I couldn't make this up if I tried.
The logo above is from a Russian-language online gambling site called Casino FART. I don't read Russian so I have no idea of what sort of games they play in this casino. With a name like Casino FART, though, one can probably place bets on some unusual things.
They're baaaaaaaack.
You might remember the crack (smoking) India Daily Technology Team from February, when they announced in a largely plagiarized article that scientists had found that extraterrestrials built a distant galaxy. Now they've jumped on the latest space-related news, the recent potential discovery of water ice just below the surface of Mars. If it turns out that they have found water on Mars, that would be a very interesting discovery and would indeed increase the possibility that microbial life has existed on that planet at one time.
Then again, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting as if the following were true:
Who transported 7 million tons of earth soil to Mars?I have to ask the same question of the India Daily Technology Team that I recently asked of Texas' Don McElroy:
NASA is slowly uncovering signs that soil on Mars may contain microbial life. It is just a matter of time that we get to know first extraterrestrial life forms in Mars that can survive harshest of the environments.
Scientists also estimate that close to 7 million tons of earth soil is sitting on Mars. The biggest question is who transported it? The way earth's soil is distributed in Mars makes an evolutionary biologist nick up again and again.
Who transported such massive amount of earth soil to mars?..
The answer lies in lost ancient civilizations in the earth that were many times more sophisticated than that of ours. It had an extraterrestrial origin which brought Type III level sophistication in technologies.Millions of years back the extraterrestrial civilization that reigned the earth created a super highway between earth and Mars through the moon. As earth deteriorated in living conditions, shifting of colonies took place. Eventually when conditions in Mars also deteriorated, they left to other solar systems. They left microbial life forms (their genetically manipulated so call 'life') of seed that will blossom into intelligent life one day if and when earth becomes more livable. We are the result of those genetic seeds. What we are finding in Mars is the same genetic seeds that created 'life' including us. If and when Mars become livable again, the microbial genetic seeds will eventually allow evolution of intelligent life forms.
That's all folks. Yet another Millennialist prophet has seen the end of the world, and it's coming in just 6 days.
Deputies subdue naked man who was claiming to be Jesus and George BushHow did the cops know he wasn't really Jesus? And didn't Jesus receive four wounds the last time he got arrested? Hmmm.
...A motorist called deputies about 4 a.m. to alert them that the man was standing nude in the middle of Alabama 79 at Bradford Road. As the motorist approached the man, he stumbled toward the car and was struck by the car's mirror, sheriff's authorities said. The man then ran away.
The motorist summoned deputies. Armed with their X26 Tasers, they ordered Odell to the ground, but he refused. He was struck in the chest by the Taser but didn't go down. He was struck a second time and fell to the ground, but wouldn't roll over to his stomach. When he was struck a third time, the man yanked the Taser wires out of chest. After being shot a fourth time, Odell complied with deputies and was secured with handcuffs and leg irons.
Odell stated that he was Jesus Christ and George Bush and that he could break the handcuffs. Authorities said he appeared to be intoxicated.
Center Point Fire and Rescue came to the scene to remove the remaining Taser wires from his chest and back...
I wrote a couple of days ago about a lawyer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who made some wildly illogical incorrect claims about evolutionary theory. This morning there's another example. This time, the person in question isn't quite a lawyer yet. He's a third year law student at the University of Alabama. Previously, he received a degree in biology from Samford University in Birmingham, AL. The motto of this school, according to its website, is "For God, for learning, forever." The student and letter-writer in question is named Christopher Brinson and his letter to the editor appears in the Montgomery Advertiser. Having read the epistle, I'm left with two questions.
First, what is it about Southern lawyers and misunderstandings/mischaracterization of evolutionary theory and knowledge of evolutionary biology in general? They seem to be a particularly vocal group in their opposition to it, yet they don't appear very knowledgeable about these things.
