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.

Creationism and Intelligent Design: Which is more Scientific?

Fool.
UK journo Melanie Phillips has made a fool of herself with this article, in which she whines that intelligent design is different to creationism. It is different, actually, but she gets the reason why completely ass-backwards. Here's what she says:

[Ken Miller said] that Intelligent Design was nothing more than an attempt to repackage good old-fashioned Creationism and make it more palatable. But this is totally untrue. Miller referred to a landmark US court case in 2005, Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District, which did indeed uphold the argument that Intelligent Design was a form of Creationism in its ruling that teaching Intelligent Design violated the constitutional ban against teaching religion in public schools. But the court was simply wrong, doubtless because it had heard muddled testimony from the likes of Prof Miller.

The court heard from a wide variety of experts on both sides of the controversy, including Professor Miller, an evolutionary biologist and Christian who has written several books on the subject. During the court case it was established that the main intelligent design textbook was a carbon copy of an older book on creationism, with the word "creationists" sloppily replaced with "design proponents" throughout. But according to Melanie, intelligent design is real science, and has nothing to do with religion:

The fact is that Intelligent Design not only does not come out of Creationism but stands against it. This is because Creationism comes out of religion while Intelligent Design comes out of science. Creationism, whose proponents are Bible literalists, is a specific doctrine which holds that the earth was literally created in six days. Intelligent Design, whose proponents are mainly scientists, holds that the complexity of science suggests that there must have been a governing intelligence behind the origin of matter, which could not have developed spontaneously from nothing.

Actually, Melanie, biblical creationism is far more scientific than intelligent design. Let me explain why.

Like real science, biblical creationism is based on evidence*. Intelligent design is based purely on the gaps in our knowledge, gaps that are constantly shrinking. Thus the amount of information "supporting" intelligent design is actually decreasing with time.

Like real science, biblical creationism makes very specific predictions**. Intelligent design does postulate the existence of objects that couldn't have evolved by natural means, but it offers no theoretical framework that could be used to predict what these might be, or where they might be found.

Like real science, biblical creationism is falsifiable***. Since intelligent design makes no positive assertions, no piece of evidence can be envisaged that could refute it.

None of this means that creationism is good science, of course. The failing of creationism as a science is ultimately the same failing of intelligent design; that is they are both founded on immovable religious ideas which themselves have no scientific basis.

And it takes some gall to deny that intelligent design is religion in disguise. Please. Intelligent design advocates may go to great pains to assert that the designer could be an alien, but when they wrap up their case they'll almost always finish by saying something like "...and we believe that this intelligent designer is the Christian God. Praise Jesus!".

At least biblical creationists have the self-confidence to stick to their founding beliefs (no matter how crazy those beliefs are) instead of cowardly dressing them up as something else entirely.


*The evidence being the Bible. I didn't say it was reliable evidence.
**Predictions like "the Earth is six thousand years old". I didn't say the predictions had to turn out to be true.
***And indeed it has been falsified countless times.

Moron of the Month - David Klinghoffer

The Discovery Institute's David Klinghoffer recently posted a couple of articles that, in essence, blame the Columbine high school massacre on Charles Darwin. You heard me right. Let's see what he has to say:

On April 20, 1999, two boys at Columbine High School in Colorado massacred 12 fellow students and a teacher, wounding 23 as well before shooting themselves. The 10th anniversary with its morbid recollections is upon us, but there's one aspect of the horrible memory that you can be sure you will not hear much about.

When one of the assailants, Eric Harris, was autopsied, the medical examiner found that under his black trench coat the boy had on a white t-shirt emblazoned with a peculiar slogan. The slogan was "Natural Selection." It was later reported but little commented upon that, on his website, Harris had written, among other paeans to the Darwinian mechanism, "Natural SELECTION!!!!!! God damn it's the best thing that ever happened to the earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms...but it's all natural!!! YES!"

