Category Intelligent Design

How Could Anyone Possibly Think ID Is Religion?

The “Editorial Review” of Bill Dembski’s new book says that it’s aimed at

readers whose understanding may have been confused by educational bias and one–sided arguments and attacks.

In case you were wondering who exactly these readers might be, Billy clarifies:

[The book] is geared specifically at mobilizing Christian young people, homeschoolers, and church youth groups with the ID alternative to Darwinian evolution.

So there you go. ID is scientific, and there’s nothing religious about it. It just happens to be marketed at religious folks, but that’s just a coincidence.

WTF, Bill?

The governor of Colorado just signed into law a bill that expands Colorado’s antidiscrimination laws to cover transgendered people.

Bill Dembski says that this

points up the lunacy that ensues in a world without design

To which I can only say, WTF?

Is he saying that this is the sort of thing that happens in an undesigned world? If so, isn’t that an admission that this is an undesigned world?

Or is he saying that the Unspecified Intelligent Designer—who may or may not be the god of the Bible, or might be space aliens—hates teh TGs? (Psst, Bill: your fig leaf for right-wing fundie creationism isn’t working.)

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Expelled: In Good Company

A certain movie was released in theaters today, and several critics have already weighed in on it. Rotten Tomatoes‘ tomatometer is a good tool for seeing at a glance how fresh (lots of good reviews) or rotten (lots of bad reviews) a movie is. But rather than jumping straight to the chase, allow me to place it in some sort of context:

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About the “Expelled” Animation

In case you missed the flap over the animation of cellular processes in the upcoming movie Expelled, here’s the nutshell version:

People at prerelease screenings said they saw footage from XVIVO/Harvard’s The Inner Life of the Cell. Bits of very similar animation appear in promotional clips for the movie such as this one. There’s a post at antievolution.org that shows stills from both films, side by side.

Now XVIVO, the makers of the original animation, are suing the makers of Expelled for copyright infringement.

My IANAL thoughts below the fold. Read More

Denyse O’Leary: Embarrassingly Ignorant?

Over at Dembski’s wankfest, Denyse O’Leary is having an outragegasm over her favorite PZ Myers quote. So nothing new to report in that respect.

But a few sentences caught my attention:

Myers, who teaches at a Minnesota liberal arts university that is proud of its status […]

But most Americans do not know even about it, let alone contemplate what it means that a teacher at a “liberal arts” university should express himself in this way.

Thus, a person who writes as Myers does is nonetheless viewed as a mild-mannered gentleman and scholar, worthy a place at a liberal arts university.

The only way I can imagine this making sense is if O’Leary thinks that a liberal arts college is a politically left-leaning school.

Denyse, if you happen to stumble upon this post, allow me to quote from a source you might trust: Conservapædia:

Liberal arts refers to the non-technical disciplines ordinarily taught as part of a baseline college education at American colleges. These include philosophy, history and English literature, and sometimes Latin, which lay the foundation for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. As such, many American colleges are referred to as “liberal arts institutions.” Technical fields of study are common, but not included under the aegis “liberal arts.” In Europe and Canada the Liberal arts are generally called the ‘Humanities’.

The term bears no connection with the modern political ideology of liberalism, save in the classic, historical sense.

What’s Up With “Expelled”?

On Saturday, I signed up for a screening of Expelled, and got a confirmation by email (two, actually, but that’s a different and altogether less interesting story) for the Apr. 1 showing in Owings Mills, MD.

Now, however, that show doesn’t appear on the RSVP web site. In fact, right now that site doesn’t list any upcoming shows, only past ones.

The confirmation message gave the address of a person at Motive Entertainment, so I wrote to her to ask what was going on. Owings Mills is a bit of a haul for me, so I’d rather not schlep out all the way to Baltimore if the screening’s been cancelled.

She wrote back saying that due to “scheduling changes”, the screening had been “postponed”.

I also can no longer find the link from the movie’s main site to the RSVP section. If I had to guess, I’d say it looks as though they’re trying to avoid a repeat of the PZ Myers/Richard Dawkins kerfuffle or something.

Irony O’ the Week

At the top of the “Blog” section of the site for the new creationist propaganda movie Expelled, it says:

“It’s (EXPELLED) going to appeal strongly to the religious, the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, and the ignorant –– which means they’re going to draw in about 90% of the American market.”

-Atheist blogger and fabulist PZ Myers, on a film he has not yet seen.

I hope they change that to read “PZ Myers, on a film he tried to see but got kicked out of“.

This whole situation is comedy gold. PZ was not only interviewed for the film (under false pretenses, by the way), but was also allegedly thanked in the credits. But no, they won’t let him see it.

