Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Year That Was
With each new year, it seems, come the obligatory "year in review" articles rehashing the events of the past twelve months. For the most part, these stories leave RSR about as cold as the thought of freezing for hours behind police barriers with a mob of other "revelers" banging balloons together and blowing on paper horns while waiting for the appearance of Dick Clark to "count down the new year" in Times Square.
But our friends in the ID movement, as even they would admit, are traditionalists to the very core of their beings. They've embraced this hoary custom and once again, though it may be difficult to digest, have delivered the year-end fruit cake.
Over at the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog, for example, Casey Luskin, the Inspector Clouseau of the ID movement, has exercised his considerable detective skills to ferret out a number of hitherto unimagined "International Scientific Discoveries Since Kitzmiller Which Support ID."
As always, Luskin never says anything in 10 words that might be said in 10,000. His list of discoveries already extends to three-parts.
Does quantity make up for quality? For reasons of economy, RSR won't attempt to deal with all of Luskin's scientific discoveries which support ID. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether Luskin's discoveries -- like the grains of sand on a beach, the Olsen twins, Mary Kate and Ashley, or the books in the Bush library -- are yet another proof that once you've seen one, you've seen them all.
One of Luskin's discoveries, some of you deluded Darwinists may be surprised to learn, is the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae -- a fossil fish with limb-like fins thought by scientists to be an example of the evolutionary transition from swimming fish to four-legged land animal.
Those who have rashly been calling Tiktaalik roseae a "missing link" on the order of Archaeopteryx, the transitional fossil between reptiles and birds, will no doubt be chastened to learn that it is really more evidence "that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator, with their distinctive features already intact - fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc."
Following Luskin's lead, Discovery's Robert Crowther weighs in with "a list of the top intelligent design stories of the past year." One of the highlights of Crowther's list is that "60% of U.S. Medical Doctors Doubt Macro-evolutionary Theory."
Readers who are contemplating a visit to the family doctor needn't necessarily worry however. It turns out that those who actually read the survey results for themselves, rather than simply take Crowther's word for it, will find that in answer to the question, "Do you agree more with the evolution or more with intelligent design?" 63.16 percent of doctors responded "More with evolution." Only 33.67 percent said they agreed more with intelligent design.
The take home message? Choose your doctor and your sources of objective information carefully.
Proving she will not be outdone by the upstart Luskin, Denyse "Buy My Book" O'Leary, brings it on with a four-part series on "Recent events in the intelligent design controversy."
One of the events that makes it on to O'Leary's list is ID theorist William Dembski, once thought of in some circles as the Isaac Newton of information theory, making fart noises for the sound track of a flash animation intended as the ID movement's reasoned response to the Kitzmiller decision.
Though Red State Rabble usually finds O'Leary's reasoning less than compelling, we think she probably got this one right. Dembski flatulence was probably the movement's greatest contribution to the year that was.
ID theorists far and wide, like Dr. Pangloss, have taken stock and found they live in the best of all possible worlds.
We hate to be the ones to rain on their parade, but despite multiple posts required to capture the vast array of ID happenings, a few modest events occured during the past year that apparently escaped the notice of Luskin, Crowther, and O'Leary
But our friends in the ID movement, as even they would admit, are traditionalists to the very core of their beings. They've embraced this hoary custom and once again, though it may be difficult to digest, have delivered the year-end fruit cake.
Over at the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog, for example, Casey Luskin, the Inspector Clouseau of the ID movement, has exercised his considerable detective skills to ferret out a number of hitherto unimagined "International Scientific Discoveries Since Kitzmiller Which Support ID."
As always, Luskin never says anything in 10 words that might be said in 10,000. His list of discoveries already extends to three-parts.
Does quantity make up for quality? For reasons of economy, RSR won't attempt to deal with all of Luskin's scientific discoveries which support ID. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether Luskin's discoveries -- like the grains of sand on a beach, the Olsen twins, Mary Kate and Ashley, or the books in the Bush library -- are yet another proof that once you've seen one, you've seen them all.
One of Luskin's discoveries, some of you deluded Darwinists may be surprised to learn, is the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae -- a fossil fish with limb-like fins thought by scientists to be an example of the evolutionary transition from swimming fish to four-legged land animal.
Those who have rashly been calling Tiktaalik roseae a "missing link" on the order of Archaeopteryx, the transitional fossil between reptiles and birds, will no doubt be chastened to learn that it is really more evidence "that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator, with their distinctive features already intact - fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc."
Following Luskin's lead, Discovery's Robert Crowther weighs in with "a list of the top intelligent design stories of the past year." One of the highlights of Crowther's list is that "60% of U.S. Medical Doctors Doubt Macro-evolutionary Theory."
Readers who are contemplating a visit to the family doctor needn't necessarily worry however. It turns out that those who actually read the survey results for themselves, rather than simply take Crowther's word for it, will find that in answer to the question, "Do you agree more with the evolution or more with intelligent design?" 63.16 percent of doctors responded "More with evolution." Only 33.67 percent said they agreed more with intelligent design.
The take home message? Choose your doctor and your sources of objective information carefully.
Proving she will not be outdone by the upstart Luskin, Denyse "Buy My Book" O'Leary, brings it on with a four-part series on "Recent events in the intelligent design controversy."
One of the events that makes it on to O'Leary's list is ID theorist William Dembski, once thought of in some circles as the Isaac Newton of information theory, making fart noises for the sound track of a flash animation intended as the ID movement's reasoned response to the Kitzmiller decision.
Though Red State Rabble usually finds O'Leary's reasoning less than compelling, we think she probably got this one right. Dembski flatulence was probably the movement's greatest contribution to the year that was.
ID theorists far and wide, like Dr. Pangloss, have taken stock and found they live in the best of all possible worlds.
We hate to be the ones to rain on their parade, but despite multiple posts required to capture the vast array of ID happenings, a few modest events occured during the past year that apparently escaped the notice of Luskin, Crowther, and O'Leary
- Pro-ID school board candidates were soundly defeated in elections in Dover, Ohio, and Kansas.
- In Ohio, the state school board eliminated a lesson plan and science standards that opened the door to "teaching intelligent design, a form of creationism" -- something the Associated Press called one of the top ten Ohio stories for 2006.
- Pro-evolution moderate Bill Wagnon, who is expected to be elected chairman of the Kansas State Board of Education when it meets later this month, has said one of the first items on board's agenda will be evolution.
- The Cobb County, Georgia school board agreed to settle a suit brought by parents over stickers questioning evolution placed on biology textbooks there. As part of the settlement, school officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.
These are small things we know. They certainly can't compare to the earth shaking contributions of William "Le Petite Ptomaine" Dembski, but we offer them, nonetheless, for the sake of completeness.
