Well developed thoughts from an atheist on morality, especially the morality of creationism, in a review of Ken Ham’s book, The Lie: Evolution, from a blogger, In Case You’re Interested. Ham is the guy who raised nearly $30 million for the Creation Museum, a monument to denial of reality.
Coincidence? Ham’s book repeats all of the shoddy arguments that show up in Ben Stein’s mockumentary film.
2 Comments | 
Books, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Books, Creationism, Religion, Voodoo science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Adnan Oktar ‘s conviction on charges of profiting from what amounts to a sex slave operation was a set up, he said.
Who would do such a dastardly thing? The communists and the Freemasons!
This interview is from last September, but so far it’s perfectly in line with what his PR flacks are saying since the sentencing: Video, selected transcripts.
I’m sure that’s what he tells his wife, Morgan Fairchild.
How can you keep from thinking this stuff is parody? It looks and sounds like slightly amateurish “David Letterman” or “Saturday Night Live” routines.
Leave a Comment » | Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Politics, Religion, Scandals, Science, Uncomposted Organic Fertilizer | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Politics, Religion, scandal, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Adnan Oktar? The Turkish creationist recently sentenced to three years in prison for using his creationist organization for personal gain?
The Reuters story in English didn’t note that part of the personal gain was a lot of sex with young girls and boys. That’s what the Spanish version says in elPeriodico.com.
The official spokesman for the many faces of Harun Yahya (Oktar’s pen name) says that the charges are unrelated to the creationism shtick. The Spanish version says Oktar was running a cult that involved recruiting young men by enticing them with young women.
How will the Discovery Institute spin this one?
With Turkey’s odd laws on press freedom and libel and slander, how can we really figure out what’s going on?
Raw Google translation of the Spanish version below the fold
9 Comments | Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Education, History, Scandals, Science | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Harun Yahya, Religion, Sex Scandal, Voodoo Publishing, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Last time we seriously checked in with Jim Gibbon it was for the haiku contest on research papers.
Comes this missive from Gibbon now, which suggests that the Adnan Oktar ban on WordPress blogs in Turkey was lifted as of May 3. True? Mr. Gibbon is in Turkey, I gather, which would put him in a position to know.
Was this a predictor of Oktar’s sentencing on May 9?
Hey, Turkey! Welcome back!
1 Comment | Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Free press, Free speech, Weblogs | Tagged: Adnan Oktar, Censorship, Free Blogging, Free press, Turkey | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ashley Montagu (full citation needed!)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Aunt Betsy.
4 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Quotes, Religion, Science | Tagged: Ashley Montagu, Creationism, Quotes, Science | 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
Richard Weikart is an arm of the Discovery Institute’s disinformation brigade. A couple of years ago he published a book attempting to link Darwin to the Holocaust in a blame-sharing arrangement. This book and some of its arguments appear to be the foundation of the text used to write the script for the mockumentary movie “Expelled!” featuring Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein.
Which is to say, the basis for the movie is dubious. Weikart’s scholarship creating links between Darwin, science and Hitler is quite creative. It is also based on arguments created from Darwin’s writings that mislead the innocent about evolution, science and history, or which get Darwin and evolution exactly wrong.
Michael Ruse published an op-ed in a Florida paper in February — a piece which is no longer available there (anybody got a copy? Nebraska Citizens for Science preserved a copy) — and Weikart responded, restating his creative claims. Alas for the truth, Weikart’s canards are still available at the Discovery Institute website, putting an interesting twist on Twain’s old line: The truth will go to bed at night while a falsehood will travel twice around the world as the truth kicks off its slippers.
Looking for Ruse’s piece, I found Weikart’s response here and here. I composed a quick response pointing out the problems, which I would like to posit here for the record — partly because I doubt Darwiniana gets much traffic, partly because the censor-happy folks at Discovery Institute don’t allow free discussion at their site, and partly so I can control it to make sure it’s not butchered as Weikart butchers Darwin’s text.