In this way, Klinghoffer seems to be claiming that these boys were simply following Darwin's ideas to their logical conclusions. One of the most obvious flaws in this theory is that gunning down random people is by definition neither natural nor selective, and dying a virgin as these boys undoubtedly did is clearly not the way to go in passing on your own traits to future generations. Given that the attack was carefully planned in advance by the pair, the massacre would be better described as having been intelligently designed.

Darwinism's modern day advocates prefer to forget that ideas have consequences. Yet even a scientific idea may have disastrous consequences, as Darwin's earliest critics foresaw. One such prophet was Darwin's own professor of natural science when he was at Cambridge, Adam Sedgwick.

In a letter to Darwin dated December 24, 1859, just after the Origin of Species had been published, Sedgwick warned that if the new book were successful in making its case, then "humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history."

Ideas can have consequences, but not inevitable consequences. Just because I can doesn't imply that I must, or even that I should. And in any case, consequences have no possible bearing on the truth value of the ideas they spring from. What we do with the knowledge we gain from science is up to us, and is a result of human behaviour, not the facts themselves.

A commenter, GHitch, posts:

Darwin predicted the slaughter of blacks and 'savages' by whites. His prediction was based entirely upon the logical conclusions of his theory. [Darwin stated that] "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated."

But this never happened, it was one of Darwin's predictions that turned out to be false. Does it therefore refute his theory of evolution by natural selection? No. It refutes the creationist's idea that Social Darwinism is an inevitable consequence. Yet Klinghoffer is insistent on this:

Ideas have consequences.

Now does that mean that the Darwinian idea is false as a scientific description of how life developed? No, obviously it doesn't mean that. As I've argued all along, Darwinism's social record is simply and nothing more than a good reason to take a second look at the science behind it.

So, the science may be true but let's pretend it's not? I don't really know how to reply to this bizarre concept. It's like saying that we should reconsider nuclear physics because of the terrible destructive power of the atomic bomb. "Let's invent a new model of atomic theory in which nuclear fission is impossible! Then we won't have to worry about nukes any more!".

Commenter Damien puts it another way:

What are you going to suggest in you next column? "That the theory for light and colour is the cause of racism?!"

If you've got a strong stomach and want to probe further into Klinghoffer's mindset, check out davidklinghoffer.org, which is mostly about his latest book "How Would God Vote? Why the Bible Commands you to be a Conservative".

I often write about materialism, a spreading, corrosive belief that material stuff is the only reality in the universe, that people are just an aspect of nature, more highly evolved versions of a fish or an ape.

That’s just a nice way of saying the end of Judaism, Christianity, and any sense that moral truths bear the stamp of divine authority – which in turn means the end of any really powerful argument for moral behavior.

It makes it much harder for all of us to be good, sapping our will to make hard moral choices.

Oh, boo hoo, we'll have to think for ourselves and take our own responsibilities. Grow up, David.

A Tale of Two Hitchens, Part II: Peter

Christopher's younger brother Peter is also a journalist. He writes for British tabloid The Mail on Sunday, and unlike Chris, he has strong religious beliefs and has written several articles in favour of intelligent design. Let's look at a few quotes from these:

I didn't give my own view on the [evolution vs. intelligent design] controversy. This can be summarised in the words 'I have no idea who is right... and nor have they'.

Evolution is an established fact, Peter. It's been proven beyond doubt. Just because you are ignorant of the facts doesn't mean that everybody else is too.

'ID' is unlike Darwinism in that it specifically doesn't seek to offer a general theory of the origin of species. It is a sceptical current. It says 'there is something in the Darwinist argument which requires re-examination in the light of knowledge we didn't have until recently'.

The fact that intelligent design is religiously motivated is obvious to everyone, and only a nitwit would claim otherwise. So actually, the various, conflicting branches of intelligent design, like Christianity, Judaism and Islam, do indeed offer very specific theories regarding our origins, to be found in the relevant religious texts. Many pieces of scientific evidence (not just from biology) refute these theories.

