I’ve been itching to get at Tony Campolo’s republication of his errors on evolution and intelligent design. There’s a lot on my “to do” list.
Mike at Tangled Up In Blue Guy has beat me to it, and probably done it better than I could have. Go read, “Is, and ought, and Darwinism.” I agree.
Related material at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
3 Comments | 
Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Education, History, Racism, Science | Tagged: Accuracy, Culture, Darwin, Evolution, History, Racism, Science, Social Darwinism | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Anthony Watts want to make a case that rising ocean levels aren’t connected to human activities, there’s nothing we can do about it, there’s nothing we should do about it, or something. Looking for a touchstone in history, Watts said:
In 2002, the BBC reported that a submerged city was found off the coast of India, 36 meters below sea level. This was long before the Hummer or coal fired power plant was invented. It is quite likely that low lying coastal areas will continue to get submerged, just as they have been for the last 20,000 years.
Submerged city? Hmm. Not in the textbooks published since 2002. What’s up with that?
NASA Earth Observatory photo of the Gujarat Gulfs, including the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat), where a "lost city" was thought to have been found in 2001; later research indicates no city underwater.
Oh, this is what’s up: Watts links to a BBC news story, not a science journal — one of the warning signs of Bogus Science and Bogus History, both. The news story talks about preliminary findings in 2002 that did not hold up to scrutiny. Measurement error was part of the problem — the pattern of the scanning radar sweep was mistaken for structures found on the sea floor. Natural formations were mistaken for artificial formations. When the news announcement was made, archaeologists and other experts in dating such things had not be consulted (and it’s unclear when or whether they were ever brought in). The follow-up didn’t support the story, notes Bad Archaeology. Terrible archaeology to support pseudo climate science? Why not?
This doesn’t deny Watts’ general claims in his post, but it is too indicative of the type of “find anything to support the favored claim of denial” mindset that goes on among denialists. (There is evidence of a much lower waterline in the area during the last ice age; water levels have risen, according to physical evidence, but probably not inundating the what would be the oldest civilization on Earth.)
It will be interesting to watch what happens. Will Watts note an oopsie and apologize, or will the entire group circle their Radio Super wagons around the issue and call it a mainstream science plot against them? Will Watts correct his citation, or will they move on to cite the disappearance of Atlantis as evidence that warming can’t be stopped?
Anybody want to wager?
What sort of irony is there in a guy’s complaining about a scientific consensus held by thousands of scientists with hundreds of publications supporting their claims, and his using one news report almost totally without any scientific corroboration in rebuttal?
Resources:
1 Comment | Ancient history, Archaeology, Bogus history, Climate change, Global warming, History, Prehistory, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Anthony Watts, Archaeology, Bogus history, bogus science, Cambay, Climate change, denialism, Global warming, Gulf of Cambay, History, India, Khambhat, Lost City, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, Watts Up With That | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Jefferson Memorial, Rudulph Evans, sculptor – Library of Congress photo by Carol Highsmith, who graciously puts her photos in the public domain
A commentary from Cal Thomas caught my eye — little more than a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson strung together. Jefferson seems oddly prescient in these quotes, and, also oddly, rather endorsing the views of the right wing.
From the way the text is laid out, and the brevity of the piece, I’m guessing it’s a radio commentary.
I read Jefferson often. I’ve read Jefferson a lot. I don’t recognize any of the quotes.
So I plugged them into the Jefferson collection at Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty, which has a lot of Jefferson ready for full-text searching.
Oops. None of the quotes scored a hit.
Couldn’t find them in the Library of Congress’s on-line list of quotes, either.
It looks as though Jefferson didn’t say these things that are being attributed to him.
Cal, is that you?
Cal, can you give us citations on these quotes?
How about you, Dear Reader? Can you save Cal Thomas’s bacon by providing a citation for any of the quotes below, alleged to be from Thomas Jefferson?
AS WE LISTEN TO TALK OF BAILOUTS AND ENDLESS DEBT, THINK ON THESE THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON:
“THE DEMOCRACY WILL CEASE TO EXIST WHEN YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO WORK AND GIVE TO THOSE WHO WOULD NOT.”
