Early Homo in South Africa

The New York Times is reporting on a new find out of South Africa, by Lee Berger and his team, that indicates the presence of early Homo there.  John Noble Wilford writes:

The new hominin species was announced on Thursday by an international team of more than 60 scientists led by Lee R. Berger, an American paleoanthropologist who is a professor of human evolution studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The species name, H. naledi, refers to the cave where the bones lay undisturbed for so long; “naledi” means “star” in the local Sesotho language.

In two papers published this week in the open-access journal eLife, the researchers said that the more than 1,550 fossil elements documenting the discovery constituted the largest sample for any hominin species in a single African site, and one of the largest anywhere in the world. Further, the scientists said, that sample is probably a small fraction of the fossils yet to be recovered from the chamber. So far the team has recovered parts of at least 15 individuals.

“With almost every bone in the body represented multiple times, Homo naledi is already practically the best-known fossil member of our lineage,” Dr. Berger said.

Here is the link to the first paper, Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa, and here is the link to the taphonomic paper, Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa. Here is the picture from the main paper, as well as the abstract:

Homo naledi is a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin discovered within the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. This species is characterized by body mass and stature similar to small-bodied human populations but a small endocranial volume similar to australopiths. Cranial morphology of H. naledi is unique, but most similar to early Homo species including Homo erectus, Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. While primitive, the dentition is generally small and simple in occlusal morphology. H. naledi has humanlike manipulatory adaptations of the hand and wrist. It also exhibits a humanlike foot and lower limb. These humanlike aspects are contrasted in the postcrania with a more primitive or australopith-like trunk, shoulder, pelvis and proximal femur. Representing at least 15 individuals with most skeletal elements repeated multiple times, this is the largest assemblage of a single species of hominins yet discovered in Africa.

What does this mean?  Well, the principle problem is that we still have no date for these remains, so it is difficult to place them chronologically.  Berger is standing by his contention that early Homo arose from something like Au sediba, despite evidence to the contrary recently uncovered in Northeast Africa.  If the date is late, somewhere on the order of one million years, then a migration model might explain the appearance of such an advanced hominin in this area.  If it turns out to be much older, then other models might have to be entertained.  More thoughts on this find later.

William Provine Has Died

William Provine, a tireless crusader for evolutionary theory and opponent of creationism, has died.  He was 73.  Provine was a professed atheist, as the NCSE story relates:

Provine was a vocal and persistent opponent of creationism. He wrote thoughtfully on evolution and creationism, e.g. in his essay on "Evolution, Religion, and Science" in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2006), but he was perhaps most famous for his views on the connection between evolution and atheism. He once asserted, "As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people" — a consequence that he welcomed. His views were formed in graduate school, where, he related in his memoir, "[a]fter reading [Theodosius] Dobzhansky several times and listening to [Lynn] Throckmorton, my belief in purposive nature disappeared for good." He was eager to share his views.

Evolution only makes you an atheist if you have a very limited view of God that has to fit into a young earth creationist box.  I wonder if he ever read the writings of B.B. Warfield and Bernard Ramm.  I do not know if he ever debated a theistic evolutionist, but I do know that constantly debating young earth creationists might very well give one a jaded view of organized religion.

I have long thought that atheism derives, largely, from socio-cultural perspectives and that science cannot “make” someone an atheist.  The fact that the BioLogos Institute exists at all ought to be a good indication of that.

Put another way, if two people examine the same data and conclude that they support evolutionary theory in exactly the same way and one person comes away thinking  “Well, this obviously shows there is no God,” and the other person comes away thinking “Wow, look at the awesome power of God's creation,” then the driver is clearly not science.

The story does not relate the cause of death but I do know that Provine lived decades longer than he thought he was going to be able to.  He came to the University of Tennessee in the late 1990s to give a talk on evolutionary theory and intimated at the time that he had a malignant brain tumor that he thought was untreatable.  Apparently, they treated it very effectively. 

What Would Happen If the Discovery Institute Started Enabling Comments?

Ann Gauger, writing for Evolution, News and Views, has a particularly vacuous post on What If People Stopped Believing in Darwin? For example, she writes:

What would change?

Well, textbooks would change, for one. And a newfound humility might briefly sweep the halls of academic biology. Biology students might feel free to express their opinions on origins. The world would see a new flush of academic freedom.

Guess what? It's happening right now, but it's happening slowly, not overnight. That's because more and more people are recognizing that evolutionary biology's explanatory power is inversely proportional to its rigor. Yet there is still an enormous amount of pushback from people strongly invested in the Darwinian story.

What is your evidence for this, Ann? On what basis do you write this? It certainly doesn't match anything that I read.  One of the principle reasons that nonsense like this gets written on this blog is that they can get away with it with no impunity because the DI specifically does not enable comments. In fact, they don't even publish the email addresses of the members.  One actually has to contact a middle man (Casey Luskin) who then passes on messages.

So how about it, DI?  How about enabling moderated comments for the articles on this blog? 

Here's an Interesting Idea: Modern Humans Teamed with Dogs to Outlast Neandertals

National Geographic is reporting on a study done by Pat Shipman for a new book titled The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction.  As Shipman relates: 

Předmostí is one of a series of archaeological sites in Central and Eastern Europe. They're really weird sites because they're full of dead mammals. Before modern humans came into Eurasia, there was little evidence that Neanderthals were killing mammoths on a regular basis. They're huge! Attacking them with handheld weapons was probably too intimidating, unless you came across a baby mammoth.

But once modern humans arrive on the scene, you start finding these sites with dozens and sometimes hundreds of dead mammoths. At some, the bones are so concentrated that if the mammoths were alive they couldn't stand in the territory where their bones are.


These mammoth megasites, as they became known, contain an outrageous amount of mammoths. So what's changed that is going to enable modern humans to kill all these animals? Neanderthals couldn't, and they weren't inept. Distance weapons of the kind that humans had might have been helpful, but you had to track the darn thing as it died.

And that's where wolf dogs come in, because wolf dogs are found with lots of mammoth bones. Some of these sites even have beautiful tent-shaped huts made out of mammoth bone. This suggests people were there for a long time. They were living there and building these settlements where the animals died.

Pat Shipman is married to Alan Walker, who was part of the team that excavated and described the Lake Turkana Homo erectus boy, an almost complete skeleton that changed much of what we thought about Homo erectus at the time.  This would be a good read.  Not sure I buy the argument yet, but it is certainly worth consideration.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

A YEC Icon of Faith is Invalidated

Joshua Kritsch at Vocative reports on an article that has been written for the Journal Antiquity, called Death of a Pterodactyl.  Here is what he writes:

Along the sloping walls of the Black Dragon Canyon in Utah, there’s a curious rock painting that looks remarkably like a flying dinosaur. Creationists say it’s proof that humans and pterodactyls once coexisted. But now, in a paper published in the journal Antiquity, archaeologists have revealed that the “dinosaur” is actually a time-worn depiction of humans, a snake and some sheep.

“What was supposed to be one wing of this pterodactyl is actually two little four-legged animals,” Paul Bahn, a freelance archaeologist and coauthor of the paper, told Live Science. “The so-called head and beak and neck of the pterodactyl [are] actually a human figure, with its spindly legs and its two arms stretching out.”

Honestly, I had not heard this claim, but as there are thousands of little young earth creationism claims out there, that is not surprising. How was this claim refuted?  From the abstract:

A new study using portable X-ray fluorescence refutes this ill-founded interpretation and reveals a scene characteristic of Barrier Canyon style, featuring an anthropomorphic figure. By removing interpretational bias, the new technology finally lays to rest the Black Dragon Canyon pterosaur.

As the Rock Man says: “You hear what you want to hear, and you see what you want to see.”

