I'm from Missouri

Eugenie Scott: Still crazy after all these years

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:26:00 +0000

The smarmy grin of a high-priestess of what Harun Yahya (Adrian Oktar) has called "the shamanistic religion of Darwinism."

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An article on the website of the National Center for Science Education says,

Now available on NCSE's YouTube channel: Eugenie C. Scott's "Creationism: Still crazy after all these years," a presentation at the 2009 Atheist Alliance International conference in Burbank, California. Scott describes the evolving history of the antievolution movement in the United States, from attempts to balance the teaching of evolution with "creation science" or "intelligent design" to the present spate of stealth creationist tactics such as "academic freedom" and (in Texas) "all sides of scientific evidence." A question-and-answer session followed, introduced by Richard Dawkins, who commented, "I must say, it's a very good feeling to have Genie Scott and her gang on our side in this battle." NCSE thanks the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science for permission to post the video on the NCSE YouTube channel.

Here the hypocritical, two-timing Eugenie Scott reveals her fundamental disdain for people of faith. She is tolerant of people of faith only if their beliefs are inconsistent -- i.e., if they are Darwinist Cafeteria Christians (e.g., Francis Collins and Ken Miller) instead of creationists, even though (1) there is a lot of scientific evidence against Darwinian evolution and (2) the bible's creation story makes much more sense than the gospel. The creation story is fairly straightforward whereas the gospel is full of illogic, inconsistencies, ambiguities, and unintelligibility. Also, the creation story is consistent with the idea of an all-powerful god whereas the god of the gospel is a weak, limited god who must struggle against Satan for control of the world. Many Darwinist Cafeteria Christians refuse to even admit that their beliefs are inconsistent.

The Darwinist Cafeteria Christians and the Accommodationists cheerfully serve as each others' mascots and useful idiots. They deserve each other. I join PZ Myers in metaphorically puking on the shoes of both of them.

Another NCSE crackpot

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:47:00 +0000

I already know a number of crackpots in the National Center for Science Education: Eugenie Scott, Kevin Padian, Nick Matzke, Peter Hess, Glenn Branch, and Josh Rosenau. These dudes are so bad that they have even been criticized by Darwinists, particularly for the NCSE's coddling "accommodationism" towards Darwinist Cafeteria Christians who scoff at the bible's creation story while taking the far more illogical gospel literally. Now I have found another NCSE crackpot: Steven Newton, the NCSE's public information project director. He wrote in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer,
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Creationists are unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution.

That may be true of biblical creationists, but some critics of evolution theory have been influenced by those things -- for example, Michael Behe accepts common descent. On the other hand, Darwinists are unmoved by the evidence against Darwinian evolution. It is the Darwinists who cherry-pick their evidence.

As long as scientists must squander their time defending their work from denialism, we will fall behind on our fundamental responsibilities.

Imagine -- scientists are falling behind on their "fundamental responsibilities" because they "must squander their time defending their work from denialism"! What bullshit.

As the great physicist Richard Feynman noted, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

I'll be sure to remember that quote the next time I see Texas board of education member and former chairman Don McLeroy being condemned for saying, "someone's got to stand up to experts."
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Yet another legal scholar pans Kitzmiller v. Dover

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:07:00 +0000

I wonder why people are still debating the Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion. The opinion is practically worthless, because: (1) -- it is just a judicially unreviewed decision of a single judge, who also happens to be a crackpot activist judge; (2) it is binding only on the Dover Area School District; and (3) Judge "Jackass" Jones probably showed a lack of restraint because he knew that an appeal was unlikely becaues of the changeover in the membership of the school board.

David Opderbeck, a law professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, says in an analysis of Kitzmiller,

Without some demarcation of what can be taught as "science" in the public schools, aren't we opening the floodgates to the teaching of all sorts of pseudo-science, such as astrology and young earth creationism? I think this is a valid concern. For this and other reasons, I personally don't agree with the "teach the controversy" approach promoted by many ID advocates. If I were to serve on my local school board, I would not vote in favor of introducing ID materials into the science curriculum, primarily because I don't believe the ID program has generated sufficient results to reach the public schools. Like the courts, the public schools lack the time and resources to address views that fall far outside the scientific mainstream . . . .

. . . .I don't believe Judge Jones should have ventured a broad definition of "science" in the Kitzmiller case, as though such an exercise necessarily ends the discussion of constitutionality. Under the applicable standards for establishment clause cases, the proper inquiry is into purposes and effects: was the government's purpose "secular" and was the primary effect of the government's decision to advance or inhibit religion or to produce an excessive entanglement of government and religion? Whether an idea is labeled "religion" or "science," in itself, is irrelevant to the constitutional question.

There can be good secular reasons for teaching "bad" science in science classes: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, increasing student interest, preventing and correcting misconceptions, and helping to ensure that sophisticated scientific (or pseudoscientific) ideas are taught only by qualified science teachers (many Darwinists complain that scientific -- or peudoscientific -- criticisms of evolution are misleading students, yet some of these same Darwinists want these criticisms to be taught by unqualified people). A Darwinist blogger argued that ID should be taught for the purpose of refuting it. There is no constitutional principle of separation of bad science and state.

Opderbeck says,

. . . I don't believe Judge Jones played the role of "activist judge" in Kitzmiller, even though I am critical of the opinion.

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Judge Jones is not an "activist" judge? He is the poster child of activist judges. For example, he said that his Kitzmiller decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions [link]. Judge Jones has complained that the critics of his Kitzmiller opinion lack respect for "judicial independence," "precedent," and "the rule of law." [link].

Ironically, Prof. Opderbeck discusses Kitzmiller in terms of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, even though Judge Jones assumed -- falsely, in my opinion -- that Daubert applies only to jury trials and therefore does not apply to Kitzmiller [link -- BTW, I held Judge Jones solely to blame for ignoring Daubert, but IMO the attorneys -- especially the defense attorneys -- were also to blame for ignoring Daubert].

Wesley "Ding" Elsberry made a feeble attempt to counter Prof. Operbeck's criticisms of Kitzmiller [link] [link] [link]. "Ding" said,

Let me explain what I am taking as connotations for “key” and “central” just so we can make sure that we are on the same page in the discussion. A “key” element of the decision would be one that if not addressed appropriately could result in overturning the decision at an appellate level. There are lots of components of the Kitzmiller decision that can be called “key” in that context. A “central” element, though, would be the one that was the primary finding in the decision. The primary finding, though, was that concerning the “endorsement test”, and it rested on four separate considerations of which the “is ID science?” consideration was just one.[link]

My sense of “key” is any argument that could have caused a higher court to overturn the decision, which means that a great many “key” arguments may exist in a decision. This is quite readily distinguishable from your sense of “central”, of which there can be only one such issue in the decision.[link]

"A 'central' element . . . would be the one that was the primary finding in the decision"? That's ridiculous -- there can be more than one "central" issue, and there can even be more than one "primary" issue. And the words "key" and "central" are close synonyms here -- Elsberry's attempt to distinguish them is silly.

"Ding" Elsberry also says,

In order to argue that the defense failed in its claim to having a secular purpose, Jones had to rely upon existing agreement upon what necessary attributes of science “intelligent design” did not encompass. This neither is an effort to define science himself nor to resolve the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science.[link]

WHAT "existing agreement upon what necessary attributes of science 'intelligent design' did not encompass"? And there is not even an "existing agreement" about what the "necessary attributes of science" are.