HERE’S ANOTHER: “IT IS INCUMBENT ON EVERY GENERATION TO PAY ITS OWN DEBTS AS IT GOES. A PRINCIPLE WHICH IF ACTED ON WOULD SAVE ONE-HALF THE WARS OF THE WORLD.”
AND ANOTHER: “I PREDICT FUTURE HAPPINESS FOR AMERICANS IF THEY CAN PREVENT THE GOVERNMENT FROM WASTING THE LABORS OF THE PEOPLE UNDER THE PRETENSE OF TAKING CARE OF THEM.”
AND ONE MORE: “MY READING OF HISTORY CONVINCES ME THAT MOST BAD GOVERNMENT RESULTS FROM TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.”
There you have ’em, Dear Readers. Did somebody hoodwink Cal Thomas into thinking these are Jefferson’s bon mots, when they are not?
Shake of the wet scrub brush to Truthseeker.
Below the fold, the complete Cal Thomas commentary. Read the rest of this entry »
28 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, History, Quotes, Thomas Jefferson, Voodoo history | Tagged: Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Cal Thomas, History, Quotes, Thomas Jefferson, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
So, last week or so I commented on the woes of Kentucky, where, the polls showed, 28% of voters were yoked with the millstone belief that our president-elect is Muslim. Someone commented, and sent me the link that showed 23% of Texans carry a similar burden in their own swim.
Can it get much more weird, more divorced from reality?
How about we marry bizarre, untrue beliefs about religion with bizarre, untrue beliefs about science? And then — God save us, please — how about let’s put that person on the state school board during a rewrite of science standards?
Meet Cynthia Dunbar, member of the Texas State Board of Education.
At the tinfoil hat website “Christian Worldview” (as if Christians are unable to see normally), Dunbar posted this bizarre statement:
So we can imagine the blatant disregard for our Constitution, but what other threats does an Obama administration pose? We have been clearly warned by his running mate, Joe Biden, that America will suffer some form of attack within the first 6 months of Obama’s administration. However, unlike Joe, I do not believe this “attack” will be a test of Obama’s mettle. Rather, I perceive it will be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny.
Challenged by the Texas Freedom Network to do the American, patriotic thing and take the comments down, Dunbar refuses.
Dunbar was not worried about martial law when President George W. Bush actually took the steps she claims to worry about now, assigning troops to domestic crowd control in the U.S. It’s the marriage of presidential power with the bizarre phantasms of “the Christian worldview” that makes Ms. Dunbar’s views so nutty. It’s her position on the Texas State Board of Education that makes her views troubling, if not downright dangerous.
Her statement is as crazy as if she had accused John McCain of being a communist sympathizer, and Manchurian candidate, for ‘having spent so much time schmoozing with North Vietnamese officials.’ It’s also every bit as offensive as such a claim would be.
One mystery remains: Do wacko views produce creationism, or does creationism produce these wacko views? We await the creationist who can make an argument in favor of creationism without making a detour off the deep end.
It’s going to take more than tinfoil to protect Texas’s children, and Barack Obama, from these nuts.
If you want to pray, pray that God grants us reason, to save us and our children from such nuts, and this one especially.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Chris Comer.
_________________
10 Comments | Barack Obama, Bogus history, Creationism, Education, History, Rampant stupidity, Science, State school boards, Terrorism, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Bogus history, Creationism, Cynthia Dunbar, Education, Insanity, Obama, Rampant stupidity, Science, Terrorism, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Economist, that august, conservative British publication about economics, endorsed Barack Obama for president. (I added highlights, below):
IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.
For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
We face tough issues, and tough times. The world’s economy is in a fix, America is involved in two protracted wars, our reputation internationally is at a low ebb for the past 125 years, and too many of America’s institutions just are not working.
Serious issues won’t stop the hoaxsters from trying to hoax Americans about Barack Obama right up to election day, and probably beyond.
For example, there’s a guy named Mitchell Langbert, who insists that there remains an issue about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. He goes so far as to claim that Obama might be committing fraud merely by running for office, and then he stretches a biased assessment of U.S. election law to say Obama’s running is a violation of voters’ rights. The birth certificate hoaxers roll on despite their nuisance lawsuits being dismissed solidly in at least two jurisdictions, and despite the complete lack of any cogent or coherent case that there is a problem with Obama’s citizenship.