Modern Hand Digit at 1.84 Mya

A story in Lab Equipment has spotlighted new evidence that modern human morphology was present in early hominins at 1.84 million years ago.  From the story:

“The new Olduvai fossil represents the earliest known hominin hand bone with (modern human-like) appearance,” they wrote. “Our results, along with the archaeological record, reveal that instead of following an orderly trend, eventually culminating in the modern human condition, some ‘primitive’ hand bone morphologies persisted side-by-side with (modern human-like) hand bone morphologies well after the first appearance of stone tools and zooarchaeological evidence of their use for butchery by at least (2.6 million years ago).”

This makes sense. Evolution happens at the trait level, not the species level. There are numerous examples of some traits becoming more modern over time, while some retained archaic dimensions.What is not clear is whether or not it is from early Homo or Australopithecus (Paranthropus) boisei.  If it is from Paranthropus, then the modern morphology extends back at least to the point where the later diversification of australopithecines occurred, between 2.5 and 3.0 mya and, perhaps, longer. 

Answers in Genesis Equivocating Again?

Dan Arel, of Patheos, has written a column where he points out that what Mark Looey, of Answers in Genesis is saying about the tax incentives and their hiring practices does not coordinate with the facts.  Looey claims that the tax incentives were lost because of the perceived religious nature of the project (which is not in dispute), rather than the stated reason Kentucky that AiG violated state hiring practices.  He is quoted in the story (unlinked) as saying: 

“One lingering myth has concerned the future hiring practices for the park next year. Despite the rumors, here are two important facts to remember: 1) the Ark Encounter has not yet determined its final hiring policies and 2) when the policies are completed, we have committed to closely follow all applicable federal and state employment laws that govern religious organizations like ours,” write Looy.

The problem, of course, as Arel points out, is that the Ark Encounter has posted job applications that require the applicant's statement of faith to conform to that of Answers in Genesis'. AiG is very clear about what their statement of faith is.  When Arel contacted Ken Ham about the conflict, Ham replied that the job announcement in question was not an Ark Encounter job, but one for Answers in Genesis.  This, despite the fact that the job title reads "CAD Technical Designer: Ark Encounter."

Recall that Ken Ham debated Barry Lynn on CNN one time, in which he remarked that the Ark Encounter was not being run by AiG.  Here is the Exchange:

ANDERSON COOPER: Mr. Ham, are you trying to convert people here?

HAM: You know, first of all, it's not Answers in Genesis that owns the Ark Encounter. The Ark Encounter is a profit organization. Answers in Genesis is just a member. You need to understand that.

And, secondly, the -- the government of Kentucky is not subsidizing the Ark Encounter. They have an economic incentive program available for anyone. In fact, they can't have viewpoint discrimination, as Barry Lynn would like to have.

And because of the economic incentive program, we, like anyone else, if we fulfill the criteria of that -- and there are five criteria -- it doesn't involve the state endorsing any particular religion or anything like that.

In fact, the Ark Encounter is not a religion. It is a theme park. It is centered around biblical history. And -- and the state is not going to have viewpoint discrimination just because it's a theme park centered around biblical history.

If it is just a theme park, why is there a requirement for a statement of faith in the first place?  This position by AiG becomes less true as time goes on. 

South Korea University to Teach Creationism

Yonsei University, in South Korea, is now going to be offering a course in creationism, taught by a professor in electrical engineering.  The Hyankoreh has this:

Yonsei University, which has Protestant affiliations, is adding a course on creation science for the second semester of the 2015 academic year in September. The focus of the class is on using creationism as a basis for scientifically examining the events of the Bible. Aimed at first-year students, the course carries one credit and is taught by Choe Yoon-shik, a professor of electrical engineering. A similar class had previously been instituted at the university fourteen years before.

The move has generated controversy ahead of registration for the fall semester, with students taking to Facebook to post messages criticizing it.

“It is an international embarrassment that subjects like that are being taught at a university,” wrote one.

“If we accept a course like this, we should also be accepting African voodoo practices as medicine,” wrote another.

The professor suggests that the controversy is overblown and that the purpose of the course is not to bash evolution and mainstream geology but to examine the parts of scripture that lend themselves to scientific testing.  That's as may be but, with an electrical engineering background, unless he has had the necessary coursework, he will simply not be equipped to teach the sections on geology, palaeontology and genetics.  That should worry people. 

Creationism in the Grand Canyon

Steven Newton wrote a piece for HuffPo a week or so back on Creationism in the Grand Canyon.  He notes:

Creationists often imply that to accept science (especially evolution) is to reject God. In line with this spurious way of thinking, they argue that having National Park Service rangers give talks to visitors about the Grand Canyon in terms of millions of years is an infringement of religious rights. Not being allowed to have bronze plaques on the South Rim quoting biblical verses is viewed an assault on their liberty. In a strange twist, the park association bookstores are forced to carry Tom Vail's creationist coffee-table book about the Grand Canyon, over the objections of many scientific groups.

This is an odd position for creationists to take, given that Vail's book expressly argues that modern science can explain that the canyon was produced in a calendar year, world-wide flood.  Why wouldn't creationists simply argue that mainstream science presents an alternative geologic view?  Nothing like painting a bull's-eye on your forehead.  This is the first of Newton's proposed five-part series. 

Henry Lee Poe On Why Young Earth Creationism is Not Biblically Supportable

Last year Henry Lee Poe wrote a paper for the American Scientific Affiliation publication Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith called The English Bible and The days of creation: When traditional conflicts with text.  In it, he notes that, while “enormous energy” has been spent on how the Hebrew word yom should be translated, this misses another very important point: the historical addition of the definite article “The” to the opening passages of Genesis. He writes:

In the Hebrew text of Genesis, the days of creation occur sequentially, but not necessarily as consecutive days. January 1 and February 1 come sequentially, but not consecutively because other days intervene between the two days. It is even possible that the fourth day is intentionally placed out of order chronologically. Instead of describing the first act of creation as happening on “the first day,” Genesis states that it happened “one day.” The action does not occur on the first day. It happens one day. A cardinal rather than an ordinal numeral is used.

He uses an example of this to illustrate why this is so important for understanding the creation story in Genesis:

One day I was born.
A second day I started preaching.
A third day I started being married to Mary Anne
Whitten.
A fourth day I started being a father to Rebecca
and then to Mary Ellen.
A fifth day I started living in Minnesota.
The sixth day I started working at Union.
The seventh day I die.

The second part of the article is a fascinating study in how the definite article “The” got into the passages in the first place, showing up in the Wycliffe Bible, in 1394.

Given this, he argues, that the text allows, and even supports vast periods of time for the creation process, in direct contradiction to the young earth view.  It certainly does not support one week of 24-hour days. 

Hector Avalos on the Wisdom of Debating Creationists

Hector Avalos, of Iowa State University, has a thoughtful piece called Why Academic Biblical Scholars Must Fight Creationism.  His reasoning is very simple:

...Academic biblical scholars are the best persons to debate creationists. The reason is simple. The Achilles’ Heel of creationism is its biblical illiteracy, and not just its scientific illiteracy.

True enough, scientists have done an excellent job in pointing the scientific flaws in creationism. However, the problem is that scientists usually don’t have enough knowledge of biblical scholarship to address or defeat some of the arguments creationists use to harmonize the Bible with science.

Scientists are not trained to recognize how creationists are distorting biblical texts. Thus, Jerry Coyne’s Faith v. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (2015) does an excellent job of explaining scientific theory and methods, but one will not find any discussion of how most creationists are misreading Genesis 1-3.

Creationists in the pews tend to shrug off arguments about DNA, radioactive dating, and other technical subjects because they are not familiar with them. But one need not even go into these scientific intricacies if the Bible does not even say what creationists claim.

Those of us who are educated in a branch of science that bears on this debate tend to think that the science ought to be obvious and scratch our heads in amazement when people reject it.  This is especially compounded by the numerous instances when creationists go out of their way to intentionally distort the science to reflect things it cannot possibly mean.  I found myself in rueful agreement when a leading creationist was described as “horrifically, pathologically dishonest.”

On the other hand, these theological issues with creationism are not new.  Paul Seely, for example, was writing about the theological problems with creationism in the 1970s.  This has had no effect on the masses that accept the young earth model or those that teach them.  Why does this happen?

