3. Comment by on November 16. 2007 at 1:07 pm Thanks for posting this link! I'll be able to share this with my students now via my blog. When I first heard about this. I contacted Matthew Chapman (whom I'd met at the Atheists Alliance Int'l conference in DC back in Sept.). He replied saying that they'd interviewed him for it but that he wasn't sure how good the program would be. Personally. I thought he came off quite well. And the show was very thorough and fair. I was a bit concerned when they offered up that sound byte of Chapman saying that he was "proof against evolution" given the success of his ancestor and the fact that he was just a screenwriter. But they came back to him later and showed him for the rational person he really is. Still reeling from the idea that we were able to pull off a victory even though the judge was a Bush appointee. I guess there is a god after all eh? LOL
12. Comment by on November 16. 2007 at 6:02 pm This excellent video gives me the chance to re-inforce some of my pet themes. :)We are given incontrovertible evidence here that the faith-heads really are a desperate disingenuous and dishonourable lot. I waded through the memorandum opinion from Kitzmiller V Dover Area School District (for a bit of fun!) a few weeks ago and this point simply jumps out at every specious turn of the principal faith-heads in the trial. The outright lying the duplicity the bullying and the sheer arrogance of those who would have the world believe that it is we atheists who are bereft of morality are exposed for all to see. That the faith-heads are shown to have lied categorically on oath (presumably on the bible - I wonder how they square this particular circle?) gives us about the measure. I think of their grotesque solipsistic religion and its effects. How wonderfully in contrast with such a shabby and shameful crew stood Eugenie Scott at the AAI conference this year in all her glorious atheism and representative of the plaintiffs in this case. There is more moral fibre in her little toe and in that of Dawkins. Harris. Hitchens et al than can be found in the entire physical make-up of so many of these despicable religious lunatics. This trial serves to strengthen my conviction that we should be re-claiming and ennobling the name 'atheist' for ourselves particularly in regard to its hijacked implication of immorality. I warmly endorse Veronique's proposal - atheists and non-atheists!Indeed we should not allow the faith-heads to force us to withdraw sheepishly from a word whose negative connotations such as they exist are entirely their own attempt yet again at deceitful fabrication. Best,Styrer
13. Comment by on November 16. 2007 at 8:21 pm " Indeed we should not allow the faith-heads to force us to withdraw sheepishly from a word whose negative connotations such as they exist are entirely their own attempt yet again at deceitful fabrication" Here Here. This is not the end of it. These people will be back with a vengeance. This judge was obviously rational but one of the strategies of the Christian Supremacists is to slowly replace these judges. Liberty University(not) trains there lawyers in an exact replica of the Supreme Court. They have a plan. The supreme court is being stocked with religious reich judges. And the teaching of creationism is being realized through the school vouchers campaign which is a back door way of getting the government to pay for religious schools. They are also infiltrating the military command structure they have the air force and are working on the other 3. Taking out Pat Tilman was part of it. Do not under estimate the power of the dark side. GWW
21. Comment by on November 17. 2007 at 1:15 pm The insidious tactics and stategy used by the IDers remind me of the methods advocated by Lenin as "boring from within". In Lenin's view a lie told with the right motives was no longer a lie. Lenin of course completely emasculated Marx's ideas in his quest for political power in Russia. Incidentally Marx had written to Darwin in 1859 to congratulate him on his book Origin of Species. It strikes me as ironic that in the "land of the free" the Christian creationists are using the same tactics as the arch enemy. Lenin used to further his objectives. The dishonest attitude shown by the creationists is shown by their willingness to accept and use the latest science insofar as it suits their ends but to try to undermine any science that conflicts with their holy book. I would say "bah humbug" but it's not that close to christmas yet.
24. Comment by on November 17. 2007 at 3:55 pm I have 5 nephews in school - 4th to 9th grades. I am going to buy them "Growing Up in the Universe" for Christmas because I worry that they don't know enough about science. I see so many college students who come to school believing they will be doctors or scientists and they can't handle the curiculum because science just isn't being taught well enough any more in this country (USA). That School Board member was a fine example of the ignorance that is perpetuated generation after generation in this country. ID may have lost this battle but they are regrouping and will be back - looks like Florida may be next!It astounds me how people can embrace religious ignorance over rational science in a time when we have so many scientifically based problems - global warming. AIDS pandemics.. etc. We have never needed science more than we do today and kudos to that judge for being reasonable and logical and for truly understanding the rule of law. But that circus bit was funny.
