Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin and Creationism

According to a story in the Minnesota Independent, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has publicly backed Sarah Palin's ideas of teaching creationism even as she was downplaying it. Not a smart move. The story notes:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty came to the aid of Gov. Sarah Palin on Sunday on the issue of teaching creationism (aka “intelligent design”) in the classroom. While he stopped short of endorsing a mandated “God created the world in 7 days 10,000 years ago” curriculum, he said he agreed with the theory that evangelical Christians tout as a replacement for evolutionary theory.

He said that Palin’s comments about teaching creationism were “appropriate,” then said it’s up to local school boards to decide, then added that he personally supports creationism.

The article recounts an interview with Pawlenty and Tom Brokaw in which Brokaw sets him up with a question that is at the heart of the whole problem:

MR. BROKAW: In the vast scientific community, do you think that Creationism has the same weight as evolution, and at a time in American education when we are in a crisis when it comes to science, that there ought to be parallel tracks for Creationism versus evolution in the teaching?

GOV. PAWLENTY: In the scientific community, it seems like intelligent design is dismissed — not entirely, there are a lot of scientists who would make the case that it is appropriate to be taught and appropriate to be demonstrated, but in terms of the curriculum in the schools in Minnesota, we’ve taken the approach that that’s a local decision. I know Senator Palin — or Governor Palin — has said intelligent design is something that she thinks should be taught along with evolution in the schools, and I think that’s appropriate. My personal view is that’s a local decision –

Governor Pawlenty doesn't blow the question completely but reveals that he doesn't quite know what ID is. I suspect that Sarah Palin doesn't either.

The Republicans need to bury this issue and bury it fast if they want to have a hope of winning the election. What was a non-issue two elections back is fast becoming one and the Democrats are smart to play it to the hilt. As the discrepancy between the US and other nations in science education becomes more acute, the Republicans will look more medieval as time goes on. To many voters out there, that will look bad.

The Fight Over Toumai

According to a story in Yahoo News, a ruckus has broken out over the Sahelanthropus tchadensis remains that were unearthed in 2001 in the Chad desert. The dispute seems to focus on whether or not the cranium, known as Toumai, dated to between 6.8 and 7.2 million years ago, can actually be dated at all. Although Michel Brunet, its most ardent defender believes the dates, the actual discoverer, Alain Beauvilain, is not so sure:

In general, radiodating of the sediment in which a fossil is found is considered to be a good guide to when the creature died, its remains eventually becoming covered by soil or other debris. But Beauvilain, a Chadian fossil expert of long standing, says that, contrary to Brunet's assertions that the fossil had been "unearthed," the cranium was found loose on the sand.

A thick blue ferruginous, or iron-based, mineral encrusted the skull, which showed clear signs of weathering from desert conditions, Beauvilain says in a commentary in the South African Journal of Science. Beauvilain says it is clear that the soil around the find, and possibly the find itself, had been shifted by wind or erosion, a phenomenon that can happen swiftly and frequently in the desert. So carbon-dating the soil and attributing that to the skull was a perilous exercise, he says. "How many times was it exposed and reburied by shifting sands before being picked up?".

This will obviously need to be cleared up. If that does not happen, Orrorin will rise to the occasion as the best stem hominid.

Sarah Palin and Creationism, Part II

One of the principle attacks against Sarah Palin as John McCain's choice for VP is her support of "alternative" theories about biological diversity. According to an AP article out today:

As a candidate for governor, Sarah Palin called for teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools. But after Alaska voters elected her, Palin, now Republican John McCain's presidential running mate, kept her campaign pledge to not push the idea in the schools. As for her personal views on evolution, Palin has said, "I believe we have a creator." But she has not made clear whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact. "I'm not going to pretend I know how all this came to be," she has been quoted as saying.

If the left blows this up, you can be sure the news media will pick it up but I am guessing it is a non-starter.

Evolution vs. The Implications of Evolution

In a blog that is mostly political in nature, David Friedman asks some uncomfortable questions about two different groups of people, the right, who don't want the teaching of evolution, and the left, who don't understand the implications of it. He writes:

Consider the most striking case, the question of whether there are differences between men and women with regard to the distribution of intellectual abilities or behavioral patterns. That no such differences exist, or if that if they exist they are insignificant, is a matter of faith for many on the left. The faith is so strongly held that when the president of Harvard, himself a prominent academic, merely raised the possibility that one reason why there were fewer women than men in certain fields might be such differences, he was ferociously attacked and eventually driven to resign.

Yet the claim that such differences must be insignificant is one that nobody who took the implications of evolution seriously could maintain. We are, after all, the product of selection for reproductive success. Males and females play quite different roles in reproduction. It would be a striking coincidence if the distribution of abilities and behavioral patterns that was optimal for one sex turned out to also be optimal for the other, rather like two entirely different math problems just happening to have the same answer.


This spills over to physical constitution as well. Men expend energy differently than women do. Also, although there is tolerance in society for transsexuals and homosexuals, nature does not see it that way and they wind up being evolutionary dead-ends. Yet, no one speaks of this in academic circles. Read the whole thing.

Sarah Palin and Creationism

Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News has an article on Sarah Palin and her support for creationism. He writes:

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night's televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

This sounds ominous, but wait, is it as bad as it sounds?

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.

Whew. There is a lot to like about Ms. Palin. It would be a shame to see her end up on that side of the aisle. I think McCain has made a good choice. We shall see.

More Intellectual Dishonesty, ICR Style

In late 2005, the ICR concluded an eight year radioisotope study in an effort to support the YEC point of view. This was called Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth. Things did not start out well for them since they didn't find quite what they expected. Early on, Larry Vardiman, lead author for RATE, wrote in 1999:

It appears that much larger quantities of nuclear decay may have occurred than would be expected for 6,000 (or so) years of radioactivity at the currently observed rate. The evidence for this concern stems from (1) the presence of daughter isotopes along the entire decay chain in proximity to parent isotopes, (2) visible scars (halos) from alpha decay, (3) the presence of the alpha particles themselves (helium nuclei) still within the rock where they were apparently formed by nuclear decay, (4) visible tracks from decay by fission, and (5) residual heat produced by nuclear decay in proximity to high uranium concentrations.

Subsequent research suggested that at least 500 million years of radioactive decay had occurred. He, nonetheless, concluded:

It is hypothesized by the RATE group that at some time in the past a much higher rate of radioisotope decay may have occurred leading to the production of large quantities of daughter products in a short period of time. It has been suggested that this increased decay rate could have been part of the rock-forming processes on the early earth and/or one of the results of God's judgments upon man following the Creation, i.e., the curse or during the Flood.

This last conclusion did not change over the course of the project. The RATE team went looking for instances in which radiometric dating did not work and, according to Vardiman, found them. In 2005, an anonymous article summarized the findings as follows:

Main summary points:

1. A large amount of radioactive decay has occurred.
2. Conventional radioisotope dates differ radically.
3. Nuclear processes were accelerated during certain periods of earth's history.
4. Helium diffusion and carbon-14 in diamonds is strong evidence for a young earth.

Eventually, the RATE team concluded their research in two volumes, totaling some 800 pages, costing $79.99. This set of volumes caught the attention of the American Scientific Affiliation, who waded in with a review that appeared in June of last year written by Randy Isaacs, the Executive Director of the ASA. He is scathing. He argues that the four areas in which the RATE project finds radioisotope dating to be wanting have been severely abused. He writes:

All of the four radioisotopic areas discussed involve aspects which the scientific community feels are not reliable for dating. Only one of the four areas discussed, helium diffusion in zircons, is claimed to yield a measurement of the age of the earth on the order of 6,000 years. This is merely a fitting parameter in a complex system of many unknown parameters. The other three areas all lead to ages much older than 6,000 years. The authors claim that the results cast doubt on standard dating techniques, making the young-earth scenario more credible.

