Brett Younger is pastor at Fort Worth’s Broadway Baptist Church. In the Baptist Standard he tells a story of a near-disaster in his high school chemistry class, on the way to urging Christians to use common sense on the issues of evolution in public school science classes. One more voice of reason, for sanity.
A Baptist with more sense for history than lab science
August 21, 2006
2 Comments | 
Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Public education, Religious Freedom | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
. . . in which I defend the judiciary against barbaric assault
August 14, 2006I’ll make this quick (back to the grindstone, you know).
In my immediately previous post I make a minor case that advocacy of intelligent design is the less preferable alternative to understanding evolution, for moral reasons. Advocacy of intelligent design has so farproven incapable of making a case in a straightforward and honest fashion. All cases for intelligent design rest in large part, or completely, in distortions of science and history. What originall caught my eye and my ire was the mischaracterization of the recent decision in the Pennsylvania intelligent design case. Read the rest of this entry »
8 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Current History, Curricula, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Intelligent Design, Law, Public education, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The moral imperative against intelligent design
August 14, 2006I’m straying only a bit off topic, and only by certain legalistic interpretations. History folks, bear with me.
My complaint about what is called “intelligent design” in biology is the same complaint I have against people who wish to crown Millard Fillmore as a great light for bringing plumbing to the White House over the complaints of health officials — that is, my complaint against those who push H. L. Mencken’s hoax over the facts.
Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost listed at great lengths his list of reasons that arguing for science actually promotes intelligent design instead (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). This blog’s response was in two parts, one and two. Other people offered other rebuttals, including notably, P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula, a very good blog that features the hard science of biology and especially evolution.
Joe provided a first affirmative rebuttal here. This post is my reply, on the single point of whether it’s fair to say creationists, IDists, or others who twist the facts and research, are “dishonest.”
The text is below the fold; I left it in remarks at Evangelical Outpost. I have one other observation I’ll make quickly in the next post.
Enjoy, and chime in with your own remarks (I’m headed back to the grindstone). Read the rest of this entry »
23 Comments | Creationism, Current History, Curricula, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Intelligent Design, Public education, Religious Freedom, Science | Tagged: Creationism, Current History, Curricula, Darwin, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, Intelligent Design, Joe Carter, Religious Freedom, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Twisting recent history (creationism), 2
August 11, 2006RECAP: It’s only nine months since Judge John Jones’ extremely well-reasoned and carefully-written decision in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District, which declared unconstitutional the efforts by the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, to sneak creationism into their schools’ biology curriculum. But the revisionists are out in force. On August 8, Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost posted “10 ways Darwinists help intelligent design,” in extreme length.
Other people were bothered by the post, too. I see that Matt over at Pooflingers fisked the thing, too. I haven’t read his post yet — his is no doubt more incisive than what I’ve written below. But can there be too much taking to task those who would sacrifice our children’s education on a cross of hooey?
You can go read the entire thing at Evangelical Outpost if you want. I’ll post the list of ten, with corrections. History revisionism is an ugly thing, especially when the court decision is still fresh, available and an easy and educational read, and especially on things scientific, where one’s errors may be easier to spot. In keeping with the ethical standards ofthisblog, to expose hoaxes about bathtubs wherever they may appear, here goes;
Part 2: Joe Carter posted his list of ten things scientists do wrong; Part 1 covered the first five, here are numbers 6 through 10:
#6 By invoking design in non-design explanations. Anyone who wonders why so many people find intelligent design explanations plausible need only to listen to scientific community discuss the evolutionary process. Scientists have a complete inability to talk about and explain processes like natural selection without using the terms, analogies, and metaphors of design and teleology.
Take, for instance, the recent finding that leads researchers to believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code. On The New York Times science page we find an explanation by Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel:
“A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that a given amino acid can be defined by any of several different triplets. Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nucleosome code.” [emphasis added]
No! No! No! Scientists note the appearance of design, but scientists go the extra mile; they go on to look for natural explanations for such appearances. Most often they have found a perfectly natural explanation that involves fitness for survival, sexual selection, or chemical and physical necessity, and they have found no intervention outside the critters’ struggle for survival. Read the rest of this entry »
6 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Current History, Education, Evolution, History Revisionism, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Twisting recent history (creationism), 1
August 10, 2006It’s only nine months since Judge John Jones’ extremely well-reasoned and carefully-written decision in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District, which declared unconstitutional the efforts by the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, to sneak creationism into their schools’ biology curriculum. But the revisionists are out in force. On August 8, Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost posted “10 ways Darwinists help intelligent design,” in extreme length.
