Bring back the OTA, stop the War on Science

October 25, 2007

Bush administration officials make the case more powerfully that we need to resurrect the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).

Bushies, going against their earlier claims that they accept that the nation needs to do something about changing climate, “eviscerated” testimony of a government official designed to protect public health. More voodoo science from Bush. According to The Carpetbagger Report:

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate panel yesterday that climate change “is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans.” If that sounds a little vague and non-specific, there’s a good reason — the White House refused to let her say what she wanted to say.

Sadly, Carpetbagger Report lists several other instances in which White House officials have gutted the release of important information on global warming’s dangers.

If Osama bin Laden did something like that, we’d invade a smaller nation to stop it. Preventing Americans from being prepared for disaster is a terroristic threat under the Homeland Security Act, isn’t it? Is there a clause for citizen suits in there somewhere? Who will stand up to the abuses by George Bush?

Here’s the Washington Post story on the event. Here’s my previous post, with links to Denialism and Pharyngula, and even John Wilkins (love that picture of Snowflake!).

Hillary Clinton specifically calls for the recreation of OTA, a clue some of us politicos use to indicate she really does know what government under the Constitution should be doing. Other Democrats are friendly to the idea, but so far I’ve not heard a peep from any of the Republican presidential candidates. Orrin? What about you?

Bring back the OTA. Exorcise the demons of totalitarian Bushism.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Junk science, Politics, Research, Santayana's ghost, Science, Technology, Voodoo science, War on Science, War on Terrorism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

West Nile virus: No call for DDT

October 8, 2007

DDT-obsessed politicos look for any opportunity to slam scientists and policy makers who urge caution about using the chemical. Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla) unholy campaign against the memory of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is only Exhibit A in how the obsession skews public policy now.

In earlier posts I’ve warned that there will be calls for more DDT use, with reports of West Nile virus spreading this season. Winter is coming slowly to the American Midwest, so mosquitoes still crop up carrying the virus. Voodoo science and junk science advocates look for such opportunities to claim that we need to “bring back” DDT, ‘since the claims of harm have been found to be false.’

No public health official, no mosquito abatement official, has asked for DDT to fight West Nile virus, even as the virus infects humans across the nation. Nor has any harm of DDT been refuted (quite the opposite — we now know of more dangers).

One reason, of course, is that DDT is not the pesticide of choice to use against West Nile vector mosquitoes. Mosquito abatement efforts aim at the larvae, where DDT use would be stupid.

A survey of the nation, in places where West Nile is a problem provides a good view of how West Nile virus is fought by public health and mosquito abatement officials. DDT is used in no case.

While you’re at it, take a look at what LeisureGuy has to say about DDT and scaria. Then wander over to Townhall.com, and see what scaria really looks like, in a shameless column from Paul Driessen, the author of the anti-environmentalist screed Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. According to Driessen, it appears that environmentalists have been biting Africans to spread malaria, not mosquitoes. He may exaggerate some.

West Nile virus is a great problem for people in the United States. No health official, mosquito abatement official, or anyone else in a position of responsibility, has called for DDT.

7 Comments | DDT, History, Junk science, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Intelligent design: Pigs still don’t fly

October 1, 2007

Encore Post

On the road for a day and a half. Here is an encore post from last October, an issue that remains salient, sadly, as creationists have stepped up their presence in Texas before the next round of biology textbook approvals before the Texas State Board of Education. I discuss why intelligent design should not be in science books.

Image: Flying Pig Brewing Co., Everett, Washington 
Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Seattle, Washington.

Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Everett, Washington. (Late brewery? Has it closed?)

[From October 2006]: We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.

I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.

Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.

Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)

Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover.

Read the rest of this entry »

58 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Take Ben Stein’s brain

September 27, 2007

 

Ben Stein in a tub of money

Cornelia Dean’s article in the New York Times on September 27 reports that several scientists got the same deceptive invitation to appear in a documentary movie that has not been made, but instead discovered themselves in a different movie, a sort of mockumentary in support of the discredited concept of intelligent design.

Actor/comedian/lawyer/economist Ben Stein is the producer and narrator of “Expelled!” P. Z. Myers kicked off the blog discussions when he noted his own appearance in the movie, not exactly what it was billed — Myers posted the invitation letter, related the story, and eventually posted the kiss-off letter from the producer, who seems too embarrassed to talk about his deceptive actions.

