Religion & Law

The Big Tent Gets All Sticky ...

Posted on March 13, 2008
As PZ Mxyzptlk points out, there was all too much mutual stimulation going on for comfort during the close encounter of Ken Ham and Ben Stein. Ham describing Stein as "brilliant" was bad enough but to then go on to laud him as an "actor/ economist/ lawyer/ presidential speechwriter/ science observer -- a 21st-century Einsteinian figure" would make Johnny Wad want to go and take a shower...

Whom the Gods Would Destroy ...

Posted on March 13, 2008
It must be that Hillary is running for President. What passes as pundits to the right-wing have come out with guns blazing ... straight down at their own feet.First it was "Vox Day":[T]his is not to say there is not a genuine threat to all three aspects of science today...

The Devil's Bride, Reason, That Pretty Whore ...

Posted on March 12, 2008
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house._________________________________________When people with such diverse views as PZ Myers and James McGrath pick up on the same thing, who am I not to run with it?.

Two Faces Are Better Than ...

Posted on March 12, 2008
Hey Kids! Remember when Ben Stein took offense at being compared to Holocaust deniers? Mr. Stein said in a telephone interview that he had not read [Orlando Sentinel movie critic Roger Moore's review of Expelled], but that ?being compared with a Holocaust denier is nonsense,? adding, ?This guy is extremely confused...

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Ratatouille

Posted on March 12, 2008
Well, the cat's out of the bag ... just in time to catch a certain rat ... I hope.Casey Luskin is admitting what everyone knew all along: the ''academic freedom'' legislation being pushed by conservative lawmakers in Florida and around the country is intended to permit the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism...

Successions

Posted on March 11, 2008
A Thought:[L]et's look at one of the more common "knock-down arguments" [creationists] use against evolution: If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Laugh if you want, but it is evidence of a deep confusion about evolutionary theory...

Monkeyshines

Posted on March 10, 2008
Well, Ben Stein and the boyz are expanding their horizons. Up to now they have been peddling their cinematic fairy tale mostly to the ministerial set. Now they are moving on to the politicians. Come this Wednesday, the producers of Excrement: The Movie will be screening it for Florida lawmakers...

Cephalopod Kowtow

Posted on March 09, 2008
Here I was thinking that I'd have to fire up the Photo Shop to come up with a tribute to PZ Myearshertz's birthday like those over at Blog About the Clock. But it turns out that the University of Southern California School of Dentistry has already acknowledged the overlordship of His Tentacled Majesty with its Octopus Project, intent on spreading His sway over not just biology but ecology, geology, meteorology, physics, mathematics and even art and literature...

Parental Instruction

Posted on March 09, 2008
Wired magazine's Geek Dad blog has a good point about the need for parents to insure that their children are being taught early about evolution, along with links to resources to help them do the job themselves, since there is a good chance the public schools won't be, despite official standards to the contrary...

Hail Britannia!

Posted on March 09, 2008
Hey! Troy Britain, longtime habitué of the Talk Origins usenet group (that's him with Barbara Forrest) has started a new blog named Playing Chess with Pigeons. If it proves as funny and enlightening as the title, it will be well worth your time! About the title, Troy explains:The title comes (apparently) from a very amusing description of what it is like to debate creationists about evolution by S...

Gone With the Venn

Posted on March 09, 2008
Get your own tee-shirt at Saint Gasoline's Cafepress store!.

Trinity

Posted on March 08, 2008
John Wilkins, the unrepentantly antipodian philosopher of biology, happened to be in Arizona the past few days, where he saw the opening lecture of Richard Dawkins' latest American tour. John was not impressed.First John notes that Dawkins has apparently dropped his claim that an agnostic is somebody who has an evenly balanced probability assessment of the existence of God, a position John previously criticized...

Political Piety

Posted on March 07, 2008
Okay, I missed this somehow. In August 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed into law something called the "Religiuous Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act." According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State:The law requires every public school in the state to adopt a policy guaranteeing students' right to religious expression...

Off to School

Posted on March 06, 2008
There is a most interesting legal decision out of California. Essentially, it holds that parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children, unless they can meet the standards set by the state for public or private schools, including meeting qualification standards for teachers...

Victory!

Posted on March 05, 2008
Good news out of the primaries!No, I don't mean that Clinton - Huckabee - McCain - Obama stuff ... how boring!It is the primaries for the Texas Board of Education I'm excited about! As I reported a while back, two incumbents, Mary Helen Berlanga, a Democrat, and Pat Hardy, a Republican, are generally in opposition to the far-right faction on the board, led by the creationist Gov...

Stealing Signals

Posted on March 05, 2008
While still holding out hope for its bill to allow the "full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution" in Florida schools, the legislative consultant for the Florida Baptist Convention:... predicted a difficult road to passage...