And David Opderbeck told Elsberry what I have been saying for a long time [link] -- that Judge Jones was not obligated to rule on the ID-as-science question just because both sides asked him to:

You seem to think that a Judge must passively hear and decide everything the parties throw at him or her, but that simply is not the case . . . . .even when a trial court allows evidence at trial on an issue, the court is not compelled to deal with it at length in a written opinion.
[link]

Also, the Panda's Thumb blog has some comments about Opderbeck's and Elsberry's articles.
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Proposed principle of "judicial objectivism": Judges should try to avoid basing judicial opinions on personal opinions

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:52:00 +0000

JUDGE "JACKASS" JONES, POSTER CHILD OF JUDICIAL ACTIVISM

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My proposed principle of "judicial objectivism" is that judges should try to avoid basing decisions on their own biased personal opinions and should try to use reasoning that is so airtight that no reasonable person could find fault with it. I call it "judicial objectivism" to distinguish it from the general philosophy of "objectivism" and the "objectivism" of Ayn Rand in particular, though my "judicial objectivism" is related to those other philosophies' idea that there are truths or realities that are independent of individual perceptions. IMO the principle of "judicial independence" is actually harmful when it encourages -- as it did in the case of Judge "Jackass" Jones -- judges to base their decisions on their own biased personal opinions. Judges should have the humility to recognize that their personal opinions, even if valid, might be in disagreement with one or more other valid opinions. This proposed principle of "judicial objectivism" -- like my proposed principles of "non-justiciability" and the "compelling reason" test for non-literal interpretations of the Constitution -- is aimed at eliminating or reducing the courts' arbitrariness, capriciousness, "activism," and "legislating from the bench."
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"Opinion," like "theory," is a term that has a technical definition that differs from the everyday, colloquial definition. The technical definition of "opinion" in the law is, according to my Webster's New World Dictionary, Third Collegiate Edition, "the formal statement by a judge, court referee, etc. of the law bearing on a case." One of this dictionary's colloquial definitions is: "(1) a belief not based on absolute certainty or positive knowledge but on what seems true, valid, or probable to one's own mind, judgment." In comparing "opinion" to several synonyms, the dictionary also says, "opinion applies to a conclusion or judgment which, while it remains open to dispute, seems true or probable to one's own mind . . ." My "judicial objectivism" idea is aimed at eliminating or reducing the openness to dispute. As for "theory," maybe the Darwinists should hire process servers to serve process on governments in lawsuits charging that the government officially uses the term "evolution theory" even though the technical meaning of "theory" is different from the colloquial or everyday meaning.

The statement "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," in the conclusion section of Judge Jones' Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion, is a good example of a statement that violates this principle of judicial objectivism, because reasonable people can easily find fault with that statement. For example, many reasonable people believe that ID "uncouples" itself from creationism by strictly using only scientific arguments and avoiding religious sources. For example, intelligent design can be defined as the scientific study of the extent to which some living things appear to be designed rather than appearing to be a product of unintelligent causes, or can be defined as a scientific determination of the probability that living things could have arisen solely from natural genetic variation and natural selection.

IMO a good example of a ruling that satisfies "judicial objectivism" is the ruling in Romer v. Evans that particular groups of people cannot be barred from seeking the aid of the government, which Colorado's Proposition 2 did in effect (Proposition 2 prohibited all laws and regulations aimed at protecting homosexuals from discrimination). The majority opinion said,

Central both to the idea of the rule of law and to our own Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is the principle that government and each of its parts remain open on impartial terms to all who seek its assistance. . . . . . A law declaring that in general it shall be more difficult for one group of citizens than for all others to seek aid from the government is itself a denial of equal protection of the laws in the most literal sense.

There was a lot of moaning and groaning that the courts, by striking down a proposition approved by the voters, had overturned the "will of the people," but IMO there is no reasonable argument against the above reasoning. The only counterargument that dissenting justice Antonin Scalia could raise was the feeble argument that this reasoning appears (in his opinion) to be new:

The central thesis of the Court's reasoning is that any group is denied equal protection when, to obtain advantage (or, presumably, to avoid disadvantage), it must have recourse to a more general and hence more difficult level of political decisionmaking than others. The world has never heard of such a principle, which is why the Court's opinion is so long on emotive utterance and so short on relevant legal citation. It is ridiculous to consider this a denial of equal protection, which is why the Court's theory is unheard of.

Well, Antonin, there is a first time for everything, and the next time the principle is raised you certainly won't be able to argue that "[t]he world has never heard of such a principle."

I find other arguments of the majority to be unpersuasive -- for example, the majority said that Proposition 2 shows animus against homosexuals. But a lot of legitimate government laws and regulations arguably show animus -- for example, laws against gay marriage arguably show animus against homosexuals.
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Judge Jones' constitutional interpretation fails proposed "compelling reason" test

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:09:00 +0000

Judge "Jackass" Jones' "true religion" interpretation of the Constitution's establishment clause fails a new test that I am proposing, which I call the "compelling reason" test. I am defining this test as follows: when a constitutional interpretation cannot be derived explicitly or implicitly from the language of the Constitution, such an interpretation is valid only if it serves a truly compelling purpose. An example of such an interpretation is the prohibition on shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre -- such a prohibition is not explicit or implicit in the freedom of speech clause. I am using the word "interpretation" here very loosely, since the word usually means an explanation or clarification of the meanings of some words but here there are no words to interpret -- I am using the word "interpret" in the second sense given in the AOL's online dictionary: " 2. to conceive in the light of individual belief, judgment, or circumstance : construe." I also propose the following rules: (1) the "compelling reason" test should not be strictly applied to constitutional interpretations that are not used as the basis for a court decision, and (2) the test should apply only to general principles and not to how those principles apply to a specific situation (IMO there should be some allowance for differences of opinion as to how a "compelling reason" principle applies in a specific situation). I propose this "compelling reason" test for the purpose of helping to reduce arbitrariness, capriciousness, subjectivity, and general "activism" and "legislating from the bench" in judicial opinions. Judges are merely told that they should not be "activists" or should not "legislate from the bench," without being given a set of principles or guidelines that they should follow to avoid those things.

As I noted above, an example of a judicial principle that satisfies the "compelling reason" test is the famous prohibition on shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. This prohibition cannot be expressly derived from the freedom of speech clause of the 1st amendment but is obviously necessary for compelling reasons. Another example of a judicial principle that satisfies the "compelling reason" test is the so-called "dormant commerce clause." The Constitution grants Congress the power to impose burdens on interstate commerce but does not expressly prohibit the states from imposing such burdens without the permission of Congress, so the courts, realizing that allowing states an unrestricted right to burden interstate commerce would result in chaos, invented a "dormant commerce clause" which denies such an unrestricted right. Another judicial principle of the courts allows -- for truly compelling reasons -- exceptions to the dormant commerce clause.

Judge Jones' "true religion" interpretation of the establishment clause fails this proposed test -- the interpretation cannot be derived from the language of the establishment clause, and there was no compelling reason for the interpretation, even if it is supposed that maintaining the separation of church and state is truly compelling. Judge Jones showed extreme prejudice against intelligent design and the Dover defendants by saying in a Dickinson College commencement speech that his Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions [link]:

Ironically, but perhaps fittingly for my purposes today, we see the Founders' ideals quite clearly, among many places, in the Establishment Clause within the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This of course was the clause that I determined the school board had violated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. While legal scholars will continue to debate the appropriate application of that clause to particular facts in individual cases, this much is very clear. The Founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry. At bottom then, this core set of beliefs led the Founders, who constantly engaged and questioned things, to secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state.

