Religion & Law

Of Chickens and Roosts

Posted on February 17, 2009
Stephen Moss in the Guardian has a nice comprehensive piece about the young-Earth creationism movement in the United Kingdom that is well worth reading.While the movement is still the poor country cousin to the YEC brigade in the US, there has been some growth in their ranks in the past few years...

What Does the NAS Know About Science?

Posted on February 17, 2009
Well, that does it!All these years the vast and overwhelming majority of scientists have thought that evolution was a scientific theory ... you know, one of those things the National Academy of Sciences calls "a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time...

Return of the Whore

Posted on February 16, 2009
First, there was Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ... now, the truly indescribable Ray Comfort:In challenging a report by Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, saying Darwin's theory is compatible with Christianity, Ray Comfort, author of the hottest Christian book on Amazon, "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence But You Can't Make Him Think," points out Jesus himself backed up the Genesis account of Creation when he said, "In the beginning God created them male and female...

Oklahoma OK!

Posted on February 16, 2009
As originally reported by Abbie at ERV, the Oklahoma version of the "academic freedom" ploy was killed in committee today (and just why were they working on President's Day, anyway? -- Commies!):The vote was 7-6 on Monday in the Senate Education Committee against Sen...

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A Start On All the Truth That's Fit To Print

Posted on February 16, 2009
Heh! I commented the other day on an alleged news story in the Lynchburg (Virginia) News Advance entitled "Liberty University refuting evolution."It seems the editorial staff has seen the light and the web story has now been renamed as "Liberty University disputing evolution...

What Does It Prophet a Man?

Posted on February 16, 2009
It's not just his own department at Lehigh University that stands against Michael Behe.Darwin's theory of natural selection plays a key role in most Lehigh Valley public school science curricula.None of the public schools interviewed for this article includes the controversial idea of intelligent design, a theory that living organisms are so complex a higher power must have created them...

Mohler's Choice

Posted on February 15, 2009
Let's see ..."If you understand Christianity or even Theism ? the belief of a sovereign creator God ? and evolutionary theory in its dominant form , I find it impossible to reconcile the two," Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his radio program Thursday, the 200th birthday anniversary of Charles Darwin...

Fire Sale

Posted on February 15, 2009
You know it's going to be painful when an alleged news story is titled "Liberty University refuting evolution." The "refuter" is "Neuroscientist" David DeWitt, who claims:"I show them side-by-side ? Here's the human. Here's the chimpanzee," he said. "If I would not present evolution and their best evidence and arguments, then I would not be a scholar and I would not be providing the best service for the students...

Dangerous Places

Posted on February 14, 2009
It seems that churches in Arkansas may be too dangerous to enter unarmed.The Arkansas House of Representatives last Wednesday passed a bill on a 57-42 vote allowing concealed handguns in churches by removing houses of worship from the list of places where concealed handguns are banned...

Red In Tooth ...

Posted on February 14, 2009
Ian Bell in The Sunday Herald on creationists:They are otherwise persuaded, despite a ton of evidence. People, as ever, believe what they want to believe. ...Speaking as a monkey's uncle's less popular nephew, I don't mind. If I have read Darwin half-way right, employing both opposable thumbs to prop up the book, natural selection depends on a majority always missing the point...

Dogma and Pony Show

Posted on February 14, 2009
It seems that we have all been politically incorrect. According to James Dobson's Focus on the Family, it is name-calling to refer to "the Religious Right."Terms like 'Religious Right' have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism...

Mythbusters

Posted on February 13, 2009
In the category of excruciating irony, we have this title for a story by Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network: "On Darwin Day, Myths Parade as Fact." It may be ironic but it is certainly true because Pat's propagandists proceed to march out a whole phalanx of them delivered by, who else, that coterie of Discoveryless Institute talking ...

Birthday Loot

Posted on February 12, 2009
Some birthday goodies for Mr. Darwin (and us!):Scientific American's "Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin."Evolution: Education and Outreach's "birthday issue."Nicholas Wade with "Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential" in the New York Times Science section (ignore that other article)...

Dr. Egnor Outs ID

Posted on February 12, 2009
In the category of spilled beans:Science and religion don't address entirely separate aspects of human experience. There is one truth about the world. The truth about the natural world is obviously a part of metaphysical truth. Science addresses the truth about the natural world, and religion addresses the deeper metaphysical truth...

Happy Birthday Mr. Darwin

Posted on February 12, 2009
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Of Pandering to People

Posted on February 12, 2009
You know how the Undiscovery Institute is always on the lookout for usages by scientists of the words "intelligent design," in that order, prior to 1987, in an attempt to disprove the evidence by Barbara Forrest at the Kitzmiller trial showing how the "cdesign proponentsists" writing Of Pandas and People were just using ID as a ploy to avoid the consequences of Edwards v...