Second, what the heck is being taught as biology at Samford University? The claims that Brinson makes, particularly that "As one progresses in college-level and postgraduate-level study of such evolution, talk of the macroevolution advocated in today's junior high and high school classrooms is rarely mentioned," lead me to believe that he managed to get a degree in biology from this university without learning about evolutionary theory at all. The courses I took relevant to evolutionary biology as an undergraduate certainly contained a good deal of information about speciation, and as a graduate student I'm completely immersed in what Creationist-types routinely refer to as "macroevolution." Speciation of both fungi and insects, in fact, forms the basis for my dissertation work. I literally couldn't research what I'm working on if there weren't both discussion of and evidence for new species — in fact, new genera, subfamilies and families — arising from old ones. Brinson's claims simply don't make sense in the light of current knowledge. How can he be making them at all if a biology degree from Samford University is worth the paper upon which their diplomas are printed?
ALABAMA VOICES: Teach relevant scienceI'm not one of the media's talking heads; I'm a graduate student doing research in evolutionary biology. Nonetheless, I maintain that this isn't a debate worth having because I work with principles of evolutionary theory every day. The debate is a cultural one, a political one, and certainly not a scientific one. It is not a fitting debate in science classrooms, and Expelled is a propaganda piece that never advances any alternative theories; it only raises socio-political objections. That Brinson and other non-biologists (someone seeking a law degree is not a biologist, after all) who already hold positions that Brinson expresses in his letter get riled up by a mockumentary that preaches to the faithful has no bearing whatsoever on the scientific validity of evolutionary theory.
By Christopher Brinson
The recent release of the Ben Stein-narrated movie "Expelled" returns many of us to a long-running debate over the place of the theory of Darwinian evolution in our classrooms. Despite what many of the media's "talking heads" say, this is a debate well worth our time to have.
...each species will evolve -- albeit on a microevolutionary scale -- through a "survival of the fittest" type process, which Darwin noticed in his study of the numerous species found on the Galapagos Islands.Already we see the product of inadequate education in biology at work here. Brinson is taking a solely ecological view of evolution and thus relying on an argument not about evolutionary theory as a whole but solely upon natural selection. In truth, all natural selection tells us about genetic diseases is that organisms that have them are less likely to pass on their genetic material to a new generation. It doesn't really tell us anything at all about how these defects arise in the first place. Brinson has it backwards; knowing about natural selection doesn't teach us about genetics; it is genetics that provides an understanding of how natural selection works. One could know nothing at all about the mechanisms of genetics and still have a theory of natural selection, which in fact was the case with Darwin himself and with husbandrymen for thousands of years before him. Genetics clarifies the molecular basis upon which natural selection works. Natural selection itself doesn't tell us a thing about how to prevent cancer and it certainly can't tell us anything about how to prevent genetic disorders aside from telling us that organisms that have them aren't as likely to reproduce as those that don't under most circumstances, so it's better not to try mating them and thereby producing weakened offspring under artificial conditions.
Understanding of this concept is valuable to students of genetics in particular, because it can help us understand how to prevent genetic diseases, including various birth defects and cancer.
As one progresses in college-level and postgraduate-level study of such evolution, talk of the macroevolution advocated in today's junior high and high school classrooms is rarely mentioned. Why? Because it is honestly not particularly useful for meaningful solutions to our current biological problems that we are researching...This is simply untrue. It may be true at Samford University, of course, and I feel safe in saying that "macroevolution" isn't taught in the law classes that Brinson is taking, but in the world of valid biology education, Brinson's statement here is simply wrong, as I've noted above.
