. . . Ken Ham’s creationist museum is established. An amateur geologist/paleontologist in Cincinnati lets the rocks tell their own story. Interestingly, the story they cry out is not the one promoted by Ken Ham.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Panda’s Thumb and P. Z. Myers.
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Bogus history, Creationism, Hoaxes, Museums, Natural history, Reason, Science and faith | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Steve Schafersman dutifully follows events at the Texas Education Agency, particularly with regard to textbook selection, and particularly with regard to biology textbooks. As head and chief instigator and chief bottle washer for the Texas Citizens for Science, he still gets little notoriety for the good work he does — all volunteer.
Shafersman says important stuff to know. So, when he sends along an editorial from the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram pointing out ethical and legal lapses at the agency which appear to be the work of the chief lawyer of the agency, one should read it. That lawyer, by the way, is probably in line to be the next head of the agency.
TEA has suffered from politicized leadership the last few years. Since Mike Moses left the agency, Texas education has drifted, and lack of leadership from TEA has not helped. Controversies over silly things are almost invited; serious issues, like cheating on the state’s graduation test, go unstudied and unremedied. I take the liberty of publishing the full editorial, below the fold — please read it, especially if you’re in Texas. Since Texas influences education so heavily, especially in textbook selection, everybody who has a kid in U.S. schools, who did have a kid in U.S. schools, who was educated in U.S. schools, or lives in a state that has schools, has a dog in this fight. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Darwin, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
An acquaintance sends word he’s happy to be back in the mountains with his hammer again, breaking rocks as a geologist in support of a mining venture. The price of gold is high, a few advances in technology have helped the process, and our friend was tapped by suits with money to help keep the actual gold mining operation in the proper vein, so to speak.
Mining is best done with a good scientist on hand to make sure the hole dug out is done right, and to be sure that the digging keeps going for the genuine nuggets.
William Dembski’s blog, Uncommon Descent, has no scientists with any geology training, it appears. But again they’ve been mining, for quotes instead of useful ore, and they’ve come up with fool’s information. Unable to tell the difference between fool’s information and the real stuff, they’ve published the fool’s information for the world to see.
A wise person does not allow fool’s information into one’s information banks. Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Creationism, Ethics, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
For those of us who worry at every eruption of intentional ignorance, such as Ken Ham’s Creation Museum, the comments of BBC’s correspondent Justin Webb produce a little salve:
There is nothing remotely convincing about the Creation Museum and frankly if it poses the threat to American science that some American critics claim it does, that seems to me to be as much a commentary on the failings of the scientific establishment as it is on the creationists.
And a bit later:
At the Creation Museum, goggle-eyed children watch depictions of the Great Flood in which children and their mums and dads are consumed, because God is cross.
In a nation of kindly moderate people I am not sure this is the future.
I put my faith – in America.
Mencken’s hoax about bathtubs in the White House was innocent enough, but impossible to kill (yet). Ham’s hoax about science, at $27 million (U.S. reports) or $30 million, doesn’t have the grace of its perpetrator confessing the hoax and urging correction (yet).
Faith in America is reassuring, until one remembers P. T. Barnum’s faith that Americans include a “sucker born every minute,” and Tom Sawyer’s assessment of small town politics: ‘Ain’t we got every fool in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?’
3 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Museums, Natural history, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
There’s not much to add, beyond the three-quarters of a hundred entries in the one time Ken Ham’s Creation Museum blog carnival, hosted at Pharyngula by P. Z. Myers.
Those we honor on Memorial Day fought, and died, to preserve Ken Ham’s right to believe any fool thing he wants to believe. That’s part of the ironic beauty of our Constitution and those who fight to defend it.
