creationism
gregladen | February 25, 2013From the NCSE:
Senate Bill 758 (document), the so-called Oklahoma Science Education Act, which would have undermined the integrity of science education in the Sooner State, is dead. February 25, 2013, was the deadline for Senate bills to pass their committees, but the Senate Education Committee adjourned its February 25, 2013, meeting without considering it. Still active in the Oklahoma legislature is House Bill 1674 (document), styled the Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act, which differs from SB 758 primarily in mentioning "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life,…
gregladen | February 25, 2013From the National Center for Science Education:
Arizona's Senate Bill 1213 died on February 22, 2013, when the deadline for Senate bills to be heard in their Senate committees passed. A typical instance of the "academic freedom" strategy for undermining the integrity of science education, SB 1213 specifically targeted "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming[,] and human cloning" as supposedly controversial. Unusually, however, a sponsor of the bill, Judy Burges (R-District 22), told the Arizona Star (February 5, 2013) that climate science was her primary concern,…
gregladen | February 13, 2013The The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin was published over 150 years go. At the time, several different alternative theories of the origin and history of life were being discussed in the West. Some of these theories were theological. Theological ideas included a literal translation of the bible, with the flora, the fauna, and humans created in three separate but related creation events on a freshly made earth just a few thousand years ago. Another theological idea had an Abrahamic God's hand involved in the history of life but in ways we were not likely to understand until after death…
pharyngula | February 10, 2013I missed it, but Angry by Choice, Tangled Up in Blue Guy, and Greg Laden visited the Creation Science Fair yesterday, and Greg Laden already has a write-up. It was as tawdry as expected, with every poster lauding Gawd with bible verses. It was also very small.
There is another reason we go: To keep the creationists honest(ish). A few years ago, a group of us went to the fair and noted 20-something posters, and in that year the organizers, unaware of our presence, reported a much later number, thus lying about the level of participation in this event. When I pointed out on my blog that among…
gregladen | February 9, 2013"You will be a restless wanderer on the earth" -Genesis 4:12
Today, a few of us visited the Twin Cities Home School Creation Science Fair of 2013 at its new location. The fair used to be held in the historic Har Mar Shopping Mall but for some reason it has wandered up the road and across Snelling Avenue to a nearby Christian college on the shores of beautiful Lake Johanna Lake, in Roseville, Minnesota.
We were, verily, Mike, Angry by Choice, and me. Angry arrived separately and reviewed the exhibits on his own, and Mike and I visited nearly all of the 23 posters together and spoke to many…
sa smith | February 6, 2013I recently got to chat with the guys of Skeptiles this weekend about viruses, vaccines/anti-vaxers, HIV, HepC, Creationists-- We were all over the place, and it was so much fun!
Skeptiles: Episode 21 – Abbie Smith
pharyngula | February 4, 2013Another feathered dinosaur has been found in China, prompting Ken Ham to dig in his heels and issue denials.
Yet another supposed “feathered dinosaur” fossil has come to light, again in China. (Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, AiG–U.S., reported on another Chinese fossil of a supposed feathered dinosaur in April 2012) Now, one headline described the fossil as “almost birdlike,” and the authors of the report in Nature Communications note many features the fossil shares with living birds, particularly those that live on the ground. In fact, Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell and Dr. David Menton (AiG–U.S.) both…
gregladen | February 2, 2013According to the Turkish Daily News ...
The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey ... has put a stop to the publication and sale of all books in its archives that support the theory of evolution, daily Radikal has reported.
The evolutionist books, previously available through TÜBİTAK's Popular Science Publications’ List, will no longer be provided by the council.
The books have long been listed as “out of stock” on TÜBİTAK's website, but their further publication is now slated to be stopped permanently.
Titles by Richard Dawkins, Alan Moorehead, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard…
pharyngula | February 1, 2013Have you seen Missourie House Bill 291? Wow, it's pushing intelligent design, um, boldly. Like a gibbon that just sat down in a pool of sriracha sauce in a big tub of feces, that kind of "boldly".
It starts by defining evolution in one paragraph, and by evolution we mean just common descent. It says nothing specific about mechanisms or evidence, and is most concerned that evolution denies "operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure". And then we get 12 paragraphs defining Intelligent Design, which consist mainly of pointing to biological processes and phenomena…
pharyngula | January 25, 2013Ken Ham is preaching about what science is again. He's accusing the secular activist Zack Kopplin of being "brainwashed" by evolutionist propaganda, and to support this claim, he once again drags out the tired proposition that there are two kinds of science, historical and observational, and that only the observational kind is valid; well, unless the historical version is based on the Bible, which in his dogma is an unassailable compendium of absolutely true facts about the past.