Since Darwinism is orthodoxy, on which many careers have been built and continue to prosper, is it likely that an attack which threatens that orthodoxy is going to be sympathetically treated by other scientists?

Since evolution is true, many successful scientific predictions and discoveries have been made in light of it, and continue to be. Is it likely that any predictions that contradict this theory are going to be proven true?

Darwin's theory cannot be tested.

Of course it can be tested, it can also make predictions and can be very easily falsified. The famous example is J.B.S. Haldane's reply when asked what evidence could destroy his confidence in evolutionary theory. He simply answered "Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian".

It is amazing how many supporters of [evolutionary] theory cannot see the difference between the micro-evolution of adaptation or alteration within species, and the far more ambitious developments of macro-evolution, in my view qualitatively different, which Darwinists believe in.

Peter, Peter. Imagine if you had never laid eyes on a dog before and I introduced you to the following two animals:




Could you honestly say that you would consider these animals to be the same "kind"? Their appearance, size and behaviour all differ dramatically, on a macroscopic level. This, right here, is macro-evolution, and it has occured over an incredibly short time (it's been around twelve thousand years or so since humans started to domesticate and selectively breed dogs from wolves). If this amazing variety can be obtained in such a short time, it's really not hard to extrapolate this and imagine what could happen over a few million years.

"Ah," you say, "but I could look at the anatomical structure of these creatures, even their genetic makeup, and I could prove that they are all dogs. They are still the same species." But biologists have applied these exact methods to thousands of living creatures all over the planet, and it turns out that we are all related, and the whole of life on Earth is laid out in a nested hierarchy, just as predicted by Darwin's theory:


The Tree of Life

As you might imagine, Peter and Chris don't get on so well. You can watch a terrific debate between the Hitchens brothers here.

Moron of the Month: Jonathan Sarfati

Australian-born creationist and chess chimp Jonathan Sarfati helps to run Creation Ministries International, an organization that while openly founded on biblical literalism, pushes the "creation science" angle and attempts to refute real science such as evolution and the big bang theory using scientific-sounding ideas.

One of the ways this organization tries to make its theories sound more credible is to constantly remind people that many of its contributors have PhDs obtained from "secular" (i.e. genuine) scientific institutions. This is a very common creationist tactic which I've written about before, and Jonathan Sarfati is one of the worst offenders I know of. Sarfati has a PhD in physical chemistry, and recently I've been trawling through creation.com's feedback section and counting the number of times he's drawn attention to this fact. I've found so many instances of this, I've had to cut my search short, so the following list is far from comprehensive:

I speak as one with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry

Dr Sarfati is a Ph.D. physical chemist

(Dr) Jonathan Sarfati

I have a Ph.D. in physical chemistry as well as being trained in formal logic,

As a Ph.D. physical chemist, needing no instruction in thermodynamics,

I’m a Ph.D. scientist

I’m one of many creationist Ph.D. scientists

I’m a Ph.D. physical chemist

Dr Jonathan Sarfati, whose Ph.D. is in physical chemistry, of which thermodynamics is an important part.

Ph.D. physical chemist Dr Jonathan Sarfati

Since my speciality for my Ph.D. thesis and the incorporated published papers was vibrational spectroscopy, I'm extremely familiar with harmonic oscillator wavefunctions.

one does cover such things in a chemistry Ph.D as one of us (JS) has earned

Which particular parts of human knowledge are we supposedly ignorant of? Perhaps chemistry, although I have a doctorate in it?

Ph.D. chemist Dr Jonathan Sarfati

Nice to meet a fellow Ph.D. chemist :)

I actually wonder whether Miller or this critic actually understand quantum physics (an important part of my own Ph.D. research).

I myself have an earned doctorate in science, and co-authored a paper in Nature on high-Tc superconductors when only 22.

Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. (which included papers involving NMR spectroscopy published in secular journals, incidentally)

He does indeed have his name on a 1987 Nature paper, although his exact contribution to the paper is not clear. As well as this he has five other papers published in scientific journals, but he hasn't published outside of creationist literature since 1995 and his h-index currently stands at a lowly 3, with several of his papers having never received a single citation.