The rather cartoonish and crude diagram to the right is a simple, unrooted, parsimony-based tree I've constructed based upon the 18S rDNA of beetles in the Tenebrionidae that I collected from GenBank using BLAST. I then aligned them using ClustalW and MacClade and reconstructed the tree using PHYLIP. There's an error in attribution of one of the sequences that has a small impact on the structure of the tree — this is just a quick-and-dirty reconstruction that I used to look at the monophyly of subfamilies — but it demonstrates the evolutionary history and relatedness of not only different species of Tenebrionidae, but of genera, tribes and subfamilies thereof. Many of the insects in this tree are very different from one another, both in terms of morphology and behavior, but one can see in a broad sense how these clades of organisms arose. Brinson is saying that "macroevolution" isn't discussed at the postgraduate level and isn't a useful concept for research. I'm a bit unclear on the term, so I'll leave it as a question; is what I'm showing here an example of "macroevolution" based on evidence other than fossils? Is it not useful in understanding how diversity arose in a specific instance and so applicable to a further understanding of how the evolution of two entirely different groups of organisms might have affected one another?However, in the classrooms of our seventh and 10th grades, the theory of evolution is not taught in the form in which it is indisputably occurs. Instead, it is taught as some sort of mechanism for explaining how all life forms on this great Earth were created and how we as human beings came into existence.The first sentence of that first paragraph doesn't parse very well, but Brinson seems to be saying that evolution is a mechanism. In fact, evolution is a number of different mechanisms that all work differently but have cumulative effects, one such effect being the diversification of organisms. It is taught as the means by which life forms, including humans, that we see today came into existence, and that's because every shred of evidence ever found supports it. As I've already shown, Brinson is rather ignorant if he thinks that "all we have is the fossil record." To date, I haven't touched a fossil and don't expect that they will be a major part of the data that I gather for my own work. That's not a problem at all, because we have plenty of other evidence and I'm in the process right now of looking at that evidence and testing it empirically. Believe me, if I find anything that appears to negate some part of evolutionary theory, you'll be hearing about it. So far, no such thing has occurred. It's possible that it will, but it's not at all likely. Far more likely, I'll be applying evolutionary principles and not contradicting them. I'm certainly open to the possibility of discovering something entirely new, though, and thereby revolutionizing biology. Wish me luck, eh?
This itself is not useful and not sound science. One of the most basic laws of biology is that life cannot arise from non-life. Further, there is very little hard evidence that large-scale evolution of species ever occurred.
All we have is the fossil record, which does indeed offer evidence that many of our species are closely related. But this does not prove that each evolved into the other...
I could delve further into the weaknesses of macroevolution, but it would require much more space than this article allows. The point is that macroevolution is useful for little more than speculation...If by "speculation" Brinson means the ability to reconstruct the history of life on earth and gain a better understanding of how organisms might influence one another's history, thereby generating a new and finer comprehension of everything from natural resource management to parasitology, then he has a point. Somehow I don't think that's what he means. Brinson, I fear, doesn't have any grasp of how basic research can be translated into application and probably isn't even aware of the tremendous spectrum of research in the biological sciences.
It will not help the cancer researcher find a cure. It will not help us eliminate some of our worst human defects. It only causes controversy between those who hold certain strong religious beliefs and believe in moral absolutes and those who believe in moral relevancy.Strange, but Brinson seems to me to be advocating precisely for that controversy. As far as not helping cancer researchers find a cure, it actually can... by helping target for investigation organisms that are likely to produce useful compounds, for example. While my own research has nothing whatsoever to do with finding a cure for cancer, it could ultimately be applied to preserving endangered species that might yield useful therapeutics (I don't know that, of course, but it's possible). There is more to science, of course, than curing diseases. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, I would assert, is a valuable undertaking. Anything that yields a better understanding of the world in which we live can ultimately benefit we humans — and perhaps other organisms with which we share the planet. Their lives, too, are worthwhile, if in different ways from how we think about the value of human life. I don't know about Brinson, but I enjoy cohabiting this globe with other living things and would be quite unhappy if the surface of the earth were covered end-to-end with nothing but people.
If America is to regain its footing as a nation leading the world in science education, our educational system should focus on the most pertinent and cutting-edge science, as well as proven and well-tested laws and theories of biology, chemistry and physics...News flash for Christopher Brinson; many of them already do. Samford, apparently, didn't.