Unfortunately, the original speech is no longer posted on the Dickinson College website.

Ironically, Judge Jones gave the speech while standing behind the Dickinson College seal, which was designed by USA Founders Benjamin Rush and John Dickinson and which contains a picture of an open bible and the college motto, in Latin, which translates, "religion and learning, the bulwark of liberty." Also, Judge Jones has claimed that the work of judges is "workmanlike," but there is nothing workmanlike about his "true religion" interpretation of the establishment clause.

Believe it or not, some trolls -- Kevin Vicklund and others -- claimed that I misinterpreted Judge Jones' above statement. But no statement could be clearer --"church" and "Bible" represent organized religions, and Judge Jones said that "true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible." Under the principles of Social Darwinism, these trolls would be euthanized to protect themselves and others from the possible consequences of their own stupidity, or at least would be sterilized to prevent them from transmitting their mental defectiveness to future generations.

Law professor Robert Tsai, in a post on the Volokh Conspiracy blog, comments about his book Eloquence and Reason:

Because the text of the First Amendment has never changed, those interested in constitutional transformation have always used text instrumentally to secure a hegemony of preferred values, outlooks, and modes of talking about the provision. Whether insiders admit it or not, the task of judging involves sorting through competing claims to determine which cultural and political perspectives ought to be validated and which ones should be resisted. Judges have always played a role in this social process, even if theirs is rarely the last word on a subject. There is no such thing as neutral interpretation; there is only how transparent an interpreter chooses to be about her methodologies and substantive commitments.

"Eloquence and Reason" examines historical episodes in which activists, lawyers, and presidents such as FDR and Ronald Reagan worked to dislodge reigning constitutional ideas and reshape our understandings of free speech and religious freedom . . . .

A second episode has to do with the Anti-Establishment Clause. The “wall of separation” metaphor appeared as part of an official post-war strategy to keep the peace. As originally conceived, Justice Black’s version of the boundary idea conveyed liberalism’s commitment to equal respect, to the protection and empowerment of religious minorities, and to guaranteeing a strong state uncorrupted or divided by religious strife.

Over time, these connotations were consciously reconfigured through litigation, activism, and the electoral process. Through a process of composition, reaction, adaptation, and dissolution, the wall of separation began to acquire negative connotations. Those outside of the courts began to say that the wall signified hostility or discrimination, oppression of religious minorities, and a state weakened by the alienation of its citizens. Eventually judges endorsed this way of describing the wall of separation, shunning it as a trope and divorcing it from their analyses of the controversies that arose.

The title of the book, "Eloquence and Reason," is a misnomer -- what the book criticizes is not reasonable or eloquent (of course, it would be hard to be both unreasonable and eloquent).
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"Climategate" puts big dent in credibility of "experts"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:28:00 +0000

I am delighted that the "Climategate" scandal has seriously impaired the credibility of so-called "experts." The New York Times has the story here. Laypeople have been pushed around by the "experts" for far too long. As Texas board of education member and former chairman Don McLeroy said, "someone needs to stand up to the experts." Actually, we need to have a lot of people stand up to the experts.

I was actually starting to believe the global-warming stories. For example, glaciers and polar ice have been shrinking drastically, so there does appear to be something going on.

If the Jewish people are an invention, maybe the holocaust is an invention, too

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:28:00 +0000

A review of a book titled "The Invention of the Jewish People" says,

Shlomo Sand clearly intended his book as an explosive device, a big bang demolishing the myths of Jewishness on which both communal identity and Israeli state policies rest.

His hostile critics react as if it were a deadly bomb, a kind of literary-political terrorist attack . . . . .

. . . . . Almost none of those assailants, naturally, has any discernible expertise in any of the fields Sand touches on. Barely less depressing is the extent to which responses are so utterly predictable according to the critic's political views, so evidently fixed in advance and unaltered by any actual reading.

Conventional ideas about Jewishness hold that Jews are a single ethnic group (or nationality) with substantial shared biological ancestry going back to the biblical kingdom of Judea, from which they were exiled in waves to scatter widely across the Mediterranean world, then far beyond. The core of Sand's historical case is that the whole story is a myth: a very elaborate fiction, supported by hordes of eminent scholars, which became foundational and essential for the state of Israel, but mostly a very recent fabrication without much evidence. Ironically, the idea of the Jews as quintessential people of exile and dispersal was in origin a specifically Christian and even anti-Semitic story: displacement as a punishment for denying Jesus. Yet it was enthusiastically adopted by pioneer 19th-century Jewish historians, partly under the influence of Germanic nationalism, and then by the founders of Zionism.
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Sand's counter-story is that very few of those now calling themselves Jews have any connection other than the religious to ancient Levantine Jewish kingdoms. The latter, if they existed at all, were anyway small, disunited and unimportant: the biblical story of a mighty kingdom of David is another groundless myth composed long after the event. Sand argues that the rapid growth of Jewish communities in the Roman Mediterranean world, and later in North Africa, Arabia and south-central Asia, came from mass conversion, not dispersal out of Palestine. Probably the most important wave of conversion was among the Khazars of Russia's Volga-Don steppe. European or Ashkenazi Jews – later the main basis both for America's or Britain's Jewish populations and for Israel's foundation – are mainly descended from them.

No doubt that phony jerk Abe Foxman of the ADL is among the book's biggest critics.

If the Jewish people are an invention, maybe the Jewish holocaust -- or, at least, a "systematic" Jewish holocaust -- is an invention, too. I have long contended that a "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews. Ashkenazi Jews have been found to have some genetic similarities, and the Tay-Sachs disease, for example, is a genetic disease that is more prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews (as well as French Canadians). But genetic testing was not available to the Nazis.
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The Darwinian death cult

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:19:00 +0000

The original picture is on a webpage of Harun Yahya. I was unable to copy the original picture because it contains an embedded video of a Hitler harangue.

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David Klinghoffer makes some good points in his article "Do Ideas Have Consequences Only When They're Associated with Radical Islam?," posted on Beliefnet and on Evolution News & Views. He says,

Why do so many writers who insist on emphasizing the consequences of radical Muslim belief tend to ignore the social consequences of other belief systems -- for example, Darwinism?

My question is prompted by reflections that are being published about the Fort Hood massacre. Darwinist blogger PZ Myers is among many voices to be raised in protest that shooter Nidal Hasan's Islamic beliefs are getting too little attention: "Unfortunately, there's [a] factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: [Hasan] was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult" (i.e., Islam).

Well, PZ, there is also a Darwinian death cult. Make no mistake -- Darwinism is a cult. The Darwinists claim that Darwinism is only science and so should not be blamed for any possible negative social or political consequences that it might have. But the Darwinists don't treat Darwinism as just a science -- they treat it as a worldview and a cult. There are Darwin Day celebrations, "I love Darwin" stickers and knick-knacks, Darwin sermons, Darwin parties, "Friend of Darwin" certificates, Darwin-Lincoln essay contests, even Darwin parodies of Christmas carols. There is the ridiculous, often-repeated notion that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" (as expressed in the new Florida state standards for science education). Darwinists are intolerant of those who disagree with them and censor criticisms of evolution. I should know about the censorship -- I have been banned from several Darwinist blogs, even though my comments on those blogs have been polite and serious. And you yourself, PZ, along with Eugenie Scott, Ken Miller, and other Darwinists fit the image of the "mad scientist." Judge "Jackass" Jones is a "mad judge."