I think because learning curves are the same no matter what sphere of knowledge you examine.  Dr. Avalos comes from a background in theology, and has knowledge in that area that is far greater than your average church goer, who sits down, sings some hymns, and then opens a copy of their favorite bible, where there it is in black and white: God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.  Why should they believe otherwise?  In order to “get them up to speed,” it would require effectively the same amount of theological education as it would to do the same for the scientific aspects of the argument. To Dr. Avalos, it is patently obvious that people have misinterpreted scripture, just as it is patently obvious to me that they have misinterpreted the scientific evidence.  To the average person, this just isn't so. 

Velociraptors Had Feathers

Scientific American has a story about a new dinosaur discovery in China which shows, among other things, a feathery dinosaur at 125 million years.  As one of the discoverers puts it:

Zhenyuanlong is covered in feathers. Simple hairy filaments coat much of the body, larger veined feathers stick out from the tail, and big quill-pen-feathers line the arms, layered over each other to form a wing. This is a dinosaur that looks just like a bird. If you could see it alive you would probably make no distinction between it and, say, a turkey or a vulture.

Look at Zhenyuanlong and you see what the real Velociraptor would have been like. Far from being a scaly-skinned reptilian monster, Velociraptor would have been a fluffy, feathered poodle from hell.

Here is a picture of the fossil, accompanying the story.

Professor Resigns Over Anti-Evolution Policy

Dr. Jim Stump, a writer for BioLogos and their content manager, has resigned his post at Christian Bethel College, in Mishawaka, Indiana after the college adopted a strict non-evolutionary statement regarding evolution as it pertained to Adam.  Christianity Today tells us:

Dr Jim Stump, an award-winning teacher who has worked at Bethel since 1998 and specialises in philosophy of science, said he had resigned of his own choice because he did not wish to remain under the new creationist policy and bring "tension" to the college.

The policy?

The new "philosophy of origins" policy was adopted by the college trustees last month and includes the statement: "We believe that the first man, Adam, was created by an immediate act of God and not by a process of evolution." This is an article of the Missionary Church which, until the change in policy, faculty staff did not have to sign up to.

This is similar to the problem that occurred not far from me, at Bryan College, in Dayton, Tennessee, a few months back.

Stump, who is a philosophy professor, evidently felt that he could not continue at the institution and keep his academic integrity.  There was a short mention of BioLogos:

President Deborah Haarsma said in a blog post: "We at BioLogos are disheartened by this decision. It put Jim in the painful situation of having to choose between the scholarship to which he feels called and the academic community to which he has belonged for decades."

She called for Christian colleges to encourage their scholars to engage the scientific evidence that humans evolved, and acknowledge that this can be done without letting go of biblical authority.

As readers of this blog know, I write for BioLogos, in the area of human origins. While I recognize the traditions of the church with regard to Adam, alternative explanations such as those embraced by John Walton, Dennis Venema, Francis Collins and others should be entertained freely within the Christian community. To foist such a policy on all faculty is, as was the case at Bryan, short-sighted and unnecessarily controversial.  Especially given that there is now a mountain of data, both genetic and palaeontological, that supports the evolution of humans. 

Lawrence Krauss, Creationism and Child Abuse

Back from extended vacation.

Controversy has been swirling around physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was quoted as saying that teaching creationism to children is tantamount to child abuse.  Here is what he actually said:

“If you think about that, somehow saying that, well, anything goes, we shouldn’t offend religious beliefs by requiring kids to know – to understand reality; that’s child abuse,” he said. “And if you think about it, teaching kids – or allowing the notion that the earth is 6,000 years old to be promulgated in schools is like teaching kids that the distance across the United States is 17 feet. That’s how big an error it is.”

That was back in 2013. He has now defended that position, again.  Here is what he is saying today:

“Yeah, exactly, but it got some attention,” Krauss replied, “cus if I hadn’t [used that description] you wouldn’t have read the line.”

“But it’s true. I mean, there are different levels of child abuse,” Krauss added. “It’s like not allowing your children to have medicine, not allowing you children to be vaccinated, for example, is child abuse, because you are doing them harm.”

“In some sense, if you withhold information from your children because you would rather them not know what reality is really like, for fear that it is going to affect their beliefs, then you are doing them harm.”

The interview with Pickering ended with Krauss warning viewers that the universe was often counterintuitive.

“What science has taught us is that things that make sense to us may not be right. The universe doesn’t care what makes sense to you. That’s what’s wonderful. In fact, it causes us to open our eyes and change what we think is sensible.”

I don't think for a minute that teaching children creationism is child abuse, as much as simply misguided for two reasons. First, it does, in fact, teach them a false picture of the universe that is not backed up by any scientific knowledge that we have and, second, it leaves them woefully unprepared scientifically and spiritually for later in life when it is pointed out to them that they have been taught a cardboard version of the universe and of scripture.

More than one person has told me that they felt betrayed when they discovered that there was no support for what they had been taught.  The now-agnostic daughter of one of my friends pointedly told her mother, “I wish you had told me more about evolution.” The example of Glenn Morton should also be kept in mind.

But beyond this, Krauss' comments are irresponsible.  Neil Carter of Patheos points out why:

These are very poor analogies. In each of those parallel scenarios a parent possesses what the child needs (or at least knowingly has access to it) but chooses to withhold it from them for whatever reasons. That isn’t the case with teaching creationism because the parents who do that aren’t really aware that alternative explanations of the origins of the universe are legitimate. Surely Dr. Krauss knows these parents aren’t merely pretending to believe the stuff they’re teaching their kids. They really believe this stuff, as illogical as it sounds...Second, Krauss butchers the word “abuse” by diluting its meaning and applying it to situations which are nowhere near as traumatic or extreme as that word denotes. When a parent beats a child, giving her cuts and bruises, that’s physical abuse. When a parent screams at her child, calling her names and tearing her down psychologically, that’s emotional abuse. When parents withhold material provisions their children need like food, water, or shelter, or they put them in physical danger, that’s child abuse.

This is similar to the arguments made by Richard Dawkins that got him in hot water a few years back. Krauss is fueled by his hatred for creationism and what he does not seem to understand is that the effect  he will have on people who do accept creationism is that they will think him to (rightly) be judgmental and condescending and they will simply dig in their heels. After all, that is how I react when I hear people say that Christianity is a fairy tale believed by idiots.

Krauss has not done the scientific world any favors.

Terrible News

Chris Squire, the bass player for Yes, has passed away.  Rolling Stone has the story:

Chris Squire, the co-founder and longtime bassist of prog rock icons Yes and the only member of the group to feature on every studio album, has passed away just over a month after revealing that he was suffering from a rare form of leukemia. Squire was 67. Current Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes first tweeted the news, "Utterly devastated beyond words to have to report the sad news of the passing of my dear friend, bandmate and inspiration Chris Squire."

Yes has been one of my favorite bands for decades, since my brother Paul taped a copy of Close to the Edge for me when I was ten.  I saw them play in Atlanta, in March of this year, just after the recent studio album, Heaven and Earth came out.  This is very sad.  

More here from Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman.

Nancy Pearcey: Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself

Nancy Pearcey has a new book out titled Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes. There is an extract from it on Evolution, News and Views here.  Here is her opening paragraph:

A major way to test a philosophy or worldview is to ask: Is it logically consistent? Internal contradictions are fatal to any worldview because contradictory statements are necessarily false. "This circle is square" is contradictory, so it has to be false. An especially damaging form of contradiction is self-referential absurdity -- which means a theory sets up a definition of truth that it itself fails to meet. Therefore it refutes itself....

One can see where this is going and it falls within a larger attempt by this arm of the Discovery Center to establish evolutionary theory not as a scientific theory but as a world-view. Let’s see how she gets there. She writes:

An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value.

But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth -- which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide.