25. Comment by on November 17. 2007 at 6:48 pm I agree with other posters about the despicable nature of many ID propagandists. One of the worst has to be William Dembski. Here he is revealing his ultra-conservative biases and singing the praises of extreme right-wing bigot Ann Coulter (my emphasis added):
Ann Coulter weighs in on DarwinismWilliam DembskiI'm happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism — indeed. I take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters. Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. In Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Ann Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism showing us:**Its sacraments (abortion)**Its holy writ (Roe v. Wade)**Its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal)**Its clergy (public school teachers)**Its churches (government schools where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free)**Its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of such spokesmen as Cindy Sheehan and Max Cleland)**And its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident) Then of course there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. For liberals evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly refutes the lie that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: It is bogus science. Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science. Coulter reveals that the so-called "gaps" in the theory of evolution are all there is — Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record evolution's proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims. And a long line of supposed evidence from the infamous Piltdown Man to the "evolving" peppered moths of England has been exposed as one hoax after another. Still liberals treat those who question evolution as religious nuts and prohibit students from hearing about real science when it contradicts Darwinism. And these are the people who say they want to keep faith out of the classroom. Liberals' absolute devotion to Darwinism. Coulter shows has nothing to do with evolution's scientific validity and everything to do with their refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force. They will brook no challenges to the official religion.
31. Comment by on November 17. 2007 at 8:57 pm JFHalsey wondered if species can loose a chromosome. I'm not a geneticist and its been a while since I've had a Molecular Genetics class but I think that loss of a whole chromosome would be a mutation that would be instantly fatal assuming that every chromosome has at least one actual gene on it that creates an essential protein. The telomere/centromere search was a brilliant solution of the ape-human relation problem. People may not realize that besides the typical things that can cause minor mutations(single or localized base pair change) such as radiation or bad chemicals(diesel soot). I think some viruses can go into cells insert themselves into the genome or snip and cut chromosomes apart and re-assemble them naturally doing what genetic engineers are doing now. Like most mutations these huge changes are almost always fatal but occasionally... A really big non-fatal and favorable change might occur.. whalla Stephan J Gould's punctuations.
32. Comment by on November 17. 2007 at 9:36 pm I echo Goodwithwood's sentiments/warnings. Places like Liberty U et al along with a right-leaning Supreme Court could potentially make things difficult for the secular side. The next president could potentially appoint 2 justices. Almost makes me think of voting democrat for that sole reason alone. Don't know how much longer Stevens (and maybe Ginsberg) have. Regarding the excellent NOVA program: What astounds me the most is that the ID'ers are still making the same arguments they made prior to not only the court decision but also after all of the refuting evidence that has rebutted their claims. Yet weeks months years later - there they are. Doing talk shows writing books etc. - still touting that there can be "design inferences" made in nature and then siting the flagellum as their example. Absolutely mind-boggling. It reminds me wasn't there a saying: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results."
35. Comment by on November 18. 2007 at 3:42 am Flagellant - I'm concerned as well. Both Alan Dershowitz and Paul Kurtz at the CFI Conference last weekend made the comment about the danger of both political parties in such a hurry to pontificate and witness their religion to their constituency. In a most astounding moment a panelist said that Obama has been involved with Ken Hovind and some others but in spite of that she's supporting him. Why go to a conference on Secular Society if you're willing to be a hypocrite. It was more stupidity one of many that weekend. Even Hitchens mentions in his video event at the Freedom From Religion Foundation on October 13th (on the web through youtube) that Free Inquiry magazine instead of promoting secularism gives the impression of those who uphold secularism separation of church/state are hard-leaning democrats; it's theater of the absurd. BTW. I'm not sure which candidate endorses science the most none seem to speak to the subject.