Klinghoffer also says,

PZ Myers is among those who can be relied on to dismiss every attempt to point out the social consequences of Darwin's famous idea. So too biologist and blogger Jerry Coyne, who mocks what is actually a pretty interesting article in the London Sunday Times by Dennis Sewell on the theme . . . . The piece is worth reading, even though Sewell singles me out for criticism:

The connection between Darwin's ideas and the Holocaust remains hugely controversial, not least because many creationists try to reduce it to a crude blame game. The writer David Klinghoffer, an advocate of intelligent design, which many regard as creationism in disguise, claims: "The key elements in the ideology that produced Auschwitz are moral relativism aligned with a rejection of the sacredness of human life, a belief that violent competition in nature creates greater and lesser races, that the greater will inevitably exterminate the lesser, and finally that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the Jews. All but the last of these ideas may be found in Darwin's writing."

But the last of those ideas, "that the lesser race most in need of extermination is the Jews," is an extraordinary leap and requires some explanation. Under Social Darwinism, "lesser" normally means physically and/or mentally defective, but the Nazis never claimed that the Jews as a group were physically and/or mentally defective. In fact, the first Jews targeted by the Nazis were highly mentally fit Jews -- Jewish managers in civil service and Jewish professionals. So I concluded that Social Darwinism's contribution to Nazi anti-Semitism was promotion of the idea that it is morally OK to get rid of undesirables.

Also, David Klinghoffer is unfortunately a hypocrite -- he condemns others for being closed-minded but is closed-minded himself. When I met him at a screening of the film "Darwin's Dilemma," I invited him to visit my blog but warned him that my blog contains holocaust revisionism. I warned him not because I wanted to change his opinions about the holocaust but because I did not want him to hold my holocaust revisionism against me. He then became very hostile, saying that holocaust revisionism is evil and that I had discredited myself and he refused to have any further discussions with me. My basic views about the holocaust are the following: (1) a "systematic" Jewish holocaust was impossible because the Nazis had no objective and reliable ways of identifying Jews and non-Jews, and (2) as stated above, Nazi anti-Semitism was not -- strictly speaking -- a Social Darwinist idea, because the Nazis targeted fit Jews as well as unfit Jews. There is nothing anti-'Semitic about those ideas.
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Darwinists still celebrating Pyrrhic Dover victory

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:13:00 +0000

You won in Dover, Darwinists, but it was just a Pyrrhic victory, so it is high time that you got over it. It has been four years since the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, and the plaintiffs' team is still holding an annual reunion [link] [link] [link]. They were even entertained by a Darwinian rap song. "Friend of Darwin" certificates were handed out at a previous reunion [link] [link]. This latest reunion was attended not just by local people -- some people traveled great distances to attend. The Kitzmiller decision is hardly worth celebrating. It is only a judicially unreviewed decision by a single judge and has almost no precedential value -- it is binding only on the Dover Area school district. Furthermore, the badly flawed opinion has been widely panned, even by critics who are pro-Darwinist and anti-ID, e.g., legal scholar Jay Wexler, who thinks that Judge Jones should not have ruled on the scientific merits of ID (for other experts' opinions, see articles in this blog's post-label group Expert opinions about Kitzmiller -- post labels are listed in the sidebar of the homepage). Judge "Jackass" Jones is the poster child of crackpot activist judges. He showed extreme prejudice against ID and the Dover defendants by saying that the decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the Constitution's establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions. He has whined that the critics of the decision have no respect for "judicial independence" and "the rule of law." I think that the decision actually backfired on the Darwinists by alarming and galvanizing people who now think that the courts have gone too far in the application of the establishment clause to the evolution controversy.

Jerry Coyne's demagoguery

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:39:00 +0000

In an article with the sensational title, "Axis of evil: Discovery Institute + Harun Yahya," Jerry Coyne said,

According to yesterday’s (Nov. 8) Washington Post, there seem to be some ties forming between the Turkish creationists, headed by Harun Yahya (aka Adnan Oktar), and the Disco ‘Tute. This is truly an unholy alliance . . . .

Coyne's evidence of an "unholy alliance"? The Washington Post article said,

The Discovery Institute of Seattle, which researches and promotes intelligent design as an alternative to creationism and evolution, . . . . sent speakers to Turkey after being invited by the Istanbul municipal government in 2007. President Bruce Chapman said the institute helped bring Turkish evolution critic Mustafa Akyol to a 2005 Kansas school board hearing on teaching critiques of evolution.

However, Harun Yahya (Adrian Oktar) has denounced ID and the Discovery Institute:
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In order to alienate people from true religions, Masons have devised many false religions of complex description assembling them all under the heading New Age.

Their purpose in this is to inculcate in that large segment of people who are abandoning materialist ideas, a new way of living and thinking. They want to establish a new system ornamented with metaphysical language and totally divergent from the true religion and faith in Allah (God) as revealed in the Qur’an. It is an irresponsible system with nothing to offer . . . .

. . . In order to alienate people in Islamic countries from true religion, Masons are intent on offering the idea of intelligent design as the most appropriate alternative in these countries . . . . .

. . . . . the Discovery Institute . . . represents this movement . . .

Salman Hameed, an expert on Islamic views on evolution, said in a comment under Coyne's article,

Actually, Disco institute tried to work with one of Yahya’s former disciples, Akyol. However Akyol now seems to have backed away from ID (he is now a fine-tuner). Yahya on the other hand hates ID – partly because of his early messy split with Akyol. He even links ID proponents with the free masons (hey – why not?).

This was not the first attempt to try to paint the Discovery Institute as being in league with Islamic extremists -- the Little Green Footballs blog also made such an attempt [link].
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Things that drive people "bats"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

In a Panda's Thumb article titled "One of the (many) things that drive me bats," Richard Hoppe says,

From Nova’s Becoming Human, Part 1 at -9:00 (Nova uses a countdown timer). Discussing the hypothesis that short-term (hundreds to thousands of years) extreme climate variability drove human evolution, and particularly increases in brain size, in the ramp-up from 400 cc or so to Homo habilis’s 600 or 700 cc, and maybe on to larger brained successors, the film says:

Narrator: “This observation led [Rick Potts] to an amazing new idea: Rapid [climate] change as a catalyst for our evolution.”

Rick Potts: “And I began to think that well maybe it’s not the particular environment of a savanna that was important, but the tendency of the environment to change.”

[Here it is]

Narrator: “Could it be that the need to survive violent swings of climate made our ancestors more adaptable?”

Right. And it was the need of giraffes to reach higher branches with yummier leaves that made them grow longer f***ing necks. Gaaaaah!!! Lamarck is dead! And so is Bergson.

That locution, that phraseology, that notion that a “need” somehow drives evolution, drives me bats. “Needs” don’t make populations evolve anything. Now, properties of an environment may select for traits in a population if appropriate variants occur, and as a result of that selective process the population may be more adapted to that selective environment.