Other people were bothered by the post, too. I see that Matt over at Pooflingers fisked the thing, too. I haven’t read his post yet — his is no doubt more incisive than what I’ve written below. But can there be too much taking to task those who would sacrifice our children’s education on a cross of hooey? Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Creationism, Current History, Ethics, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Fact-free letters on intelligent design, against evolution and science
July 25, 2006History is not the sole discipline which faces trouble from screeds in which the facts are wrong. In fact, the history of the idea of biological evolution is rather rife with scientific and history hoaxes, and only a few of them are old. New hoaxes about evolution have formed a cottage industry since the science push of 1957 and 1958.
Recent news told of the research of Dr. Peter R. Grant of Princeton University. Grant and his wife, Dr. B. Rosemary Grant, have conducted groundbreaking studies on a few species of birds in the Galapagos Archipelago — long-term longitudinal studies in which they literally track every member of a species for several dozens of generations so far (the research continues). The Grants and their graduate students published more than a dozen papers on speciation, beginning in the middle 1970s.
Below the fold I reproduce an anti-evolution letter published in the Pasadena, California, Star-News on July 23. Below that I list my response, how I would respond were I a local reader of the paper with a chance of getting a letter published.
Dr. Peter R. Grant, left, and Dr. B. Rosemary Grant, right. Photos from Princeton University.
(Continued below the fold.) Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Bad quotes = suspect scholarship (Ann Coulter . . .)
July 8, 2006Partly because I spent so many years debating competitively in high school and college, I cringe when someone misattributes a quote (it’s rather a sin to do that in debate). Worse are those “quotes” that get passed around, often attributed to some famous person, which are complete fabrications.
Then there are quotes that are partly fabrication, and partly accurate. Most often, in my experience, this is done by people on the right of any issue, but it is occasionally a sin of someone on the left as well. The Right Honorable Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars shows wisdom in calling to task someone with whose point he agrees, but who quoted Thomas Jefferson incorrectly. Go see Brayton’s post here, “False Founding Father Quotes From Our Side.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote a lot, but recorded almost all of it. Easy to check whether Jefferson actually said what is attributed to him — but too often, not even a rudimentary check is done. Jefferson didn’t say this, by the way. Image from MemeGenerator.com
Thomas Jefferson is one of a handful of people to whom made up quotes are regularly attributed. Abraham Lincoln is a popular misattributee, too, as are Mark Twain and Albert Einstein (no, Einstein never said anything about ‘compound interest being the best invention of the 20th century’). One would be wise to refrain from repeating anything any speaker attributes to these people, at least until one checks it out to be sure it is accurately attributed.
Two circumstances make for “honest” misattributions. I confuse Dorothy Parker and Gertrude Stein comments, inexplicably, so often that I have learned to consult the books before saying who said it, if either one springs to my mind. I am sure that more than once in speaking I have misattributed something to one of these ladies, and I know other speakers do it, too. The second circumstance is when someone hears that misattribution and repeats it — the old line about some one “who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad” is often still attributed to W. C. Fields, though it was originally said by Leo Rosten, in an introduction for W. C. Fields, according to Rosten. Generally people will cheerfully correct such misattributions.
Lincoln’s name gets attached to a lot of stuff he didn’t say. He didn’t say this, for example.
Other misattributions have more larceny at heart. Novice speakers will put a quote to a name, more out of fear that their audience will believe them more if they cite an authority or celebrity than anything else.
Cottage industries built up around inventing misquotes plague two areas of public discourse. Ed Brayton is sensitive to them both, as am I. For some reason, advocates of government displays of religion (which are prohibited by 50 state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution) feel that “quotes” from “the Founders” should carry special legal and persuasive weight, if the quotes indicate that the people who established the United States thumped Bibles as hard or harder than Jerry Falwell at a rhythm-and-blues-themed revival.
For example, few weeks go by that I do not get by e-mail a diatribe against “secularism” that claims falsely that our nation’s founders were overweening Christian fundamentalists, as evidenced by the Christian images splattered all over Washington, D.C., and the Bible verses carved in all the public buildings. That is patently false, however. Christian imagery does not predominate in the public art displays in the nation’s capital, but is instead difficult to find unless one is really looking for it. Nor are Bible verses carved in many public buildings — there are perhaps a dozen verses sprinkled throughout the displays honoring knowledge at the Library of Congress, but none I know of anywhere else. These e-mails are not really new. I had heard these claims in speeches, especially at the Fourth of July and at American Legion speech contests, and when I staffed for U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, my office was bombarded with such offerings — often with an invective-filled letter asking why public officials refuse to speak the truth. I often took those documents out on lunch-hour excursions to try to match the claims with the monuments: The claims are false.
Nope, Albert Einstein didn’t say that, either.
Claims continue to be made, and they grow in number and earnestness whenever there is a controversy surrounding an issue of separation of church and state. No, James Madison never said the U.S. government was based on the Ten Commandments. These quotes have great vitality — that false quote from Madison has been uttered by more than one lawyer in the heat of an argument (and no doubt, at least one judge has been unduly swayed by it). Were the quotes accurate, even, they would not change the laws that the founders wrote.
