Religion & Law

Carrying Chutzpah to Rome

Posted on March 07, 2009
Sometimes you just have to stand in awe of the nerve of the Discoveryless Institute's propaganda machine.In an article entitled "Darwin Conference Does Not Speak for Vatican, Says Intelligent Design Proponent" in the Australian version of Christian Today Bruce Chapman, head propagandist of the DI, trys to spin the conference being held at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome:Chapman, a Roman Catholic himself, emphasized that the conference's sponsor, The Pontifical Council on Culture, is an office of the Vatican but represented neither the Vatican nor the Pope himself...

Of Birds and Brains

Posted on March 07, 2009
Oh, look! Ray Comfort is educable. In an article in WingNutDaily he responds to PZ Myers' criticism of Comfort's "argument" that:Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going...

Visions of Discovery

Posted on March 06, 2009
You've probably heard about the state legislator from Oklahoma who is bucking to get on Ed Brayton's list of stupidest in the nation by filing a resolution stating that:... the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma...

Rhythm and Blues

Posted on March 05, 2009

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They Shoot Bloggers, Don't They?

Posted on March 04, 2009

Ignorexia Verbosa

Posted on March 04, 2009

Science Ad Populum

Posted on March 03, 2009

The Purpose Driven Mind

Posted on March 02, 2009

Heretics

Posted on March 01, 2009

God Watching

Posted on March 01, 2009

When in Rome

Posted on February 28, 2009

Of Two Mouths

Posted on February 27, 2009

First Light

Posted on February 26, 2009
Hugh Ross, an astronomer and old-Earth creationist, seems to be moving further away from the Intelligent Design Movement. In the past he has described himself as "a Discovery Institute ally," though he has chided IDers to stop "attempt[ing] to walk a middle ground between evolution and creationism," which results, he says, in that "you make theology weak and you make science weak...

Aping Science

Posted on February 26, 2009
Oh, by the way, speaking of the religious nature of Intelligent Design Creationism, Troy Britain, at Playing Chess with Pigeons* has noticed the link I missed between Uncommon Descent, William Dembski's sycophant-fest ... er ... blog and the young-Earth creationist blog, Science and Values, that James McGrath (himself a Christian and a biblical scholar) accuses of "tactics used by deceitful individuals determined not only to attack science without warrant, but to give Christianity a bad name in the process...

Turning Over Political Rocks

Posted on February 25, 2009
Poor Casey Luskin. Here he expends all the time and effort to try to paint the opposition to Iowa's version of the Discovery Institute's "academic freedom" legislation as unfairly characterizing the bill as attempting to inject religion into public classrooms and along comes one of his "allies" and blows his cover:Norman Pawlewski, representing the Christian Alliance and one of two state lobbyists registered in favor of HF 183, said, "Why shouldn't teachers and students be able to decide among all the science-related information? God created science, after all...

Mental At Least

Posted on February 24, 2009
What do you do with a feel-good article about tears?Therese J. Borchard writes a column called "Beyond Blue" for BeliefNet that, if "The Healing Properties of Tears: 7 Good Reasons to Cry Your Eyes Out" is a fair sampling, should give treacle a run for its money...

Pressing Concerns

Posted on February 23, 2009
If you would like to see how not to conduct an interview and maintain a shred of journalistic objectivity, go look at Suzan Mazur's attempt to chivvy David H. Koch (wealthy industrialist and major backer of PBS' Nova) into strong-arming the program to run something on her fantasized imminent collapse of the "Darwinian paradigm...

Secular Thought

Posted on February 22, 2009
A thought:[T]here was a good deal of misunderstanding ... respecting the import of the word secular. There is no uncertainty about it. There is not a better defined word in the English language. Secular is whatever has reference to this life. Secular instruction is instruction respecting the concerns of this life...

In the Ranks

Posted on February 22, 2009
A thought:I'm all for exposing students to some of the philosophical, religious and political issues surrounding the challenges to evolution -- as part of studying the history of science, for example. But at a time when American high school students rank 27th among students from developed nations in scientific literacy, and in the face of environmental crisis and economic uncertainty, the United States can't afford for biology classrooms to be church-state war zones...