Actually, the term "more adaptable" is ambiguous here. It of course does not mean a greater ability to make genetic changes that adapt to "violent swings of climate," but can mean the ability to make physical changes that adapt to "violent swings of climate" -- for example, perspiration is an adaptation to hot weather, so the ability to perspire has made humans more adaptable to hot weather. But many human adaptations to severe weather are technological and cultural rather than physical and purely genetic: e.g., wearing clothing and using blankets, making fires, living in caves and thick-walled buildings, and air-conditioning (some of the technological adaptations do reflect the possibility of evolution of high intelligence). The narrator might have just been some dumb Darwinist cafeteria Christian who was a little overenthusiastic about evolution, as a result of having been brainwashed by such ideas as "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" (in the new Florida state standards for science education). BTW, some Darwinists have no qualms about saying things that drive critics of Darwinism -- and even pro-Darwinist and neutral people -- "bats," e.g., the statement that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" (or equivalent statements, e.g., evolution is "central" to biology or is the "foundation" of biology) and using the term "intelligent design creationism." Even people who accept evolution can be offended or annoyed by such statements. One doesn't have to be a fundy to be offended by such statements. One of the most irritating things about those statements is the Darwinists' smug belief that they are sitting so pretty that they don't have to worry about being discredited by such statements. If I were a Darwinist, I certainly would be pissed off by Darwinists' statements that tend to discredit Darwinism.
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Darwinists in denial about Darwinism's negative social and political influences

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Jerry Coyne says on his "Why Evolution is True" blog,

Whoever Dennis Sewell is, he has, as the Brits say, “gone badly wrong.” Check out what seems to be a precis of his book, The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics, in the online Times of London. The paper has published an article that, in essence, holds Darwin responsible for not only the Columbine massacres and the Nazi Holocaust, but also the decline of morality in today’s world . . . .

. . . . Shame on the Times for publishing tripe like this. I’d expect to see this flatulence in a creationist pamphlet, but not in a reputable newspaper.

"Shame on the Times for publishing tripe like this"? I agree that the Times article exaggerates in some places, but a lot of material in the article is factual and not just opinion. Darwinists are in a state of denial about the negative social and political influences of evolution theory. For example, evolution theory helped inspire American eugenics programs which helped inspire the Nazis. Some evidence: In 1920, the Eugenics Record Office merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution to form the Carnegie Institution's Dept. of Genetics.
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Some students are not just taught evolution -- they are brainwashed into thinking that evolution is the greatest thing since sliced bread (or, since evolution theory predated sliced bread by many years, maybe I should have said that sliced bread is treated like the greatest thing since evolution). For example, the new Florida state standards for science education have the absurd statement that evolution "is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology." Does teachers' excessive enthusiasm for evolution encourage students to act out natural selection?

Nazi anti-Semitism was not Social Darwinism per se, because the Nazis targeted fit Jews as well as unfit Jews. IMO Social Darwinism's main contribution to Nazi anti-Semitism was promotion of the idea that it is morally OK to get rid of undesirables. To my knowledge, the Nazis never claimed that Jews were genetically inferior.
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Long-overdue symposium on "Intelligent Design and the Constitution"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:27:00 +0000

Casey Luskin posted on Evolution News & Views,

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 10th, University of St. Thomas School of Law is hosting a legal symposium titled “Intelligent Design and the Constitution.” Participants include Peter M. J. Hess (NCSE), David DeWolf [not listed on website] (Professor of Law, Gonzaga University; senior fellow, Discovery Institute), Josh Rosenau [not listed on website] (NCSE), Thomas D. Sullivan (Aquinas Chair in Philosophy and Theology, University of St. Thomas), Patrick Gillen (Lead Defense Counsel, Kitzmiller v. Dover), Russell Pannier (Emeritus Professor of Law, William Mitchel College of the Law), and myself. The title of my talk will be “The Constitutionality and Pedagogical Benefits of Teaching Evolution Scientifically.” According to the website:

The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding evolutionism and intelligent design, particularly as they affect U.S. public schools.
For details, visit here.

IMO this symposium is long overdue -- a lot of issues need more airing. There has been too much misrepresentation of the issues -- such misrepresentation is epitomized by the Darwinist epithet "intelligent design creationism."
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I am as opposed as anyone to the outright teaching of religion-based creationism in public school science classes. However, to me it does not matter whether or not intelligent design or other scientific (or pseudoscientific) criticisms of evolution theory are "good" science, because there are good secular reasons for teaching criticisms of evolution that are bad science. Some such reasons are: (1) encouraging critical thinking, (2) broadening students' education, (3) preventing and correcting misconceptions, (4) increasing student interest, and (5) helping to assure that criticisms of evolution are taught by qualified science teachers (the Darwinists complain that these criticisms "mislead" students but want these criticisms to be taught only by unqualified teachers!). There is no constitutional principle of separation of bad science and state. The Constitution's establishment clause is being misused to suppress scientific criticisms of evolution theory.

I look forward to the results of the symposium.
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Allahu akbar! Darwin-doubting widespread among Moslems

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:12:00 +0000

In order to alienate people from true religions, Masons have devised many false religions of complex description assembling them all under the heading New Age.

Their purpose in this is to inculcate in that large segment of people who are abandoning materialist ideas, a new way of living and thinking. They want to establish a new system ornamented with metaphysical language and totally divergent from the true religion and faith in Allah (God) as revealed in the Qur’an. It is an irresponsible system with nothing to offer . . . .

In order to alienate people in Islamic countries from true religion, Masons are intent on offering the idea of intelligent design as the most appropriate alternative in these countries.

-- Adrian Oktar (pen name Harun Yahya), prominent Islamic creationist [link]

. . . ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

-- from Kitzmiller v. Dover opinion by Judge John E. "Jackass" Jones III

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There are some new articles about the evolution controversy among Moslems, both Moslems in predominantly Moslem countries and Moslems in predominantly non-Moslem countries. [link] [link] [link] All indications are that Darwin-doubting is strong among Moslems, which I find to be very encouraging after being pushed around so much by Darwinists (e.g., getting arbitrarily kicked off of many Darwinist blogs and having this blog sabotaged by lousy Darwinist trolls).

There are some nice things about Islamic Darwin-doubting. For one thing, many of these Moslems are in foreign countries where they are beyond the reach of jerks like Judge "Jackass" Jones and Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education. Also, Islam has hundreds of millions of adherents, blowing a big hole in Darwinist claims that the overwhelming majority of religious people see no conflict between evolution and religion.

The Boston Globe said,
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Americans familiar with the long and bitter battle over the teaching of evolution in our schools likely have a set of images of what creationism looks like: from the Scopes trial, and its dramatization in “Inherit the Wind,” to more recent battles over textbooks on school boards in Kansas and Georgia and in federal court in Pennsylvania. . . . .

. . . . But there is another creationist movement whose influence is growing, and which is fueling challenges to science in countries where Christianity has little sway: Islamic creationism. Campaigners in countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, and Indonesia have fought the teaching of evolution in schools there, sometimes with great success. Creationist conferences have been held in Pakistan, and moderate Islamic clerics are on record publicly condemning Darwin’s ideas. A recent study of Muslim university students in the Netherlands showed that most rejected evolution. And driven in part by a mysterious Turkish publishing organization, Islamic creationism books are hot sellers at bookstores throughout the Muslim world . . .

“[T]he next major battle over evolution is likely to take place in the Muslim world,” Salman Hameed, a Pakistani-born astronomer at Hampshire College who has dedicated himself to researching Islamic creationism, wrote in an article in Science last December . . . .

. . . While Islamic creationists borrow from the literature of their Christian counterparts, their concerns are not always the same. Without a Book of Genesis to account for, for example, Muslim creationists have little interest in proving that the age of the Earth is measured in the thousands rather than the billions of years, nor do they show much interest in the problem of the dinosaurs . . . .

However, there are also many non-Moslem critics of evolution who are not young-earth creationists.

The irony here is that Darwinists in the USA have been trying to associate all criticism of evolution -- particularly intelligent design -- with young-earth creationism in order to argue that these criticisms are solely religious in nature.