One has to wonder, is such a vanity production in defense of voodoo science the best use of Ben Stein’s money? Is it the best use of Ben Stein’s brain? What was he thinking?

Let the record note: Scientific contributions from intelligent design and the rest of creationism, for 2007 and 2008, was a mockumentary movie, based on deception-obtained interviews.

Is that what they want us to teach the kids in high school?

Also see:

Image: AV Club.com

 

Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Creationism, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationists: The film director who couldn’t shoot straight

September 21, 2007

Hilarity continues to roll out of Waco. The creationists can’t even shoot film straight.

Tim Woods, a reporter for the Waco Tribune-Herald tells the story well:

Baylor University’s recent controversy regarding a professor’s intelligent design-related Web site took a dramatic turn Thursday when a film crew went to President John Lilley’s office, hoping to speak to him about what they deem academic suppression.

But Lilley was out of town.

Mark Mathis, associate producer for the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and a film crew went to Lilley’s office about 10 a.m. When they learned Lilley was in Houston and unavailable Thursday, Mathis asked to speak with Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman.

Not satisfied with the hoax e-mail attributed to President Lilly by Bill Dembski, the ID version of the Keystone Kops tried to ambush Lilly. I don’t endorse ambush journalism even when the journalists are honest and competent, but Mathis’s dishonesty and lack of manners in dealing with other stars of his films suggest Mathis is the last person on Earth who should be doing such stuff.

Mathis said Stein and the film’s producers believe Baylor’s removal of distinguished engineering professor Robert Marks’ Web site devoted to evolutionary informatics — a concept Marks’ collaborator, William Dembski, termed “friendly” to intelligent design — from its server is an example of academic suppression.

While Baylor officials have said the site was removed for procedural reasons, namely the absence of a disclaimer separating the university from involvement in Marks’ research, Mathis believes it was taken down because of its content.

“To us, it seems pretty obvious what’s going on with Professor Marks’ Web site. . . . To us, that’s academic persecution and suppression,” Mathis said. “What is the problem with tenured, distinguished university professors pursuing a scientific idea? What’s wrong with that? It’s especially interesting in the case of Baylor, in that this is happening at a Christian university.”

Baylor provost Randall O’Brien, who was in New York on Thursday, said Marks is free to conduct evolutionary informatics research and, like Fogleman, denied the site was removed because of its content.

“What we say is you have the freedom to formulate your own views and so forth, just make sure that you issue a disclaimer that your particular view does not necessarily express the view of Baylor University,” O’Brien said. “We fully endorse the right and responsibilities of academic freedom.”

While Mathis was at Baylor, he could have ambushed Prof. Marks, and challenged Marks to tell him what Marks’ research hopes to find, and asked Marks to show the lab for the world.

It would have been the first time that anyone has ever caught on film that elusive animal, the intelligence design research facility.

If the lab exists, it would be the first time ever caught on film. If it exists.

2 Comments | Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Junk science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Skirmishes before the war? Creationist assault on Texas

September 21, 2007

Intelligent design advocates’ chief claim holds that where a pattern may be discerned, there is someone with intelligence scheming away.

That explains a recent spattering of activities in Texas that otherwise are just blots of minor, irritating news. It points to animus against science in top religious and political circles in Texas — if, of course, there is anything at all to intelligent design’s chief premise.

Scientists and citizens for good government, and parents concerned about good education, should note these recent actions:

First, ID advocates tried to establish a stealth toehold at Baylor University. The Waco Tribune explained the otherwise odd events surrounding Bill Dembski’s latest foray into Baylor — he got himself designated as a “post-doc” student for an engineer’s project, and a website featuring a new sciency term, “informatics,” quickly appeared. School administrators were not satisfied with the transparency and legitimacy of funding for the project, and pulled the plug on it, producing wails of “oppression” from the ID harpy chorus.

Dembski is a professor at the Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Had he been collaborating with Robert Marks at Baylor, one would think that collaboration from his professorial position would carry more clout, attract more funding, and generally make a lot more sense than having the multiple-degreed Dembski do post-doc work in engineering, a field he’s not yet got a degree in. Apart from the sheer humor of Dembski pursuing one more degree that is not biology in order to try to get the credentials to assault biology, the sheer stupidity of the affair has put scientists off-guard, satisfied that Baylor’s integrity watchdogs have protected science adquately. I’m not so sure.

