Fairness and Balance

As well as Creation, there's a second movie about Charles Darwin being released this year. It's called The Voyage That Shook The World, and is funded by Creation Ministries International, so expect nothing less than some hardcore creationist propaganda. According to PZ Myers:

They got several Darwin experts (Peter Bowler, Sandra Herbert, and Janet Browne) to appear in the "documentary" by concealing their motives. And then they admit to cherry-picking the interviews to put together their story.

The movie's website has a page entitled Digging Deeper, which promises "more information about origins from leading sources of both viewpoints". Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong. The page offers two links, one for creation and one for evolution. The creation link leads to the pretty, expensive-looking Creation Ministries website:


...while the evolution link leads to this:

When Idiots Collide...

Hovind Junior's blog is attracting some real intellectuals. Check out the comment left by this geological genius:

The continents move an estimated 0.75 inches (19 millimeters) annually. When India "collided" with Asian, would the impact really have been hard enough to cause the formation of a mountain range?

John "Wrong"

At least the guy chose an accurate username.

Feedback

So your entire website is based on childish mockery in which you seek to ridicule someone else's beliefs? Wow.

Oh noes, nasty internet man is cruels to us.

There is so much on here, I actually question your employment status.

What? I post two or three times a week, it's hardly a full-time job.

I for one do not question all of evolutionary theory, some of it is very viable.

Unhelpful. Tell me which bits you do question and we might make some progress.

I will say though as a Christian, that not all of us believe in the book of Genesis as a true history and that not all creationists beleive that the world in less than 6000 years old.

If you don't subscribe to biblical literalism, there are many prominent creationists (Ham, Comfort, Sarfarti) who would question your faith and even your right to call yourself a Christian.

I do see that your website is based on hate of differing views other then your own.

No, but it is partly based on my hatred of creationist lies and propaganda.

In the end, Creationists are usually happier people, who base their lives around community and understanding while evolutionists are usually just hateful, selfish people who end up with nothing out of life.

Sure. Right.

Even if an afterlife does not exist, nothing is lost to anyone, but if there is.....

I'm happy to take my chances, thanks.

Anyway, we all need to live a meaningful life and stop trying to make people feel stupid for their beliefs.

If everyone was willing to keep their groundless beliefs to themselves, that would be fine.

BTW, I hold a Masters of evolutionary studies and a Masters of Div.

Not impressed, sorry.

Its rewarding for any intelligent person to study both sides of an argument.

I've probably read more creationist literature than pro-evolution. I've found it invariably to be either stupid or plain dishonest.

In the end, neither group can claim to have the one answer of how the beginning started.

But there are true answers out there, and those offered by religious texts have been long disproven.

Moron of the Month: Sean McDowell

Sean McDowell runs Worldview Ministries, whose mission statement is "Teaching Truth to Transform Lives". Despite the ninth Christian commandment, it's clear that Sean is quite happy with a pretty loose definition of the word truth. He co-authored a book on intelligent design with William Dembski, describing ID as a "scientific endeavor" that is "revolutionizing science", and he has a whole bunch of moronic essays online here. Let's start with his article "Is the Chimp-Mauling Darwin's Fault?":

This week we received the sobering news that a 55-year old woman was nearly killed by a 200 pound chimp. [...] How is it that we live in a culture where people think it's safe to have a chimpanzee as a pet? [...] In fact, there is one culprit for the idea that human beings and chimps are really not that different and should be treated that way: Darwinism. [...] If humans and chimps are really not that different, then why not expect chimps to act civilly?

You only have to walk through a city centre on a Friday night (or watch Cops) to understand that it's not just chimps that are wild, dangerous animals, but people too. Darwin's ideas can provide explanations for this behaviour, while the Genesis account (Eve robbed a piece of fruit, so nobody's perfect) is at best... unsatisfactory. The bible's notion that we are made in the image of God also poses further questions, like why would God need toenails? Do they grow? Does he have to cut them? And does God look anything like this:


Elsewhere, Sean gets confused between HIV (a virus) and AIDS (a disease):

Probably no challenge is raised more frequently than the seemingly "evil designs" in nature, such as the AIDS virus or the Great White Shark.

...and comes up with the worst definition of evil I've ever heard:

Simply put, evil is when things are not as they are supposed to be or are they way they are not supposed to be.

It does annoy me when my wife leaves too many pairs of shoes in the hallway instead of putting them in the closet where they belong, but I wouldn't say she was evil. That's harsh.

Next, Sean demostrates his intimate knowledge of particle physics:

If protons were 0.2 percent more massive than they actually are, they would be unstable and would decay into simpler protons.

Simpler protons? I sometimes feel a pang of jealousy that creationists can spew out this kind of bullshit like a fountain and be safe in the knowledge that their target audience doesn't know the first thing about science, and likely doesn't even care, whereas scientists like me have to constantly strive for accuracy and clarity when communicating with our peers, for fear of looking like a dumbass.