What follows is a tug-of-war between those that support evolutionary epistemology and those that do not.  The central idea, though—and it is not a new one—is that if natural selection formed the modern consciousness and modern thought, then the theory, itself, is subject to those evolutionary processes and, therefore, cannot be trusted.  She quotes literary critic (!) Leon Wieseltier (without providing a link to the article, a maddening practice of this site), who writes:

But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.

Here is the problem with this argument.  Pearcey (and Wieseltier by extension) has applied it to natural selection/evolution but, in fact, it could be applied to any of our theoretical constructs.  If our reason has evolved and, thus, is suspect, then it is suspect in all endeavors.  In short, we can know nothing for sure about our universe, because we cannot trust our judgment.  We can know nothing about gravitation, atomic theory, cell theory, cosmology, or any other scientific discipline simply because of our flawed reason.  So what do we do?

We practice science.

We construct scientific tests to see if our understanding of the world is “logically consistent.” We test if things fall to the earth in support of gravitational theory, we test how molecules behave in support of cell theory, and so on. Funny, this sounds a lot like modern science, doesn't it? We know that we cannot always trust our eyes or our ears or our other senses, so we come up with an independent test of what we observe to see if our explanation for it is consistent with a model of some kind.

Evolutionary theory is no different.  We construct models to explain what we see, with the understanding that, in our flawed humanness, we might not understand how it works.  This is how we have built an understanding of how evolution has shaped the current and past biodiversity.  It is no different than any other scientific construct.  The only reason that Nancy Pearcey treats it differently is that she doesn't like evolution.  

If you turn this argument around then it sounds like this: if our intellect was not the product of evolution, then why do we have such a flawed understanding of our universe?  Why do we need to practice science at all?  Why don't we understand perfectly?  We don't because Christ said that we would not.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” While he was certainly writing about the spiritual understanding of our relationship with Christ, the passage could equally be applied to any human understanding.

In short, her argument that we cannot know whether evolutionary theory is correct because we have evolved is no argument against evolutionary theory any more than it is against any other scientific endeavor.

Is Bio-Complexity Dead?

Is the Intelligent Design journal Bio-Complexity dead?  A visit to the web site indicates that no new articles have been published in 2015, after only four in 2014.  Panda's Thumb had a review of the 2014 “issue” last December.  They were not kind.  Jeffrey Shallit wrote:

How many papers did Bio-Complexity manage to publish this year? A grand total of four! Why, that's 1/8th of a paper per member of the editorial team. By any measure, this is simply astounding productivity. They can be proud of how much they have added to the world's knowledge!

Looking a little deeper, we see that of these four, only one is labeled as a "research article". Two are "critical reviews" and one is a "critical focus". And of these four stellar contributions, one has 2 out of the 3 authors on the editorial team, two are written by members of the editorial team, leaving only one contribution having no one on the editorial team. And that one is written by Winston Ewert, who is a "senior researcher" at Robert J. Marks II's "evolutionary informatics lab". In other words, with all the ideas that ID supporters are brimming with, they couldn't manage to publish a single article by anyone not on the editorial team or directly associated with the editors.

What happened to the claim that ID creationists stand for ideas? One research article a year is not that impressive. Where are all those ideas Klinghoffer was raving about? Why can't their own flagship journal manage to publish any of them?

As 2015 draws near, don't expect that we will get any answers to these questions. Heck, not even the illustrious Robert J. Marks II can manage to respond to a simple question about information theory. 

Ouch! As I noted to my wife last night, while it is a flawed approach, even young-earth creationism can generate hypotheses for testing (That none of them pan out is, somehow lost on the supporters of this view, however).  ID cannot even generate testable hypotheses.  Despite protests to the contrary, their methodological construct violates a basic principle of science:

“Even if I can show that your hypothesis to explain something cannot be supported, that does not automatically mean that mine can.  Mine has to be independently tested.”  

ID automatically assumes that if evolutionary theory cannot explain something then it can be explained miraculously.  Aside from Howard Van Till's observation—even if it was done miraculously, no explanation is provided for exactly how it was done—as we have seen from the work of Stephen Meyer (here and here) and Michael Behe, even the science behind this work is questionable.

Other problems abound, from Douglas Axe's fundamentally mistaken idea that if you can't evolve a modern protein into another modern protein, then evolution doesn't work, despite the fact that the two proteins represent the end points of long evolutionary sequences (a somewhat more sophisticated version of Kirk Cameron's “Crocoduck” argument) to William Dembski's mathematical assumptions that incorrectly model evolutionary behavior.

Unless I miss my guess, this is the last we will see of Bio-Complexity, as it disappears into the mists of time along with Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design which ceased publication in 2005, after a short run of four years. 

Dinosaurs: Ken Ham Responds

Ken Ham has responded to the news reports that he and David Menton plan to demonstrate the humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time.  And he is pretty hot under the collar.  In a recent post on his blog, Ham writes:

Another anti-AiG article full of misinformation and untruths told by a secular media source (this time in my native Australia) has made me once again think about who holds the media accountable. It seems they are often a law unto themselves. And it also appears that for much of the media, freedom of speech includes making up whatever reporters want, and they can spread untruths to the public without much or any accountability. Using lies to disparage the integrity of those ministries the reporter and editors disagree with is an acceptable practice in some newsrooms.

Why is Ham so upset?  Here is the relevant quote from a recent media story (one that I quoted in one of my recent posts):

These bones were brought to us by a rancher and his wife from the area of Lemmon, South Dakota. All of the fossils were excavated on their ranch, in the Hell Creek formation. What’s really interesting about these bones is the fact that in a cross-section of the tibia, the bone has what looks like bone marrow present. Needless to say, our very own Dr. David Menton is excited about taking pictures and looking at samples under his microscope. Dr. Menton’s great sense of humor came through in his comment about how these bones are thought to be “63 million years old, give or take a week or two in one direction or the other.” If Dr. David Menton finds what he is looking for, you can count on a big write-up for Answers in Genesis in the near future!”

That paragraph comes from a post which also has quite a few nice pictures of the Edmontosaurus specimen with the aforementioned Dr. Menton, who is a bone histologist and, therefore, probably has the training to examine the internal structure of the bones (despite having completely fargled up the examination of the human fossil remains). 

Here is how the secular media reported it:

Together with creation scientist Dr. David Menton, Mr Ham says he will soon publish findings that he suggests will be world-changing — and dispel current evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth over 65 million years ago.

It is understood Mr Ham will claim that a bunch of donated Edmontosaurus bones are only a few thousand years old, based on the fact that they still contain remnants of bone marrow.

Soft tissue surviving in dinosaur bones isn’t an entirely new idea — a Tyrannosaurus Rex [sic] bone with soft tissue still present was discovered a decade ago.

Even then, young Earth creationists quickly claimed the discovery as evidence that dinosaur fossils were not millions of years old after all, while established scientists familiar with the study of these bones say that it showed, instead, a misunderstanding about how decay works.

Ham's main complaint seems to be that, despite the text of the article, his name is not mentioned in the Creation Museum post.  He is correct about that and the writers of the Australian News article should have noticed that and pointed it out and those of us that quoted it should have picked up on that as well.

Having said that, he does not seem to take issue with any of the content of the article.   Or if he does, he doesn't write about this in the post. Consequently, his reaction comes across as being a tad over the top.  He writes:

So again: who does hold the secular media accountable for such dishonesty? What gives them the right to make up whatever they want, and disseminate misinformation and downright untruths because of a blatant anti-Christian agenda? Except for very few reporters I have worked with, I can never fully trust the secular media when they are reporting on anything we teach. Where is journalistic integrity today?

So, what this boils down to is the media assuming that “we” in the opening paragraph of the Creation Museum refers to Ken Ham and others in the overall AiG organization. That certainly is what I thought when I wrote my post. Guilty as charged.

But why would we think this?