About the rate of nuclear decay, he is a bit more forthright:

There is no direct evidence provided for accelerated decay. It is inferred solely from combining the evidence for massive decay with the young-earth position.

The RATE authors note that there is a significant problem with accelerated decay producing massive amounts of heat and radiation, but are convinced that a mechanism will be found for this and that these problems will be solved in the future. They, therefore, conclude that ther is encouraging support for the young-earth position. About this, Isaac writes:

The ASA does not take a position on issues when there is honest disagreement among Christians provided there is adherence to our statement of faith and to integrity in science. Accordingly, the ASA neither endorses nor opposes young-earth creationism which recognizes the possibility of a recent creation with appearance of age or which acknowledges the unresolved discrepancy between scientific data and a young-earth position. However, claims that scientific data affirm a young earth do not meet the criterion of integrity in science. Any portrayal of the RATE project as confirming scientific support for a young earth, contradicts the RATE project’s own admission of unresolved problems. The ASA can and does oppose such deception.

Read the whole thing.

Neandertal Tools As Good As Those of Early Modern Humans

Those studying the archaeology of both groups have known this for years. A story in the Independent is now making the public aware of it. It notes:

Scientists who spent years learning how to make replicas of the stone instruments used by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have found the Neanderthal tools were just as efficient as anything made by Stone Age man.

And researchers believe that the demise of the Neanderthals – which has often been explained by the supposed inferiority of their technology – could not have come about solely as a result of their stone tools being worse than those of their rivals.

You have to gloss over the fact that early modern humans were also "stone age" and would remain so for another 30 to 70 thousand years, depending on where you were. This is one of the conundrums vexing researchers in Southwest Asia (the Near East). You have both Neandertals and early modern humans (barely) there and they are both using the same kinds of tools—the EXACT same kinds of tools. Modern humans didn't show up until possibly as early as 160 kya in North Africa (depending on how modern the Herto remains really are) and around 110 kya in SW Asia. The earliest modern tool assemblage, the Aurignacian, doesn't show up until around 43 kya in eastern Europe. SW Asian variants show up around the same time. These facts suggest to many that the relationship between the Neandertals and the early moderns was, shall we say, complex.

Fort Wayne Man Behind Methodists' Acceptance of Evolution

And even so, he said he is now at odds with his pastor and his bishop. The story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette relates the following:

Al Kuelling, 67, a retired engineer trained in physics, wrote two of three proposals on evolution adopted as church policy at the denomination’s 2008 quadrennial national conference this summer in Fort Worth, Texas.

The votes capped a yearslong quest by Kuelling to have the church explicitly recognize evolution as a legitimate foundation of science and acknowledge that it is not at odds with theology.

The votes on the two resolutions that passed weren't even close:

One of Kuelling’s proposals amends the Science and Technology section of the church’s Book of Discipline. It was approved by 80 percent of voting delegates.

It now states, in part: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.”

The second proposal, which passed with 96 percent of the vote, was added to the church’s Book of Resolutions. It endorses The Clergy Letter Project led by David Zimmerman, an ecologist and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis.

The Clergy Letter Project can be found here. A third proposal opposed the teaching of creationism and ID in the public schools. I have already mentioned that one here. Maybe other denominations will follow suit. One can only hope.

Earliest Bipedality at 6 Mya

A study coming out of SUNY Stony Brook suggests that the earliest form of bipedality arose in hominids around 6 million years ago. The research incorporates the newest information from the Orrorin tugenensis material discovered in 2000. The story notes:

“This research solidifies the evidence that the human lineage split off as far back as six million years ago, that we share ancestry with Orrorin, and that our ancestors were walking upright at the time,” says Dr. Richmond. “These answers were not clear before this analysis.”

“Our study confirms that as early as six million years ago, basal hominins in Africa were already similar to later australopithecines in their anatomy and inferred locomotor biomechanics,” adds Dr. Jungers. “At the same time, by way of the analysis, we see no special phylogenetic connection between Orrorin and our own genus, Homo.”

This is something we always suspected—that bipedalism had to have arisen before the australopithecines hit the scene—but it is nice to have at least some evidence of this. It does not, however, shed any light on the relationship between this hominid and Sahelanthropus.

Texas Education Agency Responds to Chris Comer's Lawsuit

The TEA has responded to Chris Comer's lawsuit alleging wrongful dismissal from the agency. The Story in the Texas Observer reports:

The fatal flaw in Comer’s argument, according to TEA’s Motion to Dismiss (.pdf), “arises from a fundamental misconception of the relationship between the Texas Education Agency, headed by defendant Scott, and the State Board of Education.” The 15-member elected board of education develops curriculum, including what Texas schoolchildren learn about evolution, the motion states. TEA only administers that curriculum and provides oversight. “TEA staff, in their capacity as state employees, must not take positions, even by implication, on contested curriculum issues the State Board will be called upon to resolve,” the motion states.

So all of the power for the curriculum resides with the State Board of Education and none with the TEA? How does the SBOE have the power to restrict the free speech of the TEA members? Is that in the contract? If so, it is probably a violation of the First Amendment. What a bureaucratic nightmare.

Early Humans: "The Big Mac Burgers of Their Day."

Research is going on in an effort to determine what predators would have found early humans tasty. Apparently, the cast is large. According to a story in the Independent Online:

The problem, palaeontologists point out, is that at just a metre and a bit tall, our ancestors such as homo habilis were probably the Big Mac burgers of their day.

"We were cat food, we were not that special at that time. No armour, just meat on feet," said Dr Hannah O'Regan, a senior research officer in the School of Biological & Earth Sciences at John Moores University in Liverpool.

The remaining part of the article is devoted to C.K. "Bob" Brain's accumulation of evidence that Leopards were largely responsible for the hominid remains strewn about the landscape. An interesting read.

Yah, Who Didn't See This Coming

The frozen Bigfoot body that was touted as being proof of the existence of the creature is a hoax. That came after Searchingforbigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi had already paid a handsome price for the chance to examine it. A thorough analysis of the body revealed that it was a carefully prepared rubber suit. According to a story in Foxnews:

Then came the clincher.

"Within the next hour of thaw, a break appeared up near the feet area. ... I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot." That jibes with what Jerry Parrino, owner of Internet Halloween-costume retailer TheHorrorDome.com, told FOXNews.com last week.

"It definitely looks like our [Sasquatch] costume," Parrino said after viewing photos of the body. The Biscardi team immediately went into crisis mode. Biscardi called Whitton and Dyer at their California hotel. They admitted it was a hoax and agreed to sign a promissory note at a meeting set for 8 a.m. Pacific time at the hotel.

Think they showed?

But when Biscardi got there, he "found that they had left."

There is enough intrigue to go around on this one. Now can we have a look at the Delk footprint, please?

Intellectual Dishonesty, ICR Style

I subscribe to the ICR's Acts & Facts to stay abreast of what that side of the debate is saying. In the most recent issue, there is an editorial by Henry Morris, the late, great don of Young Earth Creationism that was written in 2006. It is called The Logic of Biblical Creationism. In it, he writes:

If there is anything certain in this world, however, it is that there is no evidence whatsoever that evolution is occurring today—that is, true vertical evolution from some simpler kind to a more complex kind. No one has ever observed a star evolve from hydrogen, life evolve from chemicals, a higher species evolve from a lower species, a man from an ape, or anything else of this sort.

He continues:

Actually, there is no evidence at all that evolution ever took place in the past either. In all recorded history, extending back nearly five thousand years, no one has ever recorded the natural evolution of any kind of creature (living or non-living) into a more complex kind. (Acts and Facts, vol. 37 (8), August 2008: 11-12)

All of this is said without a shred of evidence to support these positions. He further writes about the lack of ancestors with "half legs/half wings, half-developed heart, half-developed eye" (Morris 2006) before launching into a misguided discussion of the laws of thermodynamics that, once again, fails to consider that the earth is not a closed system.

