January 7, 2007
Millard Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800.
Fillmore was:
- The 13th President of the United States
- The first Chancellor of the university at Buffalo now known as the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
- The “handsomest man I ever met” according to Queen Victoria
- Namesake of one of the earliest capitals of Utah, Fillmore, in Millard County
- Almost definitely NOT the person responsible for putting plumbing in the White House, especially for the first plumbed bathtub.
Happy birthday, Mr. Fillmore! We hardly know ye, still!
(Prof. Parker at Another History Blog worked to dog down the quote attributed to Fillmore that I mentioned Friday: “May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.” He could not confirm the quote, but at least as good and probably better, he offers a free history database. Go see.)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 2, 2007
Browsing at Positive Liberty today I first saw the news that the Rev. D. James Kennedy suffered a heart attack, and is hospitalized. Kennedy is the head of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida, and a leader of the history revisionist movement to rewrite especially textbooks to argue that the U.S. should have a religiously-based government.
It appears the news didn’t get out quickly. The Miami Herald had a story just today, though Kennedy’s heart attack was last Thursday. Jonathan Rowe urges a speedy recovery, so Kennedy can continue to provide material for that blog. I think there’s enough material for this blog without Kennedy, but I wish him a complete recovery anyway.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 2, 2007
At Boston 1775, J. L. Bell discusses what is known about the accuracy of reports that Gen. George Washington had a vision of an angel while the Continental Army camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I cannot improve on Mr. Bell’s telling of the story, so go read it there.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 21, 2006
In a post I missed back then, science writer Chet Raymo sets a standard for how science can leave the “bogus” category: He says intelligent design can start to be called “science” when the first paper is published retracting another, previous paper, that was since found to be in error. Raymo wrote:
Here is my litmus test for science.
In the October 7 issue of Science, the weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Robin Allshire, of the prestigious Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, offers a retraction for a paper previously published in the journal, titled “Hairpin RNAs and retrotransponson LTRs effect RNAi and chromatin-based gene silencing.” He admits that his laboratory and others have been unable to reproduce the results reported in the paper.
When we see the first peer-reviewed experimental data supporting intelligent design or astrology that is reproducible in other laboratories by skeptics and believers alike, then these hypotheses can make a legitimate claim to being sciences.
When we see the first published retraction, we will know that intelligent design or astrology has reached maturity as a science.
Of course, the same is true for bogus history. Corrections made when error is found suggest that there is care for accuracy, and that the author has no great stake in the story other than getting the facts right to get the correct understanding.
I’ll have to revise the list, here, and here.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Catholic Sensibility.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 21, 2006
Former historian David Irving was released from jail in Austria early, on December 21. Irving claims that he no longer denies the Holocaust.
Details are in the Daily Telegraph from England.
In several European nations, including Austria, denial of the Holocaust not only is historical error, it’s also against criminal law.
He was arrested in November 2005 on charges related to two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he called the gas chambers a “fairy tale” and claimed that Hitler had no role in the Holocaust, even “offering his hand to protect the Jews”.
The charges covered statements he had made, such as questioning the accepted version of the Holocaust. He argued that “millions of people were led to believe” an “absolute absurdity”. A jury found him guilty of denying the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.
Irving had appealed his 3-year sentence as too long. He serves the rest on probation.
Irving earlier sued U.S. historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel, in London, after she had called him a Holocaust denier. In a long and famous trial, she was found not to have libeled Irving, though under British law, truth is not a defense as it is in the U.S.
While it offends my First Amendment sensibilities to criminalize the making of such claims, one wonders about the intelligence or goals of people who deny the Holocaust.
Under California law, judicial note has been taken that the Holocaust occurred. It is a fact of history. U.S. law allows more robust, and offensive, discussion of the topic.
But in the end, the Holocaust is a fact. It’s an ugly, brutal and regrettable fact. Denying it occurred at all, or to the scope and degree it occurred, is only an odd form of denial of reality.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 10, 2006
Photo from Apollo 14 Moon Mission
In a classroom discussion of “how do we know what we know” about history, another student brought up the allegations that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) faked the manned Moon landings. That makes about a dozen times this year a kid has mentioned this claim (who thinks to start counting these things?). The kid was pretty unshakable in his convictions — after all, he said, how can a flag wave in a vacuum?
I usually mention a couple of things that the fake claimers leave out — that dozens, if not hundreds, of amateur astronomers tracked the astronauts on their way to the Moon, that many people intercepted the radio transmissions from the Moon, that one mission retrieved debris from an earlier unmanned landing, etc. Younger students who lack experience in serious critical thinking have difficulty with these concepts. They also lack the historic background — the last manned Moon landing occurred when their parents were kids, perhaps. They didn’t grow up with NASA launches on television, and the whole world holding its breath to see what wonders would be found in space.