Well, for starters:

• He is the founder and president of the museum.
• On the home page is a cartoon caricature of him holding tickets to the museum
• It is operated by Answers in Genesis, which was also founded by Ham

So, if Ham is not included in the “we” then who is? The Edmontosaurus post only shows pictures of David Menton. Trying to track down who the “we” is proving to be a bit difficult. The museum's home page is maddeningly absent of any ownership information. There is no board of directors and all of the blog posts are written by “The Creation Museum.”  This is highly unusual for a museum.  For the American Museum of Natural History, for example, the board of directors is easy to find.  A Google search for “Creation Museum” and “Board of Directors” yields nothing. The “About the Museum” simply has information about what can be found in the exhibits but there is nothing about who runs the show. After a bit more investigation, we discover that the Creation Museum is run entirely by Answers in Genesis which is attached.  Guess who the CEO of that organization is?

So, once again, who is the “we” in the post if he is not involved?  Rather than write about how dishonest the press is about attaching his name to a post on dinosaurs, all he has to do is clarify who the “we” is.

Oddly, as I mentioned, Ham writes that the secular post is full of misinformation and half-truths and yet does not seem to quibble with the content of the secular text, largely because they are correct that he does, indeed, take this position. Even here, though, he is a bit dodgy about it.  A bit back, Fatlip at Leo Weekly pointed out that, on one hand Ham doesn't know how dinosaurs and humans interacted and on the other, shows Noah's descendents riding, well, dinosaurs.  

So, again, Mr. Ham.  Why are you so upset about being linked to a post on the Creation Museum website on dinosaurs, especially when it is perfectly natural to assume your involvement with such a project?

Australian News.com: Creationist preacher Ken Ham to ‘prove’ dinosaurs roamed with Adam and Eve

Yeah, good luck with that one.  The Australian News service is reporting on Ken Ham's efforts to prove that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time.  They write:

Together with creation scientist Dr. David Menton, Mr Ham says he will soon publish findings that he suggests will be world-changing — and dispel current evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth over 65 million years ago.

It is understood Mr Ham will claim that a bunch of donated Edmontosaurus bones are only a few thousand years old, based on the fact that they still contain remnants of bone marrow.

Soft tissue surviving in dinosaur bones isn’t an entirely new idea — a Tyrannosaurus Rex bone with soft tissue still present was discovered a decade ago.

Given David Menton's inability to get the basic science correct in his review of human origins, I am not convinced this endeavor will be any more fruitful.  The authors take a well-deserved swipe at Mr. Ham's methodology with this, however:

Mr Ham has asserted that scientists cannot claim to have proof of their theories if they weren’t there at the time to observe those theories in action.

Bafflingly, in a new post on the pro-creationism website Answers In Genesis, Ken Ham now asserts that Dr. David Menton can indeed look at fossilised dinosaur bones and determine things that happened before either of them was born — as long as it supports his own ideas.

 As Ham writes on the Creation Museum website: "'If Dr. Menton finds what he is looking for, you can count on a big write-up for Answers in Genesis in the near future!'  

And with one quote, Ken Ham reveals that neither he nor David Menton have the slightest idea how science works.  If you already know what you are looking for, why do the analysis in the first place?  And what if you don't find what you are looking for?  Then what.  Hide the data?

The problem that I have is that, if Ken Ham were trying to show this and displaying a spirit of love, a la "we think that we can show that T. rex lived at the same time as humans with these data," then I would be more charitable.  But he doesn't.  He displays, instead, along with David Menton, a spirit of haughtiness and expresses nothing but derision toward mainstream palaeontologists. 

Christianity Today: In Louisiana, students read the Book of Genesis in their science classes

Christianity Today has a very matter-of-fact account of young earth creationism being taught in Louisiana.  Marvie Basilan writes:

When a student in Louisiana opens his or her textbook in biology class, he or she may not learn about evolution but the "creation point of view" instead.

For some Louisiana public school students, their science textbook is the Bible. They read the Book of Genesis in their biology class.

Zach Kopplin of Slate.com was able to acquire several emails from the Bossier Parish which discussed the teaching of creationism.

The rest of the account reads like something out of Bizarro World, where parents complain that the kids are being taught evolution and the principal informs them that “it will not happen again.”  As I suspected, Livingston Parish was not unique. 

One of the defenses of the LSEA was that it did not open the door for creationism but, rather, allowed for teaching “the full range of views” on a subject, a position belied by what Basilan writes:

The Louisiana Science Education Act, which was passed by the state legislature in 2008, allows teacher to use other materials to "critique" evolution. This state law opened doors for teachers to teach creationism. Though illegal under federal law, the lessons are permitted under Louisiana law.

Opponents of the law argued that it was stealth creationism. Guess they were right.  The problem is that no amount of evidence will be enough if the legislature thinks evolution is wrong.  This is what happens when politicians get ahold of science education.  Bad things happen. 

UPDATE: more from Zack Kopplin, at Slate.  

New BioLogos Post on Hominin Taxonomic Variability in the Early to Middle Pliocene

I have a new post on hominin taxonomic variability in the early to middle Pliocene in light of the new Australopithecus deriyemeda find from Burtele that establishes that at least two very different hominin adaptations were occurring at the same time, around three to four million years ago.  There is a lengthy intro by Brad Kramer, the content editor, warning people that there are “technical terms” and that the article is a “black diamond” article, which suggests that they keep a glossary or dictionary handy.

It seems that, when I wasn't paying attention, I  turned into a cladist.  This comes from reading too many papers on Pseudosuchia and Avemetarsalia and trying to explain evolutionary theory to people.

The one thing that is missing from Brad's intro is an effort to explain how this fits into the grand Christian scheme of things, which would probably not have been appropriate in this setting, in any event, since it is a separate, but related topic.  I sometimes suffer from a slightly reductionist mindset in that I take these discoveries to be self-evident and just another part of God's creation (Brad does allude to that) without really taking the time to reflect on how this information comes across to your average Christian who likely is not familiar with it and how it might challenge their scriptural interpretations.  To this end, I probably need to make a better effort to work that in, somehow. 

BioLogos Blurb about Australopithecus deyiremeda

My blurb about the new australopithecine is included in the Saturday Science Links at the BioLogos site.  There will be a longer piece next week.

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?

The top result for the above search leads to a plug for a young-earth creationist book by Ken Ham which argues that humans dinosaurs coexisted and that dinosaurs were wiped out in the flood.  There Is No Scientific Evidence For This Position.  The dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago.  If you want a good kids resource for dinosaurs, check out Dinosaur Train.

UPDATE: Dinosaurs Lived With Humans?

I have been reflecting on the blogosphere's reaction to the Google page that results in the search "What happened to the dinosaurs?"  While it is true that the top result is a link to Ken Ham's absurd young earth creationist book by the same title, I wonder if the chief reaction: Have Google change the results page, is the correct one.  Do we really want Google discriminating its results?  That can work both ways and some things we don't want discriminated might be.  I suspect the best thing we can do is place similarly-worded page up that alert readers to the errancy of the result from Answers in Genesis.  To that end, there will be a follow-up post doing exactly that. 

New Hominin Species Coeval with Au. afarensis

A new hominin has been announced by Haile-Selassie and colleagues.  Here is the abstract from the Nature paper¹:

Middle Pliocene hominin species diversity has been a subject of debate over the past two decades, particularly after the naming of Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Kenyanthropus platyops in addition to the well-known species Australopithecus afarensis. Further analyses continue to support the proposal that several hominin species co-existed during this time period. Here we recognize a new hominin species (Australopithecus deyiremeda sp. nov.) from 3.3–3.5-million-year-old deposits in the Woranso–Mille study area, central Afar, Ethiopia. The new species from Woranso–Mille shows that there were at least two contemporaneous hominin species living in the Afar region of Ethiopia between 3.3 and 3.5million years ago, and further confirms early hominin taxonomic diversity in eastern Africa during the Middle Pliocene epoch. The morphology of Au. deyiremeda also reinforces concerns related to dentognathic (that is, jaws and teeth) homoplasy in Plio–Pleistocene hominins, and shows that some dentognathic features traditionally associated with Paranthropus and Homo appeared in the fossil record earlier than previously thought.

