Red State Rabble

Horrible News for Trolls

2007-08-13T06:55:00.000-05:00

I have some horrible news for the handful of trolls who infest Red State Rabble.

After posting daily for more than two-and-a-half years, RSR will now be updated on a more periodic basis due to the press of personal and professional commitments.

I urge my trolls not to do anything rash. There is counseling. A number of very effective medications are now available which you can turn to in order to get through the immediate crisis. Long term, I strongly recommend the benefits of moving out of your mothers' basements, getting a job, meeting people. I assure you, there is a world out there.

To my readers, I want to say thank you. When I started RSR in the dark days after Christian fundamentalists took the Kansas board of education I never imagined the readership of this blog would grow as large as it has. At the time, I wouldn't have believed that people outside Kansas would be interested in what I had to say. Over the time I've been writing RSR I have a chance to meet, correspond, and become friends with many of you.

You, the people who defend science education and the separation of church and state, give me confidence that the aims of the religious right will ultimately be frustrated. The willingness of people to step forward and be counted convinces me we won't see this country turned into another Nazi Germany, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, or Iraq.

I've been particularly impressed by the quality of leadership I've seen in the state Citizens for Science groups. Here in Kansas, Harry McDonald, Jack Krebs, Steve Case, Liz Craig and many others -- especially moderate school board members Janet Waugh, Bill Wagnon, Carol Rupe, Sue Gamble, Sally Cauble, and Jana Shaver -- have fought both wisely and well to defend science education. Many others, too numerous to mention, have made enormous contributions to the cause.

The National Center for Science Education led by Eugenie Scott, and her remarkable staff including Nick Matzke and Glen Branch, have played an invaluable role in turning back the tide of creationism and intelligent design. Scientists and philosophers such as Ken Miller, Kevin Padian, Rob Pennock, Barbara Forrest, and Michael Ruse have provided their considerable intellectual heft to the defense of science in the courtroom and public square.

Attorneys Eric Rothschild, Stephen G. Harvey, Joseph M. Farber, Benjamin M. Mather and Thomas B. Schmidt of law firm Pepper Hamilton; Witold J. Walczak and Paula K. Knudsen of the ACLU of Pennsylvania; and Ayesha Khan, Richard Katskee and Alex J. Luchenitser of Americans United won an impressive victory in Dover. Here in Kansas, Pedro Irigonegaray's withering cross examinations exposed the ID fraud for what it is -- stealth creationism of the crudest sort.

The network of science bloggers including PZ Myers, Phil Plait, Ed Brayton, Wes Elsberry, the crew at Panda's Thumb, and many others have been very generous to Red State Rabble. I want to thank them all and urge my readers to go to them on days when nothing new has been posted here. You can find links in the sidebar. Josh Rosenau, who started his Thoughts from Kansas blog about the same time as RSR is going on to bigger and better things (though I hear he has some big shoes to fill) Congratulations!

In the time since I started publishing RSR -- though I take no credit for it -- scientists, educators, and citizens have won a number of important victories in the battle against creationism and intelligent design here in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. Many more battles will no doubt be fought in the future, but, I believe, each time the religious right tries to write its own sectarian theology into the laws and curriculum, wise Americans will step forward to oppose them.

For those who miss daily posts on RSR and now don't know what to do with your extra time, I strongly urge you to join or form a state citizens for science group, or write a check to the NCSE to support ongoing efforts to defend science education.

Red State Rabble won't be going away entirely. Over the next few months, I expect to post when prompted by larger events, and I want to do some longer analytical posts based on more extensive research than the pressure of daily blogging now allows. I will also remain an active member of Kansas Citizens for Science. And, when creationism and intelligent design once again rears its ugly head in Kansas -- particularly if the religious right runs candidates for state school board in the next election -- RSR will resume daily posting.

Be warned.

On Topic

2007-08-09T16:17:00.000-05:00

Intelligent design guru William Dembski, it seems, don't get no respect. He often writes on his blog, Uncommon Descent, about the lack of collegiality from those scientists, journalists, and educators he and his movement brand as Neo-Darwinists.

If he would like to be treated with respect, however, perhaps he should resolve to treat others with respect as well. Isn't that the Golden Rule that Christians of Dembski's fundamentalist stripe claim they hold so dear?

Over at Dembski's blog right now is a post titled "Kevin Padian is Archie Bunker!" (Garrison Keillor says that Minnesotans have never found a food that doesn't taste better covered with cheese. We would say that creationists have never written a sentence they think couldn't be improved by adding an exclamation point, or two.)

The post features a flash animation that morphs Padian, the UC-Berkeley biologist whose expert testimony at the Dover intelligent design trial blew ID criticism of so-called fossil gaps out of the water, into Archie Bunker.

Read the post for yourself and ask how the headline and the photo are at all relevant to anything written in the post. Ask yourself how they're tied to any event that might be called news.

See if you don't agree that the headline and photo are nothing more than a school yard taunt. And like badly done pornography, totally gratuitous. Like the voice-over fart noises Dembski did for an animation on the Dover ruling and his likening of Jerry Coyne to Herman Munster this latest attempt at adolescent humor focuses not on any issue in dispute but on the physical attributes of his political opponents.

This sort of "You're ugly, so there!!!" was a feature of fifth grade, as I remember it, and it undoubtedly goes down well with the Uncommon Descent target audience, but to adults it's much more revealing of Dembski's character, or lack of it, than anything else.

This baseless attack leaves one with the impression that Dembski lies awake nights thinking about the man whose testimony did so much to expose ID's empty rhetoric. Dembski, we suspect, replays the trial in his head every night. In his mind, Dembski isn't AWOL as he was at Dover. He isn't hiding behind Discovery's lawyers. He's out there, sword in hand, slaying the dragons of Neo-Darwinism and going mano a mano with Padian.

Is there any evidence to support this view? Well, this isn't Dembski's first utterly baseless attack on the Padian.

In May 2006 Dembski charged that Padian made racist statements in a speech at Berkeley. His facts hopelessly wrong, as always, Dembski was forced to publicly retract his false charge.

In retracting, Dembski wrote: "In any case, I should not have engaged in ad hominems against Kevin Padian and apologize to him for doing so. Perhaps this incident will help persuade both sides in this debate to stay on topic and focus on the issues."

That lesson is, apparently, already forgotten.

What Goes Around...

2007-08-09T05:34:00.000-05:00

Cast your mind all the way back to May when Time published its "list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example" were said to be transforming the world. Included among those notables was scientist, author, outspoken critic of creationism, and fiery atheist, Richard Dawkins.

The author of the Time 100 profile? None other than intelligent design activist Michael Behe.

At the time, many thought Behe an unusual choice to profile Dawkins. The two were, after all, on opposite sides of a fierce debate over the nature of science and the role of religion. Some said Behe could hardly be an objective observer.

The Discovery Institute, as they so often do, took a contrary point of view. They raised no objections about the fairness of the Dawkins' profile and, in fact, published two posts defending Behe -- including one by Behe himself -- on their Evolution News and Views blog.

So, how do you suppose these principled ID scientists reacted to Richard Dawkins' recent New York Times review of Michael Behe’s new book, The Edge of Evolution?

Discovery President Bruce Chapman writes that he just threw up his hands when he learned that Dawkins had been handed the review. In an Evolution News and Views post Chapman asks, "Who Picks Reviewers at the New York Times?"

"The Times is having its problems," notes Chapman. "As a lover of print media, I hate to see it."

Like so much else that intelligent design activists say and write we may do well not take this statement at face value. After all, Evolution News and Views has had a long-running feud with the news media in general and the Times in particular. Indeed, the declared mission of Discovery's Evolution News and Views is to counter the alleged "misreporting of the evolution issue" which they characterize as "sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased."

One measure of objectivity is consistency. We might ask ourselves just how objective Discovery is when they laud a profile of Dawkins by Behe and deplore a review of Behe by Dawkins.

Perhaps the media haven't got it so wrong after all.

2007-08-08T06:25:00.000-05:00

A good introduction to radiometric dating that demonstrates the earth is more than 6,000 years old. You can find more from the same video producers here.

Global Warming Survey

2007-08-08T05:40:00.000-05:00

For many years, Red State Rabble has been an avid backpacker. In recent years, I've hiked the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe.

In 1970 I first hiked the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier and did it again a couple of years ago with my hiking companion, sister, and brother-in-law. One of the things that really stuck out to me this time around was how much the Rainier's glaciers had retreated in the years since I'd last been there.

That's why I was interested in a survey of Backpacker magazine subscribers that found 29 percent of its readers said they'd witnessed changes brought about by global warming while hiking in the backcountry.

In an ominous sign of the increasing isolation of global warming deniers, such as those die-hard fundamentalists in the intelligent design movement, only 10 percent of Backpacker readers believe that global warming is a hoax.

Fully 90 percent of those responding to the survey have seen the evidence with their own eyes or believe changes are happening now or will become evident in the future.

Take a look at the magazine where you can see a map of changes to the environment in this country that are happening right now.

Not Now Kato

2007-08-08T05:15:00.000-05:00

Under the breathless headline "NRC Admits Mutation Not Sufficient Explanation for Evolution," Uncommon Descent blogger, dacook, exhibits that amazing combination of ignorance and arrogance so characteristic of a certain French police inspector and dacook's fellow intelligent design bloggers. He writes that he believes the "admission that mutation is an insufficient mechanism [for evolution] is significant."

This damning admission is especially meaningful for our would-be Clousseau, because it appears in "a mainstream publication."

The smoking gun, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, is found in a report by the Space Studies Board and the Board on Life Sciences titled, "The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems." The report, dedicated to "non-human-like life forms, wherever they are" is designed to guide extraterrestrial exploration and direct the search for life forms "based on molecular structures substantially different" from those found on Earth.

Our bumbling ID inspector plucks his "admission" from a section of the report that asks, "Is Evolution an Essential Feature of Life?" Unsurprisingly, though you'll find no mention of it in our inspectors dossier, the authors conclude that:

Natural selection is the key to evolution and the main reason that Darwinian evolution persists as a characteristic of many definitions of life.

The report's authors do say, as the inimitable dacook indictment triumphantly reports, that “[n]atural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity.”

It says this in the context of dicussing lateral gene transfer, a well-documented process that occurs when an organism transfers genetic material to another cell that is not its offspring.

If our inspector had not already had all the evidence he needed before his investigation got under way he might have consulted some esoteric scientific source, say the Wiki entry for Horizontal or Lateral Gene Tranfer, where he would have learned that gene transfer "has played a major role in bacterial evolution and is fairly common in certain unicellular eukaryotes. However, the prevalence and importance of HGT in the evolution of multicellular eukaryotes remain unclear."

So the question we must ask of our intrepid dacook is this: Has he misrepresented the report's conclusions because:

He swept in, as ID theorists so often do, to quotemine it without reading the whole thing;

Or, if he did read the whole report, was he too simply too stupid to understand its meaning;

Or, did he understand what he was reading but was too dishonest to report it accurately to his Uncommon Descent readers?

Ignorant, stupid, or dishonest, is no way to go through life.

As the inimitable Clousseau once said, "There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them."

Modus Operandi

2007-08-07T05:45:00.000-05:00

I've been gone on vacation for a little more than a week, so naturally there's a lot of catching up on the wackiness of the religious right, particularly its intelligent design outpost.

Back on July 19, William Dembski wrote a post on Uncommon Descent charging that remarks at the most recent Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference in London, in which Richard Dawkins accused Lewis Wolpert of being a creationist and Wolpert responded that sometimes he wished he were a creationist, were deleted from the online audio.

Dembski, with his keen eye for Darwinist duplicity, chortled that "If it's been edited out, it didn't happen?!" (Someone really needs to study the unseemly attraction of intelligent design theorists to exclamation points.)

Well, of course the remarks weren't edited out, as Dembski has now been forced to confess. They're there in the recording. It's just that Dembski, as he so often does, relied on an unnamed "friend who attended the meeting" and he's "been having difficulty downloading the file in question."

It's simply amazing how many times Dembski's false charges turn out, upon investigation, to be based on some anonymous informant. The volumes of evidence for evolution are never enough for Dembski, it seems, but his army of unnamed informants, no matter how often wrong, are taken at face value with no effort to made to check the facts.

This, of course, is the intelligent design modus operandi in a nutshell.

Of course, lying cheek by jowl at Uncommon Descent with Dembski's confession that he didn't bother to check before making his latest false charge are these headlines: "Myths about science and religion: A little research saves a lot of apology" and "Environmental Journalists: Prosecutor, Judge & Jury?"

Evidence Smevidence

2007-08-07T05:33:00.000-05:00

Over at Uncommon Descent, PaV is waxing indignant because the scientific community doesn't believe ID is scientific since "it doesn’t have evidence to support its theory."

How unfair.

Next thing you know, the unreasonable bastards will be demanding evidence before you can cart someone off to jail.