Phil Plait runs a fine blog called Bad Astronomy. Five years ago he got fed up with the Fox Television program claiming the Moon landings were hoaxes, and he made a significant reply that should be in some hall of fame for debunking hoaxes. Since the claim that the Moon landings were hoaxes is, itself, a hoax, I have titled this “Debunking the Moon landing hoax hoax.”
In any case, if you’re wondering about whether the Moon landings were hoaxes, you need to see Phil Plait’s post. Phil writes:
From the very first moment to the very last, the program is loaded with bad thinking, ridiculous suppositions and utterly wrong science. I was able to get a copy of the show in advance, and although I was expecting it to be bad, I was still surprised and how awful it was. I took four pages of notes. I won’t subject you to all of that here; it would take hours to write. I’ll only go over some of the major points of the show, and explain briefly why they are wrong.
Also, consider these chunks of evidence, which Phil does not mention so far as I know:
First, the first Moon landing left a mirror on the surface, off of which Earth-bound astronomers may bounce laser transmissions in order to measure exactly the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Read the rest of this entry »
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20 Comments | Accuracy, Astronomy, History, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Moon, Reason, Science, Space exploration, Space Race, War on Science | Tagged: Apollo 11, Apollo Project, Astronomy, Bad Astronomy blog, Debunked Hoaxes, Flag on the Moon, History, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Jim Scotti, Moon, Moon Hoax, NASA, Phil Plait, Reason, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 8, 2006
Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and the Pueblo on the cover of Time Magazine, February 2, 1968 (substituted for the official portrait of Bucher, which is no longer available)
A good hoax? It could happen, right?
It did happen.
A U.S. spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo, under the command of Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, was captured by North Korea on January 28, 1968 — the beginning of a very bad year in the U.S. that included Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive that revealed victory for the U.S. in Vietnam to be a long way off, the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the assassination of presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, riots during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a bitter election — and a wonderful television broadcast from astronauts orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve.
North Korea held the crew of the Pueblo for eleven months. While holding the crew hostage — there was never any serious thought that the ship had in fact strayed into North Korean territorial waters, which might have lent some legitimacy to the seizure of the ship — North Korea (DPRK) tried to milk the event for all the publicity and propaganda possible. Such use of prisoners is generally and specifically prohibited by several international conventions. Nations make a calculated gamble when they stray from international law and general fairness.
To their credit, the crew resisted these propaganda efforts in ways that were particularly embarrassing to the North Koreans. DPRK threatened to torture the Americans, and did beat them — but then would hope to get photographs of the Americans “enjoying” a game of basketball, to show that the Americans were treated well. The crew discovered that the North Koreans were naive about American culture, especially profanity and insults. When posing for photos, the Americans showed what they told DPRK was the “Hawaiian good luck sign” — raised middle fingers. The photos were printed in newspapers around the world, except the United States, where they were considered profane. The indications were clear — the crew was dutifully resisting their captors. When the hoax was discovered, the Americans were beaten for a period of two weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
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39 Comments | 1968, Cold War, Heroes, History, History images, Hoaxes, Justice, Korea, veterans, Vietnam | Tagged: 1968, Cold War, Confessions, DPRK, History, Hoaxes, Lloyd Bucher, North Korea, Spying, USS Pueblo | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 4, 2006
This morning’s Dallas Morning News carries a sad story. Dallas City Councilman Mitchell Rasansky’s campaign against an Eagle Scout project finally bore fruit for Rasansky — he persuaded the city’s parks department to remove three bat houses which had been installed in a city park.
Rasansky first complained last spring. Irrationally, against all evidence, he said he thought the bat houses were a menace. When a storm of public opinion overwhelmed him, he backed off. The 70,000 or so Scouts and Scouters of Circle 10 Council relaxed, happy to know that the Eagle’s project was at work, reducing mosquitoes and, thereby, reducing the risks of West Nile virus.
Is it unfair to suggest Rasansky hates Boy Scouts? Probably. Is it unfair to suggest he’s mean and doesn’t let rationality get in the way of good public policy? I doubt it. Consider: 11 North Texans have died from West Nile virus already this year — 16 24 people have died across Texas — and Rasansky’s evidence of danger from the bats is a story of a rabid bat in Houston. One bat? One of the deaths from West Nile virus was an otherwise healthy young man who lived within a few hundred yards of my son at the University of Texas at Dallas. West Nile is not a minor problem around here.
Worse, Rasansky kept his actions secret this time. He got the bat houses removed without notice to the Scout who put them up, nor notice to anyone else concerned.
Some people told me Mitch Rasansky is really a nice guy, when this flap first arose last spring. I gave him the benefit of the doubt then. Not now.