The Boston Globe continued,

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of religious studies at George Washington University, has written that evolution “survived to this day not as a theory but as a dogma{hellip}a convenient philosophical and rationalistic scheme to enable man to create the illusion of a purely closed universe around himself.”

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The New York Times said,

Dr. Hameed said a negative reaction to evolutionary theory could reflect a struggle to retain cultural traditions and values against Western influences, even though Islamic creationists readily borrowed many of the arguments from Western creationists, just removing the young-Earth aspects.

Where's the mystery? The Islamic creationists are borrowing what they want to borrow -- duh.

There is now a big new post-label group, "Islam and evolution" (listed in the homepage's sidebar).
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Eugenie Scott the Darwinist crackpot

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education (familiarly called "Genie" by name-droppers like Fatheaded Ed Brayton), wrote in the US News and World Report,

Anyone who honestly examines the data supporting evolution — even a young-earth creationist — concludes that the science is strong. If you reject evolution, you are doing it for religious reasons. You're entitled to your religious opinions — but not to your own scientific facts.

I find it hard to believe that even she would say something like that: "If you reject evolution, you are doing it for religious reasons."

There is little or no dispute over "scientific facts" -- most of the dispute is over interpretation of scientific facts.

It is sad that Eugenie Scott is probably the most honored Darwinist activist, receiving honorary degrees and other awards. Darwinist activists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers generally don't get awards but IMO are far more honest.
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The NCSE has a paid "faith project director" but is actually a very poor, one-sided source of information about the conflict between evolution and religion. For example, the NCSE website does not tell the following facts: (1) That the major Christian sects Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and to a lesser extent the Mormon Church have taken official positions against evolution theory; (2) a Pew Forum survey showed that only 8% of Jehovah's witnesses "agree that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth"; (3) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called evolution theory "pseudoscience" [link] [link]; and (4) Cardinal Christophe Schönborn, former chief editor of the Catholic catechism, favors intelligent design. The NCSE website's one-sidedness on the evolution v. religion controversy was even part of the cause of action of an establishment clause lawsuit, Caldwell v. Caldwell (in the homepage sidebar's list of post-label links).
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Stupidity of the term "intelligent design creationism"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Nick Matzke wrote on Panda's Thumb,

Just last week over at the Thinking Christian blog there was a huge stink raised over the alleged inappropriateness of linking ID to creationism. After much argument the anti-linkage people more or less conceded that there were some good reasons to link ID to a somewhat generic definition of creationism (relying on special creation), but still protested loudly about how inappropriate it was to make the linkage, because most people (allegedly) would assume that creationism = young-earth creationism, and linking ID to young-earth creationism was oh-so-wildly unfair.

No, the "huge stink" was not "over the alleged inappropriateness of linking ID to creationism" -- the huge stink was over the term "ID creationism," which represents the notion that ID and creationism are so intimately linked that ID cannot or should not be mentioned without also mentioning creationism in the same breath. Tom Gilson wrote on his Thinking Christian blog,
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Several times in the last few days the term “Intelligent Design Creationism” has crossed my line of sight. It’s a misnomer, a duct-taped concatenation of concepts that overlap somewhat, but not enough to merit being stuck together the way ID opponents have done. Robert Pennock is perhaps the worst, but Barbara Forrest, Richard Dawkins, and P.Z. Myers are also frequent offenders.

Gilson did not say that ID and creationism are not linked -- he said that they are "concepts that overlap somewhat, but not enough to merit being stuck together the way ID opponents have done." Evolution has been linked to atheism, sometimes by evolutionists themselves (Richard Dawkins said that evolution theory made it possible to be an "intellectually fulfilled atheist"), but people do not regularly use the term "evolution atheism" or something similar. The term "intelligent design creationism" is just plain asinine.

I don't know if Judge "Jackass" Jones actually uses the term "ID creationism," but he should be added to the list of offenders because he ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover that "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."
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Incredibly stupid inference

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:40:00 +0000

Richard Hoppe wrote on the Panda's Thumb,

In spite of the Disco ‘Tute’s [Discovery Institute's] recent efforts to imply that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films, the stodgy old place persists in being a place where evolution education is important. Most recently it has announced (pdf of press release) the upcoming opening of a new exhibition hall devoted to human origins.

And what exactly are these "recent efforts" to "imply that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films"? In another article, Hoppe describes these efforts as a mere statement describing the original contracted screener of the film, the California Science Center, as a "west coast affiliate" of the Smithsonian Institution! And Hoppe said, "In its glee about the showing, the ‘Tuters issued a press release that strongly implied that the Science Center and Smithsonian are somehow involved in the film’s premiere"! Actually, the "'Tuters" accused the Smithsonian of putting pressure on the Science Center to cancel the premiere and accused the Science Center of caving in to the pressure, and how did those accusations imply "that the Science Center and Smithsonian are somehow involved in the film’s premiere" and "that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films"?

BTW, the premiere has been moved to the University of Southern California, which is right in my neighborhood, so I am planning on attending (the California Science Center is also in my neighborhood). Following the screening will be a panel discussion that will include well-known ID proponents David Berlnski and Jonathan Wells (Berlinski is not listed in the DI's announcement but is scheduled to participate).

Why Darwinist cafeteria Christians are "implacable foes" of ID

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:14:00 +0000

William Dembski wrote,

Howard Van Till’s review of my book No Free Lunch exemplifies perfectly why theistic evolution remains intelligent design’s most implacable foe. Not only does theistic evolution sign off on the naturalism that pervades so much of contemporary science, but it justifies that naturalism theologically -- as though it were unworthy of God to create by any means other than an evolutionary process that carefully conceals God’s tracks.

Here are some reasons why Darwinist cafeteria Christians -- people who take the gospel literally but do not take the bible's creation story literally -- are "implacable foes" of ID:

(1) They are bending over backwards to try to appease the atheistic Darwinist establishment.

(2) They try to justify their inconsistency -- i.e., the inconsistency of accepting the gospel while rejecting the creation story -- by claiming that they are obliged to reject the creation story because the scientific evidence for evolution is airtight. With this position, they cannot afford to admit that evolution has any scientific weaknesses at all.

Darwinists still belittling "Expelled"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:51:00 +0000

The Framing Science blog gleefully reported that Michael Moore's new film Capitalism: A Love Story has moved past Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed to become the 5th highest grossing political documentary. It is not fair to compare Michael Moore and Ben Stein. Michael Moore is by far the world's most successful producer of documentary films and his name has far more box office recognition than Ben Stein's. Ben Stein's "Expelled" either is -- or is very close to being -- the most successful documentary produced by someone other than Michael Moore. "Expelled" did quite well, everything considered.

Debate over term "intelligent design creationism"

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:10:00 +0000

The oxymoronic term "intelligent design creationism" is one of my pet peeves. I don't know who coined the term, but it took a pretty sick mind to do it. The term is now being debated on the "Thinking Christian" blog -- here is my first comment in that debate (I have since added other comments):

Creationism is not inherent in ID -- creationism is just a philosophical implication of ID. In actual practice, ID is just the study of the probability that the complexity and diversity of living things could have arisen by random genetic variation and natural selection only.

I never liked the term "intelligent design" because it implies the existence of an intelligent designer, and such implication is not necessary in the study of ID. But as Juliet said in Romeo and Juliet, "what's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Nick Matzke's first comment is telling: "Two words: cdesign proponentsists." There is a hell of a lot more to this debate than just that typographical error. Nick's arguments are based on stereotyping and guilt-by-association.