The Legion of the Credulous

2007-08-07T05:13:00.000-05:00

The Weekly World News, which bills itself as "the world's only reliable newspaper," will cease publication Aug. 27. When you navigate your shopping cart through the checkout lane at your local supermarket, you'll no longer be tantalized by Weekly World headlines such as: "Gramps, 82, Arrested for Twitching! Cops Thought he was Picking up a Hooker,'' "Spirit-chasing Priest Saves Girl Possessed by Space Creature,'' and our personal favorite, "Frog Baby Born in Kansas."

Weekly World News will maintain a web presence, but we fear it will have a difficult time competing against that stalwart of Christian fundamentalism, and right-wing wackiness, WorldNetDaily.

WND supplements its coverage of the latest developments in Creation science and intelligent design theory with such stories as: "Christian Mayor Rejects 'Gay' Flag on Town Hall" (he's aware the decision isn't popular, but must abide by biblical convictions), "NAFTA Superhighway Traffic Tied to Minn. Bridge Collapse (there's no issue that can't be tied to immigration), and "The 30-minute Diabetes Cure?! "(Why spend a lifetime on insulin or metformin?).

Is there really room on the web for Bigfoot and biblical dinosaurs, alien abduction and science destruction, miracle cures and miraculous creations?

Well, of course there is. The credulous are legion.

Skeptic's Circle

2007-08-06T05:52:00.000-05:00

The 66th edition of The Skeptic's Circle is up at the Denialism Blog. Check it out.

Discovery's Chapman Backs Iraq War

2007-08-06T05:37:00.001-05:00

It's finally happened. The creationists, of the intelligent design variety, have finally, conclusively demonstrated that whatever grip they may once have had on reality has finally slipped away.

I know. I know. Many of you are asking what I'm talking about. What grip on reality? How can anyone who:

professes to believe dinosaurs were on the Ark,
or that Mt. Rushmore is conclusive proof of design in nature,
or that anybody might still be fooled into believing that intelligent design is science and not far-right, fundamentalist nonsense,

ever have been thought to have even the most tenuous grip on reality?

How, you are asking, could the motley rabble of HIV, Holocaust, and global warming deniers who populate the the intelligent design advocacy movement possibly separate themselves from the ranks of the sane more than they already have.

Only by coming out, as Discovery's Bruce Chapman now has, for continuing the war in Iraq.

Rest assured, Chapman hasn't volunteered to serve in Iraq himself. None of the chicken hawks is that crazy. But he does say, in a Seattle Times opinion piece, that "[w]ithdrawal now is really a euphemism for surrender." Those who recommend getting out of Iraq, Chapman suggests, are doing the terrorists work for them.

Even Chapman, reality-challenged as he is, can't quite bring himself to recall Dubbya's WMD as the reason for the invasion, but he's all over the Al Quaida angle. And, as you might expect, you'll hear precious little about the civil war raging between Shiitte and Sunni and nothing at all about what our soldiers might do to stop it.

As the the intelligent design project has foundered in the wake of the Dover ruling, the Discovery institute and intelligent design advocates such as William Dembski have adopted a series of political positions, such as opposition to addressing the issue of global warming, that reveal their movement for what it is.

The old notion that ID was a movement of dissident scientists and intellectuals has been abandoned by the ID theorists themselves as they abandon the center they once sought to win and bind themselves tighter to their far-right, fundamentalist religious base.

ID advocates' late embrace of the Iraq war, now that the vast majority of the American people have made it plain they're unwilling to sacrifice more young soldiers simply to save the president from admitting that he was wrong, is at once an undeniable demonstration of the political nature of the ID movement and a sign of just how narrow the base of support for the war has become.

Turning Up the Heat

2007-08-06T05:37:00.000-05:00

Saturday, we were in the Twin Cities, where the temperature barely broke 60 degrees. The Red State Rabbles, on our way home from northern Minnesota, were sadly contemplating the end of our vacation "Up North." A week on the lake listening to the loons instead of arguing with them on RSR.

Yesterday we drove the rest of the way home to Kansas City, where the thermometer read 98 degrees and the humidity was, well, what can I say, it's August in Kansas City.

It's hot as Hell here, and over the next couple of days, a relaxed and refreshed Red State Rabble will be turning up the heat on creationism in all its forms.

The Return of Jim Crow

2007-07-26T06:59:00.000-05:00

On June 28, the Supreme Court, led by Bush Administration appointees, restricted the ability of public school districts to use race to determine which schools students can attend. As the court's minority pointed out in sharply worded dissents, that decision will, as the majority no doubt intended, sharply limit racial integration of public schools across the nation.

Where does the Discovery Institute -- you know, the ones who claim Darwin's theory of evolution is racist -- stand on this issue?

Well, John R. Miller, a member of Parents Involved in Community Schools, which sued the Seattle school district over its racial tiebreaker plan, is guess what, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and he's written an Op-Ed in the Seattle Times to tell us.

Discovery's Miller wants the country's history of racial segregation forgotten. Where once the opponents of integration blocked the school house doors to proclaim "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" they now demand an absolutely color blind system for placing children in public schools. And if that just happens to re-segregate public schools across the country, as white supremacists such as George,Wallace, Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, and Strom Thumond fought to do, well that's just too bad.

"As someone who grew up in Mississippi and Alabama during the civil rights movement," evangelical theologian Charles Marsh recently told Robin Reid at Politico, "my reading is that the conservative Christian movement never was able to distinguish itself from the segregationist movement, and that is one of the reasons I find so much of the rhetoric familiar -- and unsettling."

Those on the Christian right, such as Miller and the Discovery Institute, standing on the shoulders of the segregationists who came before them, want to whittle away at the gains made by the Civil Rights movement.

To do that they've learned to appropriate the language of the civil rights fighters they once opposed. These days they talk more about Lincoln and diversity than race mixing and miscegenation. Neighborhood schools have replaced state's rights.

They no longer erect billboards calling for the impeachment of Earl Warren, instead they try to take credit for the Warren Court's Brown vs. Board of Education ruling even as they twist its intent and labor tirelessly to lead us back to the days of Jim Crow.

Judgement Day is Coming

2007-07-26T06:29:00.000-05:00

NOVA, the PBS science program, will air a two-hour special on the Dover intelligent design trial titled "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" on Nov. 13.

We hear Chapman, Myers, Luskin, Egnor, and the boys in Seattle will be going to the mattresses over this one. It seems "Traipsing Into Evolution" and all of Luskin's multi-part posts attacking the character of Judge Jones haven't had the impact -- except in the hermetically sealed world of ID -- of that single ruling and an upcoming public television special.

Although Discovery stonewalled NOVA's repeated requests for a spokesperson to comment for the program, you can be sure you'll hear repeatedly in coming months just how unfair and one-sided the program is.

More Excuses

2007-07-26T06:25:00.000-05:00

Red State Rabble and family are going on vacation. Posting will be spotty here until Aug. 6 when we return. I may publish an occassional post between now and then, but after posting without a break for the past two-and-a-half years, I'm going to try to stay away from the computer for the next ten days.

See you in ten days.

Tour de France: RSR Wearing the Blue Jersey

2007-07-26T06:07:00.000-05:00

As a former amateur bicycle racer, July is always a big month in the Red State Rabble household. Around here, things are put on hold and we watch the Tour de France on Versus and follow the riders over the stages on the Internet.

As a longtime rider and fan, I have to say I'm sick at heart at what's happening in this year's tour with Alexandre Vinokourov testing positive for blood doping, and the wearer of the yellow jersey, Michael Rasmussen, being kicked out of the tour for avoiding out-of-competition drug tests and lying about where he was training.

And all this comes, of course, on the heels of American tour winner Floyd Landis testing positive last year. Favorites for this year's tour like Basso and Ullrich have retired or been suspended over doping allegations.

No matter what happens, I will ride my bike as long as I'm able, and I'll always be a fan of bike racing. To my mind, there's nothing more beautiful than a fast-moving peloton moving along the open road. I just hope that the riders who are cheating will come to their senses and stop before they kill this great race and destroy a beautiful sport.

Science Fiction

2007-07-25T06:08:00.000-05:00

A post on the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog notes that intelligent design supporter Granville Sewell predicts that intelligent design probably won't be taught in his lifetime.

Peering into his crystal ball, ID's Sybill Trelawney devines that "future, biology texts will refer to evolution as an amazing, mysterious ‘natural’ process, which scientists do not now understand."

He's got his first prediction right. The second sounds more like projection.

Behe Debated

2007-07-25T05:33:00.000-05:00

Dr. C. Loring Brace, professor and curator of biological anthropology at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan debated intelligent design activist Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and senior fellow of the Discovery Institute at the Cranbrook Institute for Science recently. Reader DP sent us this report of the debate:

Behe is a very slick presenter, kindly, knowledgeable, and quite calm and patient in responding to questions. He began by stating his agreement with common descent and natural selection, but stated flatly that both are "trivial" to the discussion and that random mutation is simply not a feasible mechanism for evolution.

This is a central point to his discussion, but is presented with essentially no support and he was unfortunately never questioned about why he takes this stand. The omission of natural selection from his model is particularly significant as it is in many ways the most important element of Darwinian evolution and explains quite well how environmental conditions create population level transformations in certain situations and not others.

Behe's main argument is that random mutations may in some cases lead to reductions, but there are no natural forces promoting complex phenotypic developments. By removing natural selection from the discussion a priori, he manages to make this position seem reasonable to the uninformed and I think it will be crucial in future confrontations to force a discussion of natural selection - Why doe Behe insist that it is trivial? Does he believe that natural selection can't produce complex transformations?

Over and over Behe used examples that most of us would say support Darwinian evolutionary theory. He argues that sickle cell anemia as a response to malaria is unlikely as a result of random mutation, but he does so by simply asserting it and describing the advantage of abnormal red blood cells. Of course this is a classic example in Darwinian theory of an otherwise deleterious mutation that becomes advantageous in a high pressure environment and is therefore selected for.

He is also very into nanotechnology now. He has moved away from the flagellum as a micro-machine, but now uses other features in precisely the same way. Fortunately there was a nanotech researcher in the audience that confronted him on this, but he simply talked around the question and moved on as if he had answered it. He also uses a strange metaphor of the Borg from Star Trek (not joking) and their nanotechnology, then suggests that Darwinists are the Borg. I didn't really get the point of this exercise except to tell us that we are all brainwashed.

The major strategy that I noticed, and one that seems to be quite effective, is that Behe never asserts any mechanism, never gives any details, never supports any of his claims except to assert (without any real support) that Darwinian evolution can't explain x y or z.

In so doing, he successfully kept nearly the entire discussion focused on alleged shortcomings in the normative models. By doing this, he takes a fringe theory that should come in on a defensive posture and places it on the offensive with standard evolutionary theory in a defensive position for the entire evening.

This feeds the notion that there are problems with evolutionary theory and that it is in question among scientists and it also keeps his ideas entirely out of the light. He never provided any mechanisms, details, or even vague proposals, and this was almost entirely successful.

When I got a chance to ask a question, the very last one of the night at 1:55, I asked bluntly for a description of the mechanism that Behe is proposing and also for some ideas about how we would go about deriving hypotheses and detecting his mechanism in the natural world. His response is essentially that he doesn't have a mechanism or model beyond saying that he assumes guided mutation.

He also goes on to assert that this is standard scientific practice, citing Big Bang theory and gravity as theories that were proposed without any mechanism or potential to test. I followed up, unfortunately off mic so you have to turn the volume all the way up, by noting that valid scientific theories produce knowledge by describing natural phenomena that can be tested in the world and I asked for even a single hypothesis or a 10 year plan for furthering knowledge based on his paradigm.

Of course he was completely unable to offer anything except to talk in a circle about finding the "edge of evolution" and suggesting that drug resistant bacteria may be stopped once we realize that their transformations are not describable by standard evolutionary theory.

The other major theme of the evening was "buy my book." If you listen to the debate, you'll hear him reference it over and over. Most of his answers and assertions sounded like "well I can't describe it for you here, but if you read my book you'll get it."

I still think every one of these discussions should start and end with an insistence that Behe provide a detailed mechanism and prove that it is testable in the natural world. Otherwise it is not only useless, it hinders the advancement of knowledge. All of the other details are really superfluous to that point.

I have also come to believe that the scientific community cannot be defensive to ID, we must become aggressively offensive and point out to the wider community exactly that point - ID is not just a silly diversion with no explanatory potential, it is extremely harmful to science and the production of knowledge in general.

You can listen to audio of the debate here.

The Tangled Web of Creationism

2007-07-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

Creationist arguments sometimes create a real problem for those who craft them. Take for example, the argument advanced by young earth creationists that there hasn't been enough time since God created the world 6,000 years ago for the process of evolution to create the diversity of life we see around us today.

All of that life, they say, must have been a product of creation by God, or as those creationists who are familiar with court rulings would say, some intelligent designer.

But then a problem crops up. A problem moreover that the sort of mind that embraces creationism never seems to anticipate. How did all that diversity, all those animals fit on Noah's Ark? How were they fed? What was done with their waste? How did Noah's family manage it all?

Well, they have an answer for that too.

Noah didn't have two of every species we know today. He had two of every "kind" of land animal. "For instance," as some young earth creationists would have it, "two members of the dog kind walked off the Ark. Then, as the number of dogs increased, eventually the population split up and different groups formed."