Second, without much fanfare outside extreme fundamentalist circles, the Institute for Creation Research moved most of its operation from California to Dallas. The stated reasons include proximity to DFW Airport, which makes sense for a corporation like J. C. Penney or Exxon-Mobil, but doesn’t really make a lot of sense for a “school” that has fought to get the right to grant graduate degrees in California.

Third, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s appointment of a stiff-necked creationist to be the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education produced concern among educators and scientists, especially remembering Chairman Don McLeroy’s positions on creationism and evolution in the last biology textbook approval round, in 2003 (not to mention his anti-disease prevention stance on health books in 2004). Concern was defused by a Dallas Morning News article in which McLeroy and other creationists on the board said they would not work to put intelligent design into the curriculum.

But reports from meetings of the SBOE in the past week make it clear that the creationist agenda is still very much alive, with McLeroy working with other creationists to break standard procedures for curriculum review, and to stack panels reviewing science standards with people who will work against evolution, cosmology, environmental protection and wildlife management, and disease prevention. Politics of Christian dominionists appear to dominate the discussions at the education board, rather than the rigor of the curriculum or how best to teach students so they can ace federally-mandated state tests. Pedagogy takes a back seat to religious politics.

Individually, each of these events is just another in a long string of nuttiness.  The moving of ICR to Texas, however, means that ICR representatives would have the Texas citizen’s right to testify at textbook hearings.  These may be unconnected events of wingnuttery, or they may be initial moves to be in the right place to gut science textbooks in the next round of Texas textbook approvals.

It is best not to assume intelligent design where mere incompetence also provides an sufficient answer.

But watch what happens next.

2 Comments | Creationism, Intelligent Design, Science, Science and faith, Texas, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

West Nile 2007: DDT not needed

September 21, 2007

Kern County, California, is ground zero for West Nile virus trouble in 2007. It’s a still-partly rural area, with many farms, around Bakersfield. California so far this year has more than 200 cases of human infection from West Nile reported, and 115 of those cases are in Kern County. Eight people died from the infections, all of them elderly.

So, were DDT the answer to West Nile virus problems, Kern County would be the first place from which we would expect to hear a plea for DDT.

Not so.

Kern County officials hope they’ve turned a corner. There were only eight new cases reported last week, and officials think that their spraying program may have contributed a lot.

Yes, you read that correctly: The spraying program in Kern County is credited with reducing West Nile virus infections in humans.

Occasional readers of this outlet might well ask: What are they spraying with, if not DDT?

Despite the Snake-oil Salesmen™ claim that the U.S. needs to poison itself with DDT in order to fight West Nile, officials in public health use other substances to fight mosquitoes directly, when there is an outbreak of West Nile virus-related disease in humans, or sometimes just in birds.

[Notice: Original reporting ahead]

The Kern County Department of Public Health Services actively fights West Nile, with public education, help to medical care professionals, and information to decision makers on what steps need to be taken. People at the agency were anxious to talk about their work against West Nile.

What do they use to spray for mosquitoes? Not DDT.

I checked with two other mosquito abatement groups, including Dallas County’s.  They were anxious to talk about their work, though not for attribution without approval of their PR managers, who have so far not returned calls (public relations is impossible when you don’t relate to the public, guys).

Those who do the spraying emphasize that spraying is rather a last resort, and done only after significant research shows it is necessary. Spraying kills more than the mosquitoes, including a lot of creatures that would normally eat the mosquitoes and keep them in check.  So spraying is done only when the mosquitoes seem to have an unnatural tipping of the balance in their favor.

Public health departments set traps for mosquitoes.  These traps are checked regularly, and the mosquitoes are sorted by species.  This is vitally important, because West Nile virus is carried only by certain species of mosquito, and different species require different abatement plans, and different insecticides.

Once sorted by species, the mosquitoes are sampled to see which are carrying pathogens, if any.  In addition, most public health agencies also monitor birds, by reports of bird carcasses (almost always a sign of disease or poisoning), and by captive populations of chickens, whose blood is sampled to see whether viruses are present.

After the species are identified, the viruses are identified, and it is determined that there is virus activity, a decision is made on whether to spray.

For West Nile, the chief vector is a species of Culex.  Culex mosquitoes are generally controlled by larvacides, not spraying for adults.  If spraying for adults is determined necessary, most health departments are using synthetic pyrethroids, synthetic versions of insecticides plants manufacture.  While they are not as environmentally friendly as natural pyrethrins, they are much less dangerous than DDT.