At Darwiniana I said:
Weikart’s strip quoting of Darwin is most disappointing. [Weikart wrote:]
Darwin claimed in chapter two of The Descent of Man that there were great differences in moral disposition and intellect between the “highest races” and the “lowest savages.” Later in Descent he declared, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Racial inegalitarianism was built into Darwin’s analysis from the start.
Darwin argued the differences in intellect and manners between the “highest” of men and the “lowest” of men did NOT change the fact that we are are all related — legally, Darwin’s argument would evidence a claim absolutely the opposite of what Weikart claims. Here are Darwin’s words from Chapter II of Descent of Man, as Darwin wrote them, without Weikart’s creative editing:
Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a barbarian, such as the man described by the old navigator Byron, who dashed his child on the rocks for dropping a basket of sea-urchins, and a Howard or Clarkson; and in intellect, between a savage who uses hardly any abstract terms, and a Newton or Shakespeare. Differences of this kind between the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages, are connected by the finest gradations. Therefore it is possible that they might pass and be developed into each other. [emphasis added]
That’s not inegalitarianism at all — Darwin’s saying they are the same species, related closer than the poets allow. If we stick to the evidence, and [do] not wander off into poetic philosophy, we must acknowledge that Darwin’s own egalitarian spirit shows here in the science, too. It would be an odd kettle of fish indeed that a crabby guy like Hitler, who shared the antiscience bias of Weikart’s organization, would suddenly accept the science of a hated Englishman that ran contrary to his other philosophies. Who makes the error here, Hitler or Weikart? If they both think Darwin endorsed racism, they both do — but there is not an iota of evidence that Hitler based his patent racism on science, let alone the science of an Englishman.
As to the second quote, Weikart leaves the context out, and the context is everything. Darwin is not arguing that “savages” (the 19th century word for “aboriginals”) were less human, nor that they are a different species. He was arguing that in some future time there would appear creationists like Dr. Weikart’s colleagues at the Discovery Institute who will deny evolution because, once Europeans and others with guns conduct an unholy genocide (which Darwin writes against in the next chapter), and once humans wipe out chimpanzees, orangs and gorillas, the other great apes, the creationists can [then] dishonestly look around, blink their eyes and say, “Where are the links? There cannot be evolution between (Animal X) and humans!”
Darwin wrote:
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. ‘Anthropological Review,’ April 1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, [emphasis added] and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
In the end, Darwin wrote against genocide, against racism, and in favor of the higher thinking abilities of all dark-skinned people. He wrote in favor of Christian morality. Darwin himself remained a faithful, tithing Christian to the end of his life.
Such a man, and such amazing science, deserve accurate history, not the fantastic, cowardly and scurrilous inventions Dr. Weikart has given them. We should rise to be “man in a more civilized state” as Darwin had hoped.
Update, July 24, 2008, nota bene: To anyone venturing here from the Blogcatalog discussion on intelligent design: Get over to the site of Donald Johanson’s Institute for Human Origins, and especially look at the presentation “On Becoming Human.” Also check out the Evolution Gateway site at Berkeley, especially this page which explains what evolution is, and this page which offers some introduction for what the evidence for evolution really is. One quick answer to a question someone asked there: Between H. erectus and modern humans, H. sapiens, in the time sequence we have fossils of H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis. It’s pretty clear that Neandertal is not ancestral to modern humans, but instead lived alongside modern humans for 50,000 years or so from the Middle East through Southern Europe. To the question of actual transitional fossils, you’d need to hit the paleontology journals — there are a lot. You may also benefit from taking a look at the articles at this special Nature site.
10 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Famous quotes, Genocide, History, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Junk science, Lessons of history, Natural history, Quotes, Racism, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, World War II | Tagged: Ben Stein, Darwin, Education, Expelled!, Politics, Religion, Richard Weikart, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One of the affairs Ben Stein’s mockumentary covers is the Sternberg affair, in which a creationist bent the rules of the biology society whose journal he was editing to sneak into publication an article purporting to promote intelligent design. Stein claims the guy suffered persecution, though under cross examination in the Dover trial, no ID advocate could remember just what that persecution might be (creationists go quiet under oath . . . hmmm).