Any man who favors West Nile virus over the public service project of an Eagle Scout has his priorities wrong at best, and is a menace to public health at worst. I don’t want a person running my town who can’t figure out that West Nile virus is a greater health hazard than bats.
Who is running against Rasansky? Arm that woman (or man) with some facts, and let the race begin, even though we’re months away from the election.
More information: See the Organization for Bat Conservation for more information about bats and their benefits.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 19, 2006
One of my searches turned up what appears to be a well-informed essay from 1999 by Wendy McLemore, “The Bathtub, Mencken, and War.” According to her curriculum vitae, the article originally appeared in a publication called Ideas on Liberty, “The Bathtub, Mencken, and War,” Vol. 49, No. 9 (September 1999).
While the article is available on the author’s website, I have not found a link from her blog to the article. So let me urge that you make a second foray, and check out her blog, too. A word of warning — while I haven’t found anything at the blog that is not suitable for viewing at work (NSVW), this is the subtitle the blog: “A site for individualist feminism and individualist anarchism.”
McLemore argues that Mencken was not merely fighting deadline, but was writing a close satire of the difficulties he had getting stories published during World War I that did not condemn Germans willy-nilly. She writes that Mencken was a great appreciator of German culture, and did not go along with propaganda that merely demonized Germany and Germans.
She also wrote that it was Andrew Jackson who introduced the bathtub to the White House, in 1834. This contrasts with the White House story I noted earlier, attributing the introduction of the tub to Fillmore’s wife in 1853. (Before my hard-drive crash, I wrote to the White House historian asking for a check of the veracity of that story. I’ve got nothing in response.) What is McLemore’s source for the Andrew Jackson tub?
We continue the search for the Truth about White House bathtubs. Go read McLemore’s essay.
Post script: Go see what Cecil says about Millard Fillmore, at the column archives for Straight Dope.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 16, 2006
If you’re interested only in history and education, and if you think there is no overlap between the people who try to censor biology textbooks and those who try to “reform” history books, you may go to the next post and skip this one.
Quote accuracy is a big deal to me. When creationists can’t look you square in the eye and tell the truth about what another human being said, they lose my confidence, and their arguments lose credence. I think all scholars and policy discussants have an obligation to readers, policy makers, and the future, to try to get right quotations of famous people. I think this responsbility is particularly important in health and science issues. It was in the vein of checking out the accuracy and veracity of quotes from creationist publications some (okay — many) years ago for a minor issue Congress was dealing with that I discovered the depths of depravity to which creationists stoop to try to make their case that creationism is science and should be taught in public school science classes — or that evolution is evil, and shouldn’t be taught at all. Famous writings of great men like Charles Darwin regularly undergo a savage editor’s knife to make it appear he wrote things quite contrary to what he wrote with regard to science and evolution, or to make it appear that Darwin was a cruel or evil man — of which he was quite the opposite.
With the great benefit of having the Library of Congress across the street, I would occasionally track down obscure sources of “quotes” from scientists, only to discover in almost every case where creationists claimed science was evil, or wrong, that the creationist tracts had grotesquely distorted the text they cited. It was as if the creationist authors had been infected with a virus that made them utterly incapable of telling the truth on certain things.
Over the years I have observed that dedicated creationists tend to lose the ability to tell when they have stepped over the line in editing a quotation, and have instead changed the meaning of a quotation to fit their own ends. This the inherent dishonesty of creationism. It affects — it infects — almost all creationists to one degree or another. Many creationists seem to be under the influence of a virus that renders them incapable of telling a straight story about science, or Darwin.
I ran into a raging case recently. It would be amusing if not for the fact that the creationist seems to be an otherwise rational person.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 10, 2006
My undergraduate alma mater, the University of Utah, had an interesting fellow in the English department who collected stories that people swore were true, but were not. He invented a term for them: “Urban legends.” Jan Brunvand paid due academic attention to the folklore aspects of the stories, especially in his books, such as The Choking Doberman and The Vanishing Hitchhiker. (Alas, no, I never took a class with him.) I hope he copyrighted and trademarked the phrase, though I doubt he did. Brunvand was the first in what is now a minor industry in debunking bad information — see Snopes.com, for example.
Were I a young graduate student in folklore, I’d be collecting internet hoaxes the same way, and seeking a term to describe them that would be the label for the next round. Or, perhaps, Dr. Brunvand is still collecting them on his ski or fly-fishing trips.
In a post I just found from August 6, Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomer debunked, for the third time, an internet hoax about Mars. No kidding. “Mars will look as big as the Moon!” the e-mail exclaims.
No, it won’t.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 28, 2006
In early August 1985, Melvin Mermelstein struck a powerful blow against bogus history and historical hoaxes. Mel won a decision in a California court, in a contract case.