The Washington Post has a write-up of the new find, which they glibly refer to as “An Ethel for Lucy.” Rachel Feltman:

Haile-Selassie and his co-authors believe the find should encourage reexamination of other possible instances of pre-Homo cohabitation.  Two other species have been proposed as living at the same time as Australopithecus afarensis -- Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Kenyanthropus platyops -- but both remain controversial, with some scientists saying they aren't different enough from A. afarensis to constitute a new species. And in a previous expedition, Haile-Selassie himself found a partial foot that he believed was from the same time period -- but not the same species -- as Lucy. Unlike the jaw reported in Nature, the foot didn't provide enough evidence to name a new species.

As noted with the Ledi jaw, there seems to be quite of a bit of morphological variability and experimentation going on at the Plio-Pleistocene boundary.   

¹Haile-Selassie, Y., Gibert, L., Melillo, S.M., Ryan, T.M., Alene, M., Deino, A., Levin, N.E., Scott, G., Saylor, B.Z. (2015) New species from Ethiopia further expands Middle Pliocene hominin diversity. Nature. 521(7553): 483-488.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14448

Google: Dinosaurs Lived With Humans?

Google is in hot water for the reliability of its search results this morning.  This story will probably have a very short shelf life.  It turns out that if you ask the question “What happened to the dinosaurs?” the very first result you got was this:

This has sparked an outcry from the science community and several people have posted about it.  Of course, the search results have changed in the intervening time.  Now when you do the search, you get hits from people asking why Google is giving out this kind of information.  This hit the airwaves at least sixteen hours ago and Google has yet to adjust its search results, however.  The top result, after the “in the news” story, is still the one from Ken Ham's organization.  Greg Laden suggests that people tell Google that their results are unreliable by using the "Feedback" button next to Ken Ham's book plug.  I will be curious to see what this looks like a day from now.  He writes:

I’ve never, for one moment, gone along with the idea that Google can pull off a better, more reliable search based on the Google view of what sites are more reliable. My position on this has annoyed many of my colleagues. The promise of the Internet being less bogus and more educational is attractive. But it is a siren call. Regarding this particular issue I’ll claim the role of Galileo until proven otherwise.

Hat tip to Rob Mitchell.

UPDATE: This is lighting up all over the internet. I used the general feedback button to voice my opinion.

I probably should have used better wording but wanted to get it out.  

Peter J.Reilly: Kent Hovind To Be Set Free in August?

It looks like Kent Hovind may be a free man.  Peter J. Reilly writes:

It is pretty hard to surprise me, but Judge Margaret Casey’s Rodgers’s ruling reversing Kent Hovind’s conviction for contempt of court did the trick.  There was something of a one-two punch as I was also surprised over the weekend when the Government sought dismissal without prejudice of the remaining counts of the indictment, that the jury had not reached a verdict on in March.

I guess that the government figured out that Hovind and his support network of Hovindicators were not worth the effort any more.  Reilly has long thought that the government's case against Hovind was more of a witch hunt, although I doubt he would use those words.  Maybe we will see Dr. Dino back in action.  Interestingly, it is not clear whether or not his co-defendant, Paul Hansen will be set free as well.

Earliest Stone Tools?

Artifacts have been found near Lake Turkana that are reported to be the earliest stone tools yet produced.  Live Science has this:

Until now, the earliest known tools were about 2.8 million years old, the researchers said. The artifacts are by far the oldest handmade stone tools yet discovered — the previous record-holders, known as Oldowan stone tools, were about 2.6 million years old.

"We were not surprised to find stone tools older than 2.6 million years, because paleoanthropologists have been saying for the last decade that they should be out there somewhere," Harmand said. "But we were surprised that the tools we found are so much older than the Oldowan, at 3.3 million years old."

It remains unknown what species made these stone tools. They could have been created by an as-yet-unknown extinct human species, or by Australopithecus, which is currently the leading contender for the ancestor of the human lineage, or by Kenyanthropus, a 3.3-million-year-old skull of which was discovered in 1999 about a half-mile (1 kilometer) from the newfound tools. It remains uncertain exactly how Kenyanthropus relates to either Homo or Australopithecus.

Part of this is because Kenyanthropus is very badly deformed postmortem and it is very hard to figure out its morphology. In recent years, it has not been seriously included in human lineage models.There is evidence at the site of Gona for the use of tools, around 3.3 million years ago, but no actual tools, themselves.  This represents a more concrete example of early tools.  According to the picture, these are very rudimentary choppers.  More pieces of the puzzle.

Evolution and the Environment: A Graph by Josh Rosenau

Josh Rosenau, at NCSE has constructed an interesting, if somewhat reductionist graph plotting acceptance of evolution and support for environmental regulations among the major religious groups.  Downloading questionnaire data from the Pew Research Center, the two questions he analyzed were:

• Stricter environmental laws and regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy; or Stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost and
• Evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth
  

The Graph that he came up with is here.  The x-axis is the evolution question and the y-axis is the environmental question.  The first surprise I found is that the Seventh Day Adventists exhibit more support for environmental regulations than the Pentacostals.  Not sure what is driving that.  It is a given that most members of those denominations reject evolution almost uniformly.  In fact, as Ron Numbers points out, many of the early creationists, including Ellen White, were SDA. 

I am also not surprised at the non-denominational evangelical lack of support for evolution.  Many of those folks, like me, came of age in the 1980s when house churches were springing up everywhere and inductive bible studies were the rage.  Those folks are now in their 40s and 50s and raising their own kids.  My church could serve as a poster child for this group.  This group, based on what I have read, also makes up the vast majority of the home school movement, which is almost lock-step anti-evolution.  

There is much lost in the analysis of only two questions and each group's theology has nuances that are certainly not covered here, but it is an interesting analysis of these two questions.  

A Closer Look at Accelerated Christian Education

England is currently grappling with a controversy surrounding its free schools: some of them are teaching young earth creationism.  Javier Espinoza, of the Telegraph, writes:

Creationism is still taught in dozens of faith schools despite Government threats to withdraw their funding, the Telegraph can disclose.

Last August Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said schools found teaching creationism as scientific fact would not be eligible for any money from the taxpayer.

Yet a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that 54 private schools are still being funded by local authorities, while continuing to teach that the Earth began with Adam and Eve.

Only 14 of the 91 schools teaching creationism have had their funding withdrawn, an investigation by the British Humanist Association revealed.

The campaign group also found that some faith schools' science departments were teaching pupils to identify what happened on each of the days of the creation.

Apparently, the focus of the inquiry is into a particular curriculum that is being used, that from Accelerated Christian Education. Well, its accelerated all right.  Johnny Scaramanga, of Patheos, examined the ACE science curriculum and found, among other things, that:

• The Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution.  I wrote about this a bit back here.  The direct quote that Scaramanga uses that I have also quoted:

  Have you heard of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? ‘Nessie,’ for short, has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

  No, it hasn't. There is no evidence that this creature exists, whatsoever.
• Solar Fusion is a Myth.  This is a retread of the old Russell Akridge argument that the sun is shrinking.  Howard Van Till wrote a detailed expose of this creationist “talking point,” and it is no longer an argument used because it was so thoroughly debunked.  Apparently ACE has not gotten the memo. 
• A Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur.  As was pointed out very shortly after the discovery, it was not a dinosaur at all but a badly decomposed basking shark.  Even Answers in Genesis backed away from this one.  Creation.com also gave it a pass.  Once again, ACE treads where other creationists have urged caution. 
• Evolution Has Been Disproved.  Here, Scaramanga points out some statements found in the text that parrot the usual, discredited arguments:

  “This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis.” (Science 1099, p. 30)
  
  “No branch of true science would make these kind of impossible claims without proof. Because evolutionists do not want to believe the only alternative – that the universe was created by God – they declare evolution is a fact and believe its impossible claims without any scientific proof!” (Science 1107, p. 24)
  
  “It is not possible that our planet accidentally evolved into a living blue and green planet! No, the creation of our earthly home required a miracle. That miracle was the design and work of a mighty Creator.” (Social Studies 1098, p. 3)
  
  “The evolutionist does not realise that he also accepts his theories by faith; he cannot prove them by scientific demonstration, and he is dishonest when he claims they are science.” (Social Studies 1097, p. 25)

  Not only are these incorrect, they are couched in haughty arrogance and derision toward the scientists who work in this field. Contemptible.
• Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisted.  This is an argument derived from what were considered dinosaur and human tracks at the Paluxy River, in Glen Rose, Texas.  Once again, this is an argument that creationists no longer use and have not used in years.   John Morris, of the ICR cautions his readers that this is not a credible argument. 
  

