James Randi Prize Explained

Vintage ERV: Why NOT Teach The "Controversy?"

I'm mostly posting this for my own reference.

A while back, Abbie "ERV" Smith trashed Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute (which is approximately a weekly occurrence for her), but in doing so made the best argument as to why creationism and Evolution don't belong in the same classroom. Money quote:

These people (creationists) have absolutely no interest in 'teaching both sides.' They want to teach their side, their creation myth, nothing else. They blockade themselves in their churches and their religious schools and religious camps and nobody gets through with an outside opinion. Filtering questions?? Common!! I would ask Chris (Mooney), why hasnt he promoted his book on 'The 700 Club'? He says we need to plead with the Religious Right to come back to reality, so why doesnt he go on 'The 700 Club' and do just that? Well, the same reason why I cant leave my 'ivory tower' to speak at local anti-evolution churches. I might want to go, but theyarent letting me in.

In short, the argument people like Mooney and his cohort Sheril Kirshenbaum make in favor of accommodation--that rationalists and pro-evolution forces need to find some way to meet the creationists halfway--is doomed from the start. THEY don't want to budge, and we shouldn't play the game on their turf. Let them come to us.

Or tell them, "fuck you, take a hike. You've been 'left behind' and are no longer relevant."

Ray Comfort Comes Cheap

I can think of any of a number of ways I'd rather spend $5. This, however, is not one of them.

"To be an atheist is to play Russian roulette with all the chambers loaded," explains best-selling author Ray Comfort, and in his latest book, he proves it. And today only, WND readers can get "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think" – autographed – for just $4.95, a $21 discount from the normal $25.95 price!"

Translation: We'll shine your shoes if you'll take one of these stupid books off our hands...we need the space in the warehouse. It makes me think of Abbie "ERV" Smith's comment about Michael Behe giving out $6.99 blowjobs on Amazon.com.

For those of you who don't know Ray Comfort, here's all you need to know about this Creationist twit...



A suitable parody, ala MST3K:



And the science. Pay attention, kiddos, there will be a quiz:



Chowderhead.

Via Friendly Atheist.

Quote of the Day

"I strongly suspect that creationism as a movement would never have arisen if scientists hadn't insisted on encompassing the human species in evolution's family tree. Whatever the creationists say, they don't really care about turtles or oak trees or earthworms. If scientists were willing to grant that human beings were special, unrelated to the rest of Earthlife, creationists would probably have been happy to concede that every other species came about from a process of mindless natural selection. But the evidence doesn't support a separate origin for humanity, and the idea that we might be one of those animals - a relative of slime molds and toadstools, of centipedes and cyanobacteria - enrages creationists, who can't bear to believe in a universe in which they are not the central and most important figure. In their quest to reclaim that sense of specialness, they would gladly obliterate the best theory ever devised to explain the true origins and diversity of life as we now see it."
--Daylight Atheism

PZ pwns a creationist idjit

Happy birthday, PZ Myers! In honor of his birthday, here's his latest thrashing of the perennial dipstick Ray Comfort:

So Ray Comfort is now complaining on the revered pages of the respected publication, World Net Daily about me. The article is full of dishonest misquotes, but let's zip right to Ray's scientific misunderstandings. They are deep and painful.

And it gets better from there. Ray Comfort should volunteer to be the main course on feeding day with PZ's zebrafish.

Sir David Attenborough splats creationists

So you believe in a benign and loving god, do you? Attenborough says he's asked all the time why he doesn't give credit to God:

"They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds.

"I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in East Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball.

"The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs.

"I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

And this quote should be carved in a mountain someplace:

"Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."

Via Pharyngula.
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Update: Video below:

Olbermann on Cincinnati Zoo

My man-crush awarded his Worst Person Silver Medal to a radio windbag over the recent controversy at the Cincinnati Zoo, which Pharyngulites helped to kill. Enjoy, PZ:

Roger Ebert reviews Expelled

And he hated every minute of it.

And there is worse, much worse. Toward the end of the film, we find that Stein actually did want to title it "From Darwin to Hitler." He finds a Creationist who informs him, "Darwinism inspired and advanced Nazism." He refers to advocates of eugenics as liberal. I would not call Hitler liberal. Arbitrary forced sterilization in our country has been promoted mostly by racists, who curiously found many times more blacks than whites suitable for such treatment.

Ben Stein is only getting warmed up. He takes a field trip to visit one "result" of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. "As a Jew," he says, "I wanted to see for myself." We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. "It's difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place," he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.

