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A silly YouTube clip of Creationists arguing that evolution is not real because Life has never spontaneously appeared in a jar of peanut butter. From the comment thread-
On the other hand, this clip proves evolution. Because not all Creationist talking heads can get attention and money from the fundamentalist base, they are in a “struggle for subsistence”. Those who are more simpleminded, idiotic, obsequious of fundamentalism and disparaging of science than their colleagues will survive. Dumb ideas must be continually adapted to an increasingly irrational environment; differential illogical success rewards the most nonsensical ideas. “Peanut butter disproves evolution” is a transitional absurdity between “bananas are proof of design” and the next even more ludicrous sound bite that this hominid sub-species will think of.
via BoingBoing
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/love
Is attractiveness evolutionary? Take part in the Telegraph’s attractiveness test. (I haven’t done this myself yet).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml;jsessionid=RA5MKPPXDT3UVQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/connected/2007/01/30/ecdesign30.xml
Why do scientists sound so unreasonable when debating with Intelligent Design proponents (IDiots, as suggested in the article).
The comment in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section is sometimesawful, but the replies often make up for that. (Conversely, some of the most intelligent pieces attract a higher ratio of drivel and ranting.) Just a selection of the columns I’ve read this week-
This piece about the ethics of diamonds is neither here nor there, but the line in one of the comments about De Beers planning to sink tons of diamonds in the North Sea in the twenties so the price of their remaining stock would stay high conjures up images of a Clive Cussler style hunt for the cache. (The Diamond Invention, alternate version).
Rebecca Front tries to reduce her food miles and gets equal measures of supportive advice and self righteous nonsense.
Richard Buggs insists that Intelligent Design is a science. Surprisingly, he isn’t roundly mocked and some commenters even offer up ways to test the scientific validity (ie show up the argument for the nonsense it is) of Intelligent Design.
Technorati tag: Guardian, Diamond, Food Miles, Intelligent Design
Following a primary election in Kansas two school board members who opposed evolution and wanted creationism taught as a science have been ousted.
“I am thrilled,” says Janet Waugh, a pro-evolution school board member and Democrat who lives in Kansas City and won her primary on Tuesday. “The people of Kansas are tired of being the laughing stock of not just the nation, but the world.”
Technorati tag: Evolution, Creationism
Would a Creationist be circumcised? With US circumcision rates running at up to 83% in the Midwest (an area you’d expect to be home to more than a few Intelligent Design fans) it certainly seems likely.
Don’t they feel just a little bit guilty for messing with the Lord’s design for their bodies? Or is their a tale of Satan sneaking in at the end of the sixth day’s shift and glueing this extra little bit on to Adam? From now on my foreskin’s going by the title of “The Devil’s Helmet”.
(This question was posed by Clare. I’m not the freak, okay.)
Technorati tag: Circumcision, Creationism, Intelligent Design
Anti-science is invading the British education system. A growing number of science students at universities and sixth forms believe in Creationism. The good news is that many are failing exams because they quote the Bible or Qu’ran as scientific fact. In response to calls for creationism/ intelligent design to be taught as science the Royal Society will hold a talk in April entitled Why Creationism is Wrong. The award-winning geneticist and author Steve Jones will deliver the lecture and challenge creationists, Christian and Islamic, to argue their case rationally at the event.
For some schools it’s too late.
Very few people seem to be coming back with the logical response to this trend- teach creationism where it belongs, in religious studies along with all the other creation myths.
via Gooseania, where Craig reported on his visit to a creationist’s talk at Manchester University.
Technorati tag: Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design, Education
In a poll of Britons carried out for a Horizon programme over 40% of respondents said they believed that creationism and/ or intelligent design should be taught in science classes. I want to scream.
If anyone starts touting this idiocy in Manchester I’ll be running a campaign of ridicule to stop them.
Technorati tag: Creationism, Intelligent Design, Evolution
When the Vatican rubbishes your science you should know to give up.
“If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another,” he said in the paper. “But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science. It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious.”
Technorati tag: Intelligent Design, Creationism, Vatican
Using high speed digital photography and a robotic wing scientists have been able to explain how bees fly, slapping down another of the shoddy arguments used by the Intelligent Design brigade.
Turns out bee flight mechanisms are more exotic than thought.
“The honeybees have a rapid wing beat,” Altshuler told LiveScience. “In contrast to the fruit fly that has one eightieth the body size and flaps its wings 200 times each second, the much larger honeybee flaps its wings 230 times every second.”
This was a surprise because as insects get smaller, their aerodynamic performance decreases and to compensate, they tend to flap their wings faster.
Technorati tag: Bee, Flight, Intelligent Design
Despite the recent ruling against the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board there are still some who would like to turn the United States into the world’s most backward developed country. They are particularly, and worryingly, active on university campuses.
I’d willingly sign a petition that called for ID to be taught in the right place- alongside all the other creation myths in some religious studies type course.
Technorati tag: Creationism, Intelligent Design
A federal judge has ruled that Intelligent Design can’t be taught in biology classes in a case brought against the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania.
“We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom,” [U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III] wrote in his 139-page opinion.
The Dover policy required students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. The statement said Charles Darwin’s theory is “not a fact” and has inexplicable “gaps.” It refers students to an intelligent-design textbook, “Of Pandas and People,” for more information.
Technorati tag: Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design
Not really. A double dose of Creationist baiting via Bruce Sterling-
Things Creationists hate. there are a lot, these could keep me entertained for days.
Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’. Because she hates it when they take her name in vain.
“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Technorati tag: Creationism, Religion
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