I have not looked at ACE's textbooks in awhile but, given the ruckus they have produced,their content has likely not changed much.  Other problems abound with this curriculum.  In another post, Scaramanga writes:

In 2012 I began a PhD studying ACE, and discovered that little had changed since I left in 1999. I have campaigned against ACE, with some success. The shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has described its stance on homosexuality as “dangerous” and “backwards”; the Advertising Standards Authority ruled last month that some ACE schools were mis-selling their qualifications; and the press finally noticed they were teaching that wives must submit to their husbands.

In all of this, however, little attention has been paid to the pseudoscience that ACE passes off as education. PACEs sometimes get basic science wrong, but more importantly they demonstrate that ACE can’t tell the difference between science and nonsense obscured with long words. For example, ACE’s Science 1087
(aimed at students in year 9) suggests it might be possible to generate electricity from snow.

That was written in September of 2014.  The rest of the article is a chilling expose of just how badly ACE has gotten basic science. It is astounding to think that sixty schools all over England are using it, or were using it five years ago. How will these kids react when they discover that the science they were taught is bogus? How will it affect their faith?  We know, in Scaramanga's case, it drove him to atheism. 

Strengths and Weaknesses Bill: Alabama.com Editorializes

Shelly Haskins of Alabama.com, an online conglomeration of several large newspapers (like Kentucky.com) has written an editorial about the negative national publicity that Mack Butler’s “Strengths and Weaknesses” bill (which she misidentifies as HB 572, instead of HB 592) in the Alabama  house has gotten:

This bill is just a waste of time in a year when Alabama legislators face real issues that need all of their time and attention, issues like how to fund state government before it implodes before our eyes, for instance.

Let's focus on the real problems facing our state, rather than meddling in the classroom, where I'm sure there's been no groundswell from teachers complaining that they aren't free to discredit evolution.

If, like the Alabama ACLU says, this bill opens up the door for "religious fanatics" to take over the classroom and open up Alabama to lawsuits, there's another practical reason to let this bill die. We can't afford more legal fees to defend possibly unconstitutional laws when we have no money to even run our own court system, much less police our streets or care for our elderly.

You might ask, "What would Jesus do?" Personally, I believe he would concentrate on feeding the multitude rather than blatantly calling attention to himself.

“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men,” Matthew 6:5.

It is unfortunate when well-meaning but ignorant legislators stick their noses into areas they have no business in. If passed, this will cause more headaches, like those that Louisiana currently has.

Update: Alabama "Strengths and Weaknesses" Bill: The Mask Comes Off

The Anniston Star has a story that makes clearer the motives of Mack Butler, the Alabama Republican representative who has introduced the "Strengths and Weaknesses" bill in the legislature.  Ostensibly, the bill was to require the teachers to promote inquiry and discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of all scientific theories.  Not by half.  Amanda Woolbright writes:

Butler called the bill one that “doesn’t promote anyone’s agenda” and said it would foster open and honest debate in science classrooms all over the state.

“There are some teachers who are uncomfortable teaching evolution as fact, and some are scared to tiptoe around alternate theories,” he said.

Yet, how local educators are currently teaching students wouldn’t drastically change.

“I’m a little puzzled why we have to create a law stating that. They are teaching evolution theory, as well as creation, so it’s currently taking place now,” said Mike Newell, director of operations for the Jacksonville Board of Education.

Many teachers in the state say they are already allowing students to explore various theories, including both creationism and evolution.

Once again, how that is done is critically important, but Butler is sticking his nose into the mix with a smoke and mirrors law because he doesn't like evolution. He could care less about controversies in gravitational theory, geology or any of the other hard sciences. But that is not the underlying reason that the bill is being put forth in the first place. For that we go to the last sentence in the article:

“There is animosity to anything Christian. We are getting so secular and hostile toward Christianity. I’m just trying to bring back a little balance,” Butler said.

Evolution = atheism

The dichotomy couldn't be more stark, or more misleading.

Alabama Introduces "Strengths and Weaknesses" Bill

NCSE is reporting that a bill that would allow teachers to investigate “strengths and weaknesses” of contentious scientific theories has been put forth by Mack Butler (no reason to point out his political party, since we all know what it is) as HB 592.  Here is the synopsis:

This bill would require the State Board of Education, local boards of education, and staff of K-12 public schools to create an environment that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific subjects. This bill would also allow public school teachers to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of all existing scientific theories covered in a science course.

Now, once again, ask yourself this question: why, in a science class, where all kinds of theories are taught, and the emphasis is on critical thinking in the first place, would such a bill be necessary?  Here's why:

The bill's sole sponsor is Mack Butler (R-District 30), who, discussing a different bill of his with Alabama.com (January 21, 2015), commented, “It takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution.”

So, despite the vague wording, the whole purpose of this bill, it seems, is to protect the teaching of alternate theories to evolution, of which there are only two: Intelligent design and young earth creationism, neither of which have any solid science behind them.

This is what the Discovery Institute hath wrought: a legislative minefield where bills like this crop up here and there like an absurd Whack-a-Mole game.  And not a one of these legislators could describe evolutionary theory to save their lives.   

Peter J. Reilly: The Trials of Kent Hovind: An American Tragedy

Peter J. Reilly, who has written previously in Forbes on the saga of Kent Hovind, writes that he is, yet again, facing trial:

Kent Hovind is facing another trial in the federal court in Pensacola on May 18th. In 2006 Hovind was convicted on a 58 count indictment - interfering with the administration of the Internal Revenue laws, failure to pay payroll taxes on the employees, or as he refers to them “missionaries”, working for Creation Science Evangelism and structuring, the systematic withdrawal of cash in amounts somewhat less than $10,000 in order to avoid currency reporting requirements.  Hovind was sentenced to ten years in prison, three years of supervised release and forfeiture of over $400,000 in structured funds.

Reilly has championed the idea that Hovind is the victim of prosecutorial overreach and has highlighted that here and here.  Having said that, he appears to be no supporter of Hovind, himself. As he notes:

Kent Hovind adamantly maintains that he is not a “tax protester”.  I have some issues with that.  If you go to the flagship website of his supporters #FreeKent you can follow the links to Proof Number one “Letters from professionals absolve Kent Hovind from all wrong-doing“.   The first letter is from Kent to one of the professionals and starts with:

“I am writing to request your professional opinion regarding the voluntary nature of Form 1040.”

The responses are something of potpourri of tax protester arguments, that have been ruled by courts to be frivolous.  As Hovindicators often correctly point out Kent Hovind was not convicted of tax evasions, so the letters, which were clearly meant to set up what is called  a Cheek defense, really have little to do with what he was convicted of.

Along the way, he peppers the story with videos detailing exactly what Hovind believes (some of which is out there even by creationist standards), involving conspiracy theories.  Nonetheless:

The Hovindicators are right that the treatment of Kent Hovind has been harsh, particularly this second set of charges.  What is most troubling is that a conventionally tax compliant Kent Hovind would not have had to pay a lot of taxes.  If Creation Science Evangelism had applied for 501(c)(3) status the support that the ministry could have been plowed into the real estate with no income taxation.  As an ordained minister Kent could have taken a modest salary and a large tax-free housing allowance from CSE.  Instead, when he finally gets out he faces an income tax deficiency of over $3,000,000.