Creative Naming

Posted on February 21, 2009
Akron Fossils & Science Center.Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Not so much:It's a small, one-story building at the corner of Cleveland-Massillon and Minor roads, a couple of miles south of Copley Circle. If you go inside and look around, you will discover a paean to creationism...

Ready ... Aim ...

Posted on February 21, 2009
James McGrath has an interesting take on the New Scientist "Darwin Was Wrong" cover, which he thinks, ultimately, does more good than harm. His contention is that:1. It shows that there is no "atheistic conspiracy" to shield Darwin from criticism;2. The "tree of life" and the diagram in Darwin's notebook (labeled "I think") are not about something that is central to evolution and which he could not have known about anyway; and3...

More Quote Mines From Texas

Posted on February 21, 2009
Jeremy Mohn, who has already done yeoman's work, in his "Collapse of a Texas Quote Mine," uncovering the quote-mining of the creationists on the Texas State Board of Education, has found more examples, this time by the truly execrable Terri Leo. Her method in this instance is the tried-and-untrue method of cutting off the quote before the thought is complete: If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down...

Rave Reviews

Posted on February 21, 2009
The Jacksonville Florida Times-Union has a column called "Rants & Raves," which prints short anonymous letters to the editor. This one caught my eye:Because the recent ranter against intelligent design doesn't mention whether he holds a Nobel Prize, I'm going to have to go with people who have achieved that distinction and do believe in intelligent design: Charles Townes, George Smoot and Leon Lederman, to name a few...

Bad Arguments for ID # 2362

Posted on February 20, 2009
From a Letter to the Editor in the Agusta (Georgia) Chronicle:Science means the testability of a hypothesis -- well, until a scientist can bring me a dragonfly he created out of organic soup, I'll stick with Intelligent Design and an intelligent designer...

Bad Arguments for ID # 1656

Posted on February 20, 2009
From a Letter to the Editor in the Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Republican Herald:Adherents to religion agree that something or someone created the universe. Is it not possible that "God's" creation involved careful design of the hierarchical natural laws that comprise it?Here's the scenario as I see it: God creates physics, physics dictates chemistry and chemistry dictates the rest ?including evolution...

Err Presumptive

Posted on February 20, 2009
Richard B. Hoppe has a wonderful takedown of creationists at The Panda's Thumb (and not just because he links to a post of mine). It involves the "presuppositional" argument claiming that "creation scientists" and (real) scientists use the same evidence, but that they interpret it from different starting points, Biblical creationism and "man's reason...

McLeroy in a Nutshell

Posted on February 20, 2009
There is an interesting article on Don McLeroy, the creationist chairman of the Texas State Board of Education in The Texas Observer that, among other things, reveals that he was lured by the promise of sex into fundamentalist Christianity and creationism ...

Disappearing Praise

Posted on February 19, 2009
It wasn't my favorite way to celebrate Darwin's Year, but there is something, somewhere, that says we should not steal. Apparently that does not include the "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief" billboard. The billboard sign was made of vinyl and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said that a representative from Clear Channel Outdoor told her, "It took a long ladder and a lot of determination" to remove the billboard material...

The Theory of Law

Posted on February 19, 2009
Clive Thompson, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a former Knight Science-Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a theory. Noting that creationists take advantage of the language used by scientists to inculcate doubt in the general public's mind about evolution, he seconds the call of Australian-born physicist Helen Quinn for the scientific community to revise scientific terminology...

Random Thoughts

Posted on February 18, 2009
The National Center for Science Education has a report on the latest entry in the "academic freedom" legislative ploy sweepstakes, House Bill 656, introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives. Besides the excruciatingly vague language usual in these bills, intended to allow individual teachers and local school boards to pour as much creationism into the interpretation of the words as possible, House Bill 656 has an interesting change from the 2008 version, which read:This section only protects the teaching of scientific information and this section shall not be construed to promote any religious or nonreligious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or nonbeliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion...

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