Having a right to believe any fool thing, and promoting fool ideas with $27 million given by people who expected one to tell the truth, are probably separate, different things.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Free speech, Freedom - Political, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Natural history, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
o Bob Park, “What’s New,” May 25, 2007
[See full quote below the fold]
Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Creationism, Natural history, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From today’s Christian Science Monitor, a story about Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky:
The $27 million museum set on 50 acres opens on Memorial Day, and [Answers in Genesis] AiG hopes for 250,000 visitors a year. Mr. Ham, a former science teacher in Australia, is direct about the museum’s purpose: to restore the Bible to its “rightful authority” in society.
And, later in the article:
No one has a handle on the scope of creationism’s influence, says [Ronald] Numbers, author of “The Creationists.” “Intelligent design” (which disputes aspects of evolution but accepts that the universe is billions of years old) has been more in the news recently. But AiG, simply one group in the creationism fold, is clearly doing well. The museum has 8,500 charter members, [Mark] Looy says [AIG’s p.r. guy], and is all paid for – by donations averaging $100.
Now, I admit to having had difficulty with calculus in college. But even using a calculator to make sure my in-the-head numbers were right, 8,500 members multiplied by an average contribution of $100 equals $850,000. That’s considerably less than the $27 million advertised at the top of the article.
There’s a gap of more than $26 million in those figures. Where did the extra $26 million come from?
Is that where the money missing from Iraq went? Is Judge Crater in one of the displays? Is their claim of a 6,000-year-old Earth also off by a factor of at least 27?
Just askin’.
Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Creationism, Natural history, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Okay, I think this site is a parody, a hoax, on U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback‘s presidential campaign.
But it’s difficult to tell, especially when stuff like this voodoo history is on Brownback’s official campaign site. Alvin Reed thinks Brownback understands “the creator” better than other candidates because he was Secretary of Agriculture in Kansas, and that made Brownback ‘closer to the soil?’
Brownback is one of the three Republicans who confessed to supporting creationism, so he has no chance of my vote in any case. All the same, I’d prefer lunatics stay out of the presidential campaign.
I have written the Brownback campaign asking them for an explanation of the heliocentrism stuff. If they are not savvy enough to have a disavowal of the Blogs4Brownback out, and the sites are not part of the campaign, he’s going to get toasted quickly.
But if the site is affiliated with him, he deserves to get toasted more quickly — already there are serious posters there defending Brownback. Someone needs to tell them Jesus died to take away their sins, not their brains ©.
More commentary from experts:
3 Comments | Bogus history, Campaigns, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Politics, Voodoo history, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Oops – this almost escaped my notice — according to the New York Times (in a May 19 story that will soon go behind the proprietary veil, so hurry if you want to read it):
The National Association of State Boards of Education [NASBE] will elect officers in July, and for one office, president-elect, there is only one candidate: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its efforts against the teaching of evolution.
Scientists who have been active in the nation’s evolution debate say they want to thwart his candidacy, but it is not clear that they can.
The candidate is Kenneth R. Willard, a Kansas Republican who voted with the conservative majority in 2005 when the school board changed the state’s science standards to allow inclusion of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Voters later replaced that majority, but Mr. Willard, an insurance executive from Hutchinson, retained his seat. If he becomes president-elect of the national group, he will take office in January 2009.
I suppose a flat Earth advocate, a communist economist, or someone who is convinced the Moon landings were hoaxes, could head up such an education organization and not bother the rest of us with his particular brand of lunacy.
But is it likely?
Mr. Willard, who is in his fourth year on the 16-member national board, said in a telephone interview yesterday that issues like the teaching of evolution were best left to the states.
“We don’t set curriculum standards or anything like that,” Mr. Willard said of the national organization, adding that it handled issues like advising state boards on how to deal with governance concerns or influxes of immigrant students or ways to raise academic achievement among members of disadvantaged groups.
He said, though, that he personally thought students should be taught about challenges to the theory of evolution, like intelligent design. And while he said he had not heard of a possible challenge to his candidacy, Mr. Willard added that he was not surprised by it.
“Some people are mindless about their attacks on anyone questioning anything Darwin might have said,” Mr. Willard said.
