Nick Matzke is a dodo

Nick Matzke is a former Public Information Project Director of the National Center for Science Education and was an advisor to the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. In a recent post on Panda's Thumb, he wrote,

To a first approximation, if evangelicals become OK with evolution, then the evolution fight will be over and the evolutionists will have won, in the Western world, at least.

Sheeeesh

READ MORE

What? Birds are "living dinosaurs"?

In his new book Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature", Brian Switek wrote, "If you want to see living dinosaurs, you don't have to trek to a steaming jungle or isolated plateau. All you have to do is put up a bird feeder and look out the window." Now I have heard everything. Sick, sick, sick.

Not surprisingly, this stupid book has been endorsed by the National Center for Science Education.

READ MORE

Predictably, NCSE's Eugenie Scott is still peddling the "all anti-evolutionism is based on religion" nonsense

In a previous interview, Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, said, "antievolutionism is uniformly the product of religious opposition," and of course she continues to repeat this nonsense.

A Los Angeles Times article said,

In his Academy Award-nominated 1960 drama, "Inherit the Wind," director Stanley Kramer offered a fictionalized depiction of the famed Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, in which Tennessee high school instructor John Scopes was tried for violating the state's Butler Act, a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

Fifty years after its initial release, with activists on the political right and left still bitterly divided over social issues, the film remains sharply relevant, something the Malibu Film Society hopes to underscore with a special anniversary screening and panel discussion Sunday . . . .

. . . . "I always tell people, 'Don't look at it as a movie reporting on the Scopes trial,'" she [Eugenie Scott] said. "It does capture a very important mood that reflects the anti-evolution movement, [which contends that] evolution is not biblical, so it should be opposed."

She has no credibility.

The article notes that the screening was held at the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue. This may unfortunately reinforce the false stereotype that Jews, because of their tendency to support the so-called "separation of church and state," generally support the dogmatic teaching of evolution in the schools. The fact is that many Jews -- particularly orthodox Jews -- are critical of evolution theory.

READ MORE

Eugenie Scott v. Adolf Hitler

EUGENIE SCOTT, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION

===============================================================

READ MORE

Fatheaded Ed is name-dropping again

Fatheaded Ed Brayton has again familiarly referred to Eugenie Scott as "Genie" Scott. In a post titled "Congratulations, Genie Scott," he said,

My friend Genie Scott of the National Center for Science Education was awarded this week with the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for "championing the teaching of evolution in the United States and for providing leadership to the National Center for Science Education."

And, of course, "Genie" Scott continues to get awards that she does not deserve. She is just a propagandist who claims that all criticisms of evolution are based on religion.

READ MORE

Evolution is religion

Larry Moran's Sandwalk blog has the following excerpt from a talk given by Darwinist cafeteria Christian Francis Collins:

Here's a video of a talk he gave last October at The Veritas Forum in California. All of it is really interesting but the punchline comes at 50 minutes when he gives a short summary of his beliefs.

[First Slide] Almighty God, who is not limited in space and time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.

[Second Slide] God's plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that plan included human beings.

[Third Slide] After evolution, in the fullness of time, had prepared a sufficiently advanced neurological "house" (the brain), God gifted humanity with free will and with a soul. Thus humans received a special status, "made in God's image."

[Fourth Slide] We humans used our free will to disobey God, leading to our realization of being in violation of the Moral Law. Thus we were estranged from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.

That's it. A very simple but, I think, entirely compatible view that does no violence either to faith or to science. And puts them in a harmonious position ...

So Collins leaves no question that evolution is part of his religious beliefs. Furthermore, he appears to be arguing that evolution must be true because it is the method that God chose for creating living things. In contrast, most or many advocates of Intelligent Design are very careful to avoid religious arguments. So, why is teaching Intelligent Design in public schools a violation of the "separation of church and state" whereas teaching Collins' evolution is not? The answer, of course, will be that evolution can be taught without mention of religious beliefs, but the same is true of ID. William Jennings Bryan said, "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?"