Consider this: Obama’s birth was recorded by the State of Hawaii, in Hawaii, in 1961. As many newspapers did at the time, the Honolulu Advertiser listed births in the state, and it listed Barack Obama’s birth there. This issue would have been checked again on at least three occasions. First, when he applied for his own passport, the U.S. State Department would have required a showing of a birth certificate. Second, when he applied for a law license, he had to make such a showing to the National Conference of Bar Examiners (as we all did); I haven’t checked, but Illinois may have required a separate confirmation. And third, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, the FBI would have checked the issue in their routine checkings of senators for top secret clearances (Obama is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, where secret information is often passed to senators).
Finally, it is the duty of the state secretary of state (SOS) to verify that candidates are eligible for listing on the ballots. I suspect most SOS offices take a certification from the candidate without much checking; however, what this means is that the SOS is the person who would have authority to challenge for citizenship. Knowing that they have no case, none of the birth certificate hoaxers, not Langbert or Texas Darlin’, nor anyone else, has bothered to ask their SOS to check things out.
Other hoaxers are worse, creating whole cloth fictions, just for the sake of malice. (See here, too, for a solid example of just plain malice in hoaxing.)
Remember the 7 Signs of Bogus History? (You’ll find a link just under the masthead here.) The first is that the work is conducted by press release, and not in the archives, or in serious searches for the facts. Each of these anti-Obama hoaxes originates either with a press release or a blog post. Not one has withstood scrutiny of any court, nor of any editor at any serious mass media outlet who seriously worries about libel, slander, or otherwise getting the facts straight. That’s a serious indictment.
Gone are the days when one needed a printing press at least to make one’s views known broadly. Web tools, like the blogging software and servers used by this blog, allow any fool (as I may well be) to throw his hat, brain too often included, into the public arena as a pundit.
The Economist conclude in their endorsement editorial:
He has earned it
So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.
* * * * * * * *
Update, November 2, 2008: Langbert appears to be censoring comments at his blog, as well – none of my responses other than my first post have been allowed to get through his personal filtering. This is a pattern we’ve seen in many of the hoax blogs that complain about Obama, and the McCain sympathizer blogs that pose as disgruntled Democrat blogs. Any post that offers serious criticism is dangerous to their posing as informed seekers of the truth — so posts that contain real information rebutting their claims are not allowed through their “moderation,” or are edited to say inane things.
For Obama voters, this confirms their fears that a McCain administration would probably continue the Bush administration’s suppression of views and filtering of helpful criticism. Also, it means bloggers like Langbert are bullies who can’t take the hurly-burly of serious discussion.
2 Comments | Barack Obama, Bogus history, Campaigns, History, Jurisprudence, Law, Obama 2008, Politics, Voodoo history | Tagged: Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Bogus history, Campaign 2008, Hoaxes, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
As expected, a federal judge in Philadelphia late Friday dismissed a challenge to the campaign of Barack Obama to produce yet another copy of his birth certificate. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick ruled that the plaintiff, screwball attorney Philip J. Berg, lacked standing to sue.
Appearing to take his inspiration from the Monty Python character, the Black Knight, Berg promised to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the U.S.
Among reputable media, only the Philadelphia Daily News took note of the dismissal early on:
Obama and the Democratic National Committee had asked Surrick to dismiss Berg’s complaint in a court filing on Sept. 24.
They said that Berg’s claims were “ridiculous” and “patently false,” that Berg had “no standing” to challenge the qualifications of a candidate for president because he had not shown the requisite harm to himself.
Surrick agreed.
In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg’s allegations of harm were “too vague and too attenuated” to confer standing on him or any other voters.
Surrick ruled that Berg’s attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.”
The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did “not constitute an injury in fact” and Berg’s arguments to the contrary “ventured into the unreasonable.”
For example, Berg had claimed that Obama’s nomination deprived citizens of voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in November. (Berg backed Clinton in the primaries.)
Berg could not be reached for comment last night.
Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, and the campaign posted a document issued by Hawaii on its Web site, fight thesmears.com, confirming his birth there.
Berg said in court papers that the image was a forgery.
The nonpartisan Web site FactCheck.org examined the original document and said it was legitimate.
Further, a birth announcement in the Aug. 13, 1961, Honolulu Advertiser listed Obama’s birth there on Aug. 4.