A group of Holocaust deniers had offered a $50,000 reward for anyone who could prove that the Holocaust actually happened. Mermelstein had watched his family marched to the gas chambers, and could testify. He offered his evidence. The Holocaust deniers, of course, had no intention of paying up. They dismissed any evidence offered as inadequate, and continued to claim no one could prove that the Holocaust actually occurred.
Mermelstein, however, was a businessman. He knew that the offer of the reward was a sweepstakes, a form of contract. He knew it was enforceable in court. And he sued to collect. The issue in court would be, was Mermelstein’s evidence sufficient?
Mermelstein’s lawyer had a brilliant idea. He petitioned the court to take “judicial note” of the fact of the Holocaust. Judicial note means that a fact is so well established that it doesn’t need to be evidenced when it is introduced in court — such as, 2+2=4, the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius, etc.
The court ruled that the evidence presented overwhelmingly established that the Holocaust had occurred — the court made judicial note of the Holocaust. That ruling meant that, by operation of law, Mermelstein won the case. The only thing for the judge to do beyond that was award the money, and expenses and damages.
You can read the case and other materials at the Nizkor Holocaust remembrance site.
Appalachian State University takes the Holocaust seriously — there is a program of study on the issue, recently reported by the Mountain Times (the school is in Boone, North Carolina — not sure where the newspaper is).
Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations
Mountain Times, August 17, 2006
As co-directors of Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, Rennie Brantz and Zohara Boyd are always eager to expand and improve the center’s methods of education. Seldom, though, does this involve airfare.
Brantz and Boyd recently visited Israel to participate in the Fifth International Conference for Education: Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations. The four-day conference was held in late June at Yad Vashem, an institute and museum in Jerusalem that specializes in the Nazi Holocaust.
“Yad Vashem is an incredible institute,” Brantz said. “It was founded in the ’50s to remember and commemorate those who perished in the Holocaust, and has been the premier international research institute dealing with the Holocaust.”
As Santayana advises, we remember the past in order to prevent its recurring. Clearly, this is a past we need to work harder at remembering.
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28 Comments | Bogus history, Education, Freedom - Political, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Law, School discipline, Voodoo history | Tagged: Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Mel Mermelstein, Remembering history accurately | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 27, 2006
This might be a better topic for another blog I have in early creation stages — except that the difficulties with the anti-science program broadcast this weekend by D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries are exactly the same difficulties the same group has with history, and the concerns about revising history textbooks and history classes — to make them inaccurate and militantly polemic — also come from the same groups. The history errors alone in Kennedy’s program justify discussing it here. Read the rest of this entry »
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2 Comments | Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Education, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Tagged: Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, D. James Kennedy, Educaiton, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and Faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 23, 2006
Voodoo history just will not die.
Several years ago I caught the tail end of a television program featuring the Rev. D. James Kennedy railing against evolution and especially Charles Darwin. What caught my aural attention was a rant claiming that Darwin somehow bore responsibility for Stalin’s manifold evils perpetrated in the old Soviet Union.
That is bogus history of the first order, of course. Stalin banned the teaching of evolution, and he banned research even based on evolution.
Soviet genetics, top of the world in the early 1920s, was set back decades (and still has not recovered). Some top scientists were fired; some were imprisoned; some were sent to Siberia in hopes they would die (and some did); a few disappeared, perhaps after being shot. Soviet anti-Darwinian science contributed to the massive crop failures of the 1950s that led to the starvation of more than 4 million people. Claiming that Stalin loved Darwinian theory is bad history revisionism of first order. (If you’re Googling, look for the story of Trofim Lysenko, Stalin’s henchman against biology.)
Kennedy is at it again. The past couple of weeks have featured new rants against Darwin, leading up to a promised climax this weekend in which Kennedy will claim Darwin was responsible for Hitler and Nazi atrocities — again a fantastic claim, since Hitler directly repudiated Darwin, never expressed support for the idea of evolution, and since anti-Darwin quackery led to any number of stupid science moves in Nazi Germany, such as a ban on blood banks for fear that soldiers would get Jewish blood and turn Jewish (no, you can’t make that stuff up — see Ashley Montague’s essay in his 1959 book, Human Genetics).
Unfortunately for Kennedy and his Coral Ridge Ministries (CRM), his advance flackery got the attention of biologists like P. Z. Myers and others, like the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.
There is much bogus history to deal with there, and so little time. Check out the links. More to come from here, I hope.
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2 Comments | Bogus history, Creationism, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Intelligent Design, Plagiarism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 10, 2006
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? Read the rest of this entry »
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3 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Creationism, Current History, Ethics, Evolution, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 