The sprayers I spoke with also made this point:  The old model of DDT spraying of entire neighborhoods is outdated.  “It is not a good use of the product,” as one gently put it.

For West Nile virus control, here’s what you need to tell Henry I. Miller, up in the ivory towers at the Hoover Institute promoting voodoo science:

1.  No one thinks West Nile virus is out of control (but it’s a problem).

2.  Health official thinks current, non-DDT methods of mosquito control are adequate to control for West Nile virus.

3.  Even when spraying is required, DDT is the wrong stuff to use — Culex is generally controlled with a larvacide, and DDT spraying would be much less effective, and much more destructive.

I asked the abatement people if they were concerned about killing birds with spraying, or killing other things that eat mosquitoes.  Basically, they said it’s not their job, but the chemicals they use are much gentler on birds and other mosquito predators than DDT is.  One fellow said about collateral bird deaths:  “I have bigger finch to fry.”

5 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hijacking science in Texas

September 20, 2007

It looks a lot like inside baseball. It’s conducted away from classrooms, while teachers struggle to deliver science to students in crowded classrooms without adequate textbooks, without adequate science labs and without adequate time. The perpetrators hew to Otto von Bismark’s claim that the public shouldn’t see their laws or sausages being made.

Since Bismark, in the U.S. we have food safety laws to protect our sausage. In Texas, the political scheming in the State Board of Education (SBOE) continues to spoil science education.

Science standards for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) — the Texas state science education standards — are being rewritten by the Texas Education Agency, under direction of the SBOE. While procedures have been consistent over the past 15 years or so, and the state legislature reined in SBOE from political shenanigans in textbook selection, SBOE members are fighting back to get the right to skew science standards. For weeks the selection of committees to review specific standards have been held up so members of the SBOE can stack the committees to put their political views in.

Board members are insisting on stacking the review committees now, weeks after the deadline for members to nominate qualified teachers and experts to review the standards.  This is the gateway to the path of bad standards through which we earlier watched other school boards frolic — Cobb County, Georgia, Dover, Pennsylvania, and the State of Ohio.  Taxpayers in Cobb County and Dover paid the price when courts correctly noted that the changes proposed violated  the religious freedom clauses of the state constitutions and the First Amendment.  Ohio’s board backed down when a new governor cleaned house, and when it became clear that their position would lose in court.

Simply gutting the standards, however, may not rise to the standard of illegal religious influence.  Keeping kids in the dark may not violate federal or state law.  It’s immoral, but would the Texas State Board stick to that side of morality?  Many observers doubt it, given the track record of recent years striking important health information from texts that might save a few lives, and the legislature’s pro-cancer legislation this year.

Some observers have provided detailed reports that to many of us look like simple foot dragging. In the past week it has become more clear that the foot dragging is really political positioning.

If anyone was lulled to sleep by the Dallas Morning News article a few weeks ago which touted board members’ claims they would not advocate putting intelligent design into the biology curriculum, the greater fears now seem to be coming true:  Board members did NOT say they would stand for good science, or that they would not try to cut evolution, Big Bang, astronomy, geology, accurate medicine and health, and paleontology out of curricula.  The Corpus Christi Caller-Times warned:

Board chairman Don McLeroy, though indicating that he won’t support the teaching of intelligent design, says he would like to see more inclusion in textbooks of what he called weaknesses in the evolutionary theory, a sentiment expressed by many of the predominantly Republican 15-member board.

This only sounds like another version of a common tactic by religious pressure groups that seek to create a controversy about evolution that only exists in their opposition. That nicely covers their ultimate goal of converting classrooms into pulpits for religious teachings.

Texas schoolchildren will be the losers if the teaching of science, or health, or history — all subjects that have been the target of pressure groups — is based on something other than the best known and most widely accepted bodies of knowledge. In a pluralistic nation with many creeds and religions, letting personal faith become the guiding force for the public school curriculum invites creation of a battleground.

Texans should watch the State Board of Education in the months to come.

Just over a month ago one of the chief theorists behind Big Bang theory died in Austin, Ralph Alpher. His death went largely unnoticed. In 2003, with the Nobel Prize winning-physicist Ilya Prigogine of the University of Texas not yet cool in the grave, charlatans felt free to misrepresent his work on thermodynamics, saying he had “proved” that evolution could not occur.  In fact, his prize-winning work showed that on a planet like Earth, evolution is a virtual certainty.  Prigogine, Alpher: A greater tragedy is brewing: Will Big Bang survive the hatchets of anti-science forces on the SBOE? Many hard theories of science are unpopular with religious fanatics in Texas. Those fanatics are over-represented on the SBOE.