Dozens of bloggers bought new rolls of aluminum foil to make protective hats, and questioned the dismissal, or jumped to other equally unwarranted conclusions. Near total insanity.
Resources:
________
Update, 10-27-2008: Here’s an example of how lunatic this issue is, and how bizarre are the arguments. This blog argues that Judge Surrick had the decision dictated to him from someone else in the Obama camp — the same lunatic argument creationists made against the decision of Judge Jones in the Dover, Pennsylvania, “intelligent design” trial. Could it be that all lunatics are creationists? Or is it just that lunatics all stumble into the same lunatic arguments?
6 Comments | Barack Obama, Bogus history, Campaigns, Ethics, History, Jurisprudence, Law, Obama 2008, Politics, Rampant stupidity, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Article II, Birth Certificate, Bogus history, Campaign 2008, Constitution, Law, Nuisance Suits, Obama, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Millard Fillmore soap-on-a-rope* started spinning in the shower this morning. I knew some mischief was afoot.
Sure enough, as soon as we turned the gas on to the computer and the screen warmed up, what should pop up but a group claiming to be opposed to junk science and arrogant ignorance, but arrogantly spreading the ignorance of junk science: Climate Change Fraud, “The Crichtonian Green.”
I caught the site with a news reader that looks for idiocy about DDT. This is the line the automoton caught:
“DDT is not a carcinogen…the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people…”
We’ve washed out the dirt from Crichton’s claims before in the Bathtub, in “Michael Crichton hysterical for DDT.” Go read his errors there (there’s a YouTube video of his assaulting innocent school children with his hysteric errors, too, in case you think I’m joking).
Among the anti-science crowds, this stuff is holy writ. Dogma insists that scientists are craven political creatures driven to silly programs that waste money and hurt poor people. Never mind the facts. They believe it religiously — and they treat efforts to educate them as assaults on their faith.
DDT is a well-established carcinogen in animals, including mammals, and every cancer-fighting agency on Earth lists DDT as a probable human carcinogen. The various “bans” on DDT all allow DDT to be used to protect poor people against disease, but DDT’s overuse by its advocates led to rapid evolution of resistance and immunity in insects targeted by DDT — DDT use was stopped when it stopped being effective. Inaction on the part of DDT advocates, and their unwillingness to use other methods to fight malaria, have been culprits in the too-slow program to reduce malaria among poor people. Spraying DDT advocates with DDT will do absolutely nothing to get them off their butts to act.
(Go to the search feature on this blog, search for “DDT.” The truth is out there.)
Oy. This is how the week starts?
__________
8 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Climate change, DDT, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Climate change, DDT, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Creationists in Texas claim to have found a stone with footprints of a human and a dinosaur.
No, I’m not kidding.
Hoax “dinosaur and human footprints” claimed to be found in the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas.
Could you make this stuff up? Well, yeah, I guess some people think you could. Somebody did make this stuff up.
According to a report in the too-gullible Mineral Wells Index, long-time hoaxster and faux doctorate Carl Baugh’s Creation Evidence Museum announced the rock was found just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park. The area has been the site of more than one creationist hoax since 1960, and was an area rife with hoax dinosaur prints dating back to the 1930s. (See these notes on the warning signs of science hoaxes and history hoaxes.)
The estimated 140-pound stone was recovered in July 2000 from the bank of a creek that feeds the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, located about 53 miles south of Fort Worth. The find was made just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park, a popular destination for tourists known for its well-preserved dinosaur tracks and other fossils.
The limestone contains two distinct prints – one of a human footprint and one belonging to a dinosaur. The significance of the cement-hard fossil is that it shows the dinosaur print partially over and intersecting the human print.
In other words, the stone’s impressions indicate that the human stepped first, the dinosaur second. If proven genuine, the artifact would provide evidence that man and dinosaur roamed the Earth at the same time, according to those associated with the find and with its safekeeping. It could potentially toss out the window many commonly held scientific theories on evolution and the history of the world.
Except, as you can see, Dear Reader and Viewer, it’s a hoax. No dinosaur has a footprint exactly resembling the print of Fred Flintstone’s pet Dino, as the rock shows; nor do human footprints left in mud look like the print shown.
Dear God, save us from such tom-foolery, please.