This jerko Collins is a darling of the hypocritical accommodationist National Center for Science Education, one of the biggest opponents of teaching criticisms of evolution in the public schools. Furthermore, this jerko Collins was appointed by Pres. Obama to be head of the National Institute of Health, probably a political appointment based on Collins' beliefs about evolution.

READ MORE

The clueless National Center for Science Education

A news article by the National Center for Science Education says,

A section describing survey results about the American public's beliefs about evolution and the Big Bang was removed from the 2010 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators. According to a post on the AAAS's Science Insider blog (April 8, 2010) and a subsequent report in Science (April 9, 2010; subscription required), although survey results about evolution and the Big Bang have regularly appeared in the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators, its biennial compilation of global data about science, engineering, and technology, they were absent from the 2010 edition.

NCSE's Joshua Rosenau decried the decision, saying, "Discussing American science literacy without mentioning evolution is intellectual malpractice ... It downplays the controversy." . . .

. . . . . Officials at the National Science Board defended the decision. Louis Lanzerrotti, chair of the board's Science and Engineering Indicators committee, told Science that the questions were "flawed indicators of science knowledge because the responses conflated knowledge and beliefs."

"Responses conflated knowledge and belief"? "Belief" probably refers to religious belief. Another commenter said,

George Bishop, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati who is familiar with the difficulties of polling about evolution, regarded that position as defensible, explaining, "Because of biblical traditions in American culture, that question is really a measure of belief, not knowledge."

Many people have the misconception that "belief" is defined as being religious only.

If the survey had only partly concerned the evolution v. religion issue, the survey probably would not have been deleted from the report, because the title of the report is very general, "Science and Engineering Indicators." Those who decided to delete the survey from the report probably assumed that the survey was only about religion (that's still not a good reason to delete it, but I am only trying to guess these people's thinking). And guess who is one of the biggest promoters of the idea that all opposition to evolution is religious? The NCSE. NCSE's Director Eugenie Scott said, "antievolutionism is uniformly the product of religious opposition," and NCSE "Faith Project Director" Peter Hess even went so far as to call opposition to evolution "blasphemous."

READ MORE

"Friend of Hitler" award was stroke of genius

The exposure of the asininity of the National Center for Science Education's "Friend of Darwin" award produced a tremendous response. It was a great spoof, among other things.

READ MORE

NCSE's Eugenie Scott said, "antievolutionism is uniformly the product of religious opposition"

No, this is not an April Fools Day joke. Here is the quote in context:

To some Americans, teaching evolution is offensive to their religion, so they try to get it removed from the curriculum, or “balanced” with some form of creationism, or denigrate it as something not to be taken seriously (“theory, not fact”). To other Americans, doing any of these things promotes a sectarian religious view, and should be avoided. Courts universally have sided with the latter, properly, in my opinion, since antievolutionism is uniformly the product of religious opposition.

READ MORE

Eugenie Scott: Still crazy after all these years

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

======================================================

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.

READ MORE

Another NCSE crackpot

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,
.

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."
.

READ MORE

Eugenie Scott the Darwinist crackpot

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.
.
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).
.

READ MORE

The breathtaking inanity of Eugenie Scott

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).

READ MORE

Richard Dawkins goes off the deep end

The pretentious title of demagogic "New Atheist" Richard Dawkins' soon-to-be-released new book, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution", sounds like something out of a P.T. Barnum circus. And the book is going to give the "accommodationists" (those who believe in "accommodating" the anti-Semitic Darwinist Cafeteria-Christian goyim who interpret the Christian gospel as literal while at the same time rejecting the bible's much more credible Jewish creation story) -- who are already very unhappy with him -- conniption fits.

A Publishers' Weekly editorial review of the book says,

. . . Dawkins also came to realize that a disturbingly large percentage of the American and British public didn't share his enthusiasm for evolution. In fact, they actively abhorred the idea, since it seemed to contradict the Bible and diminish the role of God.

As I have pointed out many times, religion is not the only reason why people question evolution -- a belief that the scientific evidence is poor is another important reason.

So Dawkins decided to write a book for these history-deniers, in which he would dispassionately demonstrate the truth of evolution beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt.