There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. Courts have repeatedly ruled that creationism and intelligent design are religious doctrines, not scientific theories.
NASBE is the organization that offended the Texas State Board of Education by advocating that gay high school students should not be bullied. Is Willard’s nomination a sop to get Texas back in the fold?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Christian Leftist.
Almost immediate update: Pharyngula is already on the thing.
Another update: Panda’s Thumb is in the fray, too.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
News out of Ames, Iowa, is that intelligent design advocate, physicist and astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, was denied tenure at Iowa State University.
Advocates of intelligent design will argue this as evidence of a bias against counter ideas, part of a massive, monolithic conspiracy to hide the truth about intelligent design. Gonzalez will be more circumspect, at least until his appeal of the tenure denial is finished.
Another friend of intelligent design, Dr. Francis Beckwith, a philosopher, was originally denied tenure at Baylor last year. His appeal was successful, however, and he now has tenure at Baylor, though he is moving from the Institute for Church State Relations to the philosophy department. Beckwith also made a splash in conservative evangelical news recently when he made public his return to the Catholic church.
I can’t speak for Iowa State, but it has been my experience that professors who get tangled up in crank science projects get distracted from the work that will get them tenure. While faculty certainly have free speech rights to advocate causes, much of the backing for intelligent design is sub-standard academically, or even bogus. Such advocacy does not help a case for tenure.
Advocates argue that Gonzalez has more than enough publications to meet the standards set by Iowa State, but the numbers do not account for how many of the publications may be in suspect journals that support intelligent design, nor do they account for the publicity an ardent ID advocate brings to a department which is often unwanted. Faculty at Iowa State collected 120 signatures on a petition disowning intelligent design, in what they billed was an attempt to convince the outside world that Iowa State is not “an intelligent design school.”
ID advocates frequently miss the point that science is not a game of racking up publication points, and that the quality and accuracy of the research also plays an important role in tenure decisions.
Wailing and gnashing, and perhaps rending of garments, from the ID group should begin any moment now.
5 Comments | Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Research, Science, Science and faith, Teaching, Tenure | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Odd thing happened the other day: The Philadelphia Inquirer carried an editorial that rather accurately described evolution theory. Just when I’m ready to lambaste my colleagues in print media, they come through.
The editorial’s point of departure was the Republican “debate” among presidential contenders, in which they were asked whether they support evolution or creationism. Three of the candidates confessed they don’t “believe” in evolution.
Why did these three, all of whom wish to be the leader of the most powerful country in history, say they did not believe in evolution? There might be thousands of reasons. Perhaps they misheard: “I’m just curious: Is there anyone on this stage who doesn’t believe in elocution?” But two reasons are more likely:
(1) They really don’t think evolution exists. As in, it’s not happening and never did. We got here some other way. There’s no evidence for it.
Uh, yeah, there is. Although technically a theory, Charles Darwin’s version of the evolution of species is a theory-with-the-status-of-fact, robust and vigorous, demonstrated in living color each and every day in field and laboratory everywhere. No jury is “out.” The verdict’s in and everybody’s gone home. Way home.
And,
(2) These men raised their hands because they knew it would get them votes from religious conservatives.
Tancredo, Huckabee and Brownback know they need the Christian conservative vote to win the Republican nomination. Christian conservatives don’t like Rudy Giuliani. They’re lukewarm on John McCain, perplexed by Mitt Romney.
But any candidate who would ignore science to attract conservative votes has made a lousy calculation.
The newspaper’s editorial board concluded:
So, while pundits are calling the evolution flap an embarrassment to the GOP, what it really is is a call to the Republican faithful: “We’re in trouble. If we don’t rally on the wedge issues now, by 2008, a Republican majority may seem as far away as the Planet of the Apes.”