The mackarel by moonlight in that story (both shining and stinking at the same time) was a letter from the Office of Special Counsel which, while claiming to have found unspecified evidence of wrongdoing, said that OSC was the wrong agency to prosecute wrong-doers (OSC had an obligation to turn over any evidence of wrongdoing to the right agency, but Stein doesn’t mention that; there never was any evidence turned over to anyone).
Um, don’t look now, but the FBI raided the office of the OSC today, looking for evidence of wrongdoing. FBI and inspector general investigators appear to be looking into charges that the head of the office, Scott Bloch, retaliated against certain employees who, he suspected, had leaked information about political moves he had made in the legally non-political agency.
Will Ben Stein do an update?
Resources:
1 Comment | Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Research, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Corruption, Creationism, Politics, Science, Sternberg, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Tom Gilson is a muck-a-muck with Campus Crusade for Christ, and though claiming he is Christian he has no compunction calling Charles Darwin an accessory to murder and otherwise promoting the canard that evolution caused Hitler to go nuts and murder millions.
Making the link to Hitler in an era when Godwin’s Law has a well-visited entry on Wikipedia imposes on one a duty to check the facts. Doesn’t faze Gilson: Damn the facts, full calumny ahead.
Which is worthy of comment at the moment only because he’s banned my comments. I was trying to figure out where he was coming from, and I followed his links to a column he wrote on Chuck Colson’s “Breakpoint” site, in which he discusses his struggles in debating scientists and others who understand evolution.
As one who does a lot of web-based debating against naturalistic (atheistic) evolution, I know I wouldn’t stand a chance if I weren’t studying what the best atheists and evolutionists have written, or without reading the most thoughtful Christian or ID-based responses.
The second protection against such an error is to know what we don’t know, and be willing to admit it. Evolution and ID involve specialized studies in paleontology, radiometric dating, geology, biochemistry, genetics, and more. Does ID challenge some of the prevailing wisdom in these fields? Yes. Can we read about these challenges on the web, or find a good, trustworthy book about them? Certainly! Will that make us qualified to “pronounce” on them? Well, no.
But that’s okay. We don’t all have to be experts. It will take many years (at least) for those who are to work out their differences. We can still know what we do know. We know that God created the heavens and the earth and all that lives in them. The details and the debates go far deeper than that. We should dive into these discussions only as deep as we’re prepared to swim—while at the same time always equipping ourselves to go to greater depths.
Excuse me, but I’d just come from another site that had the works of Hitler, discussing his own struggle — “mein kampf” in German. I noticed a few parallels, and I called attention to them, sorta hoping Gilson would blush and back away from the claims. Gilson’s stuff is mild, really. He’s got a tin ear for science and a very narrow view of history, it appears to me. Were he not so earnest in impugning others, I’d have just laughed it off completely. That’s what I expected him to do.
But no. He got huffy and banned me. Censorship, refusing to discuss with critics, are just tools Gilson has to use in his struggle against evolution. Only Tom Gilson can make wholly unsubstantiated claims in error against great men — no one else is allowed to question the Man Behind the Curtain.
If irony killed, there’d be no creationist left on Earth. If irony were science, creationism would win several Nobels a year. If irony were worth a pitcher of warm [spit], creationism would have a permanent hold on the vice presidency.
But irony is not a response. Ain’t it odd to hear these guys go on about their struggles, all the while they impugn the reputation of a good man like Charles Darwin, and all the time they have not got an iota of science to back up their position?
Gilson argues evolution played a role in the Holocaust. He’s not sure how, and he doesn’t know anything about what evolution theory is nor the history of the Holocaust, but he’s sure that if he just reads the Bible earnestly enough . . .
If this completely unsupportable claim is the best we can expect from creationists, isn’t it frightening that anyone gives them credence?
Gilson will see the links. Tom, if you come here, you’ll find someone who is willing to discuss with you your errors and why you should repent. Bet you won’t. Bet you can’t.