Passed History

Posted on February 11, 2009
This is "scratch your head" news.Despite the best efforts of the Discovery Institute and the Religious Right in general to paint the theory of evolution as "Darwinism" and despite the plethora of recent stories about Darwin in the popular press in the run-up to the "year of Darwin," only 55% of respondents in a Gallup poll could identify him with evolution...

Charles Darwin Superstar

Posted on February 10, 2009
Drat those high-salaried college professors, living in the lap of luxury with their trophy wives, dripping with leisure time to idly peruse the internet and write extended critiques of whatever catches their fancy. I had started to write a scathing commentary on a piece that appeared in this morning's New York Times Science section, entitled "Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live," by Carl Safina...

Loons Walk Too

Posted on February 10, 2009
Ed Brayton points to yet another example, found by the NCSE, of the disingenuousness of the "teach the controversy" and "strengths and weaknesses" campaigns waged by the Religious Right. The real motive, of course, has nothing to do with science, as shown by the sponsor of the bill (that mercifully died in committee) in the Mississippi legislature to append a sticker to biology textbooks that was to include such supposed "weaknesses" as:There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things...

Moth Man

Posted on February 09, 2009
The University of Cambridge has a "Tribute to Mike Majerus," the late evolutionary geneticist who laid to rest the "icons" of misinformation creationists have fabricated about the Peppered Moth.You can also read the script and see the Powerpoint file from Majerus' 2007 lecture, "The Peppered Moth: The Proof of Darwinian Evolution," where he explains why he undertook to set the record straight and how he went about it, including why he went so far as to test the "proposition" that bats might be preying preferentially on moths based on their color...

Heavenly Metaphors

Posted on February 09, 2009
In the category of "we're better off if you don't help":I am a firm believer in the inspired words of the Bible, however the fact is that God created us to evolve. It has been scientifically discovered that COMETS contain organic molecules of life. I accept the story of Adam and Eve as a METAPHOR...

Protecting the Faith

Posted on February 08, 2009
RenewAmerica, the website for the portion of the Religious Right that can't handle all the three syllable words they might encounter in WorldNetDaily, shows once again that most people, particularly ID's advocates, can see right through the obfuscation of the Discovery Institute about the identity of the "Designer":The debate between Intelligent Design and Darwinism is not allowed in our public school classes ? but it should be...

Counterfeit Bills

Posted on February 08, 2009
Uh, oh! The Discovery Institute is going to be pissed!State Sen. Stephen Wise, a Jacksonville [Florida] Republican, said he plans to introduce a bill to require teachers who teach evolution to also discuss the idea of intelligent design. We all know DI is against mandating the teaching of ID, don't we?This bit is good: Rep...

Prepare to Inspect

Posted on February 07, 2009
Abbie at ERV has detected the infestation of the University of Oklahoma's student newspaper, The Oklahoma Daily, with Sal cordovaitis. Abbie snaps on her surgical gloves, probes the infection in its nether regions, and determines that it has the usual symptom of making large numbers of people laugh...

Riding North

Posted on February 06, 2009
Larry Moran has accused me of reveling in the creationism that pops up outside of the United States. ... Okay, misery does love company. But you shouldn't think that I find particular pleasure when Canada is the victim ... not that it isn't true, you just shouldn't think it...

Getting Out

Posted on February 05, 2009
A thought:But what would this ghost, who would find the separation of church and state unthinkably radical, have to say about the legal battles over evolution being waged across America? An indifferent student, Darwin preferred the outdoors to the schoolhouse and once confessed, "Observing, thinking & some reading beat, in my opinion, all systematic education...

Out and About the Intertubes

Posted on February 05, 2009
Some interesting stuff from the last few days:Greg Laden points out the good ... and the bad at U.S. News and World Report. The very good Glenn Branch, of the National Center for Science Education, explaining why "Intelligent Design is Not Science, and Should Not Join Evolution in the Classroom" and the indescribably -- one might say congenitally -- bad Henry Morris III, explaining -- well, nothing -- except how to construct a god small enough to fit in science's gaps...

Stupidburn

Posted on February 04, 2009
Ow! Ow! Ow!Does anyone know how to treat third-degree irony burns?The Discovery Institute has issued a press release (the closest it ever gets to science) that should only be viewed after applying a thick layer of SPF 100 sunscreen or above. Be warned before reading further!SEATTLE, Feb...

Jamming the Radar

Posted on February 03, 2009
As predicted, the ID noise machine is gearing up to claim that Ben Stein's withdrawal from being commencement speaker at the University of Vermont is evidence of academia's bias against ID and lack of academic freedom. I already noted Wild Bill Dembski's entry into the claque and now that epitome of sound and fury signifying nothing, Casey Luskin, is stamping his foot over at the Discovery Institute's blog...

To Tell the Truth

Posted on February 02, 2009
Ooh, lookie!By now you should of heard of Ben Stein's proposed gig as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont and his subsequent "withdrawal" from the ceremony. A local Vermont television station, WCAX, is reporting:Stein has made headlines recently for his views regarding Darwin's theory of evolution, intelligent design and the role of science in the Holocaust...

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