Don’t just watch.  Write to your board member, to the TEA director, to the governor, to the legislature.  One way to keep “no child left behind” is by holding all children back.   Texas and America cannot afford such Taliban-like enforcement of ignorance.

5 Comments | Bogus history, Politics, Science, Science and faith, State school boards, Texas, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

DDT snake oil salesmen of the month: August 2007

September 17, 2007

Since my post noting DDT being sold as snake oil, good for any and all ailments, readers have called to my attention to already-existing calls to use DDT to fight West Nile virus, a use that no public health official has asked for, and a use that would be particularly ironic since broadcast spraying of DDT also kills the chief victims of West Nile: Song birds.

So, here’s our list for August 2007:

Snake Oil Salesmen of the Month

Milloy’s winning contribution is particularly brilliant. He notes that there are other pesticides that are effective, but, because they do not continue killing for years uncontrollably, he calls for DDT. It’s a column Dave Barry could not dream up for parody:

West Nile virus has killed seven people in Louisiana this year, two in Mississippi and at least 145 people in six states have been infected. A 12-year-old Wisconsin boy died last week of mosquito-borne encephalitis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says West Nile virus is in the U.S. to stay. The virus may now be found in 37 states, including every state from Texas to the Atlantic.

CDC Director Julie Gerberding called West Nile virus an “emerging, infectious disease epidemic” that could be spread all the way to the Pacific Coast by birds and mosquitoes.

Louisiana has been monitoring the virus since 2000 and has one of the most active mosquito-control programs in the country — and yet it is the state with the highest death toll.

It’s time to bring back the insecticide DDT.

Currently used pesticides, such as malathion, resmethrin and sumithrin, can be effective in killing mosquitoes but are significantly limited since they don’t persist in the environment after spraying.

This award has to be retroactive — Milloy wrote this in August 2002. Since then, it is still true that no public health official has asked for DDT, and it is also true that the West Nile outbreaks continue to plague birds more than humans. (I regret I did not find this article earlier, to use as an example of the craziness of the advocates.) Tiger mosquitoes don’t change their stripes, Milloy’s piece should remind us.

Miller’s winning entry is notable for the way it completely ignores contrary data, and rather overlooks 35 years of tough work to ameliorate damage from DDT.

In the absence of a vaccine, eliminating the carrier — the mosquito — should be the key to preventing an epidemic. But in 1972, on the basis of data on toxicity to fish and migrating birds (but not to humans), the Environmental Protection Agency banned virtually all uses of DDT, an inexpensive and effective pesticide once widely deployed in the U.S. to kill disease-carrying insects. The effectiveness and relative safety of DDT was underplayed, as was the distinction between the large-scale use of the chemical in agriculture and more limited application for controlling carriers of human disease. There is a world of difference between applying large amounts of it in the environment — as American farmers did before it was banned — and using it carefully and sparingly to fight mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects. A basic principle of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison.

Miller fails to note that there is not a world of difference between applying large amounts of DDT on crops and applying large amounts of DDT on swamps, which is what he appears to be advocating.

To control mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus, the pesticide would need to be used extensively — and it should be. DDT should be made available, immediately, for both indoor and outdoor mosquito control in the U.S.; and the government should oppose international strictures on the pesticide.

Miller doesn’t mention that the deadliest, most uncontrollable actions of DDT were in waterways, especially when applied to kill mosquitoes in the past. The poison bio-accumulates as it rises through the food-chain, so that the dose a raptor like a bald eagle, osprey, or brown pelican gets from spraying for mosquitoes is a dose 10 million times more potent than was originally received by the mosquito.

Miller’s piece is highly ironic in its timing, coming about six weeks after the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list. America has worked for 35 years to get rid of the effects of DDT, whose spraying ended prior to 1972, and we are just now seeing good results that merit celebration — Miller urges that we poison the birds all over again.

I predict West Nile virus will be the chief selling point for the DDT snake oil salesmen during the month of September. With the West Nile season winding down, however, one wonders what disease will crop up next for which the DDT snake oil will be touted as a cure: Rocky Mountain spotted fever? Lyme disease? Diabetes? Heart disease?

Stay tuned.

