Creationism Still Taught in Public Schools According to Survey

Daily India has a story about the teaching of creationism in the United States. According to the story:

London, May 20: US courts might have ordered ban on teaching creationism in schools, but still one in eight high-school biology teachers teach it as valid science, according to a survey. The surveyors say that though courts have ruled that creationism and intelligent design are religion, teachers take it as a matter of discretion to decide what is to be taught.

Here's the amazing quote:

Upon being questioned about their own beliefs about creationism, about 16 per cent teachers said that they believed human beings had been created by God within the last 10,000 years.

Based on what evidence???? Aren't these science teachers? This is another reason I don't have my kids in public schools.

Aliens and Evolution

The Pope's Astronomer, Jose Gabriel Funes, has, in an interview, admitted that "there would be nothing surprising about the existence of intelligent extra-terrestrials." The article continues:

"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on Earth, so there could be other beings created by God [beyond it]," he said. The interview suggests that the Church's hierarchy may be paving the way to showing that Pope Benedict XVI is more open to the ideas of modern science than he has previously seemed to be.

As far as evolution is concerned, the article suggests a bit of discord with regard to Vatican views:

Fr Funes, in the interview, admits that, for him, evolution is a given. He also said that he believed in the Big Bang theory as the most likely explanation for the origin of the universe, and that the Bible should not be held to account for its lack of scientific accuracy. "Fundamentally," he said, "the Bible is not a book of science... It's a love letter written by God to his people in the language of two or three thousand years ago... So one cannot ask the Bible for scientific responses."

Funny, I think that William Jennings Bryan said this around a hundred years ago.

Yoko Ono to Get Here Day in Court

A New York judge has stated that he will rule shortly on the lawsuit brought by Yoko Ono on the use of "Imagine" by John Lennon.

Lawyer Anthony T. Falzone said the movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," was set to open in Canada on June 6 and DVD rights needed to be finalized by the end of May for distribution in October. The movie is still being shown in about 200 theaters in the United States.

He said an adverse ruling by Stein would mean "you have muzzled the speech of my clients" because they would have to replace the song with other images, losing the chance to make the issue important enough that it could even influence the U.S. presidential campaign.

Well, I don't know about influencing the presidential campaign. That sounds a bit far-fetched. It will have bearing on the movie, though.

The ICR has done a piece rightly castigating the bad theology of Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott and P.Z. Meyers . I have challenged them to do a piece on Francis Collins, who champions evolution from within a theistic construct. I bet they won't. The piece contains this little gem, commenting on Dr. Scott:

When she ranks evolution as one of the "core ideas of science," Scott grants it the same legitimacy as the studies conducted on gravity and atomic theory-- although these involve testable phenomena, whereas there has been no observable scientific evidence for macroevolution.¹³

The foot note goes to this note: See Morris, H. 2000 and 2001. The Scientific Case against Evolution, Parts 1 & 2. Acts & Facts. 28 (12) and 29 (1), who says, among other things, that evolution is not happening now. Oh really? How does he know this? Because he sees cats and dogs around but no dats or cogs. Yup, that there's evidence.
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The Chicken From Hell

There is new evidence that the Tyrannosaurus Rex grouped with birds than with reptiles:

"We determined that T. rex, in fact, grouped with birds — ostrich and chicken — better than any other organism that we studied," said researcher John Asara of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. "We also show that it groups better with birds than [with] modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards."

This came about with the finding of a drumstick with soft tissue still intact inside. Neat.

Oh, That Bouncing Ball of Fire

According to a story in Foxnews:

The sun bounces up and down as it roams the Milky Way, and such wavering might have hurled showers of comets Earth's way that caused mass extinctions, including the one that killed the dinosaurs, a new study claims.

Not everyone is convinced:

"The whole concept is wrong," said NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer Paul Weissman, who did not participate in this study. "As you cross the galactic plane, it's not like you go over a speed bump. The variation in any cratering rate would be very gentle, not in sudden pulses."

This ought to be fun to watch.

Another story on the revival of dead genes.