This starts with making science relevant. Second, debate over controversial scientific theories should be embraced, not thwarted. And finally, our education should ensure that students are able to use and understand the foundations of science, not side-circus issues that only arouse deep passions. Currently that is not the case...So anything that doesn't cure a disease is a "side-circus?" That's what all of science should be? Most scientists don't research cures for disease, you know. We'll almost certainly never cure AIDS with an efficient semiconductor and high-energy physics is unlikely to yield new treatments for pancreatic cancer. And yes, our educational system should work to insure that students understand the basics of science; Brinson himself provides a good example of the failings in that undertaking, I'm sorry to say. He seems entirely unaware of just how hypotheses are tested, and even how the various principles that are comprised by a theory are tested — something that real scientists must do every day.
I am not saying that evolution should not be taught in public schools. I am saying that the focus should be on microevolution, which allows us to understand much of modern medicine. And on the issue of macroevolution, debate should be encouraged, and it should be robust.What is this obsession with medicine? Didn't he learn about any other fields of research at Samford, or is the biology program there geared entirely to churning out doctors — and discouraging scientists? I'd love it if someone in an official capacity at that university could explain why one of their graduates seems to have such a narrow view of the full scope of life sciences research. Moreover, how did this person graduate without understanding that "macroevolution" (e.g., speciation) is nothing more than the accumulation of smaller changes at the population level ("microevolution")? How could a biology department so thoroughly fail one of their students that someone who has this in their biographical line at the end of their letter to the editor:
Christopher Brinson... graduated cum laude from Samford University with a degree in biology.isn't aware of such a basic part of evolutionary theory — one that I heard over and over again while a biology undergraduate at Florida State which, let's face it, isn't exactly an Ivy League school itself?
...Evolution, a foundational concept in biology, has been established through empirical evidence, and the consensus of the scientific community is that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of biological diversity. Because an understanding of evolution is critical to the advancement of human health, the preservation of our environment, and an understanding of biological processes, our department strongly supports the teaching of evolution as an essential component of a quality education in the sciences...If this is the case, how do you wind up with a Christopher Brinson holding a degree in biology, and graduating cum laude, no less?
This story goes in the bin marked "Woa!"
A Harvard research team led by Jack Szostack has created protocells in the laboratory made from non-living components. These very primitive, cell-like structures have an outer membrane composed of nothing more than fatty acids. The membrane can allow nucleotides to enter the cell from outside where they can be assembled into DNA without the need for the cell to synthesize any enzymes at all. It's a chemical process that probably mimics an early step in the rise of life on earth.
While we don't know for sure if this is how it all began, this discovery is at the very least a good possibility of how the first living organisms came into being based on relatively simple physical laws.
A New Way to Think About Earth's First CellsThe image below links to an animation that demonstrates how micelles (the fatty acid membranes mentioned above) are formed and change at different pHs:A team of researchers at Harvard University have modeled in the laboratory a primitive cell, or protocell, that is capable of building, copying and containing DNA...
The protocell's fatty acid membrane allows chemical compounds, including the building blocks of DNA, to enter into the cell without the assistance of the protein channels and pumps required by today's highly developed cell membranes. Also unlike modern cells, the protocell does not use enzymes for copying its DNA.
Supported with funding from the National Science Foundation and led by Jack W. Szostak of the Harvard Medical School, the research team published its findings in the June 4, 2008, edition of the journal Nature's advance online publication...
When fatty acids are in an aqueous environment, they spontaneously arrange so that their hydrophilic, or water-loving, "heads" interact with the surrounding water molecules and their hydrophobic, or water-fearing, "tails" are shielded from the water, resulting in the formation of tiny spheres of fatty acids called micelles.
Depending upon chemical concentrations and the pH of their environment, micelles can convert into layered membrane sheets or enclosed vesicles...
When the team started its work, the researchers were not sure that the building blocks required for copying the protocell's genetic material would be able to enter the cell.
"By showing that this can happen, and indeed happen quite efficiently, we have come a little closer to our goal of making a functional protocell that, in the right environment, is able to grow and divide on its own," said Szostak...