Reading this is incredible in the sense that, in order to write verbiage such as this, you have to willingly turn a blind eye to 150 years of observations in palaeontology, geology, geomorphology, physics and many other disciplines that have successfully rebutted all of Dr. Morris' claims. Further, that he made some of these claims reflects a complete lack of understanding of the disciplines that he is criticising. The level of intellectual dishonesty here is breathtaking and reduces the Young Earth position to nothing more than a joke, on par with the Flat Earth Society. It is as if the ICR exists within its own bubble, not even conscious of what goes on in the outside world.

Jeff Schloss, Former DI Staff, Reviews Expelled

Jeff Schloss, a researcher who was, up until 2003 a member of the Discovery Institute, has his own take on the movie Expelled. The review is quite lengthy but worth reading. He concludes it this way:

Contrary to the furious responses many of my friends in biology have had and the enthusiastic responses many of my evangelical friends have had to the film - I think Ross’s assessment is best: sadly. Sadly, the film contributes to an approach that has raised rather than lowered walls between Christians and the surrounding culture. Sadly, it raises the already growing walls of suspicion about any scholarly attempts to explore the relationship between science and faith. Sadly, it raises walls that don’t protect but constrain the spiritual growth of our students, if they are driven to believe they must choose between God and evolution. And most sadly, it is raising all these walls unnecessarily, along a border that is never demonstrated to have been accurately surveyed, much less to be in need of defending.

Glen Kuban on the Alvis Delk Footprint

Glen Kuban, the man responsible for demonstrating conclusively that the Paluxy River Tracks purporting to be of humans and dinosaurs in the same stratum were really those of a three-toed dinosaur wrote and offered his own critique of the Alvis Delk Print here. His article is a good read and very thorough (for what he calls a prelimary critique). He concludes thus:

The Alvis Delk Print is not a convincing human footprint in ancient rock. Its advocates have failed to present the necessary data and details to adequately support their bold assertions. Even putting aside the extensive independent evidence that humans did not exist until long after the Cretaceous Period, the collective weight of several lines of evidence, including the uncertain circumstances of the discovery, lack of in situ documentation, knowledge that similar tracks have been carved in the Glen Rose area, and serious morphological abnormalities in the prints, point to the strong likelihood that both the "human footprint" and dinosaur track on this loose slab were carved or heavily altered from less distinct depressions.

As he points out, it wouldn't be the first time. Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, In Flat Earth Land...

Amidst the controversies surrounding modern science, the Flat Earth Society continues undaunted. A story in Foxnews reports:

The BBC reports that the Flat Earth Society, thought to have been crippled by the death of its leader in 2001, is still hanging on, somewhat bemusedly.

"People are definitely prejudiced against flat-Earthers," Tennessee-based computer scientist and society member John Davis tells the BBC. "Many use the term 'flat-Earther' as a term of abuse, and with connotations that imply blind faith, ignorance or even anti-intellectualism."

But, Davis and his fellow "anti-globularists" insist, their beliefs are based in scientific fact.

"The Earth is, more or less, a disc," states James McIntyre, a Briton who helps run the Flat Earth Society's Web site. "Obviously it isn't perfectly flat, thanks to geological phenomena like hills and valleys. It is around 24,900 miles in diameter."

Yup. And it was created 6 000 years ago, too. The story continues:

The moon landings? Faked, say the flat-Earthers. Satellite images of the Earth? Fake, fake, fake.

So what does the flat Earth look like?

"The North Pole is central, and Antarctica comprises the entire circumference of the Earth," explains McIntyre. "Circumnavigation is a case of traveling in a very broad circle across the surface of the Earth."

McIntyre hopes the Flat Earth Society Web site's discussion forums will unite all discarians into a "global community."

"If you will forgive my use of the term 'global,'" he quips.

Discarians. Tongue firmly in cheek? One wonders. Here is their mock-up of the earth:


From Wikipedia Commons: A computer-generated image of the flat Earth. Antarctica forms an 'ice wall' preventing people from walking off the edge.

Judge Rules High School Courses Can Be Rejected by Universities

A federal judge has ruled that the University of California can reject an applicant as insufficiently prepared for college by denying course credits for science classes that do not teach modern science. The article, in SFGate, notes:

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

Great Googlymoogly! Unless this ruling is narrowly rendered, the ramifications are staggering! If other universities and colleges are paying attention, they can put incredible pressure on local high schools to teach concepts of evolution, modern astronomy, modern geology and palaeontology—all anathema to the creationist movement—effectively rendering the "academic freedom bills" irrelevant. This also places some of the local school boards over a barrel in that, if they support creationism in science class, they know that the local and state colleges and universities will reject those classes. How could they be seen as serving the needs of the students in those instances? Given the emphasis on state testing and college preparation, classes that teach creationism may become "one with the snows of yesteryear" as Isaac Asimov put it.

This ruling also puts added pressure on homeschoolers and homeschooling publishers who produce textbooks that are almost universally written from a recent creation perspective. To be sure, there is still a market for private universities that may hew to a YEC perspective, but there may not be enough of those to justify the continued teaching of creationism or ID on a widespread basis.

The ruling is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which may prove fruitless since that particular court seems to not have a conservative bone in its body. This ruling could be a watershed.

Human Evolution Olympics

Foxnews has a little contest about which fossil hominid (or hominin if you are a cladist) would win in olympic competition. Certain hominids did some things very well:

For instance, before 2 million years ago, the earliest human ancestors such as Australopithecus afarensis (represented in part by the famed "Lucy" fossil) had just come down from the trees, in an evolutionary sense.

Their bodies still reflected chimp features, such as longer arms and a stronger upper body built for fighting and swinging through the trees.

"A big male chimp weighs about 50 kilos [110 pounds], yet could easily rip the arm off someone," Lieberman noted. "You would never want to arm-wrestle a chimpanzee."

But as far as endurance and running were concerned, it is the later hominids that have it:

The ability to run for long distances changed human athleticism — as well as history — and came around the 2-million-year mark, allowing human ancestors such as Homo erectus to hunt seriously for the first time.

Early hunters only had sharpened wooden sticks and clubs, which meant that success in catching and killing prey relied on the difference between human marathon-running and animal sprinting.

"Most human sports that we value the most (with exception of power sports) involve this incredible ability to run or do aerobic capacity," Lieberman said. "That's really rare. Very few animals adapted for endurance."

Read the whole thing, including the potshot at Neandertals by Dan Lieberman, who has never cared much for them.

New Books

Well, Donald Prothero's book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it is Important and Kenneth Miller's new book Only a Theory have just shown up, so I will now curl up on my virtual couch and read for a bit. More later....

Harris Poll on Evolution

Reader Michael correctly points out in answer to my post on Canadians' acceptance of evolution that, here in the US, there is a correlation between the acceptance of evolution and education. A Harris poll in 2005 lays this out pretty clearly. Of particular interest are Tables 7 and 8, in which the answers to questions about human evolution are broken down into political party affiliation and level of education. Here are some of the points concluded by the Harris organization:

• In general, older adults (those 55 years of age and older), adults without a college degree, Republicans, conservatives, and Southerners are more likely to embrace the creationism positions in the questions asked.
• Those with a college education, Democrats, independents, liberals, adults aged 18 to 54 and those from the Northeast and West support the belief in evolution in larger numbers. However, among these groups, majorities believe in creationism.
• Despite the significant numbers who believe in creationism, pluralities among the demographic subgroups examined still believe all three concepts (evolution, creationism, and intelligent design) should be taught in public schools.

In addition to these, though, there are a few striking things about the poll. Democrats accept that humans and apes have a common ancestry at numbers twice those of Republicans (60 to 31%), and the belief in creationism (not defined here) is as high as 73% (among those an education of high school or less). The Republicans have almost made acceptance of some form of creationism or ID part of the platform, and much of the Republican platform is also populist in nature. The two seem to be dovetailing nicely here.