Ironically, many religious creationists reject intelligent design. One of the reasons why they reject ID is that they feel that god's word does not need scientific evidence to support it. Some creationists feel that it is blasphemous to even imply or suggest that god's word needs scientific evidence to support it. [link]

One of the main reasons why Darwinists insist that ID is creationism is to have a basis for using the Constitution's establishment clause to attack ID.

Also, many people make the mistake of assuming that ID is the only scientific (or pseudoscientific) criticism of evolution theory. For example, coevolution can be a big problem for evolution even if irreducible complexity is not. [link]

Here is another one of my comments in that thread:
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One of the problems is that many people interpret the term "intelligent design" literally -- they start asking, "who is the intelligent designer?" "What does the intelligent designer look like?" etc. But there are many figurative or idiomatic terms and expressions that do not really mean what they appear to literally mean. "Intelligent design" could be defined as the study of whether living things have the appearance of being intelligently designed, i.e., whether it appears that it is unlikely that they could have arisen from unintelligent causes such as random genetic variation and natural selection. Describing the identity and/or characteristics of an imaginary "intelligent designer" is beyond the scope of ID, just as describing the origin of life is beyond the scope of evolution theory, but critics of evolution theory do not keep insisting that evolutionists describe the origin of life. As for whether or not ID is "good" science, there is no constitutional principle of separation of bad science and state.

And here is part of another comment:

Wheels said (#87),
Ken Miller, Catholic and biologist, is a well-known opponent of ID because he recognizes that there isn’t any science involved, that it’s just bad and recycled arguments from earlier anti-evolution efforts, and that it’s not compatible with his own faith regarding Creation and understanding of the world.

Regarding the statement, “it’s not compatible with his own faith regarding Creation and understanding of the world,” William Jennings Bryan had a good answer for that:

If those who teach Darwinism and evolution, as applied to man, insist that they are neither agnostics nor atheists, but are merely interpreting the Bible differently from orthodox Christians, what right have they to ask that their interpretation be taught at public expense?

As for the term “intelligent design creationism”: it is clear that the intent of the users of this term is to obfuscate. They are playing with words, trying to take advantage of the ambiguity of the term “creationism.” Nothing that they say will change that fact.

Even if intelligent design is a part of creationism, what purpose is served by adding the qualifier “creationism” to the term “ID”? If ID is unique to creationism, then wouldn’t just “ID” alone be a sufficient description? Adding that qualifier implies that ID is part of other things as well — how about “intelligent design science”?

Yeah, I should have said, "what other kinds of ID are there"? LOL

There is also a debate on Panda's Thumb.
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"Creationist" Floridian seeks US Senate seat

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:11:00 +0000

The popular Little Green Footballs blog and Fatheaded Ed Brayton have called former Florida House Speaker Mario Rubio, who is challenging Florida Governor Charlie Christie in the primary election for the Republican nominee for a Florida seat in the US Senate, a "creationist." [link] [link] A news article last year reported Rubio's reaction to the new Florida state standards for science education:

TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – An evolution compromise approved on Feb. 19 [2008] by the State Board of Education was the best that could be achieved in that body but legislative action to protect academic freedom of teachers offering criticisms of Darwinian evolution is possible, House Speaker Marco Rubio told Florida Baptist Witness in a Feb. 20 interview.

Rubio said the Board of Education’s addition of “scientific theory of” before each reference to “evolution” in new science standards for Florida’s public schools was “the best fix available” with “the way those votes were lining up.”

Although he and other House leaders supported the theory compromise in a Feb. 19 letter to members of the Board of Education, Rubio said critics who believe explicit language protecting academic freedom is necessary “may be right.”

At the Feb. 19 BOE meeting, opponents of the science standards uniformly opposed the theory compromise, arguing instead for an “Academic Freedom Proposal” which would have added a clause to the standards permitting teachers “to engage students in a critical analysis” of Darwinian evolution.

John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, in a Feb. 17 letter urged the BOE to oppose the theory compromise in light of the standards’ “silence about teaching scientific criticisms of evolution.”

Sullivan said both strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution should be taught and said the standards should “honor and encourage the academic freedom of teachers and students on an issue of fundamental importance and ongoing scientific controversy.”

Asked if the legislature would be open to academic freedom legislation, Rubio told the Witness, “I think so. Sure. Well, I think the Florida House would. I can’t speak for the Senate.”

Although a vote count had not been taken on the issue, “we may have sufficient votes on that in the Florida House,” he added.

Rubio said there also could be activity in the legislature by evolution proponents who wish to remove the theory compromise language.

“I think there’s still going to be folks out there talking about this – on both sides. … I think this will be a battle that will go on for quite some time,” he said.

The “crux” of the disagreement, according Rubio, is “whether what a parent teaches their children at home should be mocked and derided and undone at the public school level. It goes to the fundamental core of who is ultimately, primarily responsible for the upbringing of children. Is it your public education system or is it your parents?”

Rubio added, “And for me, personally, I don’t want a school system that teaches kids that what they’re learning at home is wrong.”

I disagree with Rubio's statement that he doesn't "want a school system that teaches kids that what they’re learning at home is wrong." Depending on the circumstances, I think it is OK for public schools to do this.

It is not clear whether Rubio is really a "creationist" -- he might just merely be in favor of "academic freedom" to teach scientific criticisms of evolution in public schools. I think that evolution should be taught in the public schools but I also feel that scientific -- or pseudoscientific (I added that for the benefit of the Darwinists who keep moaning that there are no scientific criticisms of evolution) -- criticisms of evolution should also be taught in the public schools. And the following recent additions to the Florida state science standards really need to be removed:

(1) -- the statement that evolution is "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology." That statement simply is not true. In fact, in a recent national survey of science teachers, 13% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an "excellent" biology course could exist that does not mention Darwin or evolution at all, and even I don't agree with that statement.

(2) -- defining scientific theories as "well-supported" and "widely accepted." That's ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. No standard dictionary that I have seen defines scientific theories in that way. Darwinists are creating confusion by coming up with new definitions of "scientific theory" just to suit the Darwinist agenda.

IMO the above two statements in the new Florida standards definitely "mock" and "deride" what some parents tell their kids about evolution and creationism. The Darwinists seem to have the badly mistaken idea that a ruling by a crackpot activist judge in Pennsylvania gave them carte blanche to nationally tyrannize our public schools by means of dogmatic teaching of evolution.

I am particularly sensitive about the evolution controversy in Florida because the so-called Florida Citizens for Science blog has banned my arguments about coevolution. [link] [link]

I have no idea where Rubio's opponent in the primary, Gov. Charlie Crist, stands on evolution education. I hope that evolution education will be an issue in Florida's primary and main elections for the US Senate.
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Richard Dawkins the accommodationist

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:37:00 +0000

There is now a big dispute going on over whether Richard Dawkins is really an "accommodationist." Dawkins said in a Newsweek magazine interview that he mainly targets creationists and not theistic evolutionists -- he said, "I think there is a certain justified irritation with young-earth creationists who believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Those are the people that I'm really talking about." That statement is accommodationist towards theistic evolutionists. He also called Darwinist cafeteria Christian Francis Collins an "intelligent evolutionary scientist." That is also accommodationist towards theistic evolutionists. So how is Dawkins not an accommodationist?
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Josh Rosenau says, "It will be interesting to see whether the usual suspects go after Dawkins with quite the same vehemence that has met others advancing similar lines of argument." One of those "suspects," of course, is Sleazy PZ Myers, who said that he "metaphorically puke[s] on the shoes" of those who make the "goofy" argument that "if you don't be nice to god belief, the churchy scientists will take their ball home." So far, PZ has not made one peep of criticism of Dawkins' accommodationist statements.