As well as responding to criticism from christians and non-christians alike with a sneering and condescending tone, Sarfati is also keen on quoting scripture, so I'll finish by doing the same:

When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but with the humble is wisdom.

Proverbs 11:2

Morons of the Month: A Holy Trinity of Stupid

Since there are far more creationist morons than there are months in the year, it's time to play catch up. Here are February's top three morons:

3. Theology professor Tom Frame

For this embarassing article, in which he wonders why people who accept the fact of evolution don't let it utterly dominate their lives:

[Richard Dawkins] won't take his depiction of Darwinism to logical conclusions. A dedicated Darwinian would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide. Publicly, he advocates none of them.

PZ Myers effortlessly swats this bothersome fly:

While Newton described the acceleration of falling bodies accurately, it does not imply in any way that he he advocated pushing people off of tall buildings. Rational people might be able to see that.

2. Answers in Genesis' UK Spokesperson Paul Taylor

For making the UK look as retarded as Kansas in this debate. Watch how, as his tired old arguments fall flat, he gets frustrated and his head starts to redden and swell up like a big balloon. Quick, somebody loosen his tie or it's gonna explode!





Peter Atkins owns everyone right there. That's how it's done.

1. Marie Jon

For one of the most unconvincing and poorly-written piles of drivel I've ever had the misfortune to read. Marc Draco has already posted about it on his blog Abusing the News. Apparently Marie is aspiring to become the new Ann Coulter. On the basis of this piece, she's far more likely to become the new Sarah Palin. I'll let you decide which is worse. Rather than provide a proper critique of the article, I can't resist picking out a select few of Marie's insightful observations:

Why should young people believe in a half-hearted Creator who willy-nilly allowed things to sort of fall into place?

Animals, bugs, trees, and plants do not have the capacity to reason as human beings do.

A big brown-eyed raccoon might be capable of figuring out how to open your garbage can, but not one raccoon has ever celebrated a wedding anniversary, or thought of buying its mate a birthday present.

At this very moment, a mansion is being prepared for those who love Him. There is no housing debacle where the most Holy God abides. Your heavenly home has already been paid for by a loving Savior.

She also claims that "only people have minds that can critically think and deduce complex things". Her article is convincing evidence to the contrary.

Moron of the Month: Steven Robinson

Steven Robinson runs the website earthhistory.org.uk. As you might expect, it's intellectually vacant drivel with the usual moribund creationist arguments, but at least it has some originality. Here's his theory:

In this website it is suggested that the world, although created, was subsequently destroyed and thereby metamorphosed, so that its ultimate origin was hidden. This is inferred from both rocks and fossils. We cannot go all the way back to the beginning, but what has been preserved and can be investigated points back to a creation.

So God is covering his tracks?

If all the evidence suggests that the Earth and life arose by natural processes, what should we conclude? That indeed they did, or that God made them look that way? Ever heard of Occam's razor, Steven? He goes on:

‘Life’ is something different from molecules. Life has to do with consciousness. Although bacteria and plants use the same DNA language as other organisms, they are not life in the sense that animals are. Our own experience as conscious beings tells us that there is more to reality than can be accounted for by molecules, however complex their organisation.

“Life has to do with consciousness.” It should be obvious to a child that defining life in this way can't work. First, is an unconscious person dead by this definition? Second, how do you know animals are conscious in the same way that we are? Granted that cats and dogs seem to be conscious on some intuitive level (which is already difficult to define), but what about a worm or a clam? Are these animals "less alive"? There is no clear line one can draw to separate organisms that seem conscious from those that appear not to be. And if Steven concedes that plants are material objects that could have come about by natural processes, then why not animals too, since they are made from exactly the same building blocks.