Neandertal DNA Mapped

Researchers have mapped the mitochondrial DNA of a Neandertal using a bone from a specimen thought to be 38 000 years old. The Australian.com story states:

"For the first time, we've built a sequence from ancient DNA that is essentially without error," said Richard Green of Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

Research suggests that the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and humans lived about 660,000 years ago.

The Neanderthal mitochondrial genome presented in the study is a useful forerunner for the sequencing of the complete Neanderthal nuclear genome, the researchers said, adding that this project is already well underway.

The story does go on to say that the precise relationship between Neandertals and modern humans is not known. I will have to find out what Milford Wolpoff and Dave Frayer are saying about this, since it pokes yet another hole in the Neandertal/modern human continuity argument for central and western Europe.

Support for Freshwater?

Reader RBH corrects my impression that Mr. Freshwater, the biology teacher that is on the hot seat for allegedly branding a student's arm in the shape of a cross and teaching creationism in class, has widespread support in the community. The comment states, in part:

Well, in fact, he doesn't have the support of a large number of local townspeople. A good part of the crowd at the Board meeting Aug 4 was from out of the district, called in by Freshwater's pastor from various churches in central Ohio. I counted cars from four non-local counties and two out of state cars in the parking lot. Most of his local support comes from his own congregation and a couple of other small fundamentalist churches in the area. My judgment is that the 'silent' majority in the district supports the board's action.

Thanks for the information.

The Kansas Races Have Ended

The Lawrence Record reports on the end of the Kansas School Board races here. According to the story:

Darwin won.

Moderate Kansas State Board of Education candidates pulled off a victory Tuesday, gathering enough might to topple the board’s 6-4 conservative majority.

A victory by incumbent Janet Waugh, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Lawrence, and wins by Republican moderates in two districts previously represented by conservatives left the tables turned heading into the Nov. 7 general election.

No mention was made in the story about Alan Detrich's race.

Canadians More Evolved Than Americans

A new poll conducted by Angus Reid Strategies has discovered that 58% of polled Canadian citizens accept evolution. Interesting notes from the poll:

A comparison of the different age groups also reveals an interesting trend—the belief in evolution decreases with age, while conviction in creationism increases with age. Two-thirds (67%) of respondents aged 18-34 believe in evolution, compared to a smaller 58 per cent for those aged 35-54 and only half (51%) of those over the age of 55. In turn, while only 17 per cent of younger adults believe that God created humans, the proportion increases to 23 per cent for the middle-aged group and 25 per cent for older Canadians.

Belief in the theory of evolution is also quite prevalent among respondents with household incomes of $100,000 or more (66%). The education analysis is worth noting, as the jump between the different groups is striking. Less than half of respondents with a high school degree or less (47%) are prone to believe that humans evolved over millions of years, compared to a higher 58 per cent for those with a college or technical school diploma. Among those with at least one university degree, evolutionists outnumber creationists by a five-to-one margin (71% to 14%).

What is one to make of this? Comparable polls (here and here) in the United States have the numbers swinging the other way. I suppose if you were a creationist, you might say that the university students have been brainwashed and if you weren't you might say they finally saw the light. Is science education that much better in Canada than it is here? Thoughts anyone?

Kansas...Again

Charles Johnson once again points the way to a story about the elections to the Kansas state school board, which have finished as of this . One school board member, Alan Detrich was being shellacked by his opponent 76% to 24%. The story that LGF points to says this about him:

He moved to Lawrence about a year ago, to study at Kansas University and create religious sculptures made out of fossils, precious metals and bits of machinery.

Some of those works, along with his musings about “evil-lutionists,” can be found at his Web site, spearofjesus.com.

Detrich said he was convinced that life is too complex to be the product of evolution, and that those beliefs will be the centerpiece of his three-year campaign.

And those beliefs are based on what, exactly? Send him packing!

Mt. Vernon Heats Up

The trial of John Freshwater has polarized the town of Mt. Vernon, Ohio. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune:

"There's a battle of ideology going on here," said Don Matolyak, pastor of Trinity Worship Center and a Freshwater supporter. "I believe the ultimate issue is the Bible on the desk."

No way, argues Beth Murdock, who runs a downtown bakery. "This makes us look like a bunch of hicks, and that's not what this is," Murdock said.

"I don't think he meant to burn anybody. He got some bad counsel to make this all about the Bible and God. All he needed to do was say he was sorry, but he wouldn't do that," Murdock said.

There have now been suggestions that the "cross-branding" was, in fact, not on purpose:

The alleged branding occurred last December during a classroom science experiment. Freshwater was using an electrostatic device common in science classroom demonstrations. Science teachers at the school say they have used the device for many years to identify the color of gases.

Freshwater told investigators, according to an independent probe, that students often ask if they could touch the device, which carries high voltage but low current. On that day, several students volunteered, including one unidentified child whose parents complained that the crosslike mark left a "burn that remained on their child's arm for three or four weeks," the report said. The parents are suing Freshwater and the school system.

It reminds me of the old Vorlon addage: "Understanding is a three edged sword: There is your side, their side, and the truth" I wonder if we will know it in the end.

Richard Dawkins Takes on Islam

In an article in Andhra News, Richard Dawkins is quoted as saying that Muslims are importing creationism into the UK and it needs to be stopped. The story reports:

The Telegraph quoted Professor Dawkins as saying in a Sunday newspaper interview that: "Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come."

and

"It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It's almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country, because [if you do] you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic."

He has an uphill battle, especially since that "hairy idiot" Archbishop Rowan Williams (of Canterbury, no less) suggested that Sharia should be accommodated within the British legal system. They don't call it Londonistan for nothing.

The Methodists Take a Stand!

Ethics Daily reports that the United Methodist Church has passed a resolution opposing the teaching of creationism and Intelligent Design in the public schools. According to the proposal, this is the rationale:

Creationism and Intelligent Design are appropriate topics in public education classes such as comparative religion, literature, or philosophy since scientific method incorporates critical thinking processes. All truth is God’s truth. The promotion of religion or any particular religion in the public schools is contrary to the First Amendment.

This will put them at odds with the major evangelical denominations, who promote it.

This is Always Good News

Scientists have found 125 000 gorillas living in the forests of the Republic of the Congo. This represents a dramatic increase in their population.

PZ Myers on the Delk Footprint

PZ Myers at Pharyngula has taken on the Delk human/dinosaur footprint. Here is what he has to say:

Unfortunately, they both look ridiculously fake. The human print has toes like tubes and a wierdly dug-in big toe, and looks ridiculously fake. The dino print is even worse — it's basically a three-pronged flat plate, looking like it was modeled after the smooth bottoms of a plastic dinosaur toy.

That's about it. He does include a picture of an honest-to-goodness three-toed dinosaur track, but he plainly doesn't take the Delk print seriously. Until it is examined in detail, we probably won't know how it was created.

The Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint

Alvis Delk, an amateur archaeologist has found a footprint that purports to show a dinosaur footprint right next to a human one. Here it is.

The story is here. Obviously, if it is the real thing, it will overturn 150 years of evolutionary theory. My suspicion is that it is not but I wonder how soon it will be analyzed because it is being housed by the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. Glen Rose, if you will recall, is the place where the original Paluxy River tracks were unearthed and touted to have human and dinosaur tracks side by side. That proved to be untrue as the human tracks were discovered to be those of a a three-toed dinosaur. Even the ICR backed off of that claim. Glen Kuban did a fairly long write-up on that in TalkOrigins.org. The fact that the original reports of synchronous human/dinosaur deposits were so thoroughly debunked and now this shows up gives one cause for concern. Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs.