Of course, the reason that Kent’s sentence on the first conviction is harsher than that of most people who are initially convicted of tax-related crimes, is, in part, his continued insistence that he has not broken any laws.  Many cases are settled by pleas and there is credit given in the sentencing guidelines for “acceptance of responsibility”.  And of course, he believes that 501(c)(3) status is a trap for churches.

Read the whole thing.  It is an interesting expose of how tax law is sometimes prosecuted.
  

Is Science Class the Best Place to Expose Creationism?

In a follow-up editorial to the goings on involving Arroyo Grande Technical School's Brandon Pettenger and his attempts to inject at least some degree of young earth creationism into the science curriculum, Joe Tarica opines that, perhaps, science class is the best place to bring up young earth creationism:

We can examine the bones of dinosaurs and early human ancestors to prove the two never walked the Earth together, despite what the Creation Museum claims.

We could explore just why it would be obviously impossible for Noah to get two of every creature into an ark to avoid the great flood. He was in the Middle East, for crying out loud. How would he get his hands on polar bears, penguins and all the many other species of animals that live in unique habitats half a world away?

We can study astronomy, light and matter to understand the formation of the universe, which most certainly did not occur a mere 6,000 years ago.

A huge assumption is being made here: that the science teachers that bring up creationism will actually honestly address the science. As we have seen in a number of instances all over the country, not all science teachers do this. In fact, the reason this ruckus started in the first place is that there is evidence that Pettenger didn't. if Pettenger favorably brought up a blog like Answers in Genesis (none of the stories mention which blogs he asked his students to summarize) then the train has already left the tracks.  Further, he wouldn't be alone.

A poll that was done some years back revealed that 29% of special science teachers in England who were polled approved of the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.  A similar poll done in the United States, in 2011, showed that 13% of high school biology teachers who responded “explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light” and that only 28% of high school biology teachers actually followed NRC guidelines on teaching of evolution because it is so controversial.  If you opened the door to the examination of creationism in science class, how would you control for these things?  I think it would be very hard to do so.

Answers in Genesis Files Injunction Declaring Discrimination

Charisma News reports that Ken Ham and AiG have filed suit against officials in Kentucky on the claim that they are discriminating unfairly against AiG in their attempt to get tax incentives for the Ark Encounter.  A. Larry Ross writes:

With the injunction, AiG is asking the court to allow the Ark project to participate in a state sales tax rebate, even as its religious discrimination lawsuit proceeds. The motion today seeks to override the blocking efforts of Gov. Steven Beshear and his tourism secretary and send the incentive application directly to a state tourism board (the Tourism Development Finance Authority), where the ultimate approval for a tax rebate is given.

AiG is asking the court that its rebate application be treated by the state as it would one filed by a non-religious group and go through the approval process without being blocked. The Tourism Authority had already given preliminary approval to AiG's application, but when secularist groups around the country vigorously protested, the governor and his tourism secretary, Bob Stewart, bowed to the pressure and kept the application from being voted on by the Tourism Authority.

No word on how the junk bonds are selling. This continues to be an uphill battle for Ham.

Nazarene University Professor Fired

The Daily Beat is reporting that a well-respected Nazarene professor has been terminated not because of their theological stances but because they dared to support evolutionary theory.  Karl Giberson has this to say:

Evangelicals have just voted another intellectual off their island.

On the eve of April Fools’ Day, while on vacation in Hawaii with his wife, Professor Tom Oord got an email from the president of Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) notifying him that he was being terminated. NNU is one of eight schools sponsored by the evangelical denomination Church of the Nazarene.

Oord was a tenured full professor—the highest rank in academia—who had been on the NNU faculty for 13 years, after several years as my colleague at Eastern Nazarene College. Oord was the university’s leading scholar, with 20 books on his CV; by most measures he was also the denomination’s leading scholar and one of a tiny number of Nazarene theologians whose reputations reached beyond evangelicalism. Oord had won multiple teaching awards and was wildly popular with students and respected by his colleagues. He had brought over a million dollars of grant money to the university—a remarkable accomplishment for a professor at a small, unsung liberal arts college.

With a glowing resume like that, why, in the Wide, Wide World of Sports was he fired? Here's why:

He strongly supported evolution and had long been a target of creationists in the denomination. He embraced “open theism,” the view that God does not know the future but responds in love—rather than coercive control—to events as they occur, rather than foreordaining everything. Fundamentalist critics called him a heretic and had been vying for his termination for years. But Oord was also gentle and pastoral, especially with students.

What is open theism, you ask? Here is a brief synopsis of this movement:

Open Theism, also called openness and the open view, is a theological position dealing with human free will and its relationship to God and the nature of the future. It is the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. They hold that if God knows what we are going to choose, then how can we be truly free when it is time to make those choices--since a counter choice cannot then be made by us because it is already "known" what we are going to do.¹ In other words, we would not actually be able to make a contrary choice to what God "knows" we will choose thus implying that we would not then be free.

This is diametrically opposed to reformed theology and reminds me of the joke involving the reformed minister who, after falling down a flight of stairs, gets up and remarks “Whew! Glad that's over with.”  Open theism is not process theology, which is even more restrictive on the power of God.  The basic premise, that God is bound by time, seems to me (the unaided eye) to have a fatal flaw in that: if God is bound by time, and time began with the creation of the universe, how would God have created it in the first place?  Perhaps someone with a much better handle on open theism can point out the response to this argument, but it seems pretty central. 

I find it unusual that Northwest Nazarene University had more trouble with his acceptance of evolution than with his acceptance of open theism.  Apparently, evolution gets the blood boiling but potentially heretical theology does not. 

Arroyo Grande Technical School: Tribune Editorial

The editors of the Tribune in San Luis Obispo have written an editorial on the scuffle involving Brandon Pettenger and his inclusion of creationism as a discussion issue in class.  From the Tribune:

We don’t mind if science teachers want to briefly stray from the state-sanctioned curriculum to, say, discuss a shark attack off our coast, or engage in lively debate over nuclear power, or even to briefly vent about not being able to watch Dodgers games on TV.

After all, the best teachers are those who make their classes relevant, timely and interesting. If that means occasionally deviating from the lesson plan, so be it. But to spend three days showing a filmed debate on creationism vs. evolution — as Arroyo Grande High School science teacher Brandon Pettenger reportedly did — and to assign students to read and summarize a pro-creationist blog is not OK. It violates state teaching standards and the Lucia Mar Unified School District’s board policy. It also takes advantage of a position of authority to foist religious instruction on a captive audience, even if it’s done under the guise of giving students the information they need in order to decide for themselves.

It would be helpful if there was more information about which blog they summarized. If the blog is BioLogos, then the science is sound, even if it is within the context of Christian theology. If the blog was Answers in Genesis, then there is no science and the teacher did a massive disservice to the students. Once again, though, much is unclear. Did he have them summarize the scientific failings of the blog? Was it in the context of a discussion of “bad science?” Would be nice to know.

Ben Carson and Science

Ben Carson has thrown his hat into the ring as a candidate on the Republican side of the aisle for the presidency in 2016.  He opened his candidacy in Detroit and the Detroit News has a short bio, including his views on many different things, among them science.  According to Melissa Nan Burke and Chad Livengood:

Carson, 63, preaches personal responsibility, self-determination and standing up to bullies. He rails against liberal political correctness, opposes same-sex marriage and endorses voter laws requiring photo ID. He rejects the theory of evolution in favor of the Earth's six-day creation, as described in Genesis.

But his occasional provocations have raised questions about how broad his appeal could be, with statements comparing the Affordable Care Act to slavery, and America to Nazi Germany. He also conflated homosexuality with bestiality, and apologized in March after saying being gay was a choice.

“I know that we are all made in God's image, which means we are all deserving of respect and dignity,” Carson later wrote on his Facebook page. “I am not a politician, and I answered a question without really thinking about it thoroughly.”

He had better start thinking about it clearly because the mainstream media will take him to the cleaners on these issues.