The worst thing about creationism

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Michael

Of all the things about creationism, perhaps the worst is simply its lack of beauty. It teaches – nay, encourages – people to be content with a small Universe. It teaches that it is okay, even good, to look up at that deep band of stars that comprise the Milky Way and to say, “Meh. What else is there?” This is what believers in special creation are taught. They believe, most arrogantly, that there is nothing greater out there than their concept of an ever-shrinking, ever-so-tiny god.

Reason, rationality, and science encourage one to sit outside on one of those warm summer nights, pure awe undaunted by the anonymous fears lurking in the dark. They say, Look! there’s so much to be known. Don’t ever be satisfied with the Universe you know. They teach, “Wow! What else is there?” They teach that it is not good but stupendously great to wonder – and it is even greater to tear that wonder asunder and leave it in shattered little pieces so to discover that, yes, there are still deeper wonders. That is the prize of knowledge. Creationism rejects this beauty.

Of course, none of this says whether one or the other is true. Reality dictates that (and reality has a strong bias toward the truths of science). What this does suggest, however, is that something so vile, empty, and ugly as creationism or petty, little humanoid gods has no place among the robust beauty of science and reason and rationality.

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Stop it, Texas

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Michael

From having a creationist-dentist on the Board of Education to churning out the likes of Dubya* (a prime example of why abortion should be legal) to being an all-around bag of assholes, Texas has a lot against it. State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) is just another mook on the merry-go-round.

A Texas legislator is waging a war of biblical proportions against the science and education communities in the Lone Star State as he fights for a bill that would allow a private school that teaches creationism to grant a Master of Science degree in the subject.

State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) proposed House Bill 2800 when he learned that The Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a private institution that specializes in the education and research of biblical creationism, was not able to receive a certificate of authority from Texas’ Higher Education Coordinating Board to grant Master of Science degrees.

Berman’s bill would allow private, non-profit educational institutions to be exempt from the board’s authority.

That’s exactly what creationists need to do. It’s sad, really. In order to grant their pretend-science degrees, they need to be exempt from any standards or realities. It’s the entire basis of the creationist life.

“I don’t believe I came from a salamander that crawled out of a swamp millions of years ago,” Berman told FOXNews.com. “I do believe in creationism. I do believe there are gaps in evolution.

Good, Leo. I don’t believe I came from a salamander either. But the reason – and it’s a real kicker – I don’t believe that is because I’m not fucking stupid.

“But when you ask someone who believes in evolution, if you ask one of the elitists who believes in evolution about the gaps, they’ll tell you that the debate is over, that there is no debate, evolution is the thing, it’s the only way to go.”

Still with this “elitist” stuff? It seems like that’s just code for “people who aren’t as dumb as Sarah Palin”. But ya know, maybe those silly conservatives are on to something. Who wants “elitists” around anyway? They make us feel inferior and force us to appreciate that there are people better at things and more knowledgable than we are. I say do away with all the elitists. The NBA? Get rid of Paul Pierce. The NHL? Get rid of Zdeno Chara. The NFL? Screw Tom Brady. The MLB doesn’t need David Ortiz. Do away with them all.** And in the colleges and universities? Same policy. I want my education to be as good as an over-40 league game of softball played on a rocky, unpainted field that has a ratty glove standing in for third base.

The ICR issued a statement affirming that it is a legitimate educational institute that employs credentialed Ph.D. scientists from around the country. It insisted that the “THECB [Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board] has acted discriminatorily against the ICR’s application both in process and in the substance of fact,” and it said “THECB allowed influence of evolution-biased lobbying efforts to influence process and outcome.”

Good. I like my education biased toward reality.

Berman sees the board’s decision to deny ICR certification as a double standard.

“If a school’s teaching all evolution, would that be a balanced education?” he asked. “So it’s the same thing on both ends of the stick.”

This presumes that teaching creationism qualifies as education. If it does, teaching Alice in Wonderland as fact qualifies as well.

_____

*Yes, he was born in Connecticut.
**Yes, I have a Boston sports bias.

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Language

Posted on March 15, 2009 by Michael

Language is a dicey thing. It’s especially dicey for scientists. Take Einstein for example. He used to use the word “God” quite often. He usually did not mean anything related to the Christian god (or any other god concept). Let’s look at the Einstein phrase “Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?” He wasn’t literally asking if any particular god had a choice. He was asking if the Universe could have come into being in more than one way. Incidentally, the fact that the answer to this question is unknown should throw some light on that awful argument, the “anthropic principle“. Allow me to digress.