39. Comment by on November 18. 2007 at 5:17 am chuckgoecke: "I think some viruses can go into cells insert themselves into the genome or snip and cut chromosomes apart and re-assemble them naturally doing what genetic engineers are doing now. Like most mutations these huge changes are almost always fatal but occasionally... A really big non-fatal and favorable change might occur..."You're thinking of Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs). Much more frequent than any beneficial changes from them are neutral changes which can propagate on the back of unrelated beneficial changes or randomly. ERVs actually provide some really good evidence for evolution in the form of the "twin nested hierarchies" since they leave evidence not only with their presence but with where they have inserted themselves in the genome. If you use the fossil record to determine where various branches of the tree of life split off you can make predictions that ERVs found in the genes of living species would follow that pattern. For instance since chimps split from the human line more recently than gorillas you'd expect every ERV shared by humans and gorillas to also be present in chimps. This has turned out to be the case with the tree constructed from the fossil record closely matching the one constructed by analysis of ERVs. This is evidence that should be pushed as hard as Chromosome 2. IMO. Unless the "designer" was being deliberately deceptive what possible reason would there be for putting these useless bits of DNA in such a precise pattern as to indicate common descent?
I'm as clueless as you when it comes to how we lost a chromosome. However this must have been the case since the alternative would mean that the other three apes: the urangutan the gorilla and the chimp would have had to gain a chromsome all independently of each other which would be too remarkable a coincidence. Remember the order in which each species split: first urangutans (leaving the creature that would later become gorillas humans and chimps) then gorillas split (leaving the creature that would become chimps and us) then the chimps and us parted company. (Chimps and bonobos parted company later still). If you assume that all of these apes had only 23 chromosomes when they branched then you need a complicated reason to explain why all three later added an extra chromosome independently. Sorry if that was a bit long-winded.
43. Comment by on November 18. 2007 at 8:17 am In choosing Behe as a means to implement his 'wedge strategy,' Johnson would have been better served by choosing Emma Bovary's hubby. Dr. Charles instead. IDiots can't surmount such ineptitude with mere 'misspoking' (euphemism for simple old fashioned lying). Bonsell mutters about how he just wanted to return to his community the good things it had given him supposedly by 'misspeaking' frequently and by not recognizing that his good fortunes in life will not be possible for his children if teaching of science is diluted with nonsense. Pathetic pathetic pathetic people--Bonsell. Buckingham. Robertson. Johnson. Yuck. The Christians who fought for evolution are so problematic for me including the scientist. Ken Miller. Just because they can compartmentalize the cognitive dissonance from embracing both religion and science does not mean others can do it. And as long as these 'moderates' cleave to faith as a virtue the ones that can't compartmentalize will be encouraged to do something they can't handle--belief without evidence. Anyways kudos to these religious believers who did fight against the inanity which is ID.
"Teaching the traditional creationist concept that man was created by God that's a slap in my face. That takes the dignity away from humanity as far as I'm concerned. What gives dignity to man is that every one of us are evolved beings with a grand and wondrous lineage that truly boggles the mind. There is no creator. Humanity struggled to consciousness and intelligence in a world without intention and without design. It upsets me deeply that now in our educational system you are suggesting that indoctrinating our young people to think differently about humanity is a noble idea. Evolution showcases the nobility of struggle. Creationism makes humanity out to be nothing more than a toy for a petulant and lonely child."
47. Comment by on November 18. 2007 at 11:35 am Brilliant stuff!! Extremely educational and informative. The graphic illustration of the similarity between the bacterial flagellum and the Yersinia Pestis the bacterium that causes the bubonic plague was superbly done and at a stroke demolished the entire 'case' for 'intelligent design'. I'd recommend reading the typescript of the two interviews with Philip Johnson and Ken Miller. Miller is excellent and provides his usual robust defense of Darwinian evolution. How this man is able to reconcile Roman Catholicism with his scientific knowledge is a total mystery to me…but…anyway…Johnson is all over the place in his interview and reveals his real motivations for all the world to see: basically having become a christian in response to his mid-life crisis he hates the idea that science doesn't start off with a belief in the existence of the supernatural and work from there. This is Johnson's main complaint as far as I can determine and all the rest of his 'case' as expounded here is just fluff and filler. What about this for a most revealing sentence from Johnson:"A philosophy of naturalism or materialism is what generates the Darwinian theory."Really? Darwin started out with a 'materialist' philosophy did he and simply 'discovered' (nudge nudge wink wink) the evidence he wanted to find to bolster his nefarious machinations? And then having discovered this evidence inexplicably decided to sit on his theory for the next twenty years – even though it backed up the 'materialist' philosophy he sought to bolster in the first place!!Is it possible that a relatively well-educated 12 year old would make a more stupid comment on Darwinism? I doubt it. And this from the Godfather of IDiocy himself!!
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