Update: P. Z. Myers found this guy, Jeff Dorchen. Gilson, he’s got Stein pegged, I think. What say you?
All Ben Stein would have had to say to support the Nazis back then is what he’s saying right now.
Shut up, Godwin.
Just because George W. Bush won’t be in office next year doesn’t mean we’ve dodged the bullet of a white Christian supremacist dictatorship. We are not out of the woods yet, my darlings. That a man, let alone a Jew, could, without shame, walk on the graves of Holocaust victims and claim the theory of evolution was at fault, let alone a man whose nationalism, social darwinism (which is not Darwinism, by the way), anti-intellectualism, and disregard for the truth are beyond doubt – it’s like some ghastly executioner’s joke. If the message of Expelled weren’t being taken seriously by a religio-political movement that has already caused two presidential elections to end in disaster, it would be merely obnoxious. Instead, it’s chilling.
Can he sink any lower? Never underestimate the depths of degradation a Ben Stein might sound. My money’s on Ben Stein to be the first human being to reach the Earth’s core.
16 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, History, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Expelled!, Religion, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Good news: A subcommittee of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Committee yesterday voted against letting the Institute for Creation Research award graduate degrees in science education because of their rejection of evolution. The full committee will vote today.
ICR promises to fight it.
Dallas Morning News reporter Terrence Stutz’s report is worth reading.
Citing the group’s teaching of creationism rather than evolution in its science curriculum, Dr. Paredes said it was clear the school would not adequately prepare its graduates to teach the scientific principles now required in Texas public schools.
“Evolution is such a fundamental principle of contemporary science it is hard to imagine how you could cover the various fields of science without giving it [evolution] the proper attention it deserves as a foundation of science,” he said.
“Religious belief is not science. Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.”
Henry Morris III, chief executive officer of the institute, contended that the school would prepare students to “understand both sides of the scientific perspective, although we do favor the creationist view.”
After the adverse vote from several coordinating board members meeting as a committee, Mr. Morris said the institute may revise its application or take its case to court.
“We will pursue due process,” he told the board. “We will no doubt see you in the future.”
Quiet and educational efforts from Texas Citizens for Science and the Texas Freedom Network probably helped turn the tide on this issue.
Resources:
3 Comments | Creationism, Education, Higher education, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Higher education, Religion, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A reader named Matt provided some incisive comments in another thread, “Cold showers for intelligent design: ID not even fringe research,” and I bring them to the top here to highlight a major failing of the intelligent design advocates, their complete absence from participation in origins of life research.
Matt blogs at Consanguinity, which recently featured an exchange on Ben Stein’s mockumentary, “Expelled!”
Matt took issue with a characterization that the intelligent design movement is not science. He wondered if they would get a fair hearing were they to submit their research to science journals. I pointed to the court records that show they would get a fair hearing, but that they do no research and so submit nothing for publication — which indicates the lack of science we were discussing. Matt suggested that Francis Crick and Frederick Hoyle were sympathetic to the ID cause, and I pointed out they both specifically refuted creationism and ID.
Our discussion is below the fold.
4 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Movies, Politics, Religion, Research, Science, Texas, Voodoo science | Tagged: Andrew Ellington, Ben Stein, Creationism, Evolution, Expelled the movie, Intelligent Design, Origins of Life, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Experimentalchimp raises some serious questions about how fringe science sometimes stumbles into the stuffier meetings of real science — or, at least, into the gossip columns of real science, with his post, “How Empty Science Becomes Wisdom.“
The post discusses a silly proposal made by a fellow in Virginia that perhaps, just maybe, cold showers might fight depression.
Let me introduce you to Nikolai Shevchuk. He’s worked at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. One day Nikolai gets an idea. What if cold showers could treat depression? After all, cold showers get the adrenaline pumping, doesn’t it? So Nikolai gets a few friends together and asks them to try taking a cold shower and seeing if it improves their moods. Nikolai probably likes to take cold showers himself and he feels just fine!