Darwinists "prove" evolution by cherry-picking evidence.

After only a few pages of The Greatest Show on Earth, however, it becomes clear that Dawkins doesn't do dispassionate, and that he's not particularly interested in convincing believers to believe in evolution. He repeatedly compares creationists and Holocaust deniers, which is a peculiar way of reaching out to the other side.

Comparing creationists and Holocaust deniers? Dawkins sinks to a very low level of demagoguery here.

Elsewhere, Dawkins calls those who don't subscribe to evolution ignorant, fatuously ignorant and ridiculous.

But Dawkins refuses to accommodate Darwinist cafeteria Christians.

All of which raises the point: who, exactly, is supposed to read this book? Is Dawkins preaching to the choir or trying to convert the uninformed? While The Greatest Show on Earth might fail as a work of persuasive rhetoric — Dawkins is too angry and acerbic to convince his opponents — it succeeds as an encyclopedic summary of evolutionary biology.

The National Center for Science Education posted a review of the book. The review, written by Douglas Theobald, an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Brandeis University, says,

In a book on evolutionary evidence, it is hard to avoid a few nods towards debunking the common creationist fallacies. Nevertheless, unlike many other popular books that cover the evidence for evolution, this is not primarily a refutation of creationism or 'intelligent design' arguments.

How can evolution theory be "proved" without refuting creationist and intelligent design arguments?

Theobald continues,

Rather, Dawkins's latest book is a positive commemoration of the triumph of a grand arching theory that has withstood the continuous onslaught of 150 years of new data, including the tsunami of molecular, genetic, and sequence data from the past fifteen years.

The past fifteen years has also seen a "tsunami" of new data against evolution.

Theobald continues,

In the final analysis, The Greatest Show on Earth will take a deserved place alongside other "must-read" evolution books. No other book currently available approaches Dawkins's comprehensive yet accessible treatment of the extraordinarily diverse and massive body of data that drives ineluctably to the same conclusion, the only conclusion that makes sense of everything in biology: that all the "endless forms" of known life share a common genetic kinship, as they have been, and are being, evolved.

And there we go again with that nonsense that evolution is "the only conclusion that makes sense of everything in biology."

The accommodationist NCSE endorses the book despite Dawkins' opposition to accommodationism.
.

READ MORE

Badly flawed NCSE report on state standards for evolution education

IF HUMANS EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS, THEN WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS?

================================

The infamous National Center for Science Education has released a badly flawed new report on state standards for evolution education. The report starts out by saying,

When it comes to state science standards and evolution, we at the National Center for Science Education sit up and take notice, for there is perhaps no other arena in which the religious controversy surrounding evolution plays out to such a detrimental degree as in the generation of poor science standards. . . .

In practice . . . the coverage of evolution in science standards can be less than adequate, not because the topic is scientifically controversial but because officials either have a specific religious agenda or don’t want to “ruffle creationist feathers” (Lerner 2000).

There we go again with that propaganda myth that the evolution controversy is entirely religious and not at all based on science. If fundies' scientific views were entirely based on religion, they would all believe in geocentrism because that is what the bible teaches.

The report says,
.

Even if a good treatment of evolution in state science standards does not guarantee that evolution will be taught well, it provides a critical resource for teachers who want to teach evolution correctly. The clearest example is that a good treatment of evolution in the standards provides important support for biology teachers facing protests from creationist students, parents, and administrators who want creationism taught, or evolution not taught, in life science courses.

The big issue is not teaching creationism or not teaching evolution -- the big issue is balanced teaching of the scientific evidence for and against evolution. The majority of the public supports such balanced teaching.

A good treatment of evolution in state science standards can help to persuade administrators that the teaching of evolution is not a matter for political negotiations between parents and teachers with different interests but a clear educational necessity.

Students, parents, and citizens in general need to fight back against lousy Darwinist teachers and school administrators who try to use state science standards to beat us over the head. We need to be especially hard on teachers who constantly talk about evolution being the "foundation" of biology.