Light Posting

I am gathering information for the first chapter of this book that I am trying to get written. As a result, I will be posting less information and, perhaps, less frequently until I can make headway. On to the research!

The Great Debate

The Free Library has a story on the round of debates going on between Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Dinesh D'Souza, Lee Strobel and others around the notion of whether or not the concept of religion in general and God in specific is useful or harmful to society. D'Souza and Hitchens squared off in Las Vegas. Of note is the emphasis on ID placed by Strobel:

"I think today more than ever in history we have strong scientific evidence that points in the direction of a creator of the universe in the areas of cosmology, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, genetics and human consciousness," said Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of "The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ."

In recent decades, scientists have made a series of extraordinary discoveries, including that the universe, space and time had a beginning, and that the laws of the universe are fine-tuned with almost microscopic precision to make life possible.

"The speed of light, the expansion rate of the universe, the strength of gravitational attraction and the strength of many other fundamental forces are balanced within very fine tolerances to allow for the possibility of life in the universe," said Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle, Wash.-based Discovery Institute, in another debate at Freedom Fest entitled "Is There Scientific Evidence For Intelligent Design in Nature?" "The evidence has led many physicists to suspect that the universe itself is intelligently designed."

The problem I have here and have always had with this "evidence" is that, while it is certainly information that causes one to scratch the head in puzzlement, it is circumstantial and proceeds from argument based on personal incredulity. Further, there simply isn't any way to test the hypothesis that God is behind these "tweaks." To accept that God created the universe in just this way boils down to...uh, what's that word—Oh yeah, "faith."

Evolution and ID: A Compromise?

In an article written by Amy Binder and John Evans, the authors wonder whether or not a compromise can be reached in the teaching of evolution. They write:

We propose a compromise that would neither violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment nor limit the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Most defenders of evolution do not consider valid the critics’ fears that evolution teaches values. Even so, teachers could take these concerns seriously by clarifying what evolutionary theory does not imply about values. To assuage the type of concern articulated by William Jennings Bryan, teachers could tell students that even though evolutionary science talks about the survival of the fittest organism, it is not a model for how humans should treat each other. They could explain that students should not make an “ought” about human behaviour from an “is” of nature and that competition in contemporary society will not lead to increased survival rates. Moreover, they could explicitly note that just because mutations in organisms are random, it does not follow that human morality is random.

I would suggest that this problem stems from an additional supposition, intrinsic to the nature of evolution—that humans have evolved as well as other animals. This is a major stumbling block for many Christians who see humans as specially created not only in thought but in deed.

Ben Stein on Foxnews

Ben Stein had an interesting exchange with Chris Wallace on Foxnews:

WALLACE: Do you believe that evolution and intelligent design should be given equal weight in the science classroom?

STEIN: Well, I don't think that you should teach them on any kind of proportional basis that I can figure out, but I think that if a student or a teacher says Darwinism will take us so far and no farther, he should not be punished.

So, is it possible that Ben Stein sees himself as champion of the underdog, rather than a crusader for Intelligent Design? Sorry there is no link. It is a transcript behind a subscription wall.

Meanwhile, Over in Indonesia...

According to local scholars, the teaching of evolution is a problem in Indonesia, as well. Doesn't this sound familiar?

Like the U.S., there are two school systems in Indonesia: State-funded public schools that are mostly secular, and privately-funded schools, like madrassahs, that often incorporate religious education into the curriculum.

In public schools, evolution is taught independent of religion; in a madrassah, evolution is taught alongside religion.

Unlike the U.S., however, Indonesian public school students have to fulfill a religious studies requirement to graduate, despite the secular nature of the public schools. This almost forces any interpretation of evolution to fit within the bounds of Islam; according to many professors, this is not problematic.

"There shouldn't be any disagreements because the Koran is compatible with science," says Fahma Wijayanti, a lecturer at the Biology Department at State Islamic University (UIN). "If we learn more about evolution, we can discover and learn more about God's plan."

Baiq Hana Susanti, another lecturer at UIN, says that Darwin's theory is "largely inconclusive, with many missing links. The Koran fills in these holes or mysterious parts where there is no science to explain them."

Intelligent Design, Islamic-style. Oh, joy.

A Zen Rebuttal to Chris Hitchens

The Gazette has published a rebuttal to Chris Hitchens by Albert Low, the director of the Montreal Zen Center. He writes:

To feel that creativity and evolution share so much in common, that evolution seems to be slow-motion creativity, does not mean that one must automatically invoke a god who is the creator. Creativity does not need a creative agent; it does not even need consciousness.

This is confirmed by much research into creativity and attested to by us all when we are faced with a difficult problem and decide "to sleep on it." Buddhism is quite at home with a creative and intelligent world, and with intelligent evolution in that world, even though a Buddhist neither affirms nor denies the existence of God.

Something new to think about.

A New Complete Dinosaur Skeleton

A new dinosaur skeleton has been described from the Gobi Desert in China. It is a juvenile Tarbosaurus from the Cretaceous. As the story notes:

Poor Tarbosaurus. Even though it was a top predator during the Cretaceous most people have never heard about it, the theropod from Asia being a poor man's Tyrannosaurus. (Some people think that Tarbosaurus = Tyrannosaurus, but I side with those who hold that they are distinct.) Still, even though it is not as famous as it's North American cousin it is still pretty cool that the recovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a juvenile Tarbosaurus has just been announced. Discovered two years ago in the Gobi Desert the fossils have now been prepped, revealing a young dinosaur only about 7 feet long.

Another piece of the puzzle. Yay.

Chris Hitchens and the Salamander Eye

Chris Hitchens has an article that appears in the CanWest Gazette called The eyes have it. Hitchens waxes about the salamanders that live in caves that are sightless but have vestigial eyes. His letter to Richard Dawkins about these salamanders was answered thus:

Vestigial eyes, for example, are clear evidence that these cave salamanders must have had ancestors who were different from them - had eyes, in this case. That is evolution. Why on Earth would God create a salamander with vestiges of eyes? If he wanted to create blind salamanders, why not just create blind salamanders? Why give them dummy eyes that don't work and that look as though they were inherited from sighted ancestors?

As much as I disagree with the theology of Dawkins, he is correct. The thing is that this is only one example of many that strongly suggest an evolutionary path for so many animals—the whale being one of them. Why would such an animal have a rudimentary pelvis and vestigial limbs? Further, why would there be evidence in the fossil record that its precursors once lived on land? How does ID explain this? How can it? Or is this the undesigned part of creation?

Creationism in Iowa...Again

A community college professor has won a $20 000 wrongful termination settlement against Southwestern Community College in Creston because he was fired after he told students that they ought not to take the biblical story of Adam and Eve literally. According to the story:


Bitterman said college officials fired him over the phone and told him it was for teaching religion instead of history. He argued that academic freedom should have outweighed religious concerns.

"What was for him a purely objective, academic exercise in studying the religious beliefs of different Western civilizations became a group of fundamentalist students taking exception when it came time for their God to be put under the microscope," Bitterman's attorney, Brad Schroeder, said earlier this week.

I would have asked for more money than that. That is just plain silly. You don't fire someone for that. You might talk to them about students' sensibilities—maybe, but any more than that is excessive.

A Plug for The Quest for Right

Reader C. David Parsons suggests, in reference to my post on the Texas State Board of Education, that the board ought to adopt the seven book series The Quest for Right, billed as "The ultimate marriage between an in-depth knowledge of biblical phenomena and natural and physical sciences." Here are some reasons that might not be a good idea. On the fossil record, volume two states:

Balancing the issue, the all-inclusive fossil record (the standard by which the history of all living creatures, to include man, may be reckoned) has failed to produce a solitary intermediate specimen showing said graduation. Instead, the record reveals a marked continuum; all species appear to be as they were from the beginning. Great credence, based on the testimony of paleontologists throughout the world, may, therefore, be justly added to the scientific version of prototypes.