Diatribes against Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution also appear to be fertile soil to grow false quotes. One hoax claims Darwin repented of his theory on his deathbed, the “Lady Hope” hoax. Despite Darwin’s children having refuted that story more than 80 years ago, it continues to circulate. Darwin wrote a lot on a variety of different topics, but almost never about religion. The one or two lines he did write about religion are repeated, and bent, numerous ways. Darwin’s assigned task on his round-the-world voyage, was to assemble the scientific data to back as accurate one of the accounts of creation in Genesis. The evidence Darwin gathered told a different story — but Darwin himself did not think that a good reason to leave the church where he had hoped to be ordained. Especially because his wife, Emma, was so devout, he was careful to avoid any confrontation with the church, and on the rolls he remained a faithful Anglican to his death. His funeral was a state occasion, and he is interred in Westminster Abbey. (We can debate whether Darwin was a “good Christian” some other time, with real evidence.) Building on his earlier belief that observing nature is one way to learn the ways of God, Darwin continued to spend his time in careful, astute and well-recorded observation. His work on the creation of coral atolls is still fundamental; his monographs on barnacles are still wonderful reads. Darwin was fascinated with insectivorous plants, and his monograph on those plants is among the first, if not the first. Darwin was patient enough to sit in his laboratory for weeks to see just how it is that vine twines its way around a pole. Darwin was the model of a truly patient scientist.
However, when any board of education starts to look at new biology books, you may expect to hear Darwin described as something of an anti-Christian monster and a terrible, sloppy, often-wrong scientist. Then to top it off, people will make rather fantastic claims that his own writings deny his case. Other testimony will make hash of the work of other scientists.
Ann Coulter manages to marry both of these worst kind of quote fabrications in her latest book (no, I won’t link to it — you shouldn’t be reading that stuff; go read Stephen Ambrose’s books on D-Day, or Lewis and Clark, instead, and get real mental nutrition.) For those of us who have been watching such things for decades, it is astounding that such slipshod work can get through an editing process and into print. It is interesting to see someone finally merge both schools of scandalous quoting, but disgusting at the same time.
As a speech writer, I felt it was important that my clients have accurate material. A politician using a bad quote can find himself quite embarrassed. As a journalist, I worked hard to assure accuracy, and we had regular processes for correcting errors we did not catch earlier. As a teacher, I think it important that we get accurate facts to determine what happened in history.
Quotations from famous people make the study of history possible, and fun. Winston Churchill said, “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more” (in his 1930 book, Roving Commission: My Early Life).
Be sure you get accurate quotes when you read them.
7 Comments | Bad Quotes, Evolution, Plagiarism, Quotes | Tagged: Ann Coulter, Bad Quotes, Charles Darwin, MIsattribution, Misquotes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ann Coulter, plagiarism, students, history
July 7, 2006Universal Press Syndicate, the company that syndicates Ann Coulter’s opinion columns to about 100 newspapers, announced that they will investigate allegations that Coulter plagiarized material for her columns (see the story in Editor & Publisher).
Surely when higher profile people get caught plagiarizing, it calls attention to the problem. Do these reports serve as any kind of warning, as any deterrent to kids who are tempted to do the same thing? (I am writing a syllabus for a late summer term class at a local university; the school asks that we include language in the syllabus that notes plagiarism is a major academic sin, and is grounds for dismissal. I wonder whether similar standards are imposed in the contracts syndicates give opinion writers? Should not the Coulters of the world be held to standards as high as any college freshman?)
Historians who have been snagged in the plagiarism net in recent years include outstanding, Pulitzer Prize-winners like Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose, both of whom had relied on notes from paid researchers, and both of whom quickly apologized and took steps to tighten their attribution and research methods.
Ann Coulter is not in the same league as Ambrose or Goodwin in terms of the quality of her work or the accuracy of her reporting. Were I to bet, I’d bet she will not quickly offer apologies or corrections, nor quickly mend her ways, but that is my experience from inside conservative politics (I staffed the Senate conservative side and had an appointment in the Reagan administration). Of course, I hope I am wrong.
Coulter’s tactics in writing about science do not lend foundation for that hope. Her recent book, to which I will not link, offers three chapters of grotesque inaccuracy about biology and especially evolution theory. She has lifted wholesale sections of a notoriously inaccurate book published by intelligent design harpy Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution. P. Z. Myers’ blog, Pharyngula, is a good place to start on the science inaccuracies, with his post today.
The Fillmore’s Bathtub Challenge: Can you cite any significant claim from any of Coulter’s books that are accurate and can be verified? We should all be from Missouri on this issue. Comments are open.
Coda: Goodwin’s latest book is a fine resource for college and Texas high school history classes: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. I recommend it.
6 Comments | Bad Quotes, Evolution, History Revisionism, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 