The anthropic principle is the creationist delusion that their particular god made the Universe with humans soley in mind. It’s likely the most arrogant concept ever presented. Beside that, it basically says “Humanity (or life in general) is too well adapted to the Universe for everything not to have been made for humans/life”. Humans are evolved to the Universe (at least one, insignifcant part of it that holds no special relevance). The whole argument ignores this fact. Of course, that is the creationist motif: hear no facts, see no facts, speak no facts. What’s more, it’s just an argument from personal incredulity: “The Universe is just too perfect to not be for me! I can’t believe anything else! It’s too much!” Mooks.

But I return. Language in biology can be difficult. In order to popularize the subject, scientists will use personifying terms. “Genes want to replicate”, or “Cuts and bruises want to heal”. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with this. It’s human nature to do this. We call computers stupid or say “the flowers danced in the sun” (for the more poetic among us). Of course, there is a contingent of people who hear these terms and think they are literal. They also happen to often be people who don’t realize the Bible is metaphoric in its entirety and therefore take it literally.

Take the comment section from a recent thread. Not to harp on a particular commenter, but the term “code” is taken wildly out of context. Rather than read for what it is, it is read as being something with intention at its root. Let’s examine.

Biologists may say “DNA codes for the genome”. This is true, but it has no connection to intentionality. What it means is simply that DNA is in one form until it is translated and transcribed into another form. In other words, it goes from being a series of amino acids into a series of proteins and enzymes. This does not require some grand creator or intelligence. It requires a slow, gradual process that provides for plenty of random variation while being governed by a non-random mechanism. Evolution by natural selection fits the bill.

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Discovery Institute is shut out; whines

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Michael

The Vatican held another meeting trying to squeeze its tiny God into the ever shrinking gaps of reality as brought to us by science. (Apologies for the FOX Noise link, but it is an AP article.) Even though they have most things fully 1/2 wrong, them there Catholics do have some things entirely correct.

The Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design research, says it was shut out from presenting its views because the meeting was funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation, a major U.S. nonprofit that has criticized the intelligent design movement.

Good. The Discovery Institute is filled with hacks who are purely motivated by religion, not science. They are, by definition, liars.

Organizers of the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University said Thursday that they barred intelligent design proponents because they wanted an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

The implication being – though not as eloquently as I am about to put it – is that people who actually think intelligent design is science are fucking mooks who have no idea what science actually is. Honestly. Can any IDist actually give one prediction made by intelligent design ‘theory‘? Does any IDist understand why his failure to do this is one of the major reasons intelligent design is not science?

Muslim creationists also complained about the conference.

Oktar Babuna, a representative of a prominent Turkish creationist, Harun Yahya, was denied the right to speak at the opening session Tuesday.

Notice this says “right to speak”. I assume this is in the same sense that I have a right to swing my fists. That right ends once it impedes someone else’s liberty. At that point, we no longer refer to my fist-swinging as a right: harassing, dangerous, disturbing, etc, perhaps we call it one of these, but certainly not a right. So surely Babuna couldn’t have been figuratively swinging his fists with his gaping mouth of creationist inanity, correct? After all, he was denied a right, not the ability to harass people or spew dumb, disturbing ideas of stupidity.

Participants took the microphone away from Babuna when, during a question-and-answer session, he challenged them to give proof of transitional forms of animals in Darwinian evolution.

Organizers said he hadn’t formulated a question and was just stating his point of view.

Babuna said afterward that the conference was clearly undemocratic. A statement from Yahya said, “Although there are discussion parts, they want this discussion to be one-sided.”

Surprise. It looks like Babuna took his verbal fists and started throwing them around the conference. It’s fortunate there’s no muscle to back them up.

Scientists can keep pointing to these fossils, but creationists just keep asking the same question over and over. They’re like little kids who keep asking their parents “why?” no matter what the answer. They aren’t actually seeking any information, truth, or answers; they just want attention because no one takes their childish ideas seriously.

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Why do creationists lie?