Please don't get me wrong -- I have no sympathy for the accommodationists or their useful-idiot mascots, the theistic evolutionists. As I have said many times, the Darwinist cafeteria Christians have it reversed -- the bible's creation story actually makes more sense than the gospel. Both the creation story and the gospel require belief in the supernatural, but the creation story is fairly straightforward whereas the gospel is full of illogic, inconsistencies, ambiguities, and unintelligibility. Also, the creation story is consistent with the idea of an all-powerful god whereas the god of the gospel is a weak, limited god who must struggle against Satan for control of the world.
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The breathtaking inanity of Eugenie Scott

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:33:00 +0000

When Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, was asked, "are science and religion compatible?", she answered,

I don't have to address that as a philosophical question, I can address that as an empirical question. It's obvious that it is. Because there are many people who are scientists who are also people of faith. There are many theologians whose life it is, whose job it is to think about religious issues, who are enthusiastic accepters and supporters of science and who are excited by the things scientists discover. So it's empirically obvious that there's no necessary conflict between science and religion.

So she said that "it's obvious" that science (here mainly meaning "evolution") and religion are compatible because some scientists and theologians say or think that the two are compatible. What an idiot.

The National Center for Science Education presents a completely one-sided view of the evolution vs. religion controversy. The NCSE ignores or denies the existence of (1) Darwin-doubting that is based on science instead of religion and (2) people and religious organizations that believe that evolution and religion are not compatible. The NCSE is so one-sided on this issue of evolution and religion that the Univ. of Calif. Berkeley was sued -- in Caldwell v. Caldwell -- for allegedly violating the Constitution's establishment clause by posting an evolution-education website that linked to the NCSE website (the case was dismissed on the phony grounds that the plaintiff -- a parent of a student in the public schools -- lacked standing to sue).

Anti-Defamation League's Darwin problem

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:55:00 +0000

An article titled "Richard Dawkins's Jewish Problem," posted by David Klinghoffer on Evolution News & Views and his Kingdom of Priests blog on Beliefnet, says,

The Anti-Defamation League, the country's leading group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, is rightly sensitive to the offense of trivializing the Holocaust. Why, then, has the ADL said nothing in protest against the Darwinian biologist and bestselling atheist author Richard Dawkins and his comparison of Darwin doubters to Holocaust deniers?

The ADL has objected to attempts to inject Nazi imagery into the health-care reform debate ("Such statements only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime's crimes against humanity"), the abortion debate ("Such analogies can only trivialize and diminish the horror"), the animal-rights debate ("the issue should stand on its own merits, rather than rely on inappropriate comparisons that only serve to trivialize the suffering of the six million Jews"), and in many other contexts.
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But if Rush Limbaugh, for example, used "outrageous, deeply offensive and inappropriate" Nazi comparisons to stigmatize sponsors and supporters of health-care reform, why is it no less outrageous to compare people (like the late Irving Kristol, for example) who doubt Darwinian evolution to the moral cretins who deny the Holocaust? In his new book, currently the #22 best seller on Amazon, The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins calls Darwin critics "history-deniers" and dwells on the comparison, even remarking that "The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust."

David Klinghoffer is completely clueless here. What we have here has nothing to do with "trivializing" the holocaust, David. To the ADL, "trivializing" the holocaust means cynically exploiting the holocaust to further a political agenda, and by that standard, the hypocritical ADL "trivializes" the holocaust as much as anyone. The "trivialization" issue is just a pretext cooked up by the ADL. What the ADL does in regard to Darwinism is try to show it in the most favorable light. The ADL is rabidly pro-Darwinist for the following reasons: (1) Darwinism is opposed by Christian and Moslem fundies, who are despised by the ADL, and (2) the ADL fears that teaching criticisms of Darwinism in the public schools threatens the principle of church-state separation. The ADL went so far as to call the Kitzmiller decision a "victory for students." ADL national director Abraham Foxman angrily denounced the Darwin-to-Hitler message of the Coral Ridge Ministry's TV documentary "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" and an accompanying book, saying, "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people." However, when Ben Stein's movie "Expelled" also carried a Darwin-to-Hitler message, the ADL was faced with a problem: Ben Stein is Jewish and the movie includes two prominent Jewish supporters -- David Berlinski, an agnostic Jew, and Gerald Schroeder, who even wears a yarmulke in the movie. The ADL initially "solved" the problem by pulling the article denouncing the Coral Ridge Ministry but finally bit the bullet by reinstating that article and adding an article denouncing "Expelled."

Of course, I am very disturbed that Klinghoffer refers to holocaust deniers as "moral cretins," but that is another issue.
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Judge "Jackass" Jones should be disqualified

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Fafarman) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Judge John E. "Jackass" Jones III should be retroactively disqualified from deciding the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. The Kitzmiller decision has little precedential value to begin with, but the whole decision should just be declared to be null and void. It was bad enough when Judge Jones said in a Dickinson College commencement speech that the decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions. But now Judge Jones is scheduled to participate in a five-person panel discussion titled, "Overcoming Resistance to the Reality of Evolutionary Change in Nature." What is worse, Jones is scheduled to receive the 2009 President's Medal from one of the two sponsors of the panel discussion, the Geological Society of America (the other sponsor is the Paleontological Society). What stronger indications of bias are possible? Also, Judge Jones has many times broken his pledge to not speak about the Kitzmiller case directly.

The title of the panel discussion, "Overcoming Resistance to the Reality of Evolutionary Change in Nature," is of course very condescending. And the announcement for the discussion again shows that the Darwinists overestimate the importance of religion and underestimate the importance of the scientific evidence as factors that cause many people to question evolution theory:
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. . . . less than 40% of Americans are convinced of the reality of biological evolution. In one study, 31% of respondents said that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

These studies show that a majority of Americans accept or deny evidence of evolution, geologic processes and the age of the Earth to the extent that they can be reconciled with their religious or other core beliefs. All too often many people, including scientists, accept what they want to believe about the world.

Jerry Coyne is right -- in twenty-five years, the Darwinist cafeteria Christians and their accommodationists have not made a dent in the size of the Darwin-doubting percentage of the public.

A few definitions:

Darwinist Cafeteria Christians: These Darwinists believe that evolution and religion are compatible. These Darwinists take the gospel literally but expressly reject the bible's more credible creation story (the creation story is fairly straightforward whereas the gospel is full of illogic, inconsistencies, ambiguities, and unintelligibility). Examples are Ken Miller and Francis Collins.

accommodationists: Darwinists who are not Cafeteria Christians but who have a policy of coddling them. Examples are the National Center for Science Education, NCSE director Eugenie Scott, and Chris Mooney.

new atheists: These atheists refuse to accommodate Darwinist Cafeteria Christians. Examples are PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins

Thoughts for the day:

If those who teach Darwinism and evolution, as applied to man, insist that they are neither agnostics nor atheists, but are merely interpreting the Bible differently from orthodox Christians, what right have they to ask that their interpretation be taught at public expense?

-- William Jennings Bryan link

Unfortunately, some theologians with a deistic bent seem to think that they speak for all the faithful. . . . . The reason that many liberal theologians see religion and evolution as harmonious is that they espouse a theology not only alien but unrecognizable as religion to most Americans.

-- Jerry Coyne in the New Republic magazine link
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