. . . in general, over the last two decades, creationists have reduced their advocacy of state-level legislation and policy that explicitly endorse creationist claims or attack evolution. Blanket bans on evolution and policies requiring “balanced treatment” of evolution and creationism have given way to more innocuous language, such as “teaching the controversy,” “critical analysis,” “strengths and weaknesses,” “academic freedom,” and “discussing the full range of scientific views” (Branch and Scott 2009).

The NCSE calls the above terms "creationist jargon" (another name for them commonly used by Darwinist propagandists: "creationist code words"). Evolution News & Views has an article about this.

As the foundation to the entire science of biology, evolutionary theory is vast and complex, resting on a variety of evidential bases from a number of scientific fields — all of which students are generally being introduced to for the first time in high school.

There we go again with that nonsense that evolution theory is "the foundation to the entire science of biology." How can that be true if 13% of science teachers in a recent national poll agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that an excellent biology course could exist that does not mention evolution or Darwin at all (even I don't agree with that statement)?

Students will not finish learning about it in detail until, at minimum, their later years of college, and they will not begin seriously analyzing it and synthesizing their knowledge until graduate school.

That's ridiculous -- many people do not go on to college and of those who do, probably most do not study biology there, and certainly most people do not eventually study biology in graduate school, so high school is most people's only opportunity to study evolution in a classroom setting.

Expecting high school biology students to be able to evaluate evolutionary theory is no more reasonable than expecting high school physics students to evaluate quantum field theory.

Not so -- quantum field theory might require a knowledge of mathematics beyond the level of high school students.

If students had the necessary knowledge and skills to make such judgments, there would be little reason for college science courses!

That's ridiculous.

This NCSE report rates the evolution education standards of each state. The rating system is completely arbitrary. There is a maximum possible 110 points -- I am ashamed to say that my home state of California is one of only two states that got perfect scores (the other state is New Jersey). Two states, Alabama and Louisiana, got 25 points knocked off for "disclaimers," though ironically one of the main purposes of disclaimers is to reduce opposition to the teaching of evolution (perversely, Kitzmiller v. Dover and Selman v. Cobb County struck down disclaimer statements that were adopted to reduce opposition to a newly adopted heavily pro-Darwinist textbook). Several states got up to 25 points knocked off for "creationist jargon" (examples of "creationist jargon" are above). The Florida state science standards were praised for misdefining "scientific theory" as being "well-supported and widely accepted" by definition; that's ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. The Florida standards' ridiculous statement that "evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology" is not mentioned.
.

READ MORE

Desperate Darwinists play with words to promote Darwinism

-- from an interview for ScienceNews:

Interviewer: So you urge scientists not to say that they “believe” in evolution?!

Eugenie Scott: Right. What your audience hears is more important than what you say.… What [people] hear is that evolution is a belief, it’s an opinion, it’s not well-substantiated science. And that is something that scientists need to avoid communicating.

You believe in God. You believe your sports team is going to win. But you don’t believe in cell division. You don’t believe in thermodynamics. Instead, you might say you “accept evolution.”

However, "belief" does not necessarily mean blind faith. Should the expression "seeing is believing" be changed to "seeing is accepting"? Should John 20:29 be changed as follows: "Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed accepted: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" ?

Darwinists have also played with the word "theory." Darwinists object to the idea of calling evolution a "theory" because the colloquial meaning of "theory" is a "guess" or "hunch." So in the new Florida standards for science education, the Darwinists defined "scientific theories" as being "well-supported" and "widely accepted," but that is ridiculous -- there are strong scientific theories and weak scientific theories. The dumb Darwinists have only added to the confusion about the meaning of "theory," particularly "scientific theory."

Another example of Darwinists playing with words is their oxymoronic term "intelligent design creationism." This term creates confusion because intelligent design and creationism are distinct because the former is based on scientific observation and reasoning whereas the latter is based on religious sources. Darwinists don't even explain why they find it necessary to add the term "creationism" to "intelligent design" if they think that there is no kind of ID that is not creationist.

=============================

Quote of the day:
" "If man evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?’...That’s probably the second most common question I get on talk radio."
-- Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, in interview for ScienceNews

I wonder what the most common question is.
.