Lastly, Sean criticises Obama's views on creationism:

Obama directly contradicts himself. In one instance, Obama says that religion is merely an act of "faith." Yet at the end of his statement he says that opposition to evolution does not hold up to scientific inquiry.

No contradiction so far.

Which is it? Is evolutionary-opposition merely a private matter of faith, or is it based upon empirical claims about the world? If such opposition is merely based upon faith, then Obama (and other secularists) cannot claim that such views have been disproved by science.

Why not? There are plenty of religious beliefs that are entirely based on faith and that have been disproved by science.

Obama (and secularists) can't have it both ways. Either opposition to evolution is scientific or not. If it is scientific, then it may have a claim on the scientific curriculum. If it's not scientific, then they need to stop making the claim that it doesn't "hold up to scientific inquiry."

Sean seems to think that only scientific principles can be scientifically tested. What utter crap. Any crazy idiot can invent some half-baked idea right off the top of his head with no evidence to support it. Here's a good example, recently discussed on Pharyngula. Some wacko comes up with a theory about biological development based on deformation of donut-shaped balloons, writes a book about it, then gets upset when a real biologist points out that the theory is contradicted by even the most basic observations.

This brings us back to the root of the problem. There are many people out there, like Sean McDowell, who have already made up their minds based on blind faith and simply aren't interested in the evidence.

Creation: The Movie

I'm really unsure how I should feel about the upcoming movie "Creation". That title is clunkingly inappropriate and seems to be little more than a gimmick to stir up controversy for publicity's sake. On the other hand, it has a great cast and the trailer shows promise. I just hope it does a decent job of putting the science across. I don't really care if it takes an accommodationist approach with religion as long as Darwin's theories are presented accurately. Is that too much to hope for?

Check out the trailer and tell me what you think.

A Horribly Lame Attempt at Apologetics

Francis Collins, renowned geneticist and Christian apologist, included this image in his presentation at a recent conference on the compatibility of science and religion:


Now, he's not a creationist in the usual sense, but I just found this image to be so utterly contrived and pathetic that I thought I'd post it here. You can read a full transcript of his talk here, if you can stomach it.

Veggiesaurus

The recently discovered crocoduck fossil dealt a serious blow to the creation camp. Unfortunately this newly unearthed specimen could provide them some ammo - a new species of vegetarian dinosaur:

The dinosaur, now named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, was a ceratopsian, a group of "bird-hipped" dinosaurs, such as Triceratops, that are thought to have ground up tough vegetation with their prolific teeth. The fossil remains were found in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia in 2001.

Paleontologists recently studied the specimen and found skull evidence that the dinosaur ate nuts and seeds.

We'll have to file this one alongside Tyrannosaurus Herbivorus:


Image from LOL god.

Krazy Kent Hovind

If evolution is true, you could not know that it's true because your brain is nothing but chemicals. Think about that.

Kent Hovind

Hovind Junior: Confusionism

Eric Hovind's blog is going to be a great source of stupidity for me to mine, I hope he manages to provide updates more regularly than I do! Take this post for example, in which he tries to defend his use of the term "evolutionism" by, first, posting a wikipedia definition, second, posting a contradictory dictionary definition, and third, providing his own definition which is different to both of them. Then he makes this boob:

It is an ...ism because it is a religion.

Right. Just like electromagnetism, the belief that Nikola Tesla will one day return to Earth and create world peace through the power of alternating current.

In another post, Eric is trying to hawk his Dad's latest book, the cover of which made me LOL:

Noah's Arse

We all know the story of Noah's ark, when God singled out Noah for the job of saving all life on Earth. Hard to imagine a more daunting task, but nonetheless Noah got the job done without a hitch. Well, this is one of two events in Noah's life that God deemed worthy of being recorded in the history book of the universe for all future generations to contemplate. The second event was, to be frank, regrettable, and one has to wonder why God decided to embarrass Noah by including it. Here's what happened:

Some time after the Flood, Noah was enjoying a well-earned glass of wine that he'd fermented from his own personal vinyard. It's not certain just how much he drank, but it must have been a hot evening because he ended up falling asleep in his tent stark bollock naked. Unfortunately, one of his three sons, Ham, discovered his dad in this state and went and informed his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who came back with a blanket and covered Noah while he slept. The next morning, presumably a little hungover, Noah saw the blanket and put two and two together. Feeling embarassed and probably more than a little grumpy, he called on God to... curse and enslave Ham's son, Canaan, who wasn't even involved. Ham's opinion of this harsh punishment isn't known.

So it would be great if any Christians who read this post could suggest why Noah acted like this, or even why this event was deemed worthy of entry in The Holy Bible. And if you think I'm just making this all up, go read Genesis 9:18-27.