Amazingly cool stuff, this. The mystery of how life began becomes less and less a mystery as time and science progress. Given a few fatty acids and some chemicals, including liquid water, it seems more likely than not that life or something very much like it is almost bound to spring up. Once there are micelles, given enough time things come into being that look a lot like your cells!
I stumbled across something today that just blew me away with its craziness. Granted, I've never been able to feel any sympathy for the Millennialist mindset, the strongly-held belief that the world is about to be purged of most of humanity at any moment for the benefit of true-believers. I don't live in a world haunted by giants from alternate realities and demons and angels. I'm firmly of the opinion that man's achievements and man's problems are man's, not supernatural entities hovering invisibly over our shoulders and waiting for some final confrontation.
Still, there are people who seem to spend a lot of their time hoping for massive destruction and pain and death. How does one live with such a morose view of the world?
The End is In SightMmmmm, I love the smell of blood libel of the whole human race in the morning. Smells like... ewwww. It's a silly thing when fanatics get hold of scientific terminology.
By Ron Graham
In Matthew 24 Jesus gives a quick sketch of what the end times would look like, but He doesn't go into intricate detail. Everyone knows what wars are and rumors of wars. This isn't really a sign since earth has had wars and rumors of wars since time began. Later in this chapter He refers to the days of Noe (Noah). Again He just gives a sketch because everyone knew what He meant when referring to the days of Noe (Noah).Just before the Flood there was the almost complete corruption of the human genome by the fallen angels...
n Genesis chapter 6 we're given a very scary scenario. Somehow fallen angels (sons of God) co-habited with human women to create a complete hybrid race of super beings. They were known as the Nephilim and only Noah and his family were spared from this corruption from the seed of Satan...A complete hybrid race of super beings; all of humanity, in this mythology, were super beings. Clark Kent is the anti-Christ, people!
Jesus being fully God is telling us that the end of the world will be in sight when these things (Matthew 24) begin to come to pass. So just what are we expected to see come to pass in these last days? We see man inventing new ways to create new life such as cloning. We see genetics being manipulated by scientists who have their own agendas. It was Satan that introduced his seed into the human genome in the days of Noah and it is Satan that is manipulating men's minds and actions in hopes of corrupting this current civilization. Just like in the times of Noah, just before the flood waters came...Ah, the evil scientist hypothesis; we're out there "manipulating genetics" willy-nilly to suit "our own agenda" because Satan is manipulating our minds. But wait... if Satan is manipulating our minds, how can we have "our own agenda?" And if doing so will result in the purging of the world, then why would Satan be doing it, anyhow? You'd think the Prince of Darkness would be able to read Ron Graham's ravings and even the Book of Matthew and all of that. I know, I know, it doesn't have to make sense. Mythology has the luxury of being incoherent. Religious fantasy doesn't have to be rational; reason is the enemy of faith.
Civilization has now advanced to a place in time that just a few years ago would have been considered science fiction. Yet here we are living out our greatest fears. The demonic activity in this world is pervasive and easily noticeable by those with a discerning eye. Advancing civilization through gene manipulation to obtain a completely new species of human is quite frankly an abomination to God, and just as He did before the flood, God will put a stop to Satan's plans.Apparently, manipulating the genomes of crops in order to prevent diseases that wipe them out is "demonic." Investigating ways to eliminate heritable diseases is demonic, and it's just a ruse to cover the real agenda of creating super beings called Nephilim which, as we'll learn later, are 13 feet tall. Yeah, that's what we need; 13 foot tall super beings.
The reasoning behind these incredible feats of genetic manipulation is to provide us with ways to increase our life span (which it hasn't), to eliminate disease (which it hasn't), to give the humans on this planet a complete makeover so to speak (have you seen the human ear growing out of the mouse's back?)
Don't be fooled into believing Satan's demonic emissaries. Satan is here to supplant God's authority on earth and ring in his own creation, a creation of Nephilim...