Science Meets Fiction

According to a story in Yahoo News the extinct genes of a Tasmanian Tiger have been revived in a mouse embryo. The story notes:

"This is the first time that DNA from an extinct species has been used to induce a functional response in another living organism," said research leader Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne.

The announcement was hailed here as raising the possibility of recreating extinct animals.

Didn't Michael Crichton basically point out that that is a BAD IDEA?????

Woman to Woman: A Debate

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a point-counterpoint argument about Intelligent Design. The commentary is by Susan Feldhahn. She writes:

Darwin’s theory was published 149 years ago, and has been the primary origin-of-life theory since the 1930’s. Since then, evidence to support macroevolution (one species mutating to a different species) has advanced only marginally, while evidence questioning it has exploded. Advances in genetics, cellular biology, chemistry and many other fields have been seized to map human DNA and create wonder drugs. Yet they also raise questions about Darwinian macroevolution - which no scientist can follow up without being “expelled” from the respect of the scientific community. It’s absolutely absurd.

Well, that's wrong. There is quite a bit of evidence of macroevolution as well as transitional species. There is something absurd about this passage, all right. This has become achingly familiar: a writer argues that scientists cling blindly to evolution despite the fact that there is little evidence for it. The problem is that the writer is completely unaware of the avalanche of evidence that evolution (micro and macro) has in the tank. That's embarrassing.

The rebuttal is by Andrea Cornell Sarvady, who writes:

Do Intelligent Design proponents really think that the thousands of geologists digging their lives away wouldn’t be thrilled to discover mammal fossils down in the age of fishes? Darwin would spin in his grave, but so what? Scientists want to be right. For this reason, they study Intelligent Design tirelessly. Too bad that the evidence for it just isn’t there.

This is not the homerun I was hoping for but it is a good parry. Scientists tend to react badly at having a political campaign waged against them masquerading as science. I would too. Here is my comment about the paragraph by Ms. Feldhahn:


Wrong. There is quite a bit of evidence of macroevolution as well as for the existence of transitional species. The human fossil record alone is replete with evidence of transitional forms grading from one species to another. There is something absurd about what Ms. Feldhahn writes, all right. This attack has become achingly familiar: a writer argues that scientists cling blindly to evolution despite the fact that there is little evidence for it. The problem is that the writer is completely unaware of the avalanche of evidence that evolution (micro and macro) has in the tank. I have seen this before in the works of Phillip Johnson and anything that comes out of the Institute for Creation Research. Please, If you are going to tackle evolution at least know what you are talking about.

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A Plug for HB733 in Louisiana

HB733 is similar to the "Academic Freedom Bill in Florida," in that it would allow teachers to teach controversial concepts in science class and it is being plugged by a chemist.

Anthropology Professor's Speech on Evolution Cancelled on Darwin Day

Yup, you read that right. I missed this the first time through. Lorena Madrigal was to give a Darwin Day speech in Pinellas County, Florida until the county officials got the heebeejeebees:

"Biology without evolution is not biology," she suggested, which obviously explains, at least in the mind of William Davis, the Pinellas County director of environmental services, why the professor's speech would be problematic.

Canceled Out

"Her topic was about evolution," Davis said. Well, yeaaaaaah! "I flinched on that."

"I canceled her out after discussing it with my supervisors," he said. "We are not the platform for debate on creationism versus evolution."

Even on Darwin Day?!?!?! Apparently not.

"We don't believe it's our role to engage in that debate," Davis said.

Florida gets weirder and weirder.

Kenneth Miller on ID

Here is a video snarfed off of Youtube featuring Kenneth Miller talking about Intelligent Design at Case Western Reserve University.


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Yet Another Book to Read

Debora and Loren Haarsma have published a book titled Origins: A Reformed Look at Creation, Design and Evolution. It seems on the surface to be even-handed. Here is the link.

The Evolution of the Hiccup and Other Traits

TwinCities.com reproduces a Philadelphia Inquirer article on the evolution of the hiccup, why we have hernias and other lovable traits conducted with Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish. According to the story:

The sound of a hiccup echoes back to our very distant past as fish and amphibians some 375 million years ago, Shubin said. It's really just a spasm that causes a sharp intake of breath followed by a quick partial closing of our upper airway with that flap of skin known as the glottis. It's best if you can nip it in the first couple of hics, he said.