To the newspaper’s credit, they consulted with an expert who knows better. The expert gave a conservative, scientific answer, however, when the rock deserved a chorus of derisive hoots:
However, Dr. Phillip Murry, a vertebrate paleontology instructor in the Geoscience department of Tarleton State University at Stephenville, Texas, stated in his response to an interview request: “There has never been a proven association of dinosaur (prints) with human footprints.”
The longtime amateur archeologist who found the fossil thinks that statement is now proven untrue.
“It is unbelievable, that’s what it is,” Alvis Delk, 72, said of what could be not only the find of a lifetime, but of mankind.
Delk is a current Stephenville and former Mineral Wells resident (1950-69) who said he found the rock eight years ago while on a hunt with a friend, James Bishop, also of Stephenville, and friend and current fiancee Elizabeth Harris.
Yes, it’s unbelievable.
For comparison, real hominid footprints look much different — the print below was left in a thin-layer of volcanic ash about 4 million years ago, 61 million years after dinosaurs went extinct, according to timelines corroborated by geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, nuclear physicists and biologists:
Print of a hominid, found at Laetoli, Tanzania, Africa; image from Stanford University. Photo: J. Reader/SPL
With luck, serious scientists will get a chance to analyze the prints soon, and note that they are hoaxes. If history is any guide, however, Baugh and his comrades will keep the rock from scientific analysis, claiming that scientists refuse to analyze it.
The rock is approximately 30 inches by 24 inches. The human footprint, with a deep big toe impression, measures 11 inches in length. Baugh said the theropod track was made by an Acrocanthosaurus. Baugh said this particular track was likely made by a juvenile Acrocanthosaurus, one he said was probably about 20 feet long, stood about 8 feet tall and walked stooped over, weighing a few tons.
Its tracks common in the Glen Rose area, the Acrocanthosaurus is a dinosaur that many experts believe existed primarily in North America during the mid-Cretaceous Period, approximately 125 million to 100 million years ago.
Baugh said Delk’s discovery casts doubts on that theory. Baugh said he believes both sets of prints were made “within minutes, or no more than hours of each other” about 4,500 years ago, around the time of Noah’s Flood. He said the clay-like material that the human and dinosaur stepped in soon hardened, becoming thick, dense limestone common in North Texas.
He said the human print matches seven others found in the same area, stating the museum has performed excavations since 1982 in the area Baugh has dubbed the “Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint” discovery.
This “find” comes as the State Board of Education begins rewriting science standards for Texas schools. The chairman of the SBOE is a committed creationist who publicly says he hopes to get creationism into the standards and textbooks in Texas, miseducating Texas students that creationism has a scientific basis.
Delk’s own daughter, Kristi Delk, is a geology major at Tarleton State University in Stephenville and holds different beliefs from her dad about the creation of Earth and the origins of man.
She said she wants to see data from more tests before jumping to any conclusions.
“I haven’t come to terms with it,” she said. “I am skeptical, actually.”
Listen to your daughter, Mr. Delk.
In a story Texas educators hope to keep completely unrelated to the foot prints hoax, Mineral Wells area schools showed gains in academic achievement on the Texas state test program.
Additional resources:
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Gary Hurd at Stones and Bones, who Is a bit of an expert in this stuff, calls “fake.“
Here is how to fake a patina that will look like this fake fossil: Brush the surface with vinegar, and then sprinkle with baking powder followed by baking soda, and let dry. Repeat until you are happy with the results. This is not the only way, or even the best way. But it is simple, and will fool the average fool. Especially easy if they want to be fooled.
So, having spent a little bit more time on the photo of this fake, I feel that I understand a bit more about how it was produced. A legitimate dinosaur track was found and removed. Incompetent, unprofessional “Cleaning” damaged it. An parital overprint, or simple erosion depression was “improved” by adding “toes.” The faked surfaces were smothed over with a simple kitchen concoction to make a “patina.” Artifact fabricators next bury the fake for a year or two, or they smear it with fertilizer and leave it exposed. This helps weather the object and obscure tool marks.
Help stamp out hoaxes; run with the word:
37 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Creationism, Education, History, Hoaxes, Public education, Religion, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science | Tagged: bogus science, Creationism, Dinosaur Valley State Park, Dinosaurs, Glen Rose, History, Hoaxes, human evolution, Paleontology, Paluxy River, Religion, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A new outbreak of David Barton has been noted. The Centers for Disease Control offer no help, but you can find some relief here, at American Creation, in a post by Brad Hart.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, “Another Barton Debunking.”