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Public education, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Case in point: Lee Cullum is not my favorite journalist, and I think her voice often takes on a scolding tone (my wife thinks I worry about voice too much) — but Cullum has a long and very distinguished career in print and broadcast, especially at our local KERA-TV, channel 13. You’ve probably heard her on PBS’s “The Newshour” or on NPR’s news shows, and if you were lucky, you got to read the Dallas Times-Herald’s editorial pages when she edited it. In addition, the Cullum family in Dallas is big power from wayback. Cullum is well connected in Texas politics. If one doesn’t like what she says, one is obligated to listen. (Here’s a PBS biography of Cullum.)
A bit over a week ago she had a column in the Dallas Morning News discussing the flap over intelligent design at SMU. In the past she’s favored letting ID people get a place at the academic table, but she’s learned, and basically she sorta supported the scientists who warned against ID.
How did the Discovery Institute react? Childish schoolyard taunts. No kidding; go see here, “‘Intellectually confused’ journalist.”
If this is how they treat people of great distinction, it becomes clear why they are so stridently insulting about great science by great people, including great dead people like Darwin. If it was meant to be entertaining, it isn’t; if it was meant to be enlightening, it isn’t that, either. At best it’s rude, at worst it’s a demonstration of the slash-and-burn tactics that an ethically challenged political group uses in desperation.
Somebody call the Discovery Institute and tell them no one is looking to replace “Imus In the Morning’s” stupider insults.
1 Comment | Business Ethics, Creationism, Darwin, Intelligent Design, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Psychology rests out on the end of the science spectrum, closer to “social sciences” than other branches of hard, research science, and sometimes affiliated with the pseudo-scientific, even while debunking false claims, such as the studies of parapsychology. Were there scientific merit in claims of evidence for supernatural design, psychology would be a natural home for most of the claims and much of the research. If any branch of science were to endorse intelligent design as science, psychology would be a likely first branch.
But not even psychology accepts intelligent design as science.
The American Psychology Association’s (APA) Council of Representatives adopted a resolution earlier this month which says intelligent design is not science, and that teaching it as science undermines the quality of science education and science literacy. The entire press release, and the resolution are below the fold.
This should be a serious blow to advocates of intelligent design who had hoped to make some recovery after the devastating loss in federal court in Pennsylvania in 2005, in the next round of textbook approvals in large states like California, Florida and Texas. There is no comment yet from the Discovery Institute, the leading organization in the assault on teaching evolution in public schools.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, TAKS, TEKS, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You just can’t write parody of creationists and creationism. A retired physician, Tennessee state senator is demanding the Tennessee State Department of Education provide the answers to questions left hanging by the trial of John T. Scopes in 1925. Read about it in the Nashville Post, in an article by Ken Whitehouse.
It appears as though the state senator, Raymond Finney, either failed Tennessee history, or just doesn’t pay attention to excellent advice and warnings from George Santayana.
Update, February 28, 2007: Perhaps Sen. Finney should check out this comment at the blog Sola Fide.
3 Comments | Creationism, Education, History, Humor, Intelligent Design, Natural history, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, Science and faith, State school boards, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The hoax is that Richard von Sternberg is an innocent who is unfairly maligned, to the point he fears for his job as Jack Cashill writes at right-wing fluff WorldNet Daily. Ed Brayton is at his best (“WorldNut Daily Flogs Dead Sternberg Horse), and there’s very little I could add — but it’s a good read, and important to know in the world of hoax-busting and pseudo-science bashing.
Read the full Brayton piece at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Sidenote 1: Sternberg as Galileo? Dembski as Newton? IDists are nothing if not full of themselves, and hubris.
Sidenote 2: A very funny novel by Robert Klane carries the title, The Horse is Dead. For some unfathomable reason, it is out of print. I have not found a copy in the past year for less than $150 (which suggests the TrashFiction site’s opinion of the book may be incorrect). Couldn’t some enterprising publisher bring it back, to more fully, and fictionally, fill in the details for what “beating a dead horse” means?
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Creationism, Ethics, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Science, Voodoo science | 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 