So Nikolai writes down his ideas. There’s not what you’d call a huge amount of evidence for them. Nikolai tries his hardest to think up a mechanism by which cold showers can make you feel good. The adrenaline thing was good, but what if he can invoke some kind of evolutionary mechanism. Hey! Yeah! That’s it! Back when man was a hunter-gatherer chasing after prey, he’d have to swim after it in cold water. So modern man, lacking these environmental stressors must be getting depressed as a result!
It’s not rocket science, but it’ll do.
Nikolai doesn’t want to keep this breakthrough to himself, so he sends it all off to a medical journal. Medical Hypotheses, to be specific. Medical Hypotheses. It sounds so truthy, doesn’t it?
Truthy, indeed. (Right up the alley of Telic Thoughts, no?)
The story about how Shevchuk’s work got picked up by a journal, Medical Hypotheses, and how it migrated to the London Times and farther, may make you giggle. Or squirm.
But it also made me wonder: If this almost-admitted joker in Virginia can get this dubious quality conjecture published in a journal, why is it intelligent design advocates cannot get even a hypothesis published somewhere in more than 20 years of existence.
I didn’t say “20 years of trying,” because I suspect that the ID people are not trying to do even fringe science. (There’s that other joke, too: “Oh, yeah, they’re trying. Verrrrrry trying!“)
I have often said that intelligent design is to biology what cold fusion is to physics and chemistry, only stripped of the extensive experimental backup published in the journals. This points up one of the key problems of intelligent design: There is no intelligence in it. Intelligent design is the vapor ware of biology, too. No hypotheses, no experiments, no observations from the wild, no laboratories, no grants, no attendees at science conferences, only one or two poster sessions (and not by the grad student tyros, but by the greatest minds in ID) — nothing.
ID can’t crack the fringe science journals, because ID lacks the wisp of ideas required to be called fringe science.
Maybe science fiction next? Calling Orson Scott Card!
This contrast between intelligent design and intelligent conversation is so stark that the new ID mockumentary “Expelled!” has had to work hard to make sure scientists of faith do not appear in any way in the movie. Why? Well, Christopher Heard at Higgaion carefully explains, if the movie showed people like Ken Miller, a faithful Christian who happens to be the lead author on the most-used high school and junior college biology textbooks, it would give the lie to the film’s entire premise, that faithful Christians are not allowed into the halls of science.
But to return to the main point: the real reason that folk like Miller and Collins find no place in Expelled is because they do “confuse”—that is, complicate—the simplistic and false dichotomy that the filmmakers wish to construct. When your whole schtick is to pit religious “design proponents” open to the supernatural against atheistic, philosophically materialist “Darwinists,” all those pesky scientists who simultaneously affirm evolutionary biology and a robust Christian faith become very, very inconvenient.
(Heard also features a transcript of part of an interview Scientific American editor John Rennie had with the film’s associate producer of “Expelled!”, Mark Mathis. It really made me laugh for some reason — is it that I’m too deep into grading? Check it out, let me know.)
How did Miller get into the hallowed halls, anyway? He did real science, published it, got his Ph.D., and continues research, academic advising, and teaching.
Why can’t ID do that?
When the cold showers hypothesis gets more respect than intelligent design, it’s time to pull the drain plug on intelligent design.
Maybe Mathis should install cold showers in the lobbies of the theatres that show his movie. People who buy a ticket to the movie may need them, especially after they realize they’ve seen so much of the stuff before, in better venues (and with attribution).
Maybe Mathis, Ben Stein and the entire “Expelled!” team should try the cold showers out first, to see if maybe a cold shower might shock them back to reality.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Expelled! Exposed, for the tip to Heard’s piece.
8 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Politics, Science, Texas | Tagged: Accuracy, Ben Stein, Creationism, Entertainment, Ethics, Evolution, Expelled Exposed, Intelligent Design, Psuedo Science, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In a discussion about teaching evolution in biology classes a few years ago, I had carefully explained how and why the First Amendment does not require creationism to be taught in biology classes, and in fact is the reason that creationism isn’t taught, in the Establishment Clause. My explanation irritated the tarnation out of a creationist woman who exclaimed, “Well, it’s not like the First Amendment is engraved in stone!”
