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.