5 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationists use fraud to film professor of religion

September 10, 2007

It’s a familiar sounding story: College professor agrees to let a film crew in to hear him talk about his specialty. Film comes out later spouting creationist views, quite contrary to the professor’s views; much of what the professor did say is left on the cutting room floor.

A couple of years ago, I welcomed a camera crew into my office for some interviews about Old Testament stories. The crew went away and I never heard from them again, until I e-mailed the production company last week to find out what ever became of the footage. A representative of that company promptly e-mailed me back and kindly sent out a screener of the DVD that is scheduled to release in October.

I am not happy with the end result.

This time, however, it’s a professor of Christian religion complaining about the creationists doing to him what they do to biologists with unfortunate frequency. Chris Heard is an associate professor of religion at Pepperdine. Heard said:

. . . I’m a bit upset—no, incensed—at being threaded into a production that sets out to prove a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t agree with, much of which is demonstrably wrong. I suppose I have noone and nothing to blame but my own naïvete, in failing to ask the right questions before saying “Yes” to the camera crew.

The story sounds so familiar because hoodwinking biology profs about the film is old hat — the late D. James Kennedy got Francis Collins to do a long interview about his faith, and then inserted it into Kennedy’s scurrilous and false claims attempting to link Darwin to the horrors of the Holocaust. Collins is famous enough that they yanked his segment when he complained. Dawkins tells a famous story of a crew taping him under false pretenses, and then having the gall to claim Dawkins didn’t know his subject, when Dawkins realized what was going on, and on camera, called an end to the farce. And P. Z. Myers was recently victimized by a group working with Ben Stein for a bizarre farce against academic freedom and science accuracy.

Now we know just how low creationists will stoop in deceit for these films: They’ll lie to a professor of religion, and then they get the religious material wrong.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula. And while you’re over at Heard’s blog, Higgaion, take a look around — it’s got some good stuff, including this post on his commentary on the Poseidon Adventure; the film-makers of the commentary on the fictional film got right what Prof. Heard said about Biblical themes. Oh, the irony of Hollywood — the fiction people get the Bible right, the creationists get it wrong. O tempora, O mores.

6 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Religion, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Aid and comfort: Turkey creationism

September 6, 2007

Public Radio International’s daily news program, The World, reported today that a group called “Discovery” (the Discovery Institute?) and mathematician David Berlinsky are in league with Islamic fundamentalists in Turkey in their pushing of creationism over evolution theory. (Still can’t get a biologist to go along with them? Mathematician? What are the odds that he knows anything about biology?)

Update: Here’s the link to the creationism story, creationism in Turkey.

True stripes show, eventually: Creationism in Turkey is pushed by a bunch that uses threats of violence against teachers of science at all levels, and bullying tactics otherwise, to “persuade” others (so far as I can tell, this blog and all other WordPress blogs are still being blocked in Turkey due to bizarre legal maneuvers by the charlatan science commentator Adnan Oktar, who publishes under the pseudonym Harun Yahya some of the most inaccurate material and fantastic fabrications in their war on science).

The story is not up in the archives for The World, yet — archives generally run a day behind. The story was broadcast today, September 6, 2007. It featured wild track tape of Berlinsky lecturing in Turkey, if I heard correctly, and further interviews with him.

Stay tuned.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Adnan Oktar, Creationism, Science and faith, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

You can’t parody this: Jonathan Wells on “Darwinism Top 10”

September 5, 2007

Anti-science and anti-evolution groups’ desperation erupts in odd ways. When scientists get together and discussion turns to the political movement known as intelligent design (ID), they express frustration at the sheer volume of supercilious ideas and claims that surge out of ID advocates. At its heart, this frustration has an almost-humorous puzzle: Scientists cannot tell what is a real claim from ID advocates, or what is a parody of those claims.

Neither can anyone else.

I stumbled into a mackerel-in-the-moonlight* example to show the problem: Jonathan Wells, a minister in the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, wrote a slap-dash screed against evolution published by right-wing cudgel publishing house Regnery, called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Amazon.com invites authors to set up blogs, and Jonathan Wells has one. The only post there is reproduced in full below the fold — a list of . . . um, well . . . a top ten list of something (Wells just calls it a “top ten list”). It consists of amazing flights of fancy surrounding the issue of teaching science in public schools. I promise, I am not making any of this up — when I quote Wells, it will be his words entirely, completely, in context, uncut and unedited. If I didn’t tell you this was not parody, and if you have half your wits, you’d think either I was making it up, or somebody at Amazon was.