Heh. Guess what I found at Southern Methodist University Saturday. There, outside the main door of the Umphrey Lee Center, which houses the Department of Economics and the Division of Journalism of the Meadows School for the Arts:
2 Comments | Creationism, History, Politics | Tagged: Constitution, First Amendment, Humor, Law, Politics, Southern Methodist University | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We haven’t persuaded the candidates to discuss science policy, though it directly affects health care policy, the war in Iraq, climate change, and housing. That scrappy little newspaper in York, Pennsylvania got Barack Obama to go on the record against teaching intelligent design, though.
Q: York County was recently in the news for a lawsuit involving the teaching of intelligent design. What’s your attitude regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools?
A: “I’m a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state.
But I also believe our schools are there to teach worldly knowledge and science. I believe in evolution, and I believe there’s a difference between science and faith. That doesn’t make faith any less important than science.
It just means they’re two different things. And I think it’s a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don’t hold up to scientific inquiry.”
Has either Clinton or McCain gone on the record on the issue yet?
Tip of the old scrub brush to the blogs of the Dallas Morning News.
7 Comments | Creationism, Education, Politics, Public education, Science, Teaching | Tagged: 2008 Presidential Race, Creationism, Education, Intelligent Design, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Via Heart of Flesh, a half-hour conversation between Ben Stein and the often-pompous R. C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries. Sproul had Stein in the studio to promote the mockumentary film Stein stars in, “Expelled!”
Stein continues to reveal the religious nature of intelligent design advocacy, all the time complaining science doesn’t pay enough attention.
At what point does irony veer into hypocrisy? I think that point’s long past for these guys.
Vodpod videos no longer available. from heartofflesh.wordpress.com posted with vodpod
Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω
Anyone vaguely familiar with the science of astronomy, or cosmology, or physics, or biology, may want to get a bullet to chew on before clicking “play.” It’s that bad.
But what is this? Sproul disowns the movie? It may be that the movie, devoid of science as it is, is still too sciency for Sproul. Here’s how Sproul’s writers put it in his blog:
As our readers may already know, Dr. Sproul frequently challenges the unbiblical and irrational theories of Darwinian evolution in print and through lectures. While we were waiting for Mr. Stein to arrive for the interview, Dr. Sproul mentioned to the crew that he took some time in between book projects back in the early 90s. He was doing some recreational reading and ended up writing another book, Not A Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology.
It is important to note that during this free exchange of ideas, not all of the opinions expressed by Mr. Stein in the interview are the views of Ligonier Ministries. Christians should recognize that the argument from design does not necessarily prove the Genesis view of creation. We are not part of the Intelligent Design movement, but certainly share similar concerns for freedom of speech and inquiries into cosmology. Our foremost concern is to uphold the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible and the authority of our Creator.
Don’t you love it? Super Sproul figures out the laws of chance in physics and chemistry in his spare time, probably in his game room between foosball challenges from the grandkids.
Sproul’s blog also reveals there is another part to this interview.
R. C. Sproul should do a public service some day. He ought to interview P. Z. Myers for an hour, and then interview Ken Miller for an hour (he can disclaim science later in his blog, if he chooses). Better yet, Sproul should have Myers and Miller each spend a week at Ligonier Ministries teaching theologians about biology.
I wager Sproul doesn’t have the fortitude to do something like that. Rants can’t stand the facts. Sproul’s genius is making his rants in a quieter voice, so they don’t sound as irrational as they are.
At about 14:40 into the interview, Stein says “There are very few places where more nonsense is spoken than universities.” First, one wonders why Stein and the movie’s producers want so badly to be seen as part of that university community?
Second, this interview demonstrates Stein’s error — there are lots of places more nonsense is spoken, including anywhere Sproul’s interview with Stein is aired.
In the universities, at least they strive for accuracy and honesty.
25 Comments | Creationism, Higher education, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Creationism, Entertainment, Evolution, Higher education, 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 