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bogus history, Education, Historic documents, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Politics, Voodoo history | Tagged: Accuracy, History, Hoaxes, Politics, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Tape up your face to keep from smiling too broadly, schadenfreude being a sin or close to it.
You remember Oktar: He’s the guy who publishes all those nasty anti-evolution and anti-science books, steals photos for his high-cost, low-information “atlas” of creationism, and successfully sued to shut down this blog’s availability in Turkey (Well, this blog and two million others on WordPress).
Reuters has a story on the affair:
A spokeswoman for his Science Research Foundation (BAV) confirmed to Reuters that Oktar had been sentenced but said the judge was influenced by political and religious pressure groups.
Oktar had been tried with 17 other defendants in an Istanbul court. The verdict and sentence came after a previous trial that began in 2000 after Oktar, along with 50 members of his foundation, was arrested in 1999.
In that court case, Oktar had been charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. The charges were dropped but another court picked them up resulting in the latest case.
Oktar planned to appeal the sentence, a BAV spokeswoman said. No further details were immediately available.
Oh, yeah — those political and religious pressure groups. And Oktar’s high dollar bullying of government authorities — what is that?
European, and Turkey, laws against political views may trouble one, justly. In a perfect world, there would be no need for such things, with good and true ideas having a good shot at winning in a fair fight. Oktar specializes in the sort of thuggery that makes a fight for ideas unfair. We might hope this latest action will simply help keep the playing field even, level and fair.
Resources:
The news is oddly silent about this otherwise.
3 Comments | Academic freedom, Adnan Oktar, Biology, Bogus history, Books, Censorship, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Justice, Law, Science | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Freedom of Speech, Islam, Politics, Religion, Science, Turkey | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One of the ultimate defenses of creationism, once you’ve demonstrated that there is no science and no good theology in it, is the creationist claim “it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Well, yes, it does. Over the years I’ve noticed that creationism appears to suck the intelligence right out of otherwise smart or educated people. I also note that it tends to make otherwise good and honest people defend academic debauchery and dishonesty.
It’s as if claiming to be creationist hogs all the available RAM in their brains and forces a near-total synapse shutdown.
Cases in point: Creationists are scrambling to the defense of the mockumentary movie “Expelled!” in which Ben Stein trots out almost every creationist canard known to Hollywood in defending some of the greater misdeeds of the intelligent design hoaxers. Otherwise sane, good people, claiming to be Christian, make atrocious defenses of the movie.
I cannot make this up: Go see Mere Orthodoxy and Thinking Christian. Bad enough they defend the movie — but to defend it because, they claim, Darwin and Hitler were brothers in thought? Because evolution urges immoral behavior? I stepped in something over at Thinking Christian, and when I called it to the attention of Tom Gilson in the comments, he deleted the comment. (I’ve reposted, but I wager he’ll delete that one, too, while letting other comments of mine stand; he’s got no answer to any of my complaints.)
The stupid goes past 11, proudly, defiantly. The Constitution specifically protects the right of people to believe any fool claptrap they choose. These defenses of a silly movie come awfully close to abuse of the privilege.
Other useful things:
Update: Holy mother of ostriches! Tom Gilson at “Thinking Christian” has a nifty device that bans people from viewing his blog. Paranoia sticks its head into a whole new depth of sand! Here’s a truism: Creationists who like to claim Darwin was the cause of Stalin and Hitler, which is by itself an extremely insulting and repugnant claim, almost never fail to resort to Stalinist and Hitlerian tactics when their claims are questioned. Call it Darrell’s Law of Evolution History Revisionism.
11 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Free press, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Movies, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Creationism, Entertainment, History Revisionism, Moral corruption, Movies, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Oy.
U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Virginia, wants a resolution designating a week in May as “American Religious History Week.”