As we watch the world changing before our very eyes, Jesus' words come shinning through time and time again. The end of this secular world is quickly approaching...Repent! The end is nigh! The internet has given a safe, dry home to those who would formerly have been forced to don sandwich boards in the streets in order to frighten the children. News flash for this particular crazy (although I know he won't read it and wouldn't accept it if he did): the world has been changing since the dawn of time, and human society has been changing since such a thing first came into the world. Change of any sprt scares the hell into these people, though, and it always will. The answer is always in the dim Bronze Age past; anything new is the work of Satan. What must that be like?
Believers should be watching with anticipation for the next sign. The Nephilim re-immerging could easily be that sign. It should be impossible to miss them. These evil hybrids were huge, standing over thirteen feet tall with immense strength. Those who believe the Bible's explanation of the Nephilim have no problem understanding the building of those great monumental structures we see around the globe that have scientists baffled as to their origin. Were extraterrestrials responsible for the pyramids at Giza, or Stonehenge, or any of the other unexplainable phenomenons all over this planet? Not extraterrestrials but intre-dimensional...You heard it here, folks. Stonehenge was built by 13 foot tall superhuman hybrids from another dimension. Humans couldn't possibly have built the pyramids because... well... for some reason. It's much more believable that giant monsters from an alternate reality did it — if you're out of your mind. Mind you, even while waiting for the end of the world, people who believe in this nonsense are the same ones who want to set educational curricula. I bet Don McElroy agrees with a lot of this stuff.
People, the end is in sight. What that means is all the signs Jesus said were going to happen at the end just before His return have become quite evident right now.This nutcase is not only gleefully anticipating the deaths of most of the human race, he's urging fellow believers to work hard to make it happen. According to this homicidal fantasy, all that needs to happen is for a certain number of people to convert to this particularly malevolent religion and then fire will rain from the skies and billions will be wiped out... but they're not really human, anyhow. Most of humanity, according to this author, are the result of "ungodly unions" and not people at all but superhuman 13-foot tall hybrids from another dimension who want to grow mice on their ears and build pyramids. It all makes sense now.
Nothing more needs to happen before the Rapture of His Church. There's a number that needs to be reached, a final number to complete the Church. So the next person you witness to who turns their life over to Jesus may be that final number. Get busy!
I hope that I will be forgiven for the rather cliched title of this entry, but I just couldn't resist.
I don't do celebrity gossip as a rule, but this is just a great story. George Takei, best known as Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek series, is marrying his partner of 21 years, enabled by the California Supreme Court's recent ruling on that state's former same-sex marriage ban.
George Takei and partner plan to wed in SeptemberThese two have been together for a generation. Is that love? Commitment? Looks like it to me. Certainly no mere five year mission!George Takei, best known for playing Sulu on "Star Trek," will never forget the first time he saw Brad Altman, the man he plans to marry, more than two decades ago.
They were working out in a running club and he couldn't take his eyes off Altman, who had a "lean, tightly muscled" body, the 71-year-old actor told AP Radio in an interview.
Takei said he asked Altman to help him train for a marathon, they fell in love, and now they've been living together for 21 years.
Altman said he proposed by getting down on one knee in their kitchen while Takei was eating a sandwich after seeing on TV that the California Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage. It surprised Takei, who thought he would be the one who popped the question.
They bought each other turquoise and silver wedding rings.
Takei and Altman plan to marry Sept. 14 in the Democracy Forum at the Japanese National Museum in Los Angeles.
Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in "Star Trek," will be the best man and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, will be the matron of honor. Castmate Leonard Nimoy will be among the 200 guests, but probably not William Shatner...
Hoo boy. I thought Don McElroy's gibberings, of which I wrote in the previous entry, were gibberific, but I just ran across a letter to the editor in Louisiana's The Advocate online written by an attorney from Baton Rouge, Bert K. Robinson. All I can say is that if this letter is representative of how Robinson argues in court, look elsewhere for legal representation! The flaws in logic and willful mischaracterizations of factual material bespeak either dishonesty or some sort of intellectual defect. I can't tell which, but I can certainly respond to some of this junk.