"As the gene pool was split up, different combinations of genes—inherited from the original dogs—would end up in different groups. Thus, different species would form, such as dingoes, wolves, and so on."

So there was enough time for evolution to operate, after all. And even to operate in a Darwinian manner, but it's still scientists who have it all wrong: "Evolutionists have often insisted that such a process happens slowly, and therefore, the Bible can’t be right when it says that the land animals came off the Ark only about 4,300 years ago."

Over the Edge

2007-07-24T05:53:00.000-05:00

Janice Dodd, a molecular biologist and professor of physiology at the University of Manitoba, finds Michael Behe's Edge of Evolution unconvincing, too.

Hat tip to RS.

Insiders and Outsiders

2007-07-24T05:49:00.000-05:00

The battle over posting the Ten Commandments in public spaces, which is really a battle over separation of church and state, is between insiders and outsiders writes Peter Irons, author of God on Trial: Dispatches From America's Religious Battlefields in a USAToday opinion piece.

Insiders, "those with deep family roots in the community, [who] belong to its dominant religious group and political party, and play active roles in civic affairs... get upset when outsiders challenge the symbols that reflect the majority's beliefs and values."

Oh, do they get upset.

Oh, Really?

2007-07-23T06:01:00.000-05:00

"Evolution says things turned to stone over millions of years, but when you really look at fossils and realize their intricate details of preservation, you realize it can't be a long-term thing -- it has to be quick," says evangelist Steve Grohman.

Grohman knows because he travels across the country to churches every year to present fossils and information he's accumulated through traveling and work with missionaries.

Atlas Shrugged

2007-07-23T05:46:00.000-05:00

Over at Slate, Michael Weiss has published a roundup of blogger's responses to the distribution of The Atlas of Creation.

My Excuses

2007-07-23T05:42:00.001-05:00

It may be slim pickens on Red State Rabble today. Between getting the boys through a rainy time trial and over the first stage in the Pyrenees, and the final installment of the Harry Potter series -- I was second in line after my oldest daughter -- there hasn't been much time for blogging.

Ethics in Action

2007-07-22T07:11:00.000-05:00

Kansas' Rev. Jerry Johnston has a problem. The pastor of First Family Church in Overland Park, one of the fastest growing megachurches in the country, has been playing fast and loose with the congregation's money, according to a story in this morning's Kansas City Star.

There's evidence that Jerry and Christie Johnston's Overland Park house, originally purchased as a parsonage by the ministry, was sold and a lavish new house in upscale Hallbrook Farms was put into the couple's names. A number of other financial irregularities -- all of which amount to treating the ministry's money as his own -- are being investigated by the attorney general's office.

A previous Kansas City Star article reports the Johnston's live lavishly -- the couple live in a $586,400 house, with an in-ground swimming pool and high-tech security system, take expensive vacations several times a year, and drive expensive sport utility vehicles -- despite demanding that church members sacrifice financially for the ministry.

“Maybe we’re going to decide to wear the same pair of pants for a year because we’re going to honor God with our finances and we’re going to get it right,” Johnston says in a sermon titled “God’s Way to Financial Success.”

“Lordship means I seize the moment regardless of the inconvenience,” says Johnston in calling on church members to give 10 percent of their incomes to the church.

The Rev. Johnston is a staunch creationist because he thinks that evolution corrupts morals. His website features a series of "sermonars" with titles such as "Reasons the Bible is Authoritative," "The Truth About Evolution," and "Missing Evidence for Evolution."

Johnston, who used to place the title of "Dr." in front of his name, is well qualified to evaluate the evidence for and against evolution. While he doesn't exactly have the Ph.D. he once used on church stationary -- he never went to college -- he does have a GED and is reportedly working on a BA at a Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Jerry Falwell gave him an honorary doctorate from Liberty University.

We don't doubt the good reverend when he says that evolution corrupts morals. We just wonder about his excuse.

Tammy Faye

2007-07-22T07:06:00.000-05:00

Tammy Faye Messner died in suburban Kansas City Friday night.

Somewhere in Texas

2007-07-21T08:38:00.000-05:00

"Gov. Rick Perry has appointed conservative Dr. Don McLeroy to head the state’s Board of Education," reports Houston Press blogger Margaret Downing, "And the expectation is that McLeroy will lead the way into creationism in the upcoming board debate over state textbooks."

"Looks like Texas is on the move to be as stupid as Kansas," writes Downing.

There's no denying Kansas has its share of stupidity. We've had two run-ins with creationists over the science curriculum. We're home to Phill Kline. We've even had a creationist state senator and candidate for Secretary of State, Kay O'Connor, who opposes women's suffrage.

Even so, there are many who would say Kansas can't hold a candle to Texas in the hotly contested stupidity competition. For example, Warren Chisum, a self-described creationist and chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, distributed a letter to colleagues calling Darwin's theory of evolution nothing more than a Jewish plot.

The letter Chisum distributed was written by a Georgia man who believes, "The Bible teaches that the Earth is stationary and immovable at the center of a 'small' universe with the sun, moon, and stars going around it every day. All observational and experimental evidence - and non-occult math, i.e., true science - supports the Bible teaching."

And Texas, we shouldn't forget, generously allowed its vast stockpile of village idiots to be depleted by one when it sent George Bush, another ID supporter, to the White House.

Hard as it is for Red State Rabble to forgive that last one, we still wish our friends in Texas well. Here in Kansas sensible people have fought back. We've restored real science to the public school curriculum. We've organized to defeat the religious zealots in the elections and won back a moderate majority on the state school board. We're confident that Texas can do the same.

For those who want to follow this developing battle, Texas Citizens for Science, has just posted a PowerPoint presentation on "Textbook Selection, Science Education, and Church-State Separation in Texas" on its site.

Good Fellas

2007-07-21T07:01:00.000-05:00

Michael Korn, the Christian anti-evolution activist police are seeking in connection with a series of threats against faculty in the biology dept. at the University of Colorado in Boulder, is on the lam.

"Police visited Korn's apartment, but found that he and his wife were gone," according to Wired News. The apartment had been sublet and his wife had quit her job.

Korn reportedly has been seen distributing leaflets saying instructors are "child molesters" for teaching evolution to students. He's also believed to be responsible for a series of threatening letters and e-mails including at least one that refers to "killing the enemies of Christian society." Letters placed under the doors of faculty offices were decorated with skull and crossbones.

Where has Korn gone? Red State Rabble has no idea. Is it possible Discovery's talent scouts -- the same scouts who saw vast talent in both Casey Lusking and Michael Egnor -- were so knocked out by his writing that they've offered him a fellowship? Could he be sipping latte and writing his first post for Evolution News and Views even as we speak?

If, in the unlikely event that little scenario were true, at least it would give Discovery's Robert Crowther an opportunity to set the record straight on his denial that creationists or "very religious people" had anything to do with the threats, and withdraw his outrageous accusation that the faculty lied to police about the threats.

That would be the decent thing to do. What do you suppose it is that's stopping Crowther from doing it?

Archeology in Your Neighborhood

2007-07-20T06:06:00.000-05:00

Over at Aardvarkeology, Martin Rundkvist has posted an archaeoblogging carnival where ten bloggers report from the archaeological sites nearest their homes and workplaces. The posts range from Athens to Arizona.

This is a great idea and could in time become a wonderful resource. Why not take a look, and if you're a blogger consider writing up a post of your own for the next carnival?

My Way or the Highway

2007-07-20T05:51:00.000-05:00

Right wing Christians want their Ten Commandments posted in every courthouse and schoolroom in the country. They want their holy book taught in public schools, and they indignantly demand that every student recite their prayers and be taught their interpretation of Genesis.

They're not so keen on extending freedom of religion to other faiths.

When Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev. opened the Senate with a Hindu prayer July 12, there was a predictable uproar from the very people who demand all the rest of us pray to their god.

"No one can legitimately challenge the fact that the God America refers to in the pledge, our national motto, and other places is the monotheistic God of the Jewish and Christian faith," says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "There is no historic connection between America and the polytheistic creed of Hinduism."

No one except President John Adams and both houses of Congress in 1797.

Here's an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli which they ratified.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Mantra

2007-07-20T05:42:00.000-05:00

Like the flu, copies of the Atlas of Creation are going around. The "strange, enormous, beautiful book arrived unsolicited at Foreign Policy magazine and its publisher, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last month," say the publishers.

On page after page, says Foreign Policy, the same formulaic argument appears. Here's an example:

"Since shrimp first came into existence, they have always displayed all the same organs and characteristics as they have today and have undergone no changes in all that time. This shrimp fossil shows plainly that evolution is an imaginary scenario. (p. 110)"

Hands On

2007-07-20T05:38:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports that after two years of construction the Liberty Science Museum in Jersey City has reopened. Edward Rothstein reports the museum "has been rethought and reshaped, with the goal of doing nothing less than reinventing the science museum."

Undreamt Possibilities

2007-07-19T05:50:00.000-05:00

If you've never seen a photo of Uncommon Descent blogger DaveScot, William Dembski has posted a photo of him typing up a blog post on his laptop here.

It's all part of a promo for an "Intelligent Design in Business Practice" conference to be held in Sept. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dembski, apparently, will give the keynote address.

The conference will advise business leaders on how to "promote a synergy between organization and leadership that can actualize undreamt possibilities."

Christ, we are told, drove the money lenders from the temple. The intelligent design folks, it seems, want to sell it back to them.

Jeffery Shallit of Recursivity broke the story. Hat tip to RH for calling it to our attention.

Sound Sense of an Eastern Potentate

2007-07-19T05:44:00.000-05:00

A few days after Christmas in 1862, just three years after Origin of Species introduced the theory of evolution to the world, Charles Darwin wrote, as he often did, to his friend and ally, Thomas Huxley.

Darwin's letter continued a discussion the two were having over a technical issue about the degree of sterility to expect in recently formed varieties.

Darwin also told Huxley that a book containing a series of lectures on evolution Huxley delivered to working men couldn't "fail to do good the wider it is circulated," and he somewhat tartly remarked that not "a dunce exists, who could not understand it; & that is a bold saying after the extent to which I have been misunderstood."

Along with his letter, Darwin returned a note from the English novelist and clergyman, Charles Kingsley, that Huxley sent him, and thanked Huxley for letting him "see the sound sense of an Eastern potentate."

Not long before, Kingsley had sent Huxley a little story to show how Darwin's theory of evolution had affected his own natural theology. Here's Kingsley's story from Letter 3878 of the Online Darwin Correspondence Project.

Once on a time, in Tartary, there was a jolly old heathen miscreant of a Khan, who was given to worshipping a horse's scull, & other devotions of a rudimentary nature.

And there came to him two bronzes, Moollahs, or other sort of missionaries, animated with a pious desire of converting him to their faith; but as they worshipped two different Deities, they hated each other accordingly, as in duty bound, & each believed the other was going to Gehanna.

Well. The old Kahn was frank enough with them. He confest that he had no great respect for his horse's scull; that he had totally failed in obtaining from it any rational answer, several times, when he was at a great pinch; & that on the whole, he was ready to take up with any other deity, provided the said deity was wise enough. He demanded therefore of the two Moollahs, wh[ich] of their deities was the cleverest.

Then the first Moollah said, "Oh Khan, worship my God. He is so wise, that he made all things.''

"Wah!" said the Khan "him a great sultan. He is a wise builder. But what can thy God do, oh Moollah number two?"

Then said the second Moollah, "Oh Khan, it is a light thing for a God to make all things. A God who could not do that would not be good enough for a Samoiede who eats blubber, or a Tom-goose who digs mammoth bones. May their mothers graves be defiled! But, Oh Kahn, my God is a God indeed; For he is so wise, that he makes all things make themselves.''

"Wah Wah!" said the Kahn. "He is the Sultan of all sultans; He is the wisest of all Master-builders. He is the God for me henceforth, if he be wise enough to make things make themselves.''

Kingley's story, perhaps a bit too Kiplingesque for modern ears, reflects the enthusiasm many clergymen had for Darwin's explanation of the mechanisms of evolution. Like Darwin, they wanted to replace the old God, who was forced to tinker constantly with with his less than perfect creation, with a new God who, having set the world in motion stepped back and allowed it to operate through natural law.

In the "Sermon V. The Deaf and Dumb," part of a series of sermons he delivered at Westminster Abbey and the Chapels Royal (available from Project Gutenberg) Kingsley observed, "[t]he man of science finds a deeper and more awful charm in contemplating the results of law; in watching, not what seem to be occasional failures in nature: but what is a perpetual and calm success."

Opposition to Darwin's theory of evolution came not just from churchmen, as the old warfare between science and religion template would have it, but from scientists as well. Even Darwin's friend and mentor, Charles Lyell, it should be remembered, couldn't quite bring himself to accept natural selection. And of course, men of the cloth were far from united in opposition. A number of influential clergymen embraced evolution and, like Kingsley, became firm supporters.

Darwin's theory of evolution would not have recieved the wide acceptance it did during his lifeime without their help.