Yes we do have intermediates. Thousands of 'em. In all major orders. No they don't appear as they were from the beginning. They appear sequentially, in steps, over time. This has been rebutted so many times that I am not sure where to go for a link. Here is the TalkOrigins page on intermediates, with loads of references at the end. The chapter continues:

If the whale had, in fact, progressed through the different orders as prescribed by the scientific council—fish, amphibian, lizard, quadruped carnivore, amphibian, and whale, cumulating (increasing) in size with each transformation of its organic structure, there should have been at least a partial record encapsulated within the earth’s crust. The purported trip of the nostrils from the tip of the snout to the top of the head, the telescoping of the large head, and the disappearing hind limbs would have presented hundreds, if not thousands, of intermediate specimens. Yet, not one intermediate specimen showing said transition has ever been discovered; this is a remarkable fact.

Yes, it is remarkable, especially since it is wrong. There are many intermediates, detailed here starting with Sinonyx and leading up to Dorudon. Once again, look for the long reference list at the end. Although this only represents two examples in the set of books, these suggest strongly that this is simply repackaged creationism—arguments that have been refuted time and again. No, based on these examples, I would not recommend this series of books.

Anti-Evolutionism, Turkish Style

LGF, once again, posts a link to a radio broadcast that occurred last year, in which it is revealed that the Discovery Institute and the Institute for Creation Research have worked and are currently working with Turkish creation groups to remove evolution from Turkish classrooms. Here is the radio broadcast. It is a Real Audio link, so you will need that first. At one point in the broadcast, Paul Berlinski of the DI says that there is a world-wide revival going on of Islam and Christianity and that in 500 years, people will be talking about this revival. Newsflash: creationism may be one thing that Christianity and Islam have in common, but it is the ONLY thing they have in common. The Turkish government is shifting toward a hard line Islamist perspective. To collaborate with that just to promote creationism, is myopic indeed.

Evolution of the Eye

Charles Johnson, the creator and moderator of the blog Little Green Footballs, a blog I ordinarily look to for political commentary (It was he that broke the news that the George Bush National Guard letters had been faked), seems to have gotten interested in the Intelligent Design debate and has posted a link to a video that I should have caught up with a bit back, myself. It is a short video on the evolution of the eye and how different eyes exist in nature. It also includes a short section how the eye develops in utero and how that mirrors development evolutionarily. No that is not "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," but it does show how development likely occurred over time.

News From Texas and a Startling Revelation

Janet Phelps of The Bryan College Station Eagle, writes that teachers are agitated about the new legislation paralleling that in Louisiana. Along the way, this little bit of information is passed:

The State Board of Education is to meet this week to discuss revising the science curriculum. Whether to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories has been a topic of debate for months.

Opponents call the phrase an underhanded way for creationists to cast doubt on evolution.

Don McLeroy, a creationist and the chairman of the state board, said he would make it a priority to keep the phrase in the state science curriculum.

"It was written for evolution, and everybody admits that," he said. "They say we're trying to put in creationism. We're not. To me, this whole evolution controversy is a distraction." (emphasis added)

How can it be a distraction if you have specifically singled it out among all of the science disciplines???? The whole point of the legislation is to allow for the teaching of something other than evolution. It isn't a distraction. It's the main point. Calling it a distraction is a smokescreen and is flat-out dishonest.

Carl Zimmer on the DI and Tiktaalik

Carl Zimmer has written a piece on his Discover blog in which he takes aim at the latest circular from the Discovery Institute on Tiktaalik, the slightly pre-tetrapod discovered in northern Canada that has incensed the creationism community. He writes:

The subject of the post is a 375-million-year-old fossil that helps reveal the transition of our ancestors from the water to land, known as Tiktaalik. I’ve written about Tiktaalik here, and you can get more details from the book Your Inner Fish, written by Neil Shubin, one of Tiktaalik’s discoverers. (Here’s a review I wrote in Nature.)

Luskin claims that Neil Shubin calls Tiktaalik a fish with a wrist, but “from what I can tell, Tiktaalik doesn’t have one.” The bulk of the post is taken up by Luskin’s fruitless search for a diagram or some other helpful information, either in Shubin’s book or the original papers. He is frustrated not to find a picture showing a wrist on Tiktaalik compared to the wrist of a tetrapod (a land vertebrate). This sort of “evidence” leads Luskin to conclude that Shubin has something to hide. “In the end, it’s no wonder Shubin chose not to provide a diagram comparing Tiktaalik’s fin-bones to the bones of a real tetrapod limb,” he writes.

The problem, of course, as Zimmer points out, is that Shubin did exactly that. He does so in the book. I just read the description. That is what led to my post about the ulnar-humeral joint. This reminds me of the DI's response to Laura Beil's NYT article linking creationism to the academic freedom bills in legislation. As I pointed out at the time, the entire response by the DI was based on a misreading of the original article by Ms. Beil. It is as if they are so caught up in the fever that they just aren't paying attention.

It seems as if the DI is employing scientists to do the work but all of the PR work is being done by creationists with no knowledge of the fossil record or of evolution. I used to think there were more than subtle differences between the DI and, say, the ICR. That is becoming less true as time goes on.

Dan Gardner on the Templeton Foundation

Dan Gardner, of the Ottawa Citizen, has a long piece on the Templeton Foundation and the extravagant prize that it bestows once a year to a researcher pushing the boundaries of faith and science. It is an interesting read.

How'd I Miss This??

It seems that the government made good on its threat to imprison Dr. Dino, Kent Hovind. Back in late 2006, no less. Here is the story. Hat tip to Gordon Glover. Here is the nuts and bolts:

• The Hovinds were charged with a total of 58 counts of tax evasion.
• Counts one through 12 include Kent Hovind’s alleged failure to collect nearly $470,000 in employee taxes.
• Counts 13 through 57 include both Kent and Jo Hovind. They are charged with structuring cash transactions of $430,500 to avoid reporting requirements.
• Count 58 includes the following charges against Kent Hovind:
  • Filing a frivolous lawsuit against the IRS,
  • demanding damages for criminal trespass.
  • Filing an injunction against an IRS agent.
  • Making threats against investigators and those cooperating with the investigation.
  • Filing false complaints against the IRS for false arrest, excessive use of force and theft.

He was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to ten years in the pen. Kent Hovind, if you will recall is the one who offered $250 000 to anyone who could prove that evolution was true. Here is the original (now out-of-date) TalkOrigins article detailing the challenge and information about Kent Hovind, himself.

Gordon Glover on "Appearance of Age"

Gordon Glover over at Beyond the Firmament has an excellent discussion on the old creationism stand-by, appearance of age. He writes:

Consider the Garden of Eden on the day God rested from His work. If we understand the narrative as a historical account, the universe would have been fully functional. Light from distant stars was already reaching Earth. Large trees with their many annual rings populated the Garden. Mountains and valleys appeared weathered by erosion. Adam and Eve presumably spoke a human language with rules and conventions already learned and rehearsed. Adam appeared to have some experience with horticulture and animal husbandry, and Eve appeared to have some domestic skills. Millions of different species each filled their ecological niches as if they had been doing so for ages.

He is quite correct. If everything were created in six days, some appearance of age would be unavoidable. To me, though, the biggest stumbling block in the whole appearance of age thing is that the YEC crowd tries to have it both ways. First, they try to show that the earth shows signs of being created in six days (for example, the RATE Project, The Grand Canyon Research Project), then, when it doesn't, it reflects the appearance of age. Uh, sorry. That doesn't work. If it shows the appearance of age, then it should show the appearance of age EVERYWHERE. If it doesn't, then it means that God screwed up in places when He was going around artificially aging things. As I have written before, this becomes a Time Bandits God, not the God we know from the Bible.