Letter: Assumptions and evolution issueBy "evangelist" here, Robinson is referring to a biology teacher. He's one of those benighted souls who equated biology to religion. The reason that biology is taught in science classrooms and mystical incantations about gods and demons isn't is because science is based on empirical observation, not spiritualism. The mission is education, and it's that mission to which Robinson is objecting. He's upset that his preferred dogma finds no place in science, as will become abundantly clear as we proceed.
...One evangelist proudly wrote that after young people hear his preaching for a few months, they convert. His pulpit: the schoolroom; his mission: to imbue impressionable youngsters with the pure doctrine of naturalistic evolution.
Big deal! As an attorney, let me try my cases with no opposition on the other side, and it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. No opposing viewpoints...
Naturalistic gradualists such as Darwin (not a trained scientist; his degree was in religion) assume everything is material, i.e., "natural." Bingo. They win the argument without anything to support it because it is an assumption from the get-go...It's not an assumption but an observation that there has been no evidence found for the supernatural having any role in the rise of diversity on planet earth, a place to which I suggest Robinson pay a visit someday. As soon as someone discovers some specific bit of data that can be explained only by resorting to something other than known physical laws, that will have to be incorporated into evolutionary theory. Scientific method doesn't rule things in or out on a permanent basis; it is always open to considering new data, but you have to have the data first for it to be considered. Saying things like "I believe" or "I don't understand" or "for the Bible tells me so" don't constitute data, just opinions. It is Robinson who is making assumptions here; assumptions are things created as starting points from which to address areas of ignorance. In science, we don't stop with the ignorance. We recognize the shortcomings in human knowledge and seek to address them based on new evidence that comes to light.
I recently realized that evolutionists and communists have much in common, i.e., they both assume that everything is natural, i.e., matter. Making that assumption, communists imprisoned thousands of Christians who believe in the supernatural. If you assume there is no supernatural because all is assumed to be material, those who believe in the supernatural must, ipso facto, be crazy. Similarly American evolutionists frequently satirize opponents of gradualistic evolution as insipid, dull and stupid...And Robinson is giving us grounds for why people like him should be so satirized. "Evolutionists" are like Communists because we don't accept supernatural involvement in biology based on popular opinion or authoritarian assertion but demand evidence? Let's use Robinson's own argument by analogy fallacy in a religious context, then.
The late Dr. Stephen J. Gould, arguably the world's leading evolutionist and atheist, well understood the issues and declared that there is no room in evolutionary theories for a god. Frank Zindler, editor of the magazine American Atheist, recently said evolutionary biology established there were no Adam and Eve, therefore no fall and no original sin, and no need for any Jesus fella. Zindler understood the implications of evolution very well — better than many Christians.There's no room in evolutionary theory for a god... so? If you don't start from the assumption that the creation myths in Genesis must be interpreted literally, that hardly matters. There's no room in evolutionary theory for a god, by the way, because we don't find evidence that one was involved. We don't find evidence that all of humanity is descended from a single pair of humans who were sculpted out of clay or dust and the subsequent incestuous couplings of their offspring. We don't see evidence that there was a necessity for mankind to be redeemed because somebody ate a piece of fruit at the behest of a talking snake in contradiction to words spoken by a spirit in the sky. That's not to say that room couldn't be made for any of this if somebody did find testable evidence for it. Otherwise, these things remain in the domain of religious belief, not science. Anyone is free to believe in them, but to expect that this belief be incorporated into and taught to students as if it were scientific in nature is ridiculous. I could as easily say that the nuclei of cells are really tracking devices implanted into eukaryotes by the Betelgeusian Intelligence Authority (the infamous BIA!) and have every bit as much evidence to back it up. Should that be taught in a biology class as well? Just how much time should researchers devote to following up on it? How many millions of dollars in grant money should be set aside to investigate my claim?