Hope Springs Eternal

2007-07-18T06:01:00.000-05:00

Tom McVeety has written an unbelievably credulous Op-Ed in the Evansville Courier and Press reporting that "New Facts Could Disprove Evolution."

"... laser reflectors left behind on the moon's surface by the Apollo astronauts revealed that our lunar neighbor moves a little over an inch farther away from us each year. How many billions of years earlier was it scraping our mountaintops?"
"... the amount of emissions given off by the various belts of Jupiter shortly before the Voyager probe visited it in the early '80s. The data returned was in sync with the thousands of years... The spacecraft had no knowledge of the Bible."
"Years ago my science textbook had illustrations suggesting that our sun gave birth to the Earth and other planets, but this was not the apparent case in a section of the Orion nebula known as M22, where 'orphan' planets exist, some orbiting each other without any nearby star."

Could this be a case for our friend Phil Plait and his Bad Astronomy blog?

Update: Astronomer Phil Plait takes 'em on one at a time and patiently explains here. I think he's being a little too kind when he calls McVeety's Op-Ed "another passel of creationist lies."

This Just In

2007-07-18T05:54:00.000-05:00

Education Week: Intelligent Design supporter Ken Willard of Kansas to be National Association of State Boards of Education President-Elect.

Willard ran unopposed after another candidate withdrew from the race.

Icons Lite

2007-07-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we linked to a World Magazine article touting the effectiveness of Discovery's "teach the controversy" approach to sneaking creationism through the public school house door.

"State school boards in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New Mexico, and Minnesota along with local boards in Wisconsin and Louisiana have adopted science standards that encourage critical analysis of Darwinian Theory," enthused WM reporter Mark Bergin. "To date, not a single lawsuit has challenged such standards."

The hope that intelligent design might at last succeed in finding its way into public schools may seem slight to many following the Dover ruling, but ID activists are pinning their hopes on a new textbook, Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism which proponents claim doesn't address alternative theories of origins but instead "lays out the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the most critical elements of Darwinism."

One prominent ID activist isn't so sure "critical analysis" is on the verge of success.

Here in Kansas, John Calvert of the ID Network, reportedly doesn't "share the Discovery Institute's optimism that this new textbook and the approach it embodies will significantly dent the uncritical Darwinist dogma currently taught in most public schools," according to Bergin.

After all, that was the strategy in Kansas and the voters here seemed more than happy to get back to "uncritical Darwinist dogma."

"Critical analysis" in Kansas -- teaching the strengths and weaknesses -- turned out to be nothing more than injecting a series of recycled creationist arguments, long discredited, into the science curriculum.

We can expect that Explore Evolution will be more of the same. Think of it as Icons Lite.

The Blurb of Death

2007-07-17T05:56:00.000-05:00

The critical reception for intelligent design guru Michael Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution, has been so uniformly dismal that the boys at Discovery have been reduced to hyping three posts by Denyse "Buy My Book" O'Leary.

Under the breathless title "Behe's Edge of Evolution Continues to Attract Attention," Discovery's monthly e-mail newsletter, Nota Bene, boasts O'Leary "actually has three insightful posts related to Behe, and of course Behe's constributions (sic) to the overall debate over Darwinism."

Actually, the attention lavished on Behe by O'Leary is a clear demonstration that the excitement generated by this new "turning point in the evolution vs. intelligent design controversy," which Behe himself all too modestly compares to the discoveries of Newton and Copernicus, is, well, DOA.

Critical Analysis

2007-07-17T05:55:00.000-05:00

The online World Magazine, which tries "to see the world as best we can the way the Bible depicts it" has published a cover story on the new textbook from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism.

World Magazine's Mark Bergin writes that the Dover ruling highlights the effectiveness of the Discovery Institute's "critical analysis" approach. State school boards in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New Mexico, and Minnesota along with local boards in Wisconsin and Louisiana have adopted science standards that encourage critical analysis of Darwinian theory, writes Bergin. "To date, not a single lawsuit has challenged such standards," he asserts.

"This is an approach that if I were a Darwinist I would be particularly frightened of," said John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. "The policy that we've recommended turns out to be the precise common-ground approach we said it would be. It reduces the decibel level; you don't get sued; you get good education; and the Darwinists don't have a leg to stand on."

The Book Sent Round the World

2007-07-17T05:34:00.000-05:00

It's 11 x 17 inches and weighs in at 12 pounds. It has a bright red cover and contains 800 lavishly illustrated pages with stunning photographs of fossil plants, insects and animals. It's the Atlas of Creation, a tract produced by a Turkish outfit under the pseudonym Harun Yahya that argues "evolution must be impossible, illusory, a lie, a deception or 'a theory in crisis.'"

Take your pick.

And, according to Cornelia Dean of The New York Times, it's "turning up, unsolicited, in mailboxes of scientists around the country and members of Congress, and at science museums in places like Queens and Bemidji, Minn."

Students of the bizarre counterculture of creationism, you know who you are, will love this story.

Missionary Redux

2007-07-16T05:40:00.000-05:00

Back on July 3, I posted a piece calling into doubt an article in the Journal of Religious History by Mark Graham titled, "The Enchanter's Wand: Charles Darwin, Foreign Missions, and the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle.”

Charles Darwin, wrote Graham, was at best noncommittal about the Christian missionary activity surrounding him for most of the Beagle’s voyage. “He emerged from the voyage, however, as an enthusiastic and outspoken proponent of missions.”

I wrote the post based on an article about it by Dan Vergano published in USAToday and the abstract of Graham’s article. I did not, at the time, have access to the full article. Any alarm bells going off yet?

Rushing in where angels fear to tread, I nevertheless wrote that I doubted Graham’s conclusion that Darwin supported Christian missionary work all his life.

A number of readers helpfully sent me the full article to read for myself and, in a couple of e-mails, Mark Graham gently, and generously, pointed me in the right direction, as well. In the weeks since that post, “Missionary Position,” I’ve spent quite a bit of time browsing the Darwin Correspondence Project, reading Darwin’s letters, and learning that I was wrong. Quite wrong.

Having read any number of Darwin biographies, I was aware of Darwin’s religious trajectory from prospective clergyman, to professional scientist and agnostic. The broad outlines of the story are well known to almost everyone.

I had no problem believing that the young Darwin, who was sometimes teased by his shipmates for his religiosity, was a supporter, perhaps even an ardent one, of Christian missionary work, but I doubted that the older, agnostic Darwin would still support their efforts.

As always a little bit of knowledge – especially in a highly combustible mix with ignorance – can be a very dangerous thing.

Missionary work, as Graham points out, was controversial in Darwin’s day and remains so today. While secular types like Red State Rabble might oppose missionary activity as a tool of imperialism that resulted in the destruction of indigenous culture, practicing Christians then and now might harbor their own objections, as well.

There was tension among missionaries in Darwin’s day, writes Graham, over “which should come first: Christianization which would lead to ‘civilization,’ or ‘civilization’ which would lead to Christianization.”

Simply knowing then, whether someone, Darwin let’s say, was a believer is not enough to predict whether or not they were also supporters of missionary activity. Likewise, even an agnostic, such as Darwin became later in life, might well support the “civilizing” of indigenous people – not to mention bringing them into the sphere of British imperialism – without also defending their Christianization.

In writing the post, I allowed myself to become a victim – another in a long line – of a now discredited paradigm. And to add insult to injury, it’s one I’ve argued against many times here at Red State Rabble. This hoary archetype, long discarded by historians and philosophers of science, which nevertheless remains a fixture of nearly everyone’s mental landscape is: The war between science and religion.

The idea that there’s been a centuries-long battle between the forces of enlightenment represented by a clearly demarcated and progressive science, opposed tooth and nail at every turn by legions of reactionary – and equally united – churchmen, persists because it’s simple and seems to explain so much.

It got its start with John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science published in 1874 and Andrew Dickson White’s two-volume History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom published in 1896.

“The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other,” wrote Draper in launching the conflict thesis on its long voyage.

The problem with uncomplicated explanations that seem, at first glance, to explain much is that they tend, like an advertising jingle, to stick in our minds and, much like a comic book version of War and Peace, they rarely deliver what they promise.

It would be a mistake to assume, for example, that Darwin was a hardened atheist who fashioned evolution to undermine belief. He was not and did not. It would even be a mistake to suppose that Andrew Dickson White – one of the key architects of the conflict thesis – was an atheist, for he was indeed, quite devout.

All truly great stories – like the unraveling of evolutionary theory – are rich, complex, and very, very human in a way that no shorthand can quite capture.

I find it fascinating that the man who creationists caricature as the very devil himself entered adulthood with the ambition to be a clergyman. A pillar of Victorian society, he was never the radical creationists now paint – or perhaps even some of his defenders would like -- him to be. He was a very conservative man who used the decades after he first came to understand the mechanism underlying evolution to gather evidence and build his case.

In the end, Darwin published only because his hand was forced. Origin of Species went into print only because another naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace also came to understand its workings and intended to publish his findings.

Equally intriguing is the fact, which Graham has now brought to our attention, that a man who lost his faith, perhaps when he lost his beloved daughter, Annie, continued to support the work of Christian missionaries.

The facile tale of the conflict between religion and science simply doesn’t fit the facts. There's plenty of sound and fury there, but in the end they signify nothing.

Note: Although I regret rushing my doubts about Darwin and missionaries into print without having first read Mark Graham's paper, I don’t regret the experience. It’s given me a chance to dig into Darwin’s correspondence for the first time. And that will provide plenty of grist for the mill that is Red State Rabble.

More Creationist Threats

2007-07-13T05:59:00.000-05:00

The author of the threats against the faculty in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of Colorado in Boulder has been a busy boy.

He's also been sending threatening e-mails to a science blog called Southern Exposure. These e-mails have been posted on Southern Exposure and you can read them for yourself. Here's a sample:

i urge you to read and ponder this information seriously. it may be the last warning you receive from a Christian who has mercy and compassion upon your errors.

The e-mail is signed Michael Philip Korn, A concerned American and Citizen of the Kingdom of God.

Implausible Denial

2007-07-13T05:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, RSR commented on Robert Crowther's ludicrous denial that creationists or "very religious people" could have anything to do with the e-mail threats to faculty members in the ecology and evolutionary biology departments at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

"In all the years of the ongoing evolution debates, nothing like this has ever happened that I've heard of," says Crowther, "at least not from creationists."

Naturally, Crowther's evidence free denial was proven wrong almost as soon as it was posted on Discovery's Evolution News and Views blog.

In comments and e-mails readers have listed the names of quite a number of right-wing religious fanatics who've carried out violent acts ranging from bombings to murder, none of which Crowther cares to remember.

One reader sent a link to this July 7 article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Three Burleson [Texas] men who belong to a "radical Christian activist group" were in the Johnson County Jail on Friday night after a church deacon caught two of them attempting to ignite an explosive device on Independence Day at a church under construction in north Burleson ...

They admit to being Christian and being brought up Christian, but they believe there should be one denomination and one church, not multiple denominations," said Cmdr. Chris Havens, a Police Department spokesman.

The suspects said the group has three levels of involvement: Bible study, consensual fighting and destructive acts.

WorldNetDaily, the news source for the lunatic religious right, is currently hawking a book called Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense, which asks the question, "Should Christians be armed?"

One particularly chilling threat included in the e-mails sent to CU faculty says:

Pastor Jerry Gibson spoke at Doug Whites New Day Covenant Church in Boulder.
He said that every true Christian should be ready and willing to take up arms to kill the enemies of Christian society.

The fact is, Christian right fanatics like Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph have already demonstrated a willingness to put their violent fantasies into action.

Those are facts whether Crowther can remember them or not.

2007-07-13T05:33:00.000-05:00

An oldie, but still a goodie: Carl Sagan explains evolution on Cosmos.

Tolerance

2007-07-13T05:29:00.000-05:00

The opening prayer in the Senate by Hindu Chaplain Rajan Zed was interupted by two protestors who asked for forgiveness from Jesus Christ for the “abomination” of failing to pray to the “one true God," according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

According to AU, religious right organizations have been agitating against the Hindu leader’s prayer since it was announced. The Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association has asked his members to complain to their senators about the invitation.

The group’s news service reported that “Christian nation” activist David Barton said that Hinduism has few followers in the United States and that prayer to a “non-monotheistic god” is “outside the American paradigm.”

Discovery Stonewalls

2007-07-13T05:04:00.000-05:00

You would think the Discovery Institute would have learned its lesson when it refused to respond to Randy Olson's repeated requests for a spokesperson to comment on intelligent design for his "Flock of Dodos" film.

But, just as they never seem unable to learn anything about evolution, they've apparently learned nothing from the public relations disaster that resulted from turning a cold shoulder to Olson's widely distributed film.

Producers of the PBS "Nova" series say they went to great pains to fairly represent the anti-evolution point of view in their program on the Dover intelligent design trial, but Discovery stonewalled their repeated requests for interviews.

Expect soon to read how biased the "Nova" special on intelligent design was on Discovery's blog.

Creato-terrorism? The Duty of All True Christians

2007-07-12T17:22:00.000-05:00

Discovery's Robert Crowther has looked into his crystal ball and decided it's unlikely the threatening e-mails and letters placed under doors in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of Colorado in Boulder were put there by creationists.