Intelligent Design and Canada

The Star has a story about the rise of Intelligent Design in Canada. Brian Alters is the director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University. Apparently:

Alters says informal research by his centre has found that about one-third of teachers report pressure from parents to teach creationism or intelligent design, the theory that God directs the development of life, in the class as an alternative to evolution.

Most respond by teaching neither evolution nor creationism, leaving students with the impression that the two are of equal merit, he says. Others tiptoe around the issue, acknowledging that people of some faiths believe in creationism.

Alters, if you recall, sought to do a study to determine whether or not ID was gaining ground in Canada and was his grant proposal was turned down. As the story relates:

The committee reviewing his application said there was inadequate "justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design theory, was correct."

Read the whole thing, especially for the mind-boggling comments by Kent Hovind (Dr. Dino).

Expelled on Rotten Tomatoes

Here is the Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed page on Rotten Tomatoes. It is not pretty. Although the US box office numbers are around 7.7 million, the numbers in Canada are atrocious: 24 thousand dollars so far. While it is true that no documentary makes the kind of money that a mainstream fiction piece will make, this is bad by any standards. The reviews don't help.

John Derbyshire on John West and Academic Freedom Legislation

John Derbyshire, no friend of creationism in any of its forms, takes aim at the academic freedom legislation that was just recently passed in Louisiana. He is smack on the money:

Whether or not the law as signed is unconstitutional per se, I do not know. I do know, though — as the creationist Discovery Institute that helped promote the Act also surely knows — that the Act will encourage Louisiana local school boards to unconstitutional behavior. That's what it's meant to do.

Indeed, one should wonder when a distinctly anti-evolution organization strongly supports an "academic freedom" bill just after the state school board changes its policies to include more evolution in the classroom.

Commenting on the inevitable lawsuits that will come when a science teacher starts teaching creationism and gets caught doing it:

Where will the Discovery Institute be when these legal expenses come due? Just where they were in the Dover case — nowhere! What, you were thinking that those bold warriors for truth at the Discovery Institute will help to fund the defense in these no-hope lawsuits? Ha ha ha ha ha!

Stealth anti-evolutionism once again. The first time there is a lawsuit of the nature that Derbyshire notes (and there will be one soon, I bet), Jindal needs to repeal the act.

Sort of Science Related...

And then there are people who don't know anything about science at all. Foxnews is reporting on a Dallas, Texas county official who sees the term "Black Hole" as racist. I kid you not. Here it is:

A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon.

"It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting.

One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable.

At the meeting, Mayfield said he intended his comments to be taken in the context of the scientific meaning, and became upset that he was being misunderstood.

Why do you suppose they call it a black hole? Is it because it is, ummm black? Do you suppose he doesn't know what a black hole is? Should we remove the word "black" from the language? Gee that's sensible. Just goes to show you can put people in positions of power who haven't a lick of common sense.

Of Flatfish and Creationism

A researcher from the University of Chicago has discovered what is believed to be evidence of a slow transition that flatfish underwent where one eye migrated to the other side of the head, yielding what one sees in flounder, turbot and other, well, flatfish. The story, in Red Orbit, notes:

His first "transitional" fossil was an adult specimen he stumbled on in the Paris Museum, part of a collection that had been given to Napoleon as tribute as he fought in Italy 200 years ago. It clearly had an eye socket near the top of the skull, he said, in transit to the other side of the face.

In London, he found a second fossil species of Amphistium, slightly younger than the one recovered in Italy. In London he also borrowed two Amphistium specimens still deeply embedded in Italian sandstone, which he analyzed with CT scans, also revealing eye sockets in transition.

In Vienna, he found misclassified fossils that turned out to be an entirely new flatfish genus he named Heteronectes ("different swimmer") which he said clearly is in the transitional stage.

How does this involve creationism, you ask?

After publishing his evolutionary theory, On [the] Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin and the theory came under furious attack by religious leaders. In 1871, St. George Mivart, a Catholic lawyer and zoologist, published On Genesis of the Species, challenging Darwin, prominently using the example of flatfish and their eyes in his argument.

"Darwin feebly responded with scenario that relied on evolution of inherited traits," said Friedman, and the flatfish argument has been an arrow in the quiver of anti-evolutionists ever since, cited as recently as 2003 in pro-creationist James Best's online book "God and Fallacy in the Theory of Evolution."

Yup. Never bet against science. You will lose.

John West on Academic Freedom in Louisiana

John G. West has written a piece in National Review (a magazine that clearly does not know its own mind on this issue) on the passing of the legislation in Louisiana allowing for "academic freedom." His viewpoint is stark and clear in the first paragraph:

To the chagrin of the science thought police, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has signed into law an act to protect teachers who want to encourage critical thinking about hot-button science issues such as global warming, human cloning, and yes, evolution and the origin of life.

Opponents allege that the Louisiana Science Education Act is “anti-science.” In reality, the opposition’s efforts to silence anyone who disagrees with them is the true affront to scientific inquiry.

The "science thought police." I wonder who those people are? No matter. Onward:

And lessons about evolution present a caricature of modern evolutionary theory that papers over problems and fails to distinguish between fact and speculation. In these areas, the “scientific” view is increasingly offered to students as a neat package of dogmatic assertions that just happens to parallel the political and cultural agenda of the Left.

What exactly are these problems? He doesn't say. Further, he indicates that he thinks that evolutionary theory is more ideology than science, once again, without any indication of why this is so. He notes the support of several scientists:

At a legislative hearing in May, three college professors (two biologists and one chemist) testified in favor of the bill, specifically challenging the claim that there are no legitimate scientific criticisms of Neo-Darwinism, the modern theory of evolution that accounts for biological complexity through an undirected process of natural selection acting on random mutations.

I certainly hope that is not what they testified to, since that is an erroneous definition of evolution, which is anything but random. He compounds his error further in the following paragraph:

First, the idea that a firewall exists between scientific “facts” and their implications for society is not sustainable. Facts have implications. If it really is a “fact” that the evolution of life was an unplanned process of chance and necessity (as Neo-Darwinism asserts), then that fact has consequences for how we view life. It does not lead necessarily to Richard Dawkins’s militant atheism, but it certainly makes less plausible the idea of a God who intentionally directs the development of life toward a specific end.

Neo-darwinism (whatever that is; he doesn't define it and no evolutionary biologist uses the term) asserts nothing of the sort. The militant atheism of Richard Dawkins proceeds not from a reading of evolution but an animosity toward theology and religion. It does not make less plausible the idea of God because belief in God is faith. Acceptance of evolution is science. As far as the idea that a firewall exists between facts and their implications goes, I don't know anyone who actually thinks that. Of course facts have implications. But scientific facts have to be properly understood and Mr. West has not done so here.

Science Education and The Supreme Court

Josh Rosenau out at Thoughts from Kansas has an entry in which he wonders if a McCain presidency would have an impact on science education. He writes:

In 1987, the Court voted 7-2 to strike down the law. Scalia and Rehnquist voted to uphold the law. Since then, Rehnquist was replaced by Roberts (a wash), and the court gained conservative Justices Alito and Thomas (who is more conservative even than Scalia). Justice Kennedy, who voted against the Louisiana Bill, is now the crucial swing vote on the Court, and shows a disturbing tendency to waffle on key issues. Assuming he remains firm in his anti-creationism, though, we now have a 5-4 court if the same law were presented. A single McCain judge could overturn Edwards v. Aguillard.

I am still somewhat of the opinion that we should allow creationism to be taught in the public schools in science class. It would expose it for the fraud that it is. The theological backlash would be devastating, however. The other problem that I have is that I have never been a one-issue voter and don't have any plans to support Barack Obama because his viewpoints are way too liberal for my liking. I will take my chances with McCain.