It's much harder to stop once you've let yourself get up to 10. By that point, you've reverted to an ancient breathing pattern orchestrated by the brain stem that once helped amphibians breath, letting water pass the gills without leaking into the lungs. "Tadpoles normally breathe with something like a hiccup," Shubin said.

Can't wait until the book comes.

The "God Lab" Opens

New Scientist notes that the Discovery Institute has unveiled the "Biologic Institute" in Redmond, Washington designed to search for evidence of Intelligent Design. One hopes that some sort of methodological framework will emerge. I am not holding my breath. The author writes:

The Biologic Institute in Redmond, Washington, has been shrouded in secrecy since it was established more than a year ago by the Discovery Institute, an organisation which claims ID is a scientific theory (New Scientist, 16 December 2006, p 8). Its existence was finally made public on 10 May, when details of the project were published online at www.biologicinstitute.org

More on the Darwin Exposition at the Royal Ontario Museum

Peter Calamai of the Toronto Star writes on the not-so blatant anti-creationism flavor of the Darwin exposition at the ROM:

Take this statement from a panel headed "Creationism" at the close of the exhibit:

"For 150 years since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, the theory of evolution by natural selection has not been seriously challenged by any other scientific explanation."

The weasel word here is "seriously," since that's very much a qualitative judgment.


It also includes this little historical tidbit:

The only obvious Canadian touch in the show is a case that contains T.H. Huxley's application to the University of Toronto for the post of professor of natural philosophy, as science was then known. Among Huxley's letters of support is one from Charles Darwin.

U of T passed Huxley over for a far less qualified man with political connections. Huxley was thus available later in England to become "Darwin's Bulldog," defending natural selection in public talks with his arm draped around a gorilla's skeleton.

Sure would be nice to get up there for it.

More Slings and Arrows for Expelled!

John Vandehey writes in the Daily Emerald that Ben Stein's movie Expelled is not well thought out. He ask what effect the adoption of ID as a workable theory would have on science:

But what would happen to religion? Intelligent design proposes the existence of an overseer, a guiding, intelligent force which directs evolution. Every deity-based religion would point to it and say, "Ho! There's proof that we are right."

And therein lies the stumbling point. The moment religion gets proof, it's not religion anymore; it's fact. There's no faith; everything is given. There's no wonder; there's just a footnote in a school biology textbook that students will read, memorize for the test, and quickly forget.

To me, the greatest gift that religion and spirituality can give is hope, the ability to do the right thing and work for good without any expected personal gain, to do it just because you have faith in the inherent goodness in the world. If we give proof to religion, then doing the right thing becomes no different from paying taxes: it becomes mechanical and without meaning. While I would love to see more people doing the right thing, I can't appreciate a good thing done just because it had to be done; if a person must endure some hardships for doing the right thing, then it shows me that he or she cares about what they do.

In some senses, this is similar to the argument I make that if the YEC supporters really got their way and had creationism taught in public schools, it would be devastating to Christianity. All of those badly-formed, out-of-date arguments would be taught in science class and held up to scientific scrutiny. The results would be catastrophic. They don't really want what they think they want.

Freedom of Expression at Salon.com

Salon has a column called "The Atheist and the Creationist" which takes the form of a letter to the editor in which a man is vexed at the thought that one of his friends might be willing to teach creationism to his children. He writes:

As my wife put it, we consider teaching young earth creationism (in any sense other than as a theology, if it must be taught at all) to be a form of child abuse. It seems bad enough that he has raised his two children with a belief system that he himself has acknowledged has serious holes in it, but it seems far worse that he is now thinking seriously about helping other children drink the Kool-Aid.

After some rumination, the response includes the following:

I believe freedom of expression is more important than the wide dissemination of correct views. I arrived at this conclusion by considering that in a democracy state power will inevitably be used to bolster, promote and enforce ideas and ideals that germinate in personal and family life. So I say in our private lives we ought to tolerate and embrace what we consider to be nutty, in the hope that this is the private behavior that will eventually filter upward into state power. For if what we value in our private lives is the dissemination of correct views, that is the value that is likely to take root in government. And that is the view that leads to tyranny, in my humble opinion.