READ MORE

Darwinists disbelieve public support for "teaching the controversy"

IF HUMANS EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS, THEN WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS?

================================

Darwinists are in a state of denial about overwhelming public support for teaching the controversy about evolution. They are making ridiculous claims that the wording of poll questions skewed the results of a recent public opinion poll about teaching the controversy.

A CNSNews.com article says,

A Zogby poll commissioned by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute says more than three-quarters of Americans would like teachers to have the freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution, with an even higher number reported among Democrats.

According to the report, which was commissioned by the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture, respondents were given the two following statements:

Statement A: “Biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.”

Statement B: “Biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.”

Of those surveyed, 78 percent said Statement B came closest to their own point of view on the issue, representing a 9 percent increase over 2006, the last time the question was asked . . . .

But Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), told CNSNews.com the poll was “meaningless” because the phrasing of the questions skewed the results.

Branch said asking whether or not respondents believe all evidence should be taught puts them in the position of being for or against freedom of information.

Well, that kind of question really puts the respondents on the spot, doesn't it? Tsk, tsk.

Branch also said,
.

“(I)f you commission someone to do a poll asking whether we should teach the evidence for and the evidence against heliocentrism, they’d say yes, too,” he argued, “even though it’s scientifically established that the Earth goes around the sun, rather than the other way around.

Typical Darwinist straw man.

-- and

“The very terms of the question presuppose that there is credible scientific evidence against evolution, which there isn’t,” he said.

And Branch is presupposing that there is no credible scientific evidence against evolution, and furthermore that none is going to be found in the future.

So maybe Branch thinks that Statement B should have been worded, "If there is credible scientific evidence against evolution, biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.” However, if anything, that wording would probably have increased the number of respondents supporting the statement, because respondents who rejected the original statement solely because they believe that there is no credible scientific evidence against evolution might be inclined to support the revised statement.

Chris Mooney echoed Branch's statements about option B:

Chris Mooney of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has criticized Zogby polling methodology in the past, agreeing that their wording accounts for the disparity in their poll numbers.

“The answer to the first question is a no-brainer for anyone who believes in open-mindedness, no matter what they think about evolution,” he said. “Sure enough, Zogby-Intelligent Design polls have shown overwhelming support for option B.”

If, as Branch and Mooney imply, Statement B is just an innocuous statement reflecting a desire to be open-minded, then why have the Darwinists been fighting tooth and nail to keep this statement or similar statements (e.g., "strengths and weaknesses") out of standards for public science education? Apparently the Darwinists think that Statement B implies that there actually is credible evidence against evolution, and the Darwinists don't believe that such evidence exists. The Zogby poll could be considered to be a referendum on whether such statements as Statement B should be included in those standards.

Also, as I have pointed out many times, there can be good reasons for teaching invalid criticisms of evolution: broadening students' education, encouraging critical thinking, increasing student interest, preventing and correcting misconceptions, and helping to assure that technically sophisticated criticisms are taught only by qualified science teachers.

The poll is also discussed in here on the Discovery Institute's Evolution News & Views website.
.

READ MORE

Evil Genie wants evolution in every college biology course

Eugenie "Crackpot" Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said in a Science magazine interview,

"Universities need to do a better job of teaching evolution because that's where high school teachers get their training. Evolution needs to be brought into every course of biology instead of getting tacked on as a unit to the intro class."

She didn't just say that evolution needs to be brought into more courses of biology -- she said that evolution needs to be brought into "every" course of biology. Certainly there are some biology courses where evolution is irrelevant. She is fanatical about evolution.

How this crackpot has been getting all those awards is beyond me.

READ MORE

Evil Genie gets more awards

Eugenie "Evil Genie" Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has been selected to receive two more awards:

She will be the first recipient of the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, which will be awarded at the Evolution 2009 conference to be held at the University of Idaho. [link]

She has been selected as one of the Scientific American 10 for 2009, described by the magazine in its June 2009 issue as "researchers, politicians, business executives and philanthropists who have recently demonstrated outstanding commitment to assuring that the benefits of new technologies and knowledge will accrue to humanity." [link]

I previously reported other awards that Evil Genie has received. [link] [link]

What has Evil Genie done to deserve these highly distinguished awards? Has she made any great contributions to technology? No. She just heads an organization that (1) promotes censorship of scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution in the public schools and (2) misuses religion to promote evolution. These awards she has received reflect the pro-Darwinist bigotry of the organizations that granted them.