He doesn't have any evidence, mind you, but when has that ever stopped him before?

Under the hugely ironic title "Thou shalt not lie... " Crowther writes, "(i)n all the years of the ongoing evolution debates, nothing like this has ever happened that I've heard of, at least not from creationists."

Strangely, Crowther fails to mention that Dover judge John Jones and his family had to be put under the protection of U.S. Marshals after creationists threatened following his ruling there.

Crowther also neglects to mention Pat Robertson's not so veiled threat that "Dover was damned" after they voted creationists off the school board there:

I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city…And don’t wonder why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for his help because he might not be there.

Crowther suspects "that if these guys are ever caught, they won't turn out be creationists, or even very religious people."

Did I read that right? I thought this was all about science. It seems as if Crowther and Discovery are speaking here not for science but for creationists and "very religious people."

Update: Matt Young has a long post at Panda's Thumb that includes many of the threatening e-mails. Seems the harrassment has been going on for over a year and recently stepped over the line into threats. From the e-mail:

“Pastor Jerry Gibson spoke at Doug Whites New Day Covenant Church in Boulder.
He said that every true Christian should be ready and willing to take up arms to kill the enemies of Christian society.
But I believe it is far more effective to take up a pen to kill the enemies of Truth.

Oh yeah, guess what? Crowther's wrong again.

All of the above

2007-07-12T05:57:00.000-05:00

Do you find Ken Ham's Kentucky Creation Museum:

Bizarre

Biblically Inaccurate

Scientifically Unsound

All of the above

More than half of the people who answered a Campaign to Defend the Constitution survey of 800 likely voters from across the country said all of the above.

The survey choices were, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Literal Word of God," "Biblically accurate," "Bizarre," "Biblically inaccurate," "Scientifically unsound" and "Not sure."

According to DefCon, 95 percent of evangelicals "reject the Creation Musuem's strange, dino-friendly version of Creationism."

Perhaps even more fascinating, only 10 percent of self-identified evangelicals say they support intelligent design.

You can download a PDF of the survey results here.

Stay Tuned

2007-07-12T05:48:00.000-05:00

Coming up on PBS this coming season is “Intelligent Design on Trial,” an episode of “Nova” that looks at the Dover trial.

Nobody Understands

2007-07-12T05:29:00.000-05:00

First scientists don't understand science. Now creationists don't understand it either. Thank God we have Salvador Cordova.

Gonzalez Tenure Denial

2007-07-12T05:12:00.000-05:00

The Discovery Institute is trumpeting Guillermo Gonzalez' appeal of his denial of tenure at Iowa State University.

Discovery's John West calls the denial, "one of the most outrageous examples of academic discrimination and abuse targeting scholars who are supportive of intelligent design."

One thing that you won't hear about at Discovery's Evolution News and Views blog, but does receive some ink in the Des Moines Register is this:

The chair of the physics and astronomy department has said lack of fundraising by Gonzalez was an issue in his tenure denial.

Iowa State University has sponsored $22,661 in outside grant money for Guillermo Gonzalez since July 2001, records show. In contrast, Gonzalez’s peers in physics and astronomy had secured an average of $1,305,580 by the time they were granted tenure, which is essentially a life-time appointment at the university.

RSR has heard some rumors -- and we should say up front we don't know if they're true -- that even the measly $22K was kicked in by Discovery at the last moment to buck up Gonzalez' failing case for tenure.

What a Fool Believes

2007-07-11T17:43:00.000-05:00

Christian Post reporter Doug Huntington examines the evidence pro and con -- but mostly pro -- that dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time. Strict creationists, writes Huntington, have begun to make a strong push toward trying to prove the legitimacy of the co-habitation of dinosaurs with mankind.

Citing arguments "that carbon dating does not accurately place dinosaurs as living more than 10,000 years ago" Huntington claims some creationists look "at the same fossil evidence that evolutionists look at."

Well, if they're looking to carbon dating of dinosaur fossils, they're obviously not looking at the same evidence that scientists are. Anyone who knows anything about carbon dating knows the limit for radiocarbon dating ranges between 58,000 and 62,000 years. The half life of C14 is 5,730. After about 10 half lives (10 x 5,730 = 57, 300 years, get it?) the residual 14C is too low to be distinguished from background radiation.

Since the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred some 65 million years ago -- that's 11,344 half lives -- carbon dating is not used to determine the age of these fossils.

Radiometric dating, on the other hand, can provide accurate dates for dinosaur fossils found in proximity to volcanic rock. In addition, faunal succession and the relative age of rock strata are well known. These concepts are easily grasped by eighth and ninth graders, if not by creationists.

For a good short explanation of radiometric dating of rocks and fossils look here.

Segregation and Conservative Christians

2007-07-11T05:51:00.000-05:00

"As someone who grew up in Mississippi and Alabama during the civil rights movement, ... [all ellipses in original, RSR] my reading is that the conservative Christian movement never was able to distinguish itself from the segregationist movement, and that is one of the reasons I find so much of the rhetoric familiar -- and unsettling," evangelical theologian Charles Marsh tells Robin Reid at Politico.

By the end of the civil rights movement, the way was set for this marriage of the Republican Party and conservative Christians. … At the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi in 1980, (Ronald) Reagan's statement "I am for states' rights" was a remarkable moment in the conservative South. The Southern way of life was affirmed and then deftly grafted into national conservative politics.

White political elites are very good at using the language of faith. The preachers use it to communicate to thousands of parishioners who truly believe that, to be Christian, one must be part of a certain party.

Now compare that to all the nonsense about Darwin, evolution, and the Nazis coming from a certain well-known Christian right outpost in Seattle.

So Simple

2007-07-11T05:31:00.000-05:00

A new book, God the Final Frontier, explains how discoveries in science reveal the nature of God.

The crack marketing team at Christian Newswire says it provides answers to difficult questions such as:

Are all religions equally valid?

If God is there, why is He silent?

If God is good, why is there evil?

And, how can we know for sure who the real God is?

The book, we're breathlessly told, "reveals scientific discoveries such as how quantum physics provides positive proof for the doctrine of the Trinity" and "how Einstein's Theory of Relativity fit's the Genesis account of creation."

Not only that, the book is written in simple, easy to understand language. Even "a child can understand."

So simple a caveman could understand, apparently, was already taken.

Creationists and the Gentle Art of Persuasion

2007-07-11T05:25:00.000-05:00

First Dover trial judge John Jones had to be put under the protection of U.S. Marshals. Now, campus police at University of Colorado Boulder campus are investigating e-mails and "threatening documents slipped under the lab doors" of the ecology and evolutionary biology departments.

The Denver Post reports "the messages included the name of a religious-themed group and addressed the debate between evolution and creationism."

Does this mean creationists won't be submitting any more journal articles?

Hat tip to CP.

Dinosaur Den

2007-07-10T05:49:00.000-05:00

According to Baptist Press, Ken Ham's Kentucky Creation Museum has just opened a dinosaur exhibit called "Dinosaur Den" that will feature real dinosaur eggs.

"We are so thankful to have the resources to build a quality exhibit devoted to the very creatures so closely associated with the arguments about creation and evolution," said Ham in a statement.

Ham also announced he will soon begin raising money for an exhibit hall to house Fred and Wilma Flintstone's lovingly restored '00 car.

Scientists Needed

2007-07-10T05:46:00.000-05:00

The Clergy Letter Project is looking for scientists who are willing to answer questions about science from clergy and serve as technical support for clergy. The primary goal of the project is to help clergy and their congregations understand that science is not a threat to their faith. If you would like to learn more about the project or become a technical consultant, please visit the Clergy Letter website for more information.

Manchurian Candidates

2007-07-10T05:36:00.000-05:00

A lot of creationists don't like the idea of evolution because they believe, for some reason, it eliminates free will. If evolution is true, they say, then we human beings are nothing more than robots who mindlessly carry out the programming natural selection has written into the computer code of our DNA.

And if we're just robots we couldn't -- or shouldn't -- be punished for our sins and that would take all the fun out of fundamentalist Christianity. After, what would life be if you couldn't dream of Richard Dawkins, or Bill Clinton, or some poor little unbaptized baby, drowning in a lake of fire for all eternity

(Denyse "Buy My Book" O'Leary -- the Hildy Johnson of William Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog -- coined the term "Darwinbot" to link this line of thinking with the Darwinian dogmatism meme ID theorists find so compelling.)

Only now it turns out no matter where we poor humans hail from -- moulded by God from the dust of the ground or evolved out of some warm little pond -- we're machines. Just simple products of the programming written into our brains.

Noting that children learn language from the parents, Pastor Rick Jackson, who writes the AiG-inspired Starke Reality blog, explains how Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, learned to speak to each other:

God must have programmed them with a language so they could speak to each other, speak to God, and understand everything perfectly.

Pastor Jackson also explains how Adam and Eve, never having witnessed "death or bloodshed of man or animals before sin" could have understood "what God meant when He said that Adam would die if he ate the fruit he was commanded not to."

He was already programmed with a language so that he could speak to God. Adam knew the meaning of every word perfectly from the beginning—including the word death.

I know the unrepentant purists among you will wonder if knowing the dictionary definition of a word such as death is the quite the same thing as seeing it happen in person, but like so much else, you'll just have to take Pastor Jackson's word for it.

Bye-the-way, God also gave Adam and Eve a Frisbee so they could teach their pet dinosaur to fetch.

Helpfully, Pastor Jackson also provides a list of just a "few of the thousands of modern scientists who have accepted the biblical account of creation."

Hey, that's a lot more than the measly 700 on the Discovery Institute's list of Darwin doubters!

Hat tip to JS.

Luskin: He Coulda Been a Contender

2007-07-10T05:17:00.000-05:00

One thing you have to love about the Discovery Institute's Program Officer for Public Policy & Legal Affairs -- the man is everywhere -- Casey Luskin. Like a punch drunk fighter who's been hit too many times he never seems to have a clue where the next punch is coming from.

You would think a person such as Luskin who believes evolution to be a mathematical impossibility would have some sense, some inkling, some itty bitty glimmer that this statement cuts two ways:

Perhaps we need to appreciate that there are many things that seem improbable--but improbability does not, and never has, entailed nonexistence. We may be highly improbable--yet we are here.

But you would be wrong.

It all "sounds like solid reasoning" to our boy Luskin. Well, not quite all. The reason Luskin walks so guilelessly into this particular sucker punch -- just as our wannabe contender has so many times in the past -- is because the authors of the The Dawkins Delusion: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Alister and Joanna McGrath, object to Richard Dawkins' assertion about the improbability of the existence of an intelligent designer when he asks, "Who designed the designer?"

Naturally, the disinterested scientist in Luskin laps up the abuse the McGrath's pile on Dawkins' case against God. He's less enthusiastic about their rejection of ID theory as a "God-of-the-gaps" argument.

As the McGrath's quite accurately point out, improbability isn't the same as impossibility. However, when Dawkins points out the improbability of the existence of God -- aka the intelligent designer -- we don't think he does it, as the McGraths seem to argue here, to prove there is no God. We think he does it, quite reasonably, to point up the erroneous logic of the creationists.

Those who find evolution too improbable to believe -- and assert they do so on the basis of reason and evidence -- are then obliged to show why God, or a some celestial Ty Pennington, is more probable.

This they never do, perhaps because the punches (sometimes referred to as evidence) come a little too fast and furious for the Luskins of the world to see coming at them.

Adam's Heirs

2007-07-09T05:56:00.000-05:00

Do you suppose Ken Ham's $27 million creation museum has a set of English scrolls tracing the family of King Henry VI back to the Garden of Eden?

The Big Valley Creation Museum up in Alberta has one.

You can't fight facts like those.

God and Country

2007-07-09T05:45:00.000-05:00

As the agony of Iraq is prolonged to prevent our president from suffering the indignity of admitting he's been wrong, fewer and fewer people have been willing to go along.

Over the weekend, three more Republican senators -- Pete Dominci, Judd Gregg, and Lamar Alexander -- joined Richard Lugar, John Sununu, Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, Norm Coleman, and Chuck Hagel in calling for an end to the Iraq fiasco.

In what may prove an even more ominous sign of the erosion of support for the president and his Iraq adventure, evangelical Christians are also beginning to rethink their support for the war.

In Saturday's Boston Globe, Charles Marsh, a professor of religion and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, draws a parallel between "the church in Germany as it lay in the ruins of its fatal allegiance to Hitler" and Christian fundamentalist support, in this country, for the war in Iraq and all the things -- extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, and wiretapping -- that go with it.

"Conservative evangelical elites," writes Marsh, "in exchange for political access and power, have ransacked the faith and trivialized its convictions. It is as though these Christians consider themselves to be recipients of a special revelation, as if God has whispered eternal secrets in their ears and summoned them to world-historic leadership in the present and future."

Marsh sees "signs of hope as an emerging generation of Christian leaders holds out the promise of a more comprehensively just and moral account of faith than the narrow agendas of the Christian right."