What’s more, Kopplin—like almost all evolutionists—confuses historical science with operational (observational)…
pharyngula | January 21, 2013When I visited the Creation "Museum", one thing that shocked me was this display:
At the time, I pointed out the pernicious nature of this claim:
With complete seriousness and no awareness of the historical abuses to which this idea has been put, they were promoting the Hamite theory of racial origins, that ugly idea that all races stemmed from the children of Noah, and that black people in particular were the cursed offspring of Ham. If they are going to reject science because of its abuses, such as eugenics, they should at least be conscious of the evils perpetrated in the name of their…
pharyngula | January 17, 2013It's all Matt Dillahunty's fault. He tells me he's carrying on a correspondence with some guy who claims to have an alternative theory of evolution, and asks me to help him wade through the gobbledygook…so I did. I just didn't realize how much gobbledygook there was.
The guy is named Eugene McCarthy, and he calls his alternative "Stabilization Theory". Apparently he does have some scientific background and has studied hybrids in birds; the problem is that now he sees everything in terms of species hybrids. And I mean everything. I downloaded his book — it's free — and skimmed through all 400…
gregladen | December 27, 2012What about a picture of Charles Darwin burning in hell to teach kids about flames?
I don't think so. Although I personally am not like some of my fellow secularists in reacting viscerally to any and all stylistic or symbolic references to Judeo-Christian religious themes, I am aware that there are recognizable religious visual or literary elements which, if used as part of a teaching tool, can be easily construed as promotion of a religion. "Promotion" is not standing on a soap box preaching, or telling students that a particular religion is bad while another is good, or giving extra credit…
pharyngula | December 21, 2012Tom Bethell is a fellow traveller with the Intelligent Design creationists of the Discovery Institute; he often publishes on their website, and he's the author of quite a few books questioning the dogma of science. He also thinks he's a polymath: he wrote Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary?, which claims that Einstein was wrong, and he also wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, which claims that radiation is good for you, there is no global climate change going on, Shakespeare didn't write those plays, and evolution is bunk, among many other remarkable assertions.
He's…
gregladen | December 13, 2012Why is the inclusion of creationism and "intelligent design" still a viable proposal for American biology curricula? What other secular policies are at risk of religious intrusion? NCSE board member Barbara Forrest dissects the issue with a panel of experts, including Barry Lynn, Chris Mooney, and John Shook. Where: Center for Inquiry, Washington, DC. When: 10/22/2011
tfk | December 12, 2012A month ago, I had a bit of fun at Senator Marco Rubio's expense over his "I'm not a scientist, man" response to GQ's question about the age of the earth.
I brought up his comments again in my talk last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting, to much audience amusement. It served as a perfect example of the Pillars of Science denial, and the geologists were especially intrigued by his view that the understanding the age of the earth "has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States." Accurately dating rocks and knowing how that fits into…
sa smith | November 28, 2012Whos next, David Bowie??
Dan Savage will be THIS THURSDAY, November 29 at 7 pm:
The event will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 29 at the Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Molly Shi Boren Ballroom, according to the event’s Facebook page. Free food will be provided at 6:30 p.m. before Savage’s keynote at 7 p.m. A moderated question and answer, meet and greet and book signing will follow the keynote, said Alexis Taitel, chair of the CAC Speakers Bureau and international studies junior.
I hope the kids who need to hear Savage go...
Judge Jones, THE Judge Jones, will be DECEMBER 6 at 7 pm:
OU College of Law,…
gregladen | November 27, 2012I find the following bit of video to be very interesting. The letter itself, which they read at the beginning, is instructive of why many people are creationists or otherwise anti-science. They are afraid to go to hell. The idea that a person will go to hell for believing in science is something you have to be taught. The people who teach this should ... well, they can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned.
Then, of course, the answer to the letter is amazing. It is a revolution in thinking. Please keep in mind that the person making the statements you are about to witness is the…
gregladen | November 24, 2012Imagine the following scenario. Two guys are walking down the street, in different cities. Guy A has two PhDs, one in quantum physics with a focus on dimensionality dynamics, the other in astrophysics with a focus on relativistic aspects of gravity and black holes. She has published dozens of peer reviewed papers on both topics and is a brilliant mathematician. Guy B never took a physics class but yesterday he finished reading large parts of The Elegant Universe. Suddenly, at the same moment, they each have an idea (they do not have the same idea ... they have different ideas) about how…
tfk | November 21, 2012Slate's Daniel Engber is upset. People are making fun of Marco Rubio's "I'm not a scientist, man" response to a question about the age of the earth, and he wants to insist that "Willful ignorance of science is a bipartisan value." As evidence for this claim, he contrasts Rubio:
Q: How old do you think the Earth is?A: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of…