Evolutionists are upset with anyone who questions their assumption of gradual naturalism, because to them that is heresy. However, Darwinian evolution is fading, unable to withstand fatal flaws in the fossil record etc. So members of the faith have been forced to come up with such silly theories as punctuated equilibrium (e.g., a turtle laid an egg, and a bird flew out of it) and panspermia (aliens invaded Earth). They believe that stuff and give those theories multisyllable, scientific-sounding names.Yes, those "flaws in the fossil record" are certainly grievous problems for evolutionary biologists. How are we ever going to explain all those Precambrian gerbils and Ordovician ostriches that people keep digging up?
Today's New York Times carries an article by Laura Beil that's fairly unremarkable in most ways to those of use who follow the fundamentalist war against science education in America. Opponents of Evolution Adopting New Strategy goes over relatively familiar ground, discussing how Creationists have historically shifted strategies in their effort to remove evolutionary biology, that bugaboo that threatens their insecure faith-based worldview, from schools. It discusses the latest such strategy, the "strengths and weaknesses" gambit and points out the difference between religion and science and the profound ignorance that Creationists seek to perpetuate about how science works by way of this strategy.
However, the article also contains some choice quotes from Don McElroy, DDS, the Creationist chair of Texas' state board of education who would appear to have given up breathing oxygen in favor of sucking continuously from the nitrous tanks in his office.
Everybody has the right to believe in whatever cockamamie stories they want to. Hey, this is America, land of the free and home of the bizarre. However, people who elevate their favorite mythology over reason, logic and centuries of scientific progress have no business in positions wherein they have an impact on the education of our students and thereby do generational damage to the country. I would question the sanity of anyone who believes that a baby poofed the universe into existence. When that person is the chair of a state, or even local, board of education, and makes statements of belief like this, they invite public scrutiny. A public that doesn't find such a belief dangerously out of touch with reality is one that is already in big trouble when it comes to the education of its children.Dr. McLeroy, the board chairman, sees the debate as being between "two systems of science."
"You've got a creationist system and a naturalist system," he said.
Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth's appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. "I believe a lot of incredible things," he said, "The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe."
But Dr. McLeroy says his rejection of evolution — "I just don't think it's true or it's ever happened" — is not based on religious grounds. Courts have clearly ruled that teachings of faith are not allowed in a science classroom, but when he considers the case for evolution, Dr. McLeroy said, "it's just not there."McElroy thinks there's no evidence for evolution but leaps at the opportunity to advance his notion that a baby from Israel made the planet and everything that lives on it?
"My personal religious beliefs are going to make no difference in how well our students are going to learn science," he said.
The word itself is open to broad interpretation. If the teaching of weaknesses is mandated, a textbook might be forced to say that evolution has an "inability to explain the Cambrian Explosion," according to the group Texans for Better Science Education, which questions evolution.That's a tiring old saw, isn't it? I don't know how many times this has been answered, but the term "explosion" in Cambrian Explosion doesn't mean what Creationists like to portray it meaning. It's not like a literal explosion, just a period during which there was rapid diversification. It was at least 20 million years long, which is only an "explosion" in terms of the rate at which we're used to seeing diversity arise... but it's hardly instantaneous. Evolutionary theory predicts that when environmental niches are available, selection will favor the survival of organisms capable of exploiting those niches. The Cambrian Explosion took place at a period during which there were a huge number of such niches available, so diversifying selection appears inflated relative to what we see later, when most niches were filled and new diversity could only become established in a few cases as previous species occupying those niches became extinct. Before the start of the Cambrian Explosion, there weren't a bunch of species already clogging up the works, so diversification happened faster.
I know that's not nearly as glamorous-sounding as the idea that one day there was a loud bang and there were suddenly Wiwaxia and trilobites splashed liberally about the bottom of the seas. Still, it makes a good deal of sense when looked at in this way rather than making up stories about it as has been done by certain pinheaded Texans. They have to do that, of course, to make it look like they know what they're talking about when they bring up the "weaknesses" they have to invent to support their agenda. They're like evil clones of Blanche DuBois; they've always relied on the gullibility of strangers.