Red State Rabble certainly hopes Marsh is right. We can't share his faith but I feel certain that many of the ragtag bunch of skeptics who water here at Red State Rabble share his values.

This is an important read, RSR urges all of our readers to follow the link above and read with an open mind what Marsh has to say.

The Epigones

2007-07-09T05:29:00.000-05:00

Over at Uncommon Descent, ID guru William Dembski asks if it's "fair to judge scientific theories by their offspring?" Unsurprisingly, as the theory in question is evolution, Dembski deems it perfectly fair.

"For the greatest theory ever conceived," Dembski divines, "Darwinian evolution has begotten an idiot in evolutionary psychology."

Red State Rabble has never been a big fan of evolutionary psychology as currently practiced. Although, we tend to agree with Stephen Jay Gould that because the human mind is a product of evolution, "all curious people must support the quest for an evolutionary psychology."

Whether or not evolutionary psychology ever proves itself of any value, we'd just like to let the ghosts of George McCready Price and Henry Morris know that we can't quite bring ourselves to hold them completely responsible for their own misbegotten offspring.

Letting Cheri Yecke's Cat Out of the Bag

2007-07-09T05:14:00.000-05:00

"Is Cheri Yecke’s advocacy of ID a career-maimer?" asked the Isaac Newton of information theory, William Dembski, in a post published on his Uncommon Descent blog Saturday.

Yecke, as many of you are already aware, is the No. 2 in the Florida Dept. of Education, but she badly wants to be No. 1. That's why she hired an Internet outfit called ReputationDefender to scrub the web clean of references to her support for creationism back when she was Minnesota's Commissioner of Education.

Not long ago, ReputationDefender contacted pro-evolution blogger Wes Elsberry demanding that a quote on his Austringer blog linking Yecke to intelligent design be removed "on the grounds that it was false."

Post Dover, Yecke has taken steps, albeit clumsy ones, to distance herself from her old friends, and that clearly means she sees it, in Dembski's less-than-felicitous phrasing, as a career maimer. It would not surprise RSR if Yecke now wishes that Dembski had answered his question by examining the downward trajectory of his own career rather than dragging her name through the ID mud at this critical juncture.

Until the election of George Bush when it became a virtue, bad judgement was nearly always a career stopper -- the adolescent world of intelligent design excepted. Perhaps even in today's climate, there may be still be some in the Florida education establishment who think it unwise to appoint a commissioner of education who might embroil the state in costly and ultimately unwinnable litigation.

Does this mean young Isaac can now expect a note from ReputationDefender to come his way, as well?

Discovery's Irony Deficient Diet

2007-07-09T05:11:00.000-05:00

The fellows of the Discovery Institute, that intelligent design belief tank on the shores of Peugeot Sound, seem to be subsisting on an irony free diet.

Sitting side by side on their Evolution News and Views blog this past weekend are the following:

A post by Robert Crowther blames Darwin and evolutionary theory for the "development of advertising methods to more effectively manipulate consumer behavior."

Nearby, a post by Michael Egnor quotes Pat Sullivan, an entrepreneur and a marketing expert who writes software programs that help businesses with marketing and customer relations, "on the difficulties that Darwinists are having with the public acceptance of their theory."

Pat sez:

If Darwinism is ever going to succeed it is going to have to find ways to explain itself in easy to follow, yet credible ways to get people to believe it. You should not have to be a trained biochemist to understand Darwinism. I expect this won't happen and ID as a scientific idea will gain a lot of ground in the mind of the marketplace.

"When it comes to marketing," enthuses Egnor, "he knows what he’s talking about."

Is ID the Rodney Dangerfield of Creationism?

2007-07-07T08:25:00.000-05:00

First, only three of the nine no-hope Republican candidates for president raised their hands to say they doubted Darwin at the first debate -- and two of those rushed to "clarify" their views in the ensuing uproar.

Then Ken Ham goes out and raises $27 million to build his Creation Museum and brings all the biblical stuff the Discovery Institute has worked so hard to keep hidden-- you know, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Noah and the Flood, the Ark and its dinosaurs -- back into the news, and sucks up all the PR oxygen in the process.

Then the Institute for Creation Research comes out with a paper that accuses ID of pushing God away: "The Bible has answers to life’s big questions. Likewise strict naturalism has consistent answers, although quite different. ID has no answers at all which satisfy."

The Bible, adds ICR, "insists that God receive glory for His majestic handiwork, and it is not likely that He will bless or grant lasting success to any effort which chooses to omit Him from their thinking."

Discovery, it seems, can't get no respect.

Skeptic's Circle

2007-07-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

The 64th Skeptic's Circle is up at the Skeptical Alchemist. You can find here.

Debate

2007-07-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

Skeptical Inquirer: Charles L. Rulon, a professor emeritus of Long Beach City College, explains why he decided to debate a creationist from the Discovery Institute.

Target Audience

2007-07-07T07:37:00.000-05:00

"I've studied every scientific journal and there's no proof of evolution anywhere," says Ed Rockland. "In order to be scientific, it must be testable, supportable and disprovable."

Like the Bible.

Despite the testimony of Rockland and other widely read citizens, the Ventura County Board of Education voted 3-1 last Thursday to approve Pearson Prentice Hall's "Focus on California Life Science" for use in science classrooms there.

A Discovery Institute video video presentation, which followed the board's public comment period, doubts that "high school students have the ability to critically analyze such subjects as evolution in an educational format," according to Darleen Principe of the Simi Valley Acorn.

Could that be why high school students have become the designated target audience for Discovery's intelligent design sales force?

"Who Designed the Designer?"

2007-07-06T05:21:00.000-05:00

"Critics of intelligent design theory," writes Robert Crowther on the Intelligent Design The Future website, "often throw this question out thinking to highlight a weakness in ID. Richards shows that the theory’s inability to identify the designer is not a weakness, but a strength. ID does not identify the designer is because (sic) ID limits its claims to those which can be established by empirical evidence."

However, in a 2005 post on the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views blog, Crowther singled out as praiseworthy this statement by John Silber in The New Criterion:

"The critical question posed for evolutionists is not about the survival of the fittest but about their arrival. Biologists arguing for evolution have been challenged by critics for more than a hundred years for their failure to offer any scientific explanation for the arrival of the fittest. Supporters of evolution have no explanation beyond their dogmatic assertion that all advances are explained by random mutations and environmental influences over millions of years."

So, according to Crowther, ID "theorists" are under no obligation to identify their "designer," his/her/its origin, or methods, but the failure, so far, of evolutionary biologists to understand the origin of life must been seen as a fatal flaw to the theory.

Crowther, rather cynically says ID "theorists" are limited by empirical evidence. ID's real failure, though, is not that they don't have an answer, but that they won't even ask questions. ID would take a giant step towards genuine science if even one of its advocates would put forward a testable hypothesis concerning the origin, nature, and methods of their designer.

Crowther channels Silber to chastise scientists for their "failure to offer any scientific explanation." This is untrue. The working hypothesis of many scientists is that life arose naturally from inorganic matter.

In an 1871 letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker, Darwin offered these speculative ideas on the origin of life:

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are present, which could ever have been present. But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.

What Darwin has rather bravely offered here is a hypothesis. He knows he doesn't have the evidence to prove that it is so -- and to date no satisfying evidence has been produced -- but he has outlined an area of prospective research which we have every reason to believe may someday bear fruit.

Thus it is quite true that scientists do not understand the origin of life on earth. There are many things that science can't yet explain. Perhaps there are things science will never explain.

But that's not a flaw, because science doesn't claim to have all the answers.

But it does have a method.

It asks questions. Lots of questions. Then it turns those questions into educated guesses -- aka hypotheses -- and it goes out and tests them. If evidence from observation and testing bears out the hypothesis, as sometimes happens, then we've learned something. If the evidence overturns the hypothesis, a new guess must be made and the testing process must begin anew.

ID "theorists" on the other hand believe they already have all the answers, and so ask very few questions. Where do they get all these answers? For them the word of God as revealed in the Bible takes precedence over evidence from the natural world.

In fact, for those who rely on revealed wisdom, questions can be a slippery slope. First you're asking how, and the next thing you're wondering if.

This post at Panda's Thumb also takes Crowther to task.

Altruism

2007-07-05T06:53:00.000-05:00

Creationists see no natural reason for human beings to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others or even to act on ordinary moral obligations. Belief in God and fear of eternal damnation are the only things, they say, that keep people from each other's throats.

How humans got by in the years before Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain are, apparently, a mystery.

There are other ways of seeing, and studying, our sense of moral obligation to our fellow creatures. Sam Brown, an evolutionary biologist from The University of Texas at Austin, says, an act of altruism "can continue to give benefits even after the cooperator is dead. Conversely, cheating will have consequences in the future."

Could these benefits play a role in survival? Could the genes of altruistic individuals have been passed along in greater numbers than those who act selfishly.

I find it easier to believe than the notion that human beings ran riot, killing, stealing, and raping each other until they learned God was against it.

A Barnum for the New Millennia

2007-07-04T07:46:00.000-05:00

Christian Post: Ken Ham's "controversial $27 million Creation Museum located just outside Cincinnati has made a fairly strong start, boasting 40,000 visitors since its opening on Memorial Day."

"Counting the 9,000 visitors that pre-visited the museum, which depicts a literal six-day interpretation of creation from the Bible, the founding ministry Answers in Genesis (AiG) is well on its yearly goal of 250,000 guests, already meeting one-fifth of the total target."

Left Hanging

2007-07-04T06:49:00.000-05:00

"Yet, in a very strong sense the explanation of common descent is also trivial," writes intelligent design activist Michael Behe in his latest book, The Edge of Evolution.

Common descent tries to account only for the similarities between creatures. It says merely that certain shared features were there from the beginning - the ancestor had them. But all by itself, it doesn't try to explain how either the features or the ancestor got there in the first place, or why descendants differ. For example, rabbits and bears both have hair, so the idea of common descent says only that their ancestor had hair, too. Plants and animals both have complex cells with nuclei, so they must have inherited that feature from a common ancestor. But the questions of how or why are left hanging.

By all this Behe means that he finds the mechanisms of evolution -- heritability, random mutation, and natural selection -- insufficient to account for the diversity of life we find on the planet.

But that begs the question. If ID activists find evolutionary mechanisms inadequate, what do they propose in their place?

The ID textbook, Of Pandas and People, for which Behe wrote a chapter claims that "life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact - fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc."

If Behe wishes to make a convincing criticism of evolution's mechanisms, he might do so by putting forward a testable scientific hypothesis of how this happened.

Were all Earth's creatures created at once, or were there separate acts of creation stretching over some period of the planet's history. Did this/these acts of creation take place billions, millions, or thousands of years ago.

These are the basic questions any hypothesis about the origins of life must answer in order to be taken seriously. Search Behe's new book, however, and you'll find no answer to these simple questions.

That's because ID is a political and legal strategy, not a scientific theory.

Bye-the-way, contrary to what Behe writes (above) the theory of evolution doesn't say "merely that certain shared features were there from the beginning." It provides a well known mechanism for innovation -- mutation. For those who would like to learn more about what science has learned about how new species evolve from old, RSR recommends Sean Carroll's brilliant books on evolutionary developmental biology, Endless Forms Most Beautiful and Making of the Fittest.

Behe doesn't seem to have read either.

It's About Time

2007-07-04T06:38:00.000-05:00

When social conservatives bypassed qualified candidates to appoint anti-tax lobbyist Bob Corkins Kansas Education Commissioner, the reaction was utterly predictable. The news media reported his lack of training and experience for the job.

John Vratil, a Leawood Republican and vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said Corkins' appointment seemed "sort of like making Saddam Hussein president of the United States."

Sadly, Corkins actual job performance fully lived up to its advance billing.

Now that Corkins is gone and Kansas has, in Alexa Posny, a highly qualified commissioner who can begin to rebuild the state's Dept. of Education, coverage in the news media has shifted.

We're seeing, at long last, positive stories about Kansas schools.

When she officially takes office this week, writes The Wichita Eagle's Jillian Cohan, "Posny will bring intelligence, compassion and depth of experience to the role, her colleagues said."

What a difference an election makes.

Is Darwin Kosher?

2007-07-03T06:37:00.000-05:00

Intelligent design cognoscenti insist no one can accept the evidence for evolution and still retain their faith. Evolution, they believe, is nothing more -- and nothing less -- than an atheist plot against God.

However, just as the evidence -- both molecular and fossil -- proves the ID gurus wrong on common descent, the millions who see absolutely no contradiction between evolution and religious belief likewise strongly suggest they're also wrong about the supposed contradiction between science and faith.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal that asks "Is Darwin Kosher?" Evan R. Goldstein writes about the ease with which Modern Orthodox Jews have embraced science. The official line of the Modern Orthodox rabbinical association, writes Goldstein, is that "evolution is entirely consistent with Judaism."

Why do these believers find it so easy to combine traditional faith and values with modern science while many Christian fundamentalists see science and secularism as an assault on their faith?

One answer, writes Goldstein, may be the "towering intellectual legacy of Moses Maimonides," whose 12th-century masterpiece, Guide to the Perplexed, "opened the door to a Judaism unfettered by a literal reading of religious texts."