More Than Darwin

Randy Moore and Mark Decker have published a book titled More than Darwin; an encyclopedia of the people and places of the evolution-creationism controversy, put out by Greenwood Press. This is part of a short review in bnet:

The text contains an extensive index, lists of references at the ends of many entries, and a bibliography. Additional information, references, and photographs are also available at a companion website. Illustrated with b&w photographs

They note that it is even-handed in its approach. Good. Sigh. Another book to read.

Michael Shermer in the Ottawa Citizen

Michael Shermer has written an editorial special to the Ottawa Citizen. He writes:

If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity because for any question about nature - the origins of the universe, life, cells, humans, whatever - if your answer is "God did it," a scientist will ask, "How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the process?" and so forth. The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God?

Shermer is correct in that, outside the bounds of miracles, there has to be some mechanism. The reason that science works so well is that the universe behaves in an orderly and predictable way and has for billions of years. This allows for hypotheses to be checked and theory to be devised. Another point that Shermer does not make here is that ID argues from lack of evidence. "Your theory is wrong, therefore mine is right." There is no thought to consider different alternatives. This point was not lost on Bobby Henderson, who argues that it is just as reasonable to believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster since all alternatives are equally good when there is no mechanism involved.

Town Divided By Firing of Branding Teacher

The International Herald Tribune (and a whole host of other news outlets as well) has posted an AP article on the recent events surrounding the teacher in Ohio that got fired for preaching in class and branding a student's arm with a cross. It states:

Mount Vernon, a small city in central Ohio surrounded by farmland, is dotted by churches of just about every denomination. The town has a strong evangelical presence.

Some residents consider Freshwater a courageous fighter for religious freedom. Others say he has brazenly violated the separation of church and state, as required by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"This is going to be a mess," said Dr. Allan Bazzoli, who has written letters to the local newspaper criticizing Freshwater. "Resident against resident, and worse, student against student."

Freshwater's supporters have rallied on the town's square urging school board members to resign.

A much-viewed sign about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from town reads: "If the Bible goes, the school board should follow."

In some ways, I see this as a backlash to the recent court decisions that are removing the right to teach scripture of any kind in the schools. The parents are hacked off and, in the absence of a decent venue to vent their frustrations, see groups like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research as their friends. Consequently, they are willing to accept uncritically all of the help and teaching that they get. The perspective almost seems to be "even if its bad science, the kids are getting the scripture they need." You can almost see their point. Almost.

The Earliest Shoes

Erik Trinkaus and Hong Shang are arguing that humans first started wearing shoes regularly around 40 000 years ago. An article in Yahoo News notes:

A previous study of anatomical changes in toe bone structure had dated the use of shoes to about 30,000 years ago.

Now the dainty-toed fossil from China suggests that at least some humans were sporting protective footwear 10,000 years further back, during a time when both modern humans and Neandertals occupied portions of Europe and Asia.

Well, at least they are not stumbling around the landscape, like Erik said a few years ago. Sheesh.

Chris Comer has Filed a Lawsuit

Chris Comer, alleging that the Texas Education Agency's position on evolution is unconstitutional, has filed a lawsuit to that effect in federal court. The suit reaches pretty far:

Comer's suit against the agency and Education Commissioner Robert Scott, filed Tuesday in the Western District of Texas, seeks a court order overturning the agency's neutrality policy on teaching of creationism, prohibiting any agency policy that "in any way credits creationism as a valid scientific theory" and reinstating Comer in her former position as director of science for the agency's curriculum division.

If all of the reports are correct, then her firing was truly a low point in education. Given the way these court cases are going, I don't think she will have any trouble.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Evolution and Faith

Jonathan Rosen has written an interesting piece for USA Today on the role that faith played in the life of Alfred Russel Wallace and how it differed from that of Darwin. Since Wallace was the co-inventor of natural selection theory, Darwin saw a problem. He writes:

For Darwin, the theory of evolution became part of his increasing identification of the blind materialist processes of a soulless world. (Though it is worth noting that Darwin lost his faith in God not as the result of his own theory but after the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.) For Wallace, the theory of evolution became not the end of religious inquiry but the beginning of it. Without ever renouncing the theory of evolution, he felt that human beings were evolving toward a higher purpose; he saw evolution as part of a larger plan and felt that human beings were too complex morally, emotionally and intellectually to be accounted for by mere biology. When Darwin got wind of Wallace's growing theism, he wrote in distress to Wallace: "I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child." (links in original)

It is interesting to note that neither Darwin nor Wallace were racist in their formulation of natural selection and that, while natural selection may have had different underpinnings for each of them, they both felt that all humans were created equal. He closes with this nugget:

It is foolish to be arguing about creation vs. evolution in the classroom, given the mountain of evidence for evolution by means of natural selection. But talking about Darwin and Wallace together, and the vastly different conclusions they drew from their theory of evolution, makes a great deal of sense in this fractured and contentious moment. We need them both.

A Short History of Ken Ham and the Creation Museum

Carolyn Lafever has written a short piece on Ken Ham and the Creation Museum for the Richmond, Indiana Palladium. It is favorable. She writes:

The Creation Museum planners have brought together an impressive group of scientists, researchers and designers who have been thorough in their presentation. While some consider the museum to be controversial, we found it an excellent presentation. It is refreshing to visit a place so well designed and carefully documented as to the scientific facts.

Uh huh.

Ted Davis on An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution

Ted Davis has a guest post on Steve Martin's site on Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics. He notes the following:

Many evangelicals accept the big bang – indeed, quite a few evangelical leaders believe that aspects of the big bang theory strongly support belief in the divine creation of the universe. Many evangelicals also accept modern geology, with a 4.65 billion-year-old earth and the long history of living things before humans arrived on the planet. But evolution - understood here to mean the common descent of humans and other organisms - presents very serious problems for many, perhaps most, evangelicals.

This is true. I do not think that I have any friends who I go to church with that accept evolution. At the end of the piece he mentions a number of people who are practicing scientists and yet are Christians. They are far too few. There is a lot of work to be done.

Ooops. Correction.

My friend Paul corrected me on one point about the elbow. I meant to say "ulnar-humeral joint" not the "radial-humeral joint." He further pointed out that the head of the radius is what allows for pronation and supination of the lower arm. That is true, but the entire process would be much harder were it not for the ball at the proximal—not distal—end of the humerus.

Geocentricity Homepage

Gordon Glover mentions this page in lesson 6 of his outstanding series on teaching science in schools, so I went to see what it is about. This is the tag line:

This site is devoted to the historical relationship between the Bible and astronomy. It assumes that whenever the two are at variance, it is always astronomy—that is, our "reading" of the "Book of Nature," not our reading of the Holy Bible—that is wrong. History bears consistent witness to the truth of that stance.

The individuals passionately believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the earth is located at the center of the universe. Gordon notes, correctly, that the motivation of this group is not to understand how God's creation actually works, but rather to promote the position that because of modern astronomy, man's relationship with God has been "devalued." This is exactly what is going on with evolution. Astounding.

The National Post on Expelled!

John Moore of the National Post writes about the movie Expelled! He has this to say about Intelligent Design:

ID is often referred to as Creationism light. In fact it's more Creationism in drag. Though its proponents claim scientific neutrality, they are usually overtly religious people affiliated with overtly religious institutions. They have written essays and books about why ID is science. And yet when all the sophistry is boiled down, the theory amounts to "living things are complicated. Some-one must have made them."

This has actually been borne out with the information about the Discovery Institute and Of Pandas and People since the Dover trial, which couldn't have ended worse for them. He adds:

It is often observed that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you. It is equally true that when everyone insists you are wrong about something it doesn't necessarily mean they're engaged in an elaborate conspiracy. You could just be wrong.

Yup.

Line of the Day

In a review of Expelled, Jim Stolek of the Toronto Sun, when speaking of recent earth creationism, says:

If someone believes in the Tooth Fairy, can they complain about not being taken seriously at dental school?

Priceless.