Point by point criticism, in brief, below the fold. I promise, I am not making this up.

__________________________________

* John Randolph is reputed to have said of Henry Clay: “Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.” Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Justice, Natural history, Religion, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

D. James Kennedy, 76

September 5, 2007

From the Washington Post:

By KELLI KENNEDY

The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; 11:12 AM

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Rev. D. James Kennedy, a pioneering megachurch pastor who became one of the nation’s most prominent Christian broadcasters and a key figure in the rise of the religious right, died Wednesday, a church spokesman said. He was 76.

We wish his family comfort and well.

Kennedy announced his retirement about a month ago. Coral Ridge Ministries, the church he founded in Florida, will continue. One might hope that, with regard to notorious programs he promoted with voodoo history on the founding of the U.S. and voodoo science against biology, some of the his projects will be allowed to expire with him.

6 Comments | Religion, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Getting Newtonist ideas out of the science books

September 3, 2007

When the Discovery Institute’s campaign against Darwin succeeds, will they be content? Remember, the real war is against materialism, DI says. Will Isaac Newton and the materialist theory of gravity be next?

Here’s a parody that suggests what that campaign would look like, from Tiny Frog. It’s a parody. It’s a hoax.

I said, it’s not real, it’s a parody.  It’s a parody.
Immediate update: Pharyngula picked up on Tiny Frog’s post, too — a sign the post is worth reading, generally.

Leave a Comment » | Hoaxes, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Vox Day: Trapped in a quote mine cave-in

August 31, 2007

Vox Day, who claims to know more than most mortals can even think about, has fallen into a quote mine. (Quote mine defined.) Worse, the mine appears to have caved in.

Vox Day wishes to make the claim that Darwin is responsible for the evils of the Soviet Union. Apart from the prima facie absurdity of the claim, Vox has a dozen highly tenuous links he wishes to torture into supporting his claim, despite their refusal to do so.

This just in: Since I started out on this particular Fisking, Vox has popped up with this gem:

Unsurprisingly, evolutionists are reacting strongly to my column today. They swear up and down that there is no connection whatsoever between evolution and Communism, despite the fact that every single major Communist not only subscribed to Darwinist evolution but considered Darwin to be second only to Hegel as a pre-Marxist socialist figure.

There is no evidence Stalin or Lenin ever subscribed to evolution theory, and at any rate, Stalin expressly rejected Darwin and evolution, eviscerating the Soviets’ lead in genetics in 1920 by banning the teaching of evolution, banning research in evolution or research that had Darwinian overtones, stripping Darwin-theory subscribing biologists of their jobs, exiling a few to Siberia and death in several cases, and executing a few just for good measure. In place of evolution, Stalin backed Trofim Lysenko who advocated, apart from his creationist-like hatred of Darwin, an odd, almost-Lamarckian idea that stress in utero would change characteristics.

So, for example, Lysenko ordered that seed wheat be frozen, and then planted in winter. The freezing, the Stalin-Lysenko idea held, would make the wheat able to grow in cold weather. The crop failures were so spectacular that at least 4 million people died of starvation in the Soviet Union. By 1954 the crop failures were so massive the Soviet Union had to purchase wheat from the U.S., with loans from the U.S. These loans crippled any hope of the Soviet economy ever breaking out of its doldrums, and started the long slide to the collapse of the Soviet Union. You’d think Vox Day, who professes to be a libertarian and a Christian, would approve of the collapse of the Soviet Union by any cause — but he does not approve of the collapse if it came by a lack of evolution theory.

Vox Day never lets the facts get in the way of a rant. (As evidence that Marx was so deeply influenced by evolution theory, Vox notes that a fellow who knew Darwin, Edward Aveling attended Marx’s funeral. If that doesn’t convince, you, Vox says, Aveling later wrote an article saying it’s true, Marxism was based on evolution theory. So take THAT all you people who think Marxism emphasizes collectivism and the state: Darwin’s individual competition for survival is the REAL root of socialism. No, I’m not making this up — go read it for yourself. Then get some facts — read this account, which includes the guest list of Marx’s funeral. There were only nine people at Marx’s funeral, and Vox got the guest list wrong: Aveling wasn’t there. One more Vox claim refuted.)

Back to the regularly scheduled Vox Day quote mine cave-in, below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

54 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Capitalism, Charles Darwin, Communism, Economics, Evolution, History, Uncomposted Organic Fertilizer, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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