Vedic alternative" to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, an American author has claimed that human beings devolved from the "realm of pure consciousness", as testified by archaeological evidence discovered over the past 150 years.
"We did not evolve up from matter. Instead, we devolved, or came down, from the realm of pure consciousness, spirit," author Michael A Cremo, said, citing many archaeological, psychological and genetic examples.
I have stated before that Creationism might be most prominent in American fundamentalist…
clock | October 23, 2006Hmmm, didn't it occur to him for a moment that "survival of the fittest" may be true back when Bruce Lee beat him up?
pharyngula | October 23, 2006One of the perks of this blogging gig is that Roy Zimmerman sends me his CDs—you want it just for the songs Creation Science 101 and Intelligent Design, although the rest is toe-tapping good, too.
pharyngula | October 21, 2006The latest in the Hovind trial: a local lawyer recounts his conversations with Kent.
Gibbs said Hovind tried to persuade him he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with "a great deal of bravado" how he had "beat the tax system."Gibbs said Hovind also told him he preferred to deal in cash and that when you are "dealing with cash there is not way to trace it, so it wasn't taxable."
O Lord, please, this I pray: that Kent Hovind himself will testify at his trial. Jesus, fill Your devoted follower with True Christian hubris, that he will mount the witness stand to testify…
pharyngula | October 20, 2006If you've been following the news from Florida, you must know that Kent Hovind's trial has begun. We've learned how profitable it is to be creation science evangelist…
Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million. Their income came from amusement-park profits and merchandise -- books, audiotapes and videotapes -- they sold on site and through phone and online orders, she said. About half the money went to employees.
…and that the IRS doesn't like him very much.
Hovind attempted to manipulate funds from the start of his ministry, she said.
In 1996, he filed…
pharyngula | October 19, 2006The discussion page for the Wikipedia article on the Discovery Institute has a couple of interesting flags up on it:
The subject of this article, Discovery Institute, has edited Wikipedia as
User:216.163.84.151 (talk ⢠contribs).
The subject of this article, Discovery Institute, has edited Wikipedia as
Truthologist (talk ⢠contribs).
What it all means is that somebody at the Discovery Institute, using the pseudonym "Truthologist" (hah! Irony strikes again!) has been busily revising the entry describing the Discovery Institute. Since Casey Luskin has previously put Wikipedia "on…
pharyngula | October 18, 2006It's always good to see foreign governments promoting sensible motions like this:
That this House shares the concerns of the British Centre for Science Education that the literature being sent to every school in the United Kingdom by the creationist religious group Truth in Science is full of scientific mistakes and fails to disclose the group's creationist beliefs and objectives; and urges all schools to treat this literature with extreme caution.
[links added by me.]
The BCSE is a good new group organized to combat the slowly growing creationist movement in the UK, while Truth In Science…
clock | October 16, 2006In response to wonderful fisking by Ed of a really silly Creationist screed, Archy comments on the use of the terms "Darwinist" by Creationists, as a marketing tool to paint biologists as dogmatic, while at the same time avoding the term "creationist" in order to paint themselves as scientific:
Their use of the terms "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" aren't the result sheer ignorance; it's a carefully thought out propaganda strategy. An "-ism" implies an ideology or a dogma. It moves evolution out of science and into the land of politics or religion: though which is based on faith or blind…