Oh, did anyone mention that it’s a movie about viewpoints being suppressed, and interested parties not being allowed access to information?

But of course the kicker is that while PZ Myers was specifically singled out to be expelled, they were apparently too stupid or clueless to notice who else was coming, so they allowed Richard Dawkins in.

Truly, these people are lying despicable fuckwads.

Update, Mar. 22: The Twin Cities Pioneer Press has an article (registration or BugMeNot required) about this.

Also, Skatje shares her impressions of the movie.

Creationists Just Can’t Help Quote-Mining

From a post by the Discovery Institute:

Darwinists in Florida are in a tizzy trying to figure out why they oppose the proposed Academic Freedom Act in their state. Sometimes they claim the act isn’t needed because no one who questions Darwin is being denied academic freedom. Other times they insist the act should be rejected because academic freedom is nothing but “smelly crap.”

(emphasis added.)

If you play follow-the-link, you’ll find the original quotation from Florida Citizens for Science:

This academic freedom stuff is merely the next evolutionary step as anti-science folks continue their attempts to shove creationism into the public school classroom. First, there was blatant creationism. Next there was intelligent design. Both failed miserably. Now comes along academic freedom. Same smelly crap, different packaging.

Clearly, in this context, what the Florida Science writer meant was that the Discovery Institute’s new “Academic Freedom™” initiative was the same crap as “Intelligent Design™”, with a new name, not lowercase academic freedom. I swear, these people can’t stop lying and quote-mining. Is it a hobby with them? An addiction? What? Do they even realize they’re lying?

Oh, and I just reread my old post about what I thought creationists would do after the Dover trial. Read More

Dembski: Scientific Literacy = Assault on ID

Bill Dembski warns his fans:

Paul Kurtz’s Center for Inquiry is partnering with SUNY-Buffalo (the State University of New York) to offer an Ed.M. in “scientific literacy”

So? Private organizations team up with educational institutions all the time. What’s so bad about this program?

(which will include a whopping dose of Darwinism and an assault on ID).

It’s okay for the Center for Inquiry to promote atheism in the name of science but anything that even gets close to theism, like design, is streng verboten.

(emphasis in the original).

I couldn’t find the part on CFI’s page where it says that candidates will be required to eat the heart of a cdesign proponentsist while setting fire to a stack of Jonathan Wells books, but Dembski quotes an email message that lays out their nefarious plans:

Explore the methods and outlook of science as they intersect with public culture and public policy. Understand the elements of scientific literacy.

This unique two-year degree, offered entirely online, is ideal for students preparing for careers in research, science education, public policy, and science journalism, as well as further study in sociology, history and philosophy of science, science communication, education, or public administration.

Some of the courses required to complete this 33 credit hour master of education degree program include Scientific Writing; Informal Science Education; Science Curricula; Critical Thinking; History and Philosophy of Science; Science, Technology and Human Values; Research Ethics.

Honestly, I don’t see why Billy’s getting his panties in a twist over this. Does he really think that teaching people what science is and how to think critically constitutes an “assault on ID”? If so, doesn’t this constitute an admission that ID is made of fail and can’t withstand scrutiny?

Or does he think that CFI is a sort of atheist Disco Institute? That would justify his paranoia, since he presumably knows how the DI likes to distort the truth to advance its cause.

Ben Stein Deteriorates Into Bad Self-Parody

Pop quiz: one of these quotations was written years ago by a young-earth creationist so ignorant that other YECs have tried to distance themselves from him. The other was published today, by a proponent of Intelligent Design (which, we are told, is Totally Not Creationism, Nuh-Uh) who enjoys respect within the ID community. Can you guess which is which and who the authors are?

Evolution is presented in our public school textbooks as a process that:

  1. Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.
  2. Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)
  3. Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).
  4. Caused the living creatures to be capable of and interested in reproducing themselves.
  5. Caused that first life form to spontaneously diversify into different forms of living things, such as the plants and animals on the earth today (biological evolution).

Just a few tiny, insignificant little questions.

* How did the universe start?

* Where did matter come from?

* Where did energy come from?

* Where did the laws of motion, thermodynamics, physics, chemistry, come from?

* Where did gravity come from?

* How did inorganic matter, that is, lifeless matter such as dirt and rocks, become living beings?

* Has anyone ever observed beyond doubt the evolution of a new mammalian or aviary species, as opposed to changes within a species?

These teeny weeny little questions are just some of the issues as to which Darwin and Darwinism have absolutely no verifiable answers.

Answers after the jump. Read More