Ebert's blog states he'd been accused of not reviewing the movie because he had a bias against "Intelligent" Design. He actually has a bias against false Christians (or in Stein's case, Jews) and intellectual dishonesty.

Via Pharyngula.

Intelligent design smackdown!

Money quote:

The strongest voices of the evening were an atheist and a Christian who agreed that intelligent design is neither science nor worthy of scientific consideration.

Yup, that about covers it.

HT: Pharyngula

Imagine the shoe on the other foot

A brilliant article on why Creationism should NOT be taught in public schools.

HT: RichardDawkins.net

"Intelligent Design on Trial" from NOVA

One of the best shows on TV, this is the story of the Dover trial that smacked down the ID folks--hard. 96 minutes. Required viewing.

Discovery Institute attacked by--John Derbyshire?!

You know, when a hard-right-wing chowderhead attacks you for being dishonest...

Helping to defend creationist school boards in federal courts is not the Discovery Institute's game. Their game is to (a) make money from those spurious "textbooks" they put out, and (b) keep creationism in the news so that they don't run out of lecture gigs and wealthy funders. So far as those legal bills are concerned, Discovery Institute policy is: Let the dumb rubes fund their own stupid lawsuits.

Remember, Derbyshire is the same guy who took a potshot at the victims of the shooting at Virginia Tech last year for not giving a better accounting of themselves. This guy is calling BS on the Discovery Institute for being a bunch of kooks.

Remember kids, Intelligent Design is code for "dishonesty."

Neil deGrasse-Tyson's take on Intelligent Design

An oldie but a goodie from Pharyngula. Money quote:

"Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery--the frontier that drives the economies of the future--would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before."

Take a bow, sir. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Stein on Expelled: Sinking to a new low.

Ben Stein was awarded a silver medal in Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World a few nights ago for his continued whoring of his new "movie" Expelled. And this one should get him the gold. Stein was recently interviewed for Christianity Today and makes a complete sleeze of himself. Here's his "aw, shucks" opener:

How familiar were you with the subject of Intelligent Design prior to this?

Stein: Not at all. I'm still not that familiar with it. I'm more familiar with it than most people, but nowhere near as familiar with it as a genuine expert in the subject. I don't pretend to be a scientist. I'm the person who moderates the discussion between and among the scientists.

You know, if you're not a professional journalist/reporter, and you're not an expert on the subject matter, you'd better work twice as hard to convince me you've done your research. Oh, wait:

Did you do a lot of reading to prep for the role?

Stein: Some. I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler...

Not exactly balancing the ol' scales by reading On the Origin of Species, is he?

And then he follows up with this nice piece of reportorial neutrality:

Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.

And it's the Jewish Anti-Defamation League that is telling Ben Stein to shut up, already:

Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.

Can't really argue that, can you? But then, the creationist scum for whom Stein is the official pitch man aren't interested in facts, now, are they? They're interested in the same thing in which they've always been interested: power over people's thought and keeping the pews (and collection plates) full.

Vermin.

Gots ta love satire...

Hilarious.

Expelled.

The other kind of expelled

The producers of the fraud movie Expelled would have you believe people are being fired from their jobs for teaching Intelligent Design/Creationism.

Shoe's on the other foot, you hypocrites:



So, why isn't there a story about this lady on 60 minutes? Maybe there should be. And I'd love to hear Ben Stein and Mark Mathis's response.

More lies Exposed (And Iowa State is in the movie! We're SO proud...)

Seems like some of the "students" portrayed in the Creationist liars' film Exposed WERE NOT STUDENTS AT ALL.

Pssst...they were hired extras.

That's right. Go to Scientific American and read this great piece (link updated for single-page view) by Michael Schermer, the author of their "Skeptic" column. And remember, Schermer is a recovering creationist. His money quote:

"It is perfectly okay to question Darwinism (or any other "-ism" in science), as long as there is a way to test your challenge. Intelligent design creationists, by contrast, have no interest in doing science at all."

Bravo, sir.

Remember, there's an old line about a lie getting around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. But the truth DOES get out, and is just as long-lasting to those who keep it alive.
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Update: Our beloved Iowa State University here in Ames is apparently part of the controversy, for allegedly denying astronomy professor Guillermo Gonzalez tenure for his creationist beliefs. Sounds to me like he just lost his edge.
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Update pt. 2: now they're in hot water for copyright infringement. No intelligence allowed, indeed.

Expelled Sucks...

...because even Fox Freaking News says so.

Congratulations, Ben Stein, you have well and truly dialed in the rifle sights on your own credibility.