Alas, alack, and every other epithet you can think of, Forbes’ resolution, H. Res. 888, is loaded to the gills with historical error. Adding hypocrisy to error, Forbes plagiarized a raft of “citations” in a lengthy set of footnotes in an oleaginous “footnoted” version of the resolution. It’s clear that Forbes did not read the sources of the footnotes, and it appears that he didn’t bother to read the footnotes either. The footnotes claim religious language in the case of Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 43 U. S. 127, 198 (1844), for example, but fail to note that the language mentioned was repudiated by the Supreme Court in their upholding of the will of atheist patriot Stephen Girard, turning back arguments that the U.S. is a Christian nation with Christianity in its common law. Forbes is a member of the Judiciary Committee, and a graduate of the University of Virginia’s law school. Hypothetically, he should know better.
The resolution is so wrong on history, it has the effect of repudiating the No Child Left Behind Act’s call for standards in education, in the worst possible way.
Baffled at the astounding lack of scholarship in the resolution, I want to know:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Read the rest of this entry »
10 Comments | Bogus history, History, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Religion, U.S. House of Representatives, Voodoo history | Tagged: History, Plagiarism, Politics, Religion, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here is one surefire way to tell someone is bluffing, and perhaps doing a bit of planned prevarication, about Rachel Carson and the safety of DDT: Look for a footnote like this:
31 Sweeney EM. EPA Hearing Examiner’s recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings. 25 April 1972 (40 CFR 164.32).
Why is that a sign of a bluff?
The volume and paging, “40 CFR 164.32,” is a reference to the Code of Federal Regulations. One knows that codes do not contain hearing records, and sure enough, this one does not. 40 CFR covers the rules of administrative hearings in federal agencies, but there is nothing whatsoever in that entire chapter about DDT, or birds, or chemical safety.
40 CFR is the chapter of the Code of Federal Regulations that pertains to the rules, regulations and procedures of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); it does not contain transcripts of regulatory hearings. Anyone who cites a hearing to this publication is giving you a bogus citation, probably to promote bogust history and bogus science.
If that citation shows up in a screed against environmentalists, or against Rachel Carson, or urging that we spray poison till the cows come home to die, you can be pretty sure that the person offering it has copied it wholesale from Steven Milloy’s junk science purveyor shop, and that the person has not read it at all. If the person has a law degree, or was ever a librarian or active in interscholastic debate, you can be pretty sure the person knows the citation is wrong, and is insulting you by listing it, knowing it’s unlikely you’ll ever find it in your local library.
(What is the accurate citation for the hearings? I’m not sure; but 40 CFR is not it. See the current section of CFR below the fold — it’s one page, not more than 100 pages.)
I have posted about this before. The hearings Judge Sweeney presided over were conducted early in the existence of the EPA. They were conducted under court orders requiring EPA to act. The transcripts are not in usual legal opinion publications, so far as I have been able to find. Many claims have been made about the hearings, most of the claims are false. Jim Easter at Some Are Boojums did the legwork and extracted a copy of the actual decision out of EPA’s library. He’s posted it at his blog, so you can see. Check the pages — “40 CFR” is a bogus citation, designed to keep you from learning the truth.
So the footnote is intended to make the gullible or innocent think there is a reference, where there is no reference.
But read the analysis of the hearings at Some Are Boojums. It is more than just the citation is wrong. Contrary to Internet Legend claims, Sweeney did not determine that DDT was harmless. Sweeney determined that DDT usage provided some benefits that outweighed the harms, considering the dramatically reduced use of DDT then allowed. DDT use had been severely restricted prior to the Sweeney hearings; Sweeney was not looking at all uses, nor even at historic uses. Sweeney was looking at dramatically reduced DDT use under the registrations then allowed. His conclusions of “no harm” where he actually concluded that, were based on greatly reduced use of DDT. This finding cannot be used today to urge an expansion of use — or should not be so used, by honest people.
Not to mention that at Caosblog, footnotes are not even listed in the text. The listing of the footnotes is a gratuitous error, there is no footnote 31 in the text.
1 Comment | Bogus history, History, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bogus history, bogus science, DDT, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Chuck Norris’s brain waves could be picked up on a transistor radio — nobody knows because he doesn’t think.This must be a television advertising spot, but I hope it’s not rated as a public service spot, since it encourages stupidity and illegal school board actions.
(Is it my imagination, or is Norris using the same bottle of orange hair dye that Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-Mars, used in the last 65 years of his life?)