READ MORE

National Center for Science Education really getting hell now

Richard Hoppe, who originally wrote a Panda's Thumb article completely defending the National Center for Science Education against the charges of Jerry Coyne, has now backed off and now only partially defends NCSE against those charges. Hoppe now says,

Coyne is right in one respect, and I withdraw my wholesale rejection of his argument. I think (writing now as a Life Member) that NCSE has recently made a mistake in going beyond simply pointing to individuals and organizations who have somehow reconciled their science and religious beliefs to counter the creationist equation of evolution with atheism. In the essays by Peter M. J. Hess that apparently are the basis of the NCSE Faith Project, there is an endorsement of a particular view of the relationship, an adaptation of Gould’s Nonoverlapping magisteria with a dose of complementarian thinking . . . .
.
Hess has here argued for a complementarian view of the relation between religious belief and evolution that is very similar to Gould’s NOMA, which is also a view that is clearly visible in the writings of people like Denis Lamoureax, a self-identified evangelical Christian and “evolutionary creationist.” . . .

In its Faith Project, then, I think that NCSE has gone beyond its remit and past where it can be effective. I now think – in agreement with Coyne, PZ, and others – that it should back off from describing particular ways of reconciling science and religion. Pointing to religious people and organizations who have made their peace with science and evolution is appropriate, but going past that to describing particular ways of making that peace is a mistake. NCSE ought not wade into theological swamps.

So yeah, I was wrong to overstate my case. Sorry, folks.

Hoppe previously said in the same article,

The creationist assault on public education has two main prongs. One is to attack, misrepresent, and distort the science, and NCSE has a wealth of resources for blunting that attack. . . . .

The second main prong of the creationist assault is to equate evolution with atheism. That is a ubiquitous theme from the whole range of creationists, from Kent Hovind’s ravings to the Disco ‘Tute’s anti-naturalism Wedge document. I hear it, every one of us working with local and state boards of education hears it. It’s in the creationist mailers, it’s in their pamphlets, and it’s in their public statements to school boards.

"A ubiquitous theme from the whole range of creationists"? I don't always hear creationists equating evolution with atheism. Certainly creationists have other arguments against evolution -- including scientific (pseudoscientific to some) arguments -- and hence do not necessarily need to equate evolution and atheism. The website of Answers-in-Genesis, for example, has many articles that do not equate evolution with atheism. Hoppe himself said that the first main prong of the creationist assault on public education is to attack the science. And saying that there is a conflict between evolution and religion is not necessarily the same as equating evolution with atheism.

Hoppe says,

And NCSE completely appropriately provides information to “parents and concerned citizens” about that issue. It completely appropriately points out that there are believers – self identified Christians – who accept that evolution has occurred (it’s a fact) and that the modern theory of evolution is the best available naturalistic explanation of that fact. Moreover, NCSE completely appropriately points to religious organizations that have stated that they accept that.

One cannot argue that pointing to the existence of people and organizations that contradict a main prong of the creationist attack on public school education constitutes an “endorsement.” It’s merely pointing to a fact.

What does constitute an "endorsement" is NCSE's pretending that people who see a conflict between evolution and religion — whether they are bible-pounding holy-rolling fundies or godless blasphemous sacrilegious atheists, or something in-between — don’t even exist. For example, as I pointed out before, NCSE has a collection of religious organizations' statements regarding the compatibility of evolution and religion, and all of those statements see no conflict between evolution and religion. [link] NCSE is not the place to go for a broad overview of the various views on the compatibility of evolution and religion.

Panda's Thumb now has several articles about the controversy over the National Center for Science Education. [link] [link] [link] [link] Jerry Coyne's articles are here, here, and here.
.

READ MORE