The real battle over evolution is not between secularists and those who profess their faith in God, but between those who insist on a literal reading of Genesis and those who are open to the evidence of the natural world.

The Weathermen

2007-07-03T06:26:00.000-05:00

The Beagle, the ship on which naturalist Charles Darwin made the voyage of discovery that led to the theory of evolution, was captained by Robert FitzRoy, a devout Christian who in later years became an ardent opponent of Darwin's theory.

Ironically, FitzRoy was also "a pioneer in weather forecasting, which attracted criticism from religious leaders who saw it as interfering with divine intentions," notes historian John van Wyhe of the University of Cambridge's Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.

That's why RSR gets all his weather reports from Pat Robertson. He's got the big guy on speed dial -- probably on his new iPhone.

Missionary Position

2007-07-03T05:54:00.000-05:00

In "Darwin's Defense of Missionaries," published in USAToday, reporter Dan Vergano quotes the naturalist Charles Darwin as writing in 1836:

"The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity, through the South Seas, probably stands by itself on the records of the world."

We don't doubt Vergano's citation, but we do doubt the conclusion drawn from it by cultural historian Mark Graham, that Darwin "supported Christian missionary work his entire adult life."

Graham's article in the Journal of Religious History, which is the basis for the USAToday report, is hidden behind a subscription barrier and RSR has not read any more of it than the abstract.

Even so, no convincing evidence underpinning the notion Darwin supported Christian missionary work "all his adult life" other than the 1836 quote is presented. And some of what Graham says about the "missionary" mission of the Beagle is, as noted in the article, just plain wrong.

RSR would not find it at all surprising if Emma Darwin had supported the work of Christian missionaries and Charles Darwin had not opposed or even facilitated it. He was, after all, a loving husband and exceptionally tolerant man.

To be convinced by Graham's broader assertion, however, we'd have to see much more evidence.

Still, if true, it would be another bit of contradictory evidence undermining the creationist caricature of the man who formulated the theory of evolution. Not that any evidence, of any kind, in any amount, would ever change their minds on this or any other subject.

Apacalypse 2012

2007-07-03T05:41:00.000-05:00

"There’s a growing realization that materialism and the rational, empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date,” Daniel Pinchbeck, tells The New York Times' Benjamin Anastas.

According to Anastas, Pinchbeck has introduced "a young and savvy audience to the school of millenarian thinking" by employing "viral marketing and a tireless schedule of public appearances."

Just how savvy is Pinchbeck. Well let's just say, he's appeared on "The Colbert Report."

Pinchbeck and a handful of like-minded alternative scholars want to to "free the planet from the dissonant influence of Western science."

Other proponents of Pinchbeck's theory have been going conferences and sending out papers and links to their Web site to selected scholars for years, but their attempts at making contact are usually ignored.

"They really don’t want to engage in a discussion with you," says another of the theory's adherents, John Major Jenkins.

Same old, same old from intelligent design activists?

Well, no.

These guys believe the world will come to and end on December 21, 2012 based on their reading of ancient Mayan calendars.

Red State Rabble's Great American Quote Mine Contest Results

2007-07-02T05:58:00.000-05:00

Red State Rabble’s Great American Quote Mine Contest inspired many readers to try their hand at what, until now, had been an undertaking reserved almost exclusively for creationists in all their splendid variety: young earth, old earth, and intelligent design.

The contest was inspired by a Douglas H. Erwin story in The New York Times reporting "there are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists" to revise what has come to be called the modern synthesis of Darwin's theory of evolution. While Erwin noted that "none of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope for creationists," we predicted Erwin’s story would provide fertile soil for creationist and intelligent design quote mining, anyway.

"Maybe we should beat them to the punch (read: mock them) and start pulling out bits and pieces from the NYT collection to show how it's done," suggested RSR reader, Gerry L.

It was a brilliant idea, and so, the contest was born.

Early entries got off to a rocky start. We noted that RSR readers have a marked tendency to belong to the reality-based community and so had a hard time doing what comes so naturally to creationists.

It’s easy to understand why someone who looks at the Grand Canyon’s spectacular aggregation of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock strata as a byproduct of the Biblical Flood would have no problem seeing what they want to see in a modern scientific text, but our readers, initially, had a harder time freeing themselves from the restrictions placed on them by text they were given to work with.

John Pieret, editor of the invaluable Quote Mine Project, wrote in to give an idea just how daunting the task would be for someone constrained by the heavy burden of a sense of honesty, good judgement, and rational thought. “A good quote mine can cross dozens of paragraphs or even pages,” he noted. The most ambitious quote mine recorded by the project, Pieret adds, was cobbled together from selections more than 100 pages apart.

Let’s face it. We just didn’t have that much raw material to work with. Even so, the entries all of you sent in display remarkable inventiveness, wit, and good humor.

Here they are, the finalists in Red State Rabble’s Great American Quote Mine Contest:

From IW: Darwinist admits Darwinism is "History"

"Many scientists suffer from a kind of split personality," writes Douglas Erwin, and are too busy studying "how genes operate, and evolve" to admit that "The Achilles' heel of the modern synthesis, as noted by the philosopher Ron Amundson, is that it deals primarily with the transmission of genes from one generation to the next, but not how genes produce bodies."

In fact, Darwinists cannot account for what we now know of the complex relationship between genes' information and the development of species. Evolution cannot explain, for example, how "rewiring the circuitry of genes produces different arthropod appendages, or wingspots on butterflies." This is the "Achilles' heel of Darwinism, a fatal flaw that I predict will lead the rise of Intelligent Design and the overthrow of Darwinist Dogma.

One example of this is the genetic sequence of sea urchins and starfish, which have "five core genes, which form what Davidson calls a kernel, cannot be modified: change any one of them and no embryo forms at all." Darwinism claims that genes must be modified to create new life, but these genes "limit the range of possibilities on which natural selection can act." ID predicts just such an occurrence, as the designer would certainly preserve basic elements of his design for long periods of time, but Darwinists, Erwin admits, understanding of what these processes mean for evolution."

What they mean is simple: Darwinism as a mechanism of macroevolution has failed. Only ID can explain the preservation of developmental genes. Erwin, himself a Darwinists, notes that a paradigm shift" is taking place and that this demonstrates "hope for ID advocates]," who correctly understand that Darwinism is incapable of explaining developmental change, and that we must turn to the obvious features of design to explain how organisms develop and change over time.

Darwinist thought, Erwin notes, is "uniformitarian," and ignores the simple truth that while "Evolutionary theory assumes" that species cannot "modify their environment." By failing to understand the role of design in life, Darwinists fail to see that design " changes how selection affects [species]: they construct their own environment." Darwinists can not admit to design by any designer.

The implications of this cannot be ignored, even by Darwinists: Evolutionary theory," Erwin is forced to admit, is "history."

Reader MW asks, Is Darwin due for an upgrade?

There are growing calls among biologists for just such a revision. Studies of the fossil record raise questions about the role of competition. Geneticists, paleontologists and others disagree about the efficacy of natural selection. There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists. These concerns provide hope for creationists. The foundations for a paradigm shift may be in place.

MW submitted two entries. Since there are no rules in the contest – that would run counter to the intent of quote mining – the judges (me) decided to allow it.

"Perhaps the most exciting area in evolution is in exploring wingspots on butterflies."

Frequent commenter GO'C submitted this entry:

The New York Times recently proclaimed that, "Darwin is due for an upgrade." According to the highly regarded author of the article, "In the past few years every element of this paradigm has been attacked." The basis for the upgrade is the surfeit of irrational scientists, because, "Many scientists suffer from a kind of split personality."The upgrade to Darwinism is called a "paradigm shift" (some say that only a pair of dimes is necessary to change scientists' fragmented minds). Raw Ambition drives these lying scientists. "What ambitious scientist would not want to be part of a paradigm shift?" Observed, Douglas H. Erwin, a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution and a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Because ambition and artifice are the tools of science, the Times states, "None of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope for creationists." Quite rightly where scientists have to cloud issues to take a buck from their grants and creationists don't have, or need, grants to "fund" their knowledge of God's master plan.
In closing, Dr. Erwin opined: "As evolutionary biologists we have little understanding of what these processes mean for evolution." Dr. Erwin follows with this blockbuster, "Does all this add up to a new modern synthesis?" Answering his own question, Dr. Erwin admits that: There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists."

PF submitted this brief but beautiful quote mine:

Transitions between species documented by the fossil record seemed to be ... too abrupt to be explained by ... natural selection occurring within species...

Working with just the final paragraph of the article reader Gerry L. – to whom we are deeply indebted for coming up with the idea for the contest – offers the following, although, as you can see, he wasn’t quite able to let himself go by dropping the ellipses. Honesty is a heavy load which the defenders of science must bear alone in this debate:

These concerns provide (...) hope for creationists.

There is (...) no consensus among evolutionary biologists, but (...) creationists (...) are already providing (...) the foundations for a paradigm shift, (...) a truly novel perspective (...) within an expanded modern synthesis.

There is certainly (...) consensus among evolutionary biologists (...) on how (...) creationists (...) are already providing (...) the foundations for (...) a truly novel perspective (...) within an expanded modern synthesis.

From the full article Gerry was able to fashion the following quote which almost had the Darwinbot in me doubting Darwin for a moment.

Computer simulations have shown (...) transitions between species (...) to be (...) the Achilles’ heel of (...) evolution.

John Pieret walks into this contest like a pool shark who carries his own cue. His vast experience as editor of the Quote Mine Project shows. Here’s his entry:

Darwin’s big idea ... holds that mutations to DNA create new variants of existing genes within a species. In the past few years every element of this paradigm has been attacked. Transitions between species seemed to be abrupt, ... too abrupt to be explained by the modern synthesis.

Doc Bill, another frequent commenter, was so taken with his own entry that he ended his note by saying what a sad day it is. Darwinism is dead.

Erwin writes, "Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision..." of the current Darwinian paradigm which appears to be crumbling from within. Erwin continues by noting, "In the past few years every element of this paradigm has been attacked.
Concerns...like the origin of major animal groups, including vertebrates.""Does all this add up to a new modern synthesis? There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists..." Furthermore the article states "...development, ecology, genetics and paleontology all provide new perspectives on how evolution operates, and how we should study it. None of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope..."

So, who are the lucky winners of the Red State Rabble mouse pads? The judges (me again) had such a hard time deciding that we put all the names in a hat and had our youngest daughter, Molly, draw the names of the four winners.

And, the winners are: IW, MW, PF, and Doc Bill.

Who says random processes can't create new information?

Congratualtions to all the winners. Thanks to everyone who entered. Winners, please e-mail me an address that I can mail your prize to.

Bed Fellows

2007-06-30T08:21:00.000-05:00

Everyone, it seems, is puzzling over the question of why intelligent design guru William Dembski believes the jailing of the rabid anti-Semite, Dr. Johannes Lerle, for violating German laws against neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial, to be an attack on intelligent design.

Dembski's defense of Lerle has raised widespread commentary -- even as far away as England.

As far as anyone can tell, Lerle's zeal is confined primarily to justification of Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, anti-Semitic conspiracy ravings, and fanatical opposition to abortion rights for women. To date, no one has been able to track down any public statement by Lerle supporting intelligent design.

In a post on the Panda's Thumb blog, PZ Myers sums up the confusion of many Dembski watchers by taking note of his "oddly convoluted leap of logic:"

Are we to assume that if a religious loon hates Jews and considers abortion and birth control to be anti-Christian conspiracies that will allow the hordes of Islam to overrun the country, he must also be a fellow traveler with the Intelligent Design creationists?

Such an assumption would not be without some justification. The Discovery Institute recently co-sponsored the World Congress of Families which featured a veritable Who's Who of notorious far-right, ultra-nationalist, anti-Semites and homophobes on its speakers list.

Moreover, Discovery numbers among its fellows George Gilder, famous for his opposition to women's rights. Discovery board member and chief financier, Howard Ahmanson, is a follower of Rousas Rushdooney -- a Reconstructionist theologian noted for his justifications of American slavery and Holocaust denial.

Still, that doesn't exactly tell us why Dembski -- leader of a movement whose avowed strategy includes drawing specious links between evolutionary theory and the Nazis -- wants to pull a jailed Holocaust denier into his charmed circle of like-minded ID theorists.

In October 2005, Discovery sponsored a "Darwin and Design" conference in Prague. No list of participants has ever been released, but Discovery did report that the audience, said to number some 700, hailed "from the Czech Republic and neighboring countries such as Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Poland."

Some of them were "interested in setting up organizations to promote ID in their homelands."

Suppose Lerle was among the illustrious participants at Discovery's "Darwin and Design" conference? Perhaps they met him at the World Congress of Families.

In this country, creationism is rooted in the fertile soil of the Old South. It's in the core curriculum of the private Christian academies that grew rapidly following the desegregation of public schools. Is it possible that ID has found a foothold in secular Europe among those who look fondly back to the days when followers of Islam were confined to the Middle East and gays and Jews to concentration camps?