Keeping Calm

Posted on March 04, 2008
John Lang thinks we have a problem. Almost a third of American adults ages 18 to 24 couldn't manage to spit in an ocean ... as long as you expected the ocean to be the Pacific. That's because they couldn't find it ... an entire ocean ... big thing full of water ...

Dynamite Pie

Posted on March 03, 2008
Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel has a perspicacious (Hey! ... it's the education section!) article about the latest move by the anti-science forces in Florida. Noting that John Stemberger, the head of the Florida Family Policy Council, after it couldn't get some weasel language into the standards, said that creationists would push for an "academic freedom" measure in the state Legislature, Ms...

It's Just a Theory!

Posted on March 02, 2008
David Horton is over at The Huffington Post expounding on a theory that is his ... the theory he has ... his theory ... the theory belonging to him.He began to form his theory when he read a comment on a blog that he theorized about:The blogger had taught a group of medical students that MRSA came about because of evolution in response to the selection pressures of antibiotic use, when a member of the group stood up and said 'That's a lie!' I asked her how she thought MRSA happened - 'It is a punishment from god'...

Ben Stein's Next Project

Posted on March 02, 2008
As Media for Freedom helpfully reminds us, the Evil Darwinist Establishment is not out just to suppress the brave Intelligent Design Freedom Fighters:Lloyd Pye is one of the world's leading proponents of the Intervention Theory of origins, which stands in sharp contrast to Darwinism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design...

Vain Names

Posted on March 01, 2008
The British still have an offense of blasphemy but not for long, if some get their way:"The ancient common law of blasphemous libel purports to protect beliefs rather than people or communities," said a statement backed by activists ranging from the creator of the BBC comedy "The Office" to the retired Archbishop of Canterbury...

Test Cases

Posted on March 01, 2008
I don't know what they have to say,it makes no difference anyway -whatever it is, I'm against it!No matter what it is or who commenced it,I'm against it!Your proposition may be good,but let's have one thing understood -whatever it is, I'm against it!And even whenyou've changed itor condensed it,I'm against it!The Marx Brothers, Horse Feathers, 1932So, I'm puttering around on a Saturday morning and there is this article by Geoff Pevere in the book section of the Toronto Star that, among other things, mentions a 1993 international social survey that ranked Americans last among a group of nations, including those scientific powerhouses Bulgaria and Slovenia, in knowledge of the basic facts of evolution...

Now There?s Yer Problem

Posted on February 29, 2008
There are some dribblings left over from the Florida flap that shows just how far the?debate? still has to go. There is, for example, this:West Port High School science teacher Janice David said there shouldn't be a controversy about the theory of evolution and religious-based beliefs...

Modern Fears

Posted on February 28, 2008
A thought:[T]he Presbyterian General Assembly declared in 1910 that there are five fundamental tenets of Christian faith: the miracles performed by Christ; the virgin birth; Christ's bodily resurrection; his sacrifice on the cross, atoning for humanity's sins; and the inerrancy of the Bible...

Name Recognition

Posted on February 27, 2008
Hey! There is apparently a new science blogger out there who is tearing the place up so much that even Popular Science has noticed. But first it stoops to notice the ID fantasy piece fronted by Ben Stein, who has shown himself to be as clueless about science as he is inflection...

Screamin' Memies

Posted on February 26, 2008
Arrrgh! Memed again!Mostly I try to ignore the "duty" of passing them along but I do gratefully thank those who tag me with such nice ones as the totally unwarranted "E for Excellence" award sent my way by Ian at Further Thoughts.But now John Wilkins has tagged me and a blood oath taken in the trenches at talk...

No Stone Unturned

Posted on February 25, 2008
A thought:Ben Stein is not giving people the opportunity to win his money these days [Re: TV series "Win Ben Stein's Money" Aired 1997-2002]. Instead, he is making a documentary designed to spread ignorance and false information about intelligent design theory to the public...

Filtering Out the Truth

Posted on February 24, 2008
A thought:... Dembski's ["explanatory filter"] works like this: If you cannot think of a way for natural regularities and/or chance to explain something, then say that a "designer" did it. Dembski's "design inference" is nothing more than a formalization of a simple god-of-the-gaps argument...

Weird Science

Posted on February 23, 2008
Brandon Keim's science blog at Wired is host to some strange goings-on.Carl Woese, the famous microbiologist, who is credited with the latest rearrangement of taxonomy into the three kingdoms comprised of Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryotes, when asked about the Florida standards flap, said:My feeling is that evolution shouldn't be taught at the lower grades...

Protecting Texas

Posted on February 23, 2008
Okay, you folks in Texas can forget about those Clinton/Obama and McCain/Huckabee sideshows! The real contests in the state's primaries are Berlanga/Gonzalez and Hardy/Maddox! As detailed by the Dallas Morning News:Just two seats on the 15-member State Board of Education are being contested in the March 4 primary, but the results of the races could shape the outcome of a brewing battle over how evolution is taught in Texas public schools...

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