This is a classic example of how creation science is invariably wordy, superficial and lacking in any real substance once you probe beyond the surface and start asking about the details. Where is the evidence for this claim? Where is the data? Steven has none, just his own ill-conceived opinions.

Certain ancient oral traditions about the beginning could be an important part of the total evidence. Unless we assume at the outset that the world is billions of years old, these might go back a long way and represent an authentic collective memory of how things originated. Science seeks to build up a historical explanation that is independent of this memory, but since it addresses the same questions (‘How did the world come into being? Where did man come from? Where did animals come from?), might not each throw light on the other?

Ah here we go. Now, Steven, why only certain ancient oral traditions? How would you discriminate between the countless thousands of ancient stories, texts and traditions? Surely not based on your own particular religion? That wouldn't be very scientific, would it?

Moron of the Month: Buddy Davis

Watch in horror as Buddy Davis simultaneously perverts the fields of science and the arts:



Other classics songs by Buddy include Billions of Dead Things (a sing-along tune written for kids*) and Where Did Cain's Wife Come From:

Neanderthal's man was as human as us
But there's a big problem that we must discuss
It's a puzzle that bothers my life
Where in the world did Cain get his wife?
Genesis four seventeen stumps me
It's about Cain and our family tree
When Cain slew Abel and he had to run
Where did Cain's wife come from?
Hmm...

CHORUS:
Brother married sister when the earth was young
People married their close re-la-tion
Adam and Eve had daughters and sons
In the beginning that's how it was done

Yup, we're all descendents of an incestuous murderer. Isn't God wonderful?

*There was a video of this song on YouTube a while ago but it's been taken down. I'll keep an eye out for it and post it if it returns, it really is something to see.

Moron of the Month: Ken Ham

The most ape-like of all creationists, Ken Ham runs the notorious Answers in Genesis, which epouses a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation, and also opened the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The Answers in Genesis website is a treasure-trove of idiocy (and even blatant, almost Nazi-esque rascism), and as with last month's moron Kent Hovind, Ham has been so active that he's almost too easy a target for this blog (another blog has torn him to pieces recently too). Of all Ham's articles and quotes that I've come across, the following is my favourite. Ken Ham clearly believes that he's some kind of philosophical ninja. Don't try to use logic against him because he'll blow your mind:

A young man approached me at a seminar and stated, ‘Well, I still believe in the big bang, and that we arrived here by chance random processes. I don’t believe in God.’ I answered him, ‘Well, then obviously your brain, and your thought processes, are also the product of randomness. So you don’t know whether it evolved the right way, or even what right would mean in that context. Young man, you don’t know if you’re making correct statements or even whether you’re asking me the right questions.’

The young man looked at me and blurted out, ‘What was that book you recommended?’ He finally realized that his belief undercut its own foundations —such ‘reasoning’ destroys the very basis for reason.

On another occasion, a man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied.

This man certainly got the message. If there is no God, ultimately, philosophically, how can one talk about reality? How can one even rationally believe that there is such a thing as truth, let alone decide what it is?

Ken Ham, AiG

Moron of the Month: Kent Hovind

Undoubtedly the most infamous of all creationists, and with enough moronic gaffes under his belt to warrant several dedicated webpages, Kent Hovind's story reads like an epic tragedy. Having received a PhD from the non-accredited Patriot University in Colorado (his thesis is critiqued here), he reinvented himself as Dr Dino, and opened the creationist theme park Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, Florida. Alas, his success came to a shameful and embarassing end in 2006 as he was convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to ten years in prison. The juicy details of his crimes, and his actions during the court case and after, are too numerous to list here, and if you want to read more on Hovind, the links above are all good sources. Rather than rewrite his story here, I've selected just a few of my favourite quotes of his. He's been so prolific with his wacky ideas and crazy conspiracy theories that you can expect to see him make further appearances in future posts. For now, enjoy:

If Evolution is true, there is no Creator, so laws come from mans opinion. That is called a democracy, which is a terrible form of government. Democracies always degenerate into dictatorships. In America, it is sad to say, has become a democracy.