Norris is promoting the suspect curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), a group of fundamentalist right-wingers who originally promoted “Thou Shalt Not Steal” with plagiarized material. Do not trust that curriculum.
Analysis of this curriculum for the Texas Freedom Network by a distinguished Bible scholar from Southern Methodist University, Dr. Mark Chancey, showed that the curriculum as revised still presents enormous legal problems — it promotes fundamentalist Christian theology — as well as being academically flaccid. Despite an update in late 2005/early 2006 designed to alleviate some of the more egregious errors of fact, Bible fact, and plagiarism, NCBCPS refuses to release their curriculum for analysis; copies obtained from schools in Texas show many of the old problems remain (see page 61 of this document).
Errors in Norris’s claims:
Religion has played a big role in U.S. history. No student needs to be converted to Christianity in order to study that role. Nor does the role of Christianity need to be exaggerated.
Good Bible curricula exist, open to inspection, passed by religious scholars, approved by First Amendment and education lawyers. See the materials from the Bible Literacy Project, for a good example. NCBCPS’s curriculum, the one Norris promotes, is not that approved, educationally valuable curriculum.
Below the fold: Texas Faith Network’s guidelines for using the Bible in public schools
3 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bill of Rights, Blog Against Theocracy, Bogus history, Curricula, First Amendment, History, Religion, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Bible curriculum, Chuck Norris, Education, First Amendment, Religion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. The Right Wing is working hard to make sure that every parody of them comes true. Vox Day said this today, in a comment about serial plagiarizer and general garden-party skunk Ann Coulter:
What Ann understands and so many nominal conservatives do not is that women’s suffrage is completely incompatible with human liberty or a republic as described in the U.S. Constitution. The two cannot co-exist. One cannot defend freedom on the basis of emotion, as fear always runs to promises of security, however nebulous.
It’s interesting to note that since women received the right to vote, no bald politician has been elected in either the United States or the UK with the exception of Eisenhower and Churchill. (Atlee was bald too, but he was running against Churchill so there was no hair option in 1945.) And being bona fide war heroes, both Churchill and Eisenhower represented security even more than the archtypical tall politician with executive hair; neither one of them were capable of winning in less extraordinary times.
So, Vox thinks we should take the vote away from women to elect bald men again? That will make one heck of a campaign button, and I can’t wait to see how it’s phrased in the Texas Republican Party platform.
Isn’t that roughly the same sort of thinking that got us into Iraq — same quality of reasoning, same clear connections, and of course, same sorts of historical error in blind ignorance of the facts and amazingly tin ear on what people think.
Is Vox balding that much? He’s that sensitive about it?
Historical error? Well, yeah — who among the presidents prior to Eisenhower was bald? (You can check pictures of the presidents here.) John Quincy Adams certainly had a lot of shiny pate visible. Martin Van Buren was bald, if we don’t count the copious hair he had around his receding hairline. But if we count receding hairline as bald, then we’d have to count Coolidge, Hoover, Truman and Nixon (whose bald spot was rarely photographed). The bald and balding presidents: John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren (with qualifications), Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford.
In fact, if we just look at the follicularly challenged, and not wholly bald, we find that the men with the least hair were all elected AFTER women’s suffrage. Vox Day rarely lets fact or reason get in the way of his thinking. Only Quincy Adams and Van Buren before women’s suffrage, and six baldies starting with Coolidge after.
But the question is, who is focusing on baldness here? Vox Day makes an implicit assumption that women do. It’s a wholly unevidenced, and in the light of history that shows the contrary, unreasonable assumption. He’s making hysterical error, with all the irony that drags along with it.
That anyone would argue for depriving women of the vote, hanging it on such flimsy evidence and bizarre reasoning, shows why women are justified in voting for Democrats. No one in the Democratic party is advancing arguments against women’s suffrage, on any basis.
You know what else? The mainstream media will “hide” Vox’s bizarre comments, not covering them at all, thereby protecting him and Republicans from the howls of justifiable outrage. Why do the media always protect conservatives who have taken leave of their senses?
2 Comments | Bogus history, Dwight Eisenhower, Mythology, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Voodoo history, Winston Churchill, Women's rights | Tagged: Ann Coulter, Bald Men, Politics, Voodoo history, Vox Day, women in politics, Women's rights, Women's Suffrage | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 