This is an area that I struggle with constantly as well because I think that people should have the right to educate their children in the best way that they know. At the same time, I do not think that they should have the right to educate them using outdated or wrong educational material. That does the child a disservice and ill-prepares him or her for the world at large. I will have to find an answer to this soon.

My brother Dave is not a champion of states rights and argues that the education curriculum should be standardized. The reason it is not is that there are a whole bunch of people out there who would object to some of the things that the central government would put into it. I sympathize. I don't want my five-year-old taught about contraception. I also have a problem with my kids being taught that to accept the idea that homosexuality is "normal" when it is only practiced by 2-3% of the population. No other behavior that restricted in practice would be considered "normal." I also think, however, that evolution should be part of every state's curriculum. It is established science and the arguments against it are unpersuasive at best and facile at worst.

Debate at Roanoake.com

A series of post in the Roanoke Times is interesting to follow. The first one, "Evolution and Aliens," is written by Linda Whitlock, a Times columnist and adjunct English Professor. She has gone to see "Expelled!" She writes:

"Expelled" has been criticized for implying a link between evolutionary theory and Hitler's murderous policies. But the link clearly is there. Evolution provided the rationale for the eugenics movement and eugenics the justification for getting rid of the unfit, which, to the Nazis, included the Jews. For the greater good.

If evolution is true, it's true. Blinding ourselves to its possible consequences is foolhardy.

But what if it isn't true? What if something else -- some sort of intelligence, if you will -- is running the show? That's the tantalizing question some scientists have been asking. Some things just don't fit neatly into the evolutionary model. They seem, well, designed.

Actually, as I and other people have noted, the link is not there. It is inferred by many people not related to the events and people of the time. One assumes that evolution is the concept by which Hitler acted out his eugenics programs. Further, asking what if evolution is not true implies that one has done research to that effect. That is the problem. Evolution is so well backed up by evidence that it is difficult to suggest it is not.

Michael Scott, Roanoke resident, replies thus:

The problem with Intelligent Design is it has no testable theories. Proponents just don't have anything on which a scientist could hang a hat, and until they do, they will not be taken seriously by any credible scientific community. The reason they don't get any air time in science is because they don't do science.

Well put, Michael. Linda replied in "God, Science Not Exclusive":

In my early American lit classes, I sometimes ask students to explain how John Edwards and Cotton Mather, two noted Puritan theologians, could be both men of God and men of science. Mather, in fact, was a member of the British Royal Society. The students are so convinced that God and science are separate, however, most have a tough time coming up with a coherent explanation.

If science really were defined today simply as an orderly and rational investigation of the natural world, Edwards, Mather, ID theorists and evolutionists alike could all play together on the same field. A more accurate definition for today, though, is that science is an effort to explain all natural phenomena by natural causes only.

That definition pretty much rules Edwards, et al., out of bounds. But given the things we don't have answers for -- how the universe began, how life got started, where DNA originated, to name a few -- there's no way we can be sure all natural phenomena can be explained by natural causes.

Herein lies the crux of one of the misconceptions out there: evolutionary theory does not explain the origin of life or anything about the origin of the universe. It is simply not designed to do so. Many people forget that.

Expelled too Polarizing?

Jen Wulf of the South Bend Tribune has written an exceptional editorial on Expelled! The editorial deals with the scope of the movie and that it was intended to be polarizing. She is particularly critical of one aspect:

Stein, however, never interviews evolutionists who see their scientific views as either compatible with, or distinct from, their religious beliefs.

One such scientist is Kenneth Filchak, a practicing Roman Catholic and a professor of biology at the University of Notre Dame. He disagrees with the idea that the theory of evolution devalues human life, and he does not relate it to atheism.

“Darwin said probably the most profound thing that any scientist has ever said: ‘If you go far enough back in time, all things on our planet are related.’

“If you start really thinking about it, that sounds really biblical to me. It sounds like something God would do, to make everything related,” Filchak says.

Read the whole thing.