I sincerely believe that I am not a person required to file a Federal Income Tax Return. This belief is a result of extensive research that I have done.

Boys, don't touch the girls until you're married to them. Now, if you don't want to touch them, you stay away from me please. I saw your kind in San Francisco.

Did you know that in Switzerland every household must have a fully automatic machine gun and 1,000 rounds of ammunition? Have you noticed that Switzerland has never been invaded? Would you invade a country like that? Gun control is stupid!

I did not even know what being a humanist meant. I was only sixteen, and the brain doesn't even start developing until about twenty

We ought to execute criminals for certain crimes. The prisons are overcrowded because a lot of them should have been executed. If everyone that should have been executed was executed it would do wonders for detouring crime and lowering the prison population.

The globalist, the Council of the Committee of Three Hundred, has as one of their goals to reduce the world population from six billion to one-half billion people. There are too many people here that cannot be controlled; so get rid of them. That's why AIDS was purposefully developed in a Maryland laboratory to wipe out population.

Some people say that demons came in human form and cohabited with women and begat half demon and half human, and their offspring were men of renown; people that were able to great things. They were supposed to have had wings on their feet, and to be able to fly. This is where the Greek mythology originated, which may not be too far fetched.

Kent Hovind

Moron of the Month: Gerald Schroeder

Gerald Schroeder is "an MIT-trained scientist who has worked in both physics and biology", and now spends his time "melding" scientific theories with the Bible. Here he tries to reconcile the six literal 24-hour days of creation from Genesis with all that pesky scientific evidence showing that the universe is in fact billions of years old. He has a wacky theory involving general relativity and time-dilation effects that, according to him, proves both viewpoints are simultaneously true:

Once you come from Adam, the flow of time is totally in human terms. Adam and Eve live 130 years before having children! Seth lives 105 years before having children, etc. From Adam forward, the flow of time is totally human in concept. But prior to that time, it's an abstract concept: "Evening and morning." It's as if you're looking down on events from a viewpoint that is not intimately related to them.

Uh-huh...

Elsewhere, he states:

As a nuclear physicist who has served on the staff of MIT and as a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, I have undertaken extensive research of the natural world in light of the Biblical account. My conclusion? I see no contradiction between them whatsoever.

It's amazing what lengths creationists will go to in order to reconcile scientific facts with what's written in their holy book. This guy is taking a fresh approach - just accept both sides of the argument and "meld" them together. I guess if you're going to believe all 1200 pages of nonsense in the Bible, a few extra pages of pseudo-scientific twaddle like that found on Gerald's website should be pretty easy to swallow.

Moron of the Month - Ben Stein

Actor, TV presenter and presidential speech writer Ben Stein weighed in on the creationism vs. evolution debate with his ironically-titled "documentary" Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The film received a slew of negative reviews, bombed at the box office, and has been thoroughly debunked. This short video by Thunderf00t is a pretty clear demonstration of Stein's complete lack of authority on the subject of evolution:



The following exchange between Stein and christian television mogul Paul Crouch also shows the remarkable extent of his bias against all things scientific:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

Moron of the Month - Kirk Cameron

Take a moment to look past the Fox logo and the abhorrent Bill O'Reilly, whose vileness warrants a website all of its own, and check out actor-turned-creationist Kirk Cameron's principal argument against evolution - the Crocoduck:



Look at his earnest, pleading little face:


Aww, bless him. He really believes people might be convinced by such "evidence". Not even a trace of irony to be found. There has rarely been a more wilfull misrepresentation of the theory of evolution, and keep in mind that this guy and others like him would have this stuff taught to children in science classes:


Fig. 1: The case against Darwin
Creationists are given the chance to put their argument across on national television and this is what they come up with. Unfortunately, people like Kirk Cameron cannot be argued with, and the only possible response to such an extreme form of idiocy is ridicule. Turn the sound on for that link.

Kirk, please stick to media more suiting to your intellect: