Well, At Least He's Honest...

Richard Dawkins is interviewed and admits that he cannot be sure that God doesn't exist.



He argues that on a scale of 1 that God exists to a 7 that God doesn't exist, he is a 6. It is short clip but informative.

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Oklahoma Joins the Fray

Oklahoma can now lay claim to having joined the group of states to have an “academic freedom” bill pushed into the house of representatives. UPI writes:

State Rep. Sally Kern, an Oklahoma City Republican and author of the bill, defends it as a guarantee of academic freedom, The Oklahoman reported. The House Common Education Committee, which voted 9-7 a year ago to keep the bill off the floor, released it by a 9-7 vote Tuesday.

But Victor Hutchinson, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Oklahoma and head of Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, said the bill uses language put together by the Discovery Institute. The institute, headquartered in Seattle, is an advocate for intelligent design theory.

Once again, a well-meaning republican puts forth a bill because they think it is the “right thing to do” without having the slightest understanding of the bill's consequences. I Hope that it is voted down.

Chris Stringer on Human Origins and Hobbits

There is a lengthy post in the Telegraph written by Chris Stringer, one of the architects of the modern human origins debate, on the enigma that is Homo floresiensis, the so-called “hobbits” (a name that every biological anthropologist detests, by the way). He writes:

So who were these Hobbits, and where did they come from? At first, it was assumed that they were castaways, descendants of Homo erectus who had somehow got to Flores, perhaps by boat. Due to the limited resources available on their new island home, the species then started to shrink (a process known as island dwarfing).

The latest studies of the Hobbit bones, however, have led to the radical idea that these tiny people were in fact descended from something even more primitive than Homo erectus – yet another species, whose ancestors emerged from Africa two million years ago or more, and then evolved in isolation in south-east Asia, finally disappearing only within the last 20 millennia.

Truth be told, the discovery at Liang Bua caught everyone with their pants down. We really have no idea how these hominins could have survived in this way for this long without interacting with other populations that came and went, both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. It is going to be a long time before we understand just what went on there.


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New Book on the Dover Trial

Research and Markets is hawking a new book by Gordy Slack on the Dover trial that pitted ID against some agitated parents and wound up being a complete takedown of ID as a legitimate theory to be taught in science class. From their website:

Journalist Gordy Slack offers a riveting, personal, and often amusing first-hand account that details six weeks of some of the most widely ranging, fascinating, and just plain surreal testimony in U.S. legal history—a battle between hard science and religious conservatives wishing to promote a new version of creationism in schools.

Should be a fascinating read. I will stick it behind the other thirty books that I need to read.

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Sorry about the light posting...

I am rewriting an anthropology class almost from scratch and it is taking a lot of time. Plus, I owe Darrel Falk at BioLogos a rewrite...


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Language Origin Not in Africa?

Science Daily is reporting a story that follows up on a story from last year in which it was posited that Africa was the birthplace of language. They write:

In the beginning was the word -- yes, but where exactly? Last year, Quentin Atkinson, a cultural anthropologist at Auckland University in New Zealand, proposed that the cradle of language could be localized in the southwest of Africa. The report, which appeared in Science, was seized upon by the media and caused something of a sensation. Now however, LMU linguist Michael Cysouw has published a commentary in Science which argues that this neat “Out-of-Africa” hypothesis for the origin of language is not adequately supported by the data presented. The search for the site of origin of language remains very much alive.

Cysouw argues that the methods that Atkinson used, borrowed from population genetics, are not directly applicable to linguistics research. He argues that language origins can only be traced back around 1o,ooo years.

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Clarification

It has been pointed out to me that the T-shirt design “Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543” might be reasonably interpreted as poking fun at belief in God. How I saw it was looking for scientific proof of God's existence or explaining everything supernaturally, as people did before the scientific method arrived on the scene. I certainly did not mean the first interpretation.

Denisovan DNA Sequenced

Science Insider is reporting that the entire genetic sequence of the Denisova Cave individual has been completed and posted on the web site at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Ann Gibbons writes:

A year ago, researchers published the first rough draft of the genome of an archaic girl who lived in Denisova Cave, Siberia, at least 30,000 years ago. In January, Max Planck paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo was at a meeting in Sweden when he realized that researchers in other labs were poring over year-old sequence data that was far less complete than what his colleagues had obtained in the lab in the past year using sensitive, new methods to sequence ancient DNA. "I felt bad knowing that we had this very much better version of the same genome and that it would be a few months before it became available," says Pääbo.

I am curious to see what sorts of ERVs are present and if any are derived from the Neandertal condition. A wealth of studies are just waiting to be done.

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The Evil of Science

A friend of mine went to a meeting at another part of the lab and saw someone wearing this shirt.



The link to order one of your own is http://smbc.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/science-shirt.

Very funny.

Indiana: They Did It Anyway...

WANE-TV in Indiana is reporting that, with a vote of 28-22, the Indiana Senate passed a law to teach creationism in the Indiana public schools. They write:

The bill permits local school boards to offer classes that include origin theories from religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Scientology.

Democratic Sen. Tim Skinner of Terre Haute, a former high school teacher, said he believed few teachers would be qualified to teach a class covering multiple religions and worried about the lack of specifics on what such a class would include.

"I think you are just asking schools --and I think you're asking teachers -- to do something that is going to open up a door that is probably going to result in a lawsuit which is going to be costly," Skinner said.

Ya think? Have none of these senators heard of Dover, Pennsylvania, or the countless court cases that came before it? The first lawsuit, and there will be one, will be very costly and stupid. the story also notes:

Republican Sen. Dennis Kruse of Auburn, the bill's sponsor, said the U.S. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on the teaching of creationism since the 1980s and that the court could rule differently today.

The problem is that in the Dover case, the prosecution was successful in linking the ID policies of the school board to the underlying creationism principles, right down to “cdesign proponentsists.” This one ought to be fun to watch.

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The Shadow of Don McLeroy Still Looms Large...

The Houston Chronicle has given Texas an assessment for science education and it was not good. Gary Scharrer writes:

Texas public school science courses "pay lip service" to critical content and largely ignore evolution in the middle grades, according to a national education foundation study that gives the state of Texas an overall "C" for science education.

The average grade for Texas science curriculum standards by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in a national report card Tuesday represents a step up from the "F" issued for Texas two years ago by the National Center for Science Education.

Don McLeroy, the former head of the the Texas school board before he was ridden out of town on rails, was true to form:

McLeroy said he was pleased the report described the high school evolution teaching as "exemplary."

"The report confirms what I have always insisted: that the creationists inserted real scientific rigor into the teaching of evolution," McLeroy said.

It was this “scientific rigor” that got them an “F” in the first place. Note that he has nothing to say about all of the other scientific disciplines that were addressed. He doesn't care about them. As Mike Warnke would say:“He could look through a keyhole with both eyes.” Here's to hoping their grade improves in the future.

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Indiana Joins the Fray

According to a report from the NCSE, Indiana's state senate has passed a bill that:

if enacted would allow local school districts to "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science," was passed by the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development on January 25, 2012. The vote was 8-2, with the bill's sponsor and committee chair Dennis Kruse (R-District 14), Carlin Yoder (R-District 12), Jim Banks (R-District 17), Jim Buck (R-District 17), Luke Kenley (R-District 20), Jean Leising (R-District 42), Scott Schneider (R-District 30), and Frank Mrvan Jr. (D-District 1) voting for and Earline S. Rogers (D-District 3) and Tim Skinner (D-District 38) voting against the bill.

All but one a Republican. Natch. More and more, this whole “academic freedom” legislation is becoming a plank of the Republican party. Mitt Romney and Ulysses S. Gingrich are out of step. This is surely a procedural, academic vote since it will likely not pass constitutional muster, given the ruling handed down in Dover vs. Kitzmiller. Those that passed the bill must know this. That is what makes it even more ridiculous—that they would take time to debate something that is dead in the water. As Todd Rundgren sings: “Too little to do and too much time.” The text of the bill is remarkably brief and does not even define creation science, which is also problematic. It reads:

The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.

Are there really only two people in that committee that have decent enough backgrounds in science to know a bad idea when they see it?

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How Well Could Archaeopteryx Fly?

Science Daily has a story on Archaeopteryx and its ability to fly. Quoth they:

Some secrets have been revealed by an international team of researchers led by Brown University. Through a novel analytic approach, the researchers have determined that a well-preserved feather on the raven-sized dinosaur's wing was black. The color and parts of cells that would have supplied pigment are evidence the wing feathers were rigid and durable, traits that would have helped Archaeopteryx to fly.

It is nice to have yet more information about this genus. This new information adds yet another dimension to the transitional nature of Archaeopteryx, which is regarded as having mostly theropod dinosaurian characteristics. It does not help the YEC-based arguments that Archaeopteryx was just a bird.


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Yes, the Neandertals Knew What They Were Doing...

Science Daily has a report from the University of Kent, in which researchers examined large numbers of Levallois stone tools to determine just how much “engineering” took place in the making of them. From the story:

Now, an experimental study – in which a modern-day flintknapper replicated hundreds of Levallois artifacts – supports the notion that Levallois flakes were indeed engineered by prehistoric hominins. By combining experimental archaeology with morphometrics (the study of form) and multivariate statistical analysis, the Kent researchers have proved for the first time that Levallois flakes removed from these types of prepared cores are significantly more standardised than the flakes produced incidentally during Levallois core shaping (called ‘debitage flakes’). Importantly, they also identified the specific properties of Levallois flakes that would have made them preferable to past mobile hunter-gathering peoples.

Dr Metin Eren, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University’s School of Anthropology and Conservation and the flintknapper who crafted the tools, said: ‘The more we learn about the stone tool-making of the Neanderthals and their contemporaries, the more elegant it becomes. The sophistication evident in their tool-making suggests cognitive abilities more similar to our own than not.’

This is not news to most palaeoanthropologists, who regard the Levallois core technology, which is found not just in Europe but in the Levant and Russia as well, as being a sophisticated method for mass-producing stone tools. I guess it is finally nice to get confirmation that the Neandertals were more complex than some people thought, even if Dr. Erin damns them with faint praise at the end.

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More Trouble in Kentucky

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has drafted a state budget that calls for 286 million dollars in cuts, some of which will come in the form of cuts to university and community colleges, grants to local school districts and library and archive services. While these are alarming to many in the Bluegrass state, what has more than a few people riled up is that the $43 million in tax incentives for the Ark Encounter are being left alone. Were these taxes collected, it would amount to 15% of the total cuts and would probably save some important programs from being cut at all. As Daniel Koecker, of Gather Politics writes:

The budget ideas combined with the tax cuts for the religiously themed park are highly controversial. With the state facing such budget issues, granting such a generous tax break is probably not the best idea, but the fact that it's going towards a biblically themed amusement park is quite interesting. Some say that the park will create jobs, but this was based on a report from the park's developers. While the budget cuts claim to avoid layoffs, and construction will no doubt need workers, it is perhaps a mark of botched priorities when cuts are made to higher education at the same time as a multi-million dollar budget cut is given to a theme park, religious or not; Beshear has also supported the project for years.

The wisdom of preserving these tax incentives becomes even more questionable when you factor in the recent news that the park is having trouble meeting the financial goals necessary to go ahead with the project. If enough negative support can be mustered in protest of the new budget and its deference to the Ark-n-Park, it might cause the whole project to capsize.

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Chris Stringer on Modern Human Origins

Chris Stringer was one of the original progenitors of the Out of Africa model of modern human origins, which posited that anatomically modern Homo sapiens arose in sub-Saharan Africa as a speciation event¹ and then replaced the archaic humans that they came into contact in other areas of the Old World. Needless to say, this perspective has been rocked by a number of astonishing studies that have come out in the last few years, including but not limited to these reports:

• Researchers say Neanderthals interbred with modern humans
• Shared Genes With Neanderthal Relatives: Modern East Asians Share Genetic Material With Prehistoric Denisovans
• Non-Africans Are Part Neanderthal, Genetic Research Shows
• A New Human Relative from the Siberian Mountains
• Skull suggests Stone Age humans interbred with more primitive relatives
• Ancient Humans Were Mixing It Up: Anatomically Modern Humans Interbred With More Archaic Hominin Forms While in Africa
  

These have cast considerable doubt on the integrity of anatomically modern humans as a separate species but suggest, instead that despite the timing of some of these trysts, Homo sapiens was a much more polytypic species then met the eye.

Now the grand don of the replacement model is undergoing a re-think. The Edge provides us with a wonderful trek through the history of the origins of modern humans debate and the current evidence for it. He hasn't given up the ship yet, though. He notes:

In my view the Neanderthals were closely related and probably potentially able to interbreed with modern humans, but until recently I considered that while there could have been interbreeding forty or fifty thousand years ago, it was on such a small scale that all trace of it vanished in the intervening years. But it now seems from Neanderthal genome studies that that was not so. We do have a bit of Neanderthal in us, you and I—it's a small amount, but certainly not negligible..

Does that mean Neanderthals are a different species or does it mean we should include them in Homo sapiens? Well, they are still only a small part of our makeup now, reflecting something like a 2.5% input of their DNA. Physically, however, they went extinct about 30,000 years ago. They had distinct behavior and they evolved under different conditions from us, so I still think it's useful to keep them as a separate species, even if we remember that that doesn't necessarily preclude interbreeding.

The percentage of Neandertal genes ranges from a low of 2% to a high of 9%, depending on who you read. The problem here is that, while we currently only have the small percentages, what can be said of the early modern Europeans, or of the people in Europe even as late as the Neolithic? It is almost certain that they would have had much higher percentages.

Further, do these genes explain the traits that Dave Frayer has been seeing for years in the earliest modern humans, such as the extended hemi-buns of the central European sample from Předmosti or archaic characteristics of the Mladeč crania?

The talk is quite long but worth every minute to get the full understanding of how vexing the search for the origins of modern humans has been. As Glenn Reynolds would say: Read the Whole Thing.

¹Stringer, C. B., & Andrews, P. (1988). Genetic and Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Modern Humans. Science, 239(4845), 1263-1268.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1700885

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Missouri House Bill No. 1227: The Invisible Hand of The Discovery Institute

This is quite something to behold. This bill, which is authored by Rick Brattin, a Republican representative mandates the equal teaching of intelligent design in classrooms in Missouri. Let's see what it says.

First, it starts out with some definitions. Among them are “Biological Evolution” and “Biological Intelligent Design.” The definition of biological evolution moves along just fine until the end when we find this:

Theory philosophically demands only naturalistic causes and denies the operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure in the initial or subsequent development of life;

No, it doesn't. The theory has absolutely nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of God. It simply provides a mechanism for understanding evolution that is observable in the natural world. All Charles Darwin did was remove the necessity of explaining evolution using supernatural means. That is a very different thing. Darwin's own struggles with belief in God had little to do with his understanding of the natural world. Onward. Here is part of the definition of Biological Intelligent Design:

"Biological intelligent design", a hypothesis that the complex form and function observed in biological structures are the result of intelligence and, by inference, that the origin of biological life and the diversity of all original species on earth are the result of intelligence. Since the inception of each original species, genetic material has been lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation. Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules or making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms.

I can't think of a single biologist who would agree with this statement. It is Discovery Institute 101 and reflects the whole “No Free Lunch” paradigm of William Dembski that has been refuted time and time again. Evolution produces enormous amounts of variation that is acted on by selection to produce a wide range of species. This process ought to be patently obvious even from our own genetic mechanisms such as crossing over of homologous chromosomes and independent assortment. A bit down, we encounter this:

The origin of life on earth is inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism;

(b) All original species on earth are inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no significant mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic development of earth's species from microscopic organisms;

(c) Complex forms in proteins, enzymes, DNA, and other biological structures demonstrated by their constituent molecules in regard to size, shape, quantity, orientation, sequence, chirality, and integration imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex form;

(d) Complex functions demonstrated by growth, reproduction, repair, food metabolization, waste disposal, stimuli response, and autonomous mobility in microscopic organisms imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex function;

(e) Within the history of human experience, all exhibits of recurring discrete symbols from a set of symbols arranged in a specific sequence which store information and can be read by human intelligence, is itself the result of intelligence. DNA contains stored information for the assembling of proteins and enzymes which can be read by humans and is the result of intelligence. The recurring discrete symbols sequenced within DNA which store information are the molecules adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine;

(f) Intelligence-directed design and construction of all original species at inception without an accompanying genetic burden is inferred rather than random mutational genetic change as a constructive mechanism. Random mutational genetic change results in an increasing genetic burden and species degradation rather than species ascent;

(g) Intelligence-directed action is necessary to exceed the limits of natural species change, which is a combination of autogenous species change and environmental effected species change. Multi-generation breeding experiments illustrate the limits of natural species change and its inadequacy for developing required genetic information found in dissimilar species;

In all of these statements, evolution is said to only bring about decay and disorder because everything is random and an increase in randomness only leads to chaos. All of these assertions about evolution reflect William Dembski's stubborn lack of understanding of how selection works. If evolution were to proceed in a completely random fashion like he thinks it does, then this statement would carry some weight but it does not behave that way.

This could all be picked apart but overall, it is clear that it is written by someone with no understanding of science. What this all amounts to is argument from negative evidence. It is inferred that there is no evidence that any of this occurred naturally, therefore it must have been done by a creator. In other words, your theory is wrong, therefore mine must be right.

The other problem that this section exhibits is that there is a subtle redefinition of science. In three instances in the above paragraph, the word “inferred” is used, as if that were enough to promote a scientific model. There is no statement that any of the above inferences can be scientifically supported. That is not what is important here. What is important is showing that evolution is a godless process and must be disposed of.

The bill continues:

(g) Intelligence-directed action is necessary to exceed the limits of natural species change, which is a combination of autogenous species change and environmental effected species change. Multi-generation breeding experiments illustrate the limits of natural species change and its inadequacy for developing required genetic information found in dissimilar species;

(h) The irreducible complexity of certain biological systems implies a completed design and construction at inception rather than step-by-step development, as indicated by the structures observed for sight, hearing, smell, balance, blood coagulation, digestion, and hormone control;

(i) The lack of significant transitional forms between diverse species existing today and in the fossil record implies all original species were completed at inception rather than by a step-by-step development from other species. A lack of transitional forms is illustrated by the appearance of large complex life forms in the Cambrian fossil record without any significant previous fossils;

The irreducible complexity argument is, of course, Behe's, but here the bill extends it to systems that have been shown to have intermediate stages, such as coagulation, sight, and hearing. The only thing missing from this laundry list is the chloroquine resistance argument.

Then the old stand-by comes out—that there are no transitional fossils. As I have mentioned before, this has been refuted so many times that it is now reasonable to call it a lie by those promoting it. There are so many examples of transitional fossils that it is difficult to keep track of them. Here is a nifty video on transitional fossils which should put any doubt to rest. Alternatively, you could look up Don Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters.

There is a section toward the end in which the concepts of scientific “laws” are delineated. Here is what Mr. Brattin thinks a theory is:

If scientific theory is taught, the theory shall be identified as theory when taught orally or in writing. Empirical data and conjecture may be presented to support taught theory where considered instructive. As used in this subsection, the term "theory" shall mean theory or hypothesis;

This definition is laughable in the extreme. The fact that he doesn't seem to know basic science is one thing. That he did not even go to the dictionary to find out what he is writing about is inexcusable. Here is the dictionary definition of hypothesis:

A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Here is the dictionary definition of theory:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.

This is a far cry from what Mr. Brattin thinks a theory is and his definition would change the understanding of how students understand the scientific method and make it more in line with common public misconception.

Toward the end, he puts in the best land mine, though:

A temporary committee shall be established and serve without compensation to develop supplemental textbook material for interim use by public schools for the teaching of biological intelligent design within two years after this section becomes law. The committee shall consist of nine individuals who are knowledgeable of science and intelligent design and reside in Missouri. Each member of the state board of education and the commissioner of education shall appoint one person to the committee. The supplemental material shall be based on subdivision (3) of subsection 2 of this section and its use by schools shall be optional. Interim supplemental material shall be accessible for copying on the department of elementary and secondary education internet website without cost or restriction.

Would this committee be composed of people as scientifically literate as those in the Texas School Board of Education, headed by Don McLeroy, who famously stated, “Someone has to stand up to experts!” before he was summarily shown the door? Would the supplemental material be young-earth creationism-based like that proposed for use in the Livingston Parrish public schools, down in Louisiana? Funny, every place where you have an “academic freedom” bill, the YEC supporters seem to pop up.

This is a bad bill from the get-go, written by a man who has little understanding or regard for the scientific process. He simply doesn't like evolution. That he has no idea what it is, is irrelevant.

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More Information on the Extinction of Neandertals

Science Daily has a report on some work that has been done at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado on the process of Neandertal extinction, which is still a tad more than a minor mystery. The author writes:

The paper “Modeling Human Ecodynamics and Biocultural Interactions in the Late Pleistocene of Western Eurasia” is co-authored by Julien Riel-Salvatore, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver; John Martin “Marty” Anderies, an associate professor of computational social science at ASU in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainability; and Gabriel Popescu, an anthropology doctoral student in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU.

“It’s been long believed that Neanderthals were outcompeted by fitter modern humans and they could not adapt,” said Riel-Salvatore. “We are changing the main narrative. Neanderthals were just as adaptable and in many ways, simply victims of their own success.”

The interdisciplinary team of researchers used archeological data to track behavioral changes in Western Eurasia over a period of 100,000 years and showed that human mobility increased over time, probably in response to environmental change. According to Barton, the last Ice Age saw hunter-gathers, including both Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans, range more widely across Eurasia searching for food during a major shift in the Earth’s climate.

In this scenario, modern humans did not out-compete their brethren or wipe them out by means of war, but simply that they intermixed with them and, as the climate changed and the selection pressures of maintaining the bulky Neandertal form changed, two things happened: negative selection was placed on the Neandertal genome and the influx of the modern human genome swamped that of the Neandertals. To be sure, there were likely refugia and it is possible that Zafarraya (which has a full suite of Neandertal characteristics at 26 Ky BP) represents this, but it is an explanation which has a good deal going for it.

As Dave Frayer put it, you can find individual Neandertal traits in early modern humans but no one person has the whole suite of them.

The paper can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10745-011-9433-8

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Early Evolutionary Step Replicated

This from Science Daily: a story where an early evolutionary step in which single-celled organisms began to band together to form mats and communities is replicated. The author writes:

It all started about two years ago with a casual comment over coffee that bridging the famous multi-cellularity gap would be "just about the coolest thing we could do," recall postdoctoral researcher Will Ratcliff and associate professor Michael Travisano, both from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.

So they decided to give it a try. Then came the big surprise. It wasn't actually that difficult. Using yeast cells, culture media and a centrifuge, it only took them one experiment conducted over about 60 days, says Travisano, who is senior author on the PNAS paper.

"I don't think anyone had ever tried it before," says lead author Ratcliff. "There aren't many scientists doing experimental evolution, and they're trying to answer questions about evolution, not recreate it."

Although this doesn't answer all of the questions about how early life evolved, it answers some important ones.

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Explanation on Yesterday's Post about AiG

The only reason that I gave Answers in Genesis a grade of “D” and not “F” is that there is some non-origins related scriptural guidance on the site. One has to be careful, though because even that will sometimes have land mines in it.