Truly Ecumenical

2007-06-30T08:12:00.000-05:00

Red State Rabble is hearing talk that a non-believer might be included among this year's contributors to the Kansas City Star's "FaithWalk" column. If true, this would be progress indeed.

The Efficacy of Prayer

2007-06-30T07:04:00.000-05:00

In a comment to a post we published yesterday, the good, right Rev. BigDumbChimp called our attention to the sentencing of Jo Hovind. She got a year and a day for her conviction on 45 counts of evading bank-reporting requirements.

Jo Hovind, as all connoisseurs of the papier mache dinosaur industry will be aware, is the wife of creationist theme park impresario Kent Hovind, aka Dr. Dino, aka Prisoner No. 06452-017, who is currently serving 10 years for his conviction on 58 federal counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes, at the federal prison camp at Edgefield, S.C.

Noting that "the prayers of a righteous man availeth much," supporters of the creationist couple hoped to reduce her sentence through intercessionary prayer.

All that praying seems to have had little effect. If, as her supporters claim, she's innocent, a year and a day seems a bit harsher than a loving God -- who notes the fall of every sparrow -- would allow.

No Way Out

2007-06-29T05:33:00.000-05:00

"I had expected to be as irritated by Michael Behe’s second book as by his first," writes Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi chair for the public understanding of science at Oxford. "I had not expected to feel sorry for him. The first — “Darwin’s Black Box” (1996), which purported to make the scientific case for “intelligent design” — was enlivened by a spark of conviction, however misguided. The second is the book of a man who has given up. Trapped along a false path of his own rather unintelligent design, Behe has left himself no escape."

As Dawkins observes, the weight of evidence has forced Behe, however grudgingly, since writing "Darwin's Black Box" to accept both natural selection and common descent -- both anathema to biblical literalists and intelligent design activists.

In "The Edge of Evolution" Behe hangs his hat on the slender hook that random mutation is incapable of producing the wide range of life forms we observe on the planet. As you might imagine, Dawkins makes short work of that -- as have Ken Miller and Jerry Coyne.

Like Dover, the verdict for "The Edge of Evolution" is now in.

As you might imagine, the Discovery Institute's Logan Gage doesn't like Dawkin's review (they don't like Miller or Coyne's either). In a long howl of anguish posted on the Evolution News and Views blog, Gage denies that Behe has stepped back, but never bothers to mention Behe's acceptance of natural selection and common descent.

The shill tone of Gage's response is an solid indication there isn't enough oxygen in Behe's last, little gap to support a whole belief tank and all its out-of-work fellows.

Statistical Abuse

2007-06-28T06:01:00.000-05:00

Via the National Center for Science Education: In Ken Miller's Nature (sub req.) review of Michael Behe's Edge of Evolution he writes "at the heart of his anti-darwinian calculus are numbers not merely incorrect, but so spectacularly wrong that this badly designed argument collapses under its own weight ... It would be difficult to imagine a more breathtaking abuse of statistical genetics. ... A mistake of this magnitude anywhere in a book on science is bad enough, but Behe has built his entire thesis on this error."

Blog Against Theocracy

2007-06-28T05:55:00.000-05:00

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is calling for a “Blog Against Theocracy” blogswarm from July 1-4. A blogswarm is a coordinated effort by bloggers who agree to post on the same topic at the same time. The theme of this 4th of July blogswarm is “the separation of church and state is patriotic.”

Red State Rabble thinks separation of church and state is not only essential to our democracy, but that it also reflects the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. In short, it's patriotic. RSR will be participating, and we hope readers who have blogs of their own will too.

Learn more here.

Quote Mine Contest: We Don't Need No Stinking Ellipses

2007-06-28T05:32:00.000-05:00

I'm afraid that most Red State Rabble readers just don't have what it takes to be a creation "scientist" or intelligent design "theorist." Nearly all the entries we've received so far use ellipses to indicate the omission of quoted material.

That may be how real scientists and academics do it, but in the world of creationism using ellipses is, well, like wearing a plaid shirt with striped pants. It's just not done.

Here's how it is done. Here's the original:

There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists, but development, ecology, genetics and paleontology all provide new perspectives on how evolution operates, and how we should study it. None of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope for creationists, as scientific investigations are already providing new insights into these issues. The foundations for a paradigm shift may be in place, but it may be some time before we see whether a truly novel perspective develops or these tensions are accommodated within an expanded modern synthesis.

Here's the quote mined version:

The world of Darwinism was rocked yesterday by a New York Times article that calls into question everything you've ever read about evolution. There's "no consensus among evolutionary biologists, writes Douglas H. Erwin, a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, "on how evolution operates, and how we should study it."

"These concerns provide hope for creationists," Erwin goes on to say, "as scientific investigations are already providing new insights into these issues. The foundations for a paradigm shift may be in place."

That's how it's done. Now get busy.

Red State Rabble's Great American Quote Mine Contest

2007-06-27T05:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we posted a link to a New York Times story by Douglas H. Erwin that reported "there are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists" to revise what has come to be called the modern synthesis of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Erwin notes that "none of these concerns provide a scintilla of hope for creationists," nevertheless, we predicted this story would provide fertile soil for creationist and intelligent design quote mining.

One reader, Gerry L. suggested, "Maybe we should beat them to the punch (read: mock them) and start pulling out bits and pieces from the NYT collection to show how it's done."

That's a great idea.

So, here's the challenge for Red State Rabble readers: Take the text of Erwin's article, "Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift," rip parts of it out of context in creative, amusing, and outrageous ways. Distort the clearly stated intentions of the scientists cited beyond recognition. Connect widely spaced and generally unrelated parts of the story so as to make up sentences that seem to support creationist notions. In short, have your way with the text.

Then e-mail your clever little quote mine to Red State Rabble -- you can find my e-mail address in the sidebar under contact -- and I'll post the wittiest and most ingenious.

Best yet, there are prizes for the top four entries. Each of RSR's favorite entries will win one of the Red State Rabble mouse pads shown below:

If the prizes aren't incentive enough, remember this: You don't want to be bested by the posts that are bound to show up over the next couple of days at Discovery's Evolution News and Views or William Dembski's Uncommon Descent. You can be sure the Casey Luskins, Michael Egnors and DaveScots of the world are pouring over the NYT article and eyeing each other like Humphey Bogart, Tim Holt, and Walter Huston after they found the treasure of Sierra Madre.

Pardigm Shift?

2007-06-26T11:34:00.000-05:00

Today's special section on Evolution in the New York Times (see links to other articles below) reports "there are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists" to revise the theory of evolution. Does this mean we're on the leading edge of an accommodation to intelligent design?

Well, no.

You see, intelligent design "theorists" don't understand the mechanics of evolution well enough to even take part in the discussion. They are irrelevant.

That's not to say they won't fold, spindle, mutilate, or otherwise quote-mine the debate for the benefit of their own benighted followers.

DNA: "The Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution"

2007-06-26T11:25:00.000-05:00

Whatever else you do today, don't fail to watch the New York Times video of Sean Carroll discussing the science of evolution and the field of evo-devo.

Objective Facts, Anecdotal Stories, Flimsy Arguments

2007-06-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

WorldNetDaily columnist Tom Snyder writes that "Michael Moore's new feebleminded documentary, 'Sicko,' relies on few objective facts. It is mostly an emotional defense, filled with anecdotal stories and flimsy arguments of a single-payer, national healthcare system run by the government."

Hmm. Few objective facts, filled with anecdotal stories, and flimsy arguments, if we didn't know better we'd say he was talking about the Bible.

Despite that lone, pathetically deranged review, Red State Rabble is looking forward to the release of "Sicko" in Kansas. RSR's uncle and aunt were at the world premiere in Moore's hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. They loved it.

Don't take my word for it though. Watch the trailer, then go see the film.

Kansas vs. Darwin

2007-06-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

Jeff Tamblyn reports that the response to the screening of his documentary "Kansas vs. Darwin" last Monday "was much, much better than I could have hoped for. The audience was very vocal during the film, they gave us a standing ovation, and mobbed us afterward with positive feedback and good wishes."

"Kansas vs. Darwin" takes you inside the 2005 Kansas science hearings "to meet the characters who captured the world's attention: school board members who believe their literal interpretation of the Bible trumps modern scientific evidence, and members of the Intelligent Design Network who believe mainstream science is conspiring to suppress evidence that would overturn evolution. You'll also get face to face with an organization of Kansas scientists, educators, and citizens that organizes a worldwide response to put an end to what they see as a religiously-motivated kangaroo court."

Tamblyn expects to edit the film a bit more over the summer before entering it in several film festivals this fall. He also plans to hold screenings in areas that have recently experienced a challenge to teaching evolution, in order to combine these with discussions, action-planning sessions, and many other connected events.

You can watch the "Kansas vs. Darwin" trailer here.

Pipe Dreams

2007-06-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

At the Huffington Post, Matthew Chapman examines Sam Brownback's recent New York Times apologia for creationism. Not surprisingly, he finds it wanting.

EU Creationism Vote Called Off

2007-06-26T07:53:00.000-05:00

Gilbert Reilhac reports in Scientific American that the Council of Europe cancelled a scheduled vote on banning creationist and intelligent design views from school science classes yesterday, saying the proposed resolution was one-sided.

Rewriting History

2007-06-26T07:30:00.000-05:00

Cheri Yecke, K-12 chancellor for Florida’s Department of Education, may be finding that ID activist William Dembski is right about one, if only one, thing: "ID is the intellectual elite’s equivalent of leprosy."

When Yecke was Minnesota Commissioner of Education in 2003 she gave the go-ahead to schools in that state to incorporate “intelligent design” into the science curriculum there.

Now, perhaps having thought better of it, she wants to erase all memory of the event, and she's hired ReputationDefender to search the Internet for information about her and challenge the items she disputes.

Wildlife biologist and evolution defender Wesley Elsberry recently received an e-mail from the organization asking him to remove or modify a quote he has on his personal website about Yecke.

You can read all about Yecke's lame attempt to rewrite history at Florida Citizens for Science.

Altruism

2007-06-26T07:06:00.000-05:00

Denyse "Buy My Book" O'Leary believes people help others because they think God wants them to. She rejects the idea that altruistic behavior may be a product of evolution. That mothers who risk their lives to protect their children or men who sacrifice themselves to protect the tribe may end up passing their genes along more often than those who save themselves seems an utter fantasy to her.

If belief in God is the explanation for altruistic behavior, however, how do we explain the bird whose cry warns the flock of the presence of a predator, but also calls the attention of the predator to the bird that utters the warning cry? How do we explain the protective behavior of other animals -- who surely can't be thought to be practicing Christians -- toward their young?

Don't like the animal analogies?

How do we explain altruistic behavior in the many peoples of the world who follow a religion that doesn't worship a supernatural being who is concerned with human moral behavior?

NYT on Evo Devo

2007-06-26T06:06:00.000-05:00

Just how did the diversity of plant and animal form we see around us arise out of the random genetic mutations of evolution? And, how in the world could a wing sprout where none had grown before, or flowers blossom in what had been a flowerless world?

Carol Kaesuk Yoon writes about these seemingly intractable questions and the fascinating answers coming out of the new science of Evo Devo in today's New York Times.

Institutionalizing Religion

2007-06-25T14:11:00.000-05:00

Via American's United: In a 5-4 ruling today, the U.S. Supreme court "rejected a case challenging Bush administration spending to promote the "faith-based” initiative using money from a White House discretionary fund. The court majority ruled in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation that taxpayers have no right to challenge discretionary spending by the executive branch."

Most church-state litigation won't be affected, says AU.

Intelligent Design?

2007-06-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

Tilt your head to the left when viewing this rock formation on a lake in Myanmar. Can you see the praying figures, said to be a mother and child? Madonna and child?

Now, here's the question: Is this rock formation a product of the natural forces of erosion, or a product -- like Mt. Rushmore -- of intelligent design?

The answer may surprise you. Without question -- remember, this is RSR telling you -- it's intelligently designed.

Go here to see why.

OTJ vs. OJT

2007-06-25T11:23:00.000-05:00

Trainee Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins called an end to his OJT when adults took back the state school board last November. The new pro-science, pro-education majority quickly ended the American Idol-like auditions for professional positions at the state's Education Dept. and set out to find experienced, tested, qualified candidates to replace him.

We're happy to report that they found a highly qualified candidate.

Alexa Posny is On The Job as of today.

Dig It!

2007-06-25T07:43:00.000-05:00

Our friends, the creationists, will tell you there's no evidence for evolution. Red State Rabble suspects that's because they never poke their noses out of the Bible long enough to see any. Nevertheless, out in Wyoming's Morrison Formation, 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossils are "everywhere, like dandelions."

Hiding in plain sight. No wonder the creationists can't see it.

Don Hopey, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has written an engaging feature on the University of Pittsburgh's new 4,700 acre Allen L. Cook Spring Creek Preserve. Although well known, it's never been fully explored. There's also an audio slideshow of scientists and students prospecting for dinosaur bones at the Cook Preserve in Wyoming.

A good read.

Hijacked

2007-06-25T07:36:00.000-05:00

AP: "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."