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Michael

Here’s an old example of lying creationists:

Basically, some creationists lied to get an interview with Dawkins. They later edited together some footage to make it appear like Dawkins couldn’t answer a simple question: “Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?” After a long pause (which was unrelated to the overdubbed question), the dishonest creationists paste in some footage of Dawkins answering an unrelated question. It’s patently silly.

So what’s the answer? Dawkins explains the situation and answers the question here. But I’m going to simplify the answer.

An example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information is Down’s Syndrome. Here’s a karyotype for the genetic defect. Look at chromosome 21. It should have two copies but it actually has three. Bam. That’s more information. That is precisely the question creationists want answered: how can information increase in the genome? Mutation.

Of course, the way the question is worded is stupid. Evolution is all about increasing (and sometimes decreasing) information. Duplications do this: one gene is copied twice, one copy diverges to participate in some other function, and bam, we not only have more information, but we have more useful, advantageous information. We see this all the time, all the way down to minute differences in snails.

Let me put in another way. DNA is composed of 4 letters: A, C, T, G. These are in triplet form. That means it takes three letters to make an amino acid. For example, GGC is the amino acid glycine (so is GGA and GGG). A change in one of these letters is a mutation. In most instances, a mutation will change an amino acid. Let’s say the first G in GGC is changed to a C. That makes CGC, which codes for arginine. The gene in which this mutation occurred will now have one amino acid replaced. It is possible that it was have the same basic function as the previous amino acid, but often enough it has a different function. It may make a more ideal protein or an entirely new one. This is a change in information. In order for this information to be maintained, natural selection must act on the organism (or gene, depending on your view). That is the evolutionary process which maintains, increases, and decreases information in the genome. It happens every single day.

I should apologize to my non-creationist readers who didn’t need me to be so basic, but these creationists keep asking questions that are answered in the first weeks of every spring and fall in any intro to bio course.

Anyway, here’s a video of Dawkins talking about dishonest creationists.

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Our morality is rooted in evolution

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Michael

Duh.

MONKEYS and apes have a sense of morality and the rudimentary ability to tell right from wrong, according to new research.

In a series of studies scientists have found that monkeys and apes can make judgments about fairness, offer altruistic help and empathise when a fellow animal is ill or in difficulties. They even appear to have consciences and the ability to remember obligations.

The research implies that morality is not a uniquely human quality and suggests it arose through evolution. That could mean the strength of our consciences is partly determined by our genes.

This isn’t exactly news, though I suppose the studies are recent. As expected, they go to confirm that “evolution could not have evolved” is a patently stupid statement made without basis. It’s a favorite of creationists and is just a variation on the God of the Gaps argument – “It’s soooo complicated! I can’t explain it and I’ve insolated myself from all forms of science because it is SATAN so I don’t know about any evidence, so it couldn’t have evolved! It just couldn’t have! LA LA LA LA!”

Anyway, off the creationists and on the science:

The animals were asked to perform a set of simple tasks and then rewarded with food or affection. The rewards were varied, seemingly at random. De Waal found the animals had an acute sense of fairness and objected strongly when others were rewarded more than themselves for the same task, often sulking and refusing to take part any further.

Another study looked at altruism in chimps – and found they were often willing to help others even when there was no obvious reward. “Chimpanzees spontaneously help both humans and each other in carefully controlled tests,” said de Waal.

Other researchers, said de Waal, have found the same qualities in capuchin monkeys, which also show “spontaneous prosocial tendencies”, meaning they are keen to share food and other gifts with other monkeys, for the pleasure of giving.

“Everything else being equal, they prefer to reward a companion together with themselves rather than just themselves,” he said. “The research suggests that giving is self-rewarding for monkeys.”

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Jerry Coyne

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Michael

Jerry Coyne has a very succinct article regarding the inability of science and religion to work together in any viable manner. He primarily focuses his points against two prominent evolutionary theists, Ken Miller and Karl Giberson. Both men are good scientists, but make great stretches to fulfill their desire to marry their science and religion.

The article can be found here. (I would normally give a direct link, but RichardDawkins.net organizes the article far better.)

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The sad state of science

Posted on February 2, 2009 by Michael

At least it’s sad among the public. There’s a new survey in Britain that confirms this.

In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that “evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages”

A further 40 per cent disagreed, while the rest said they did not know.

The suggestion that a designer’s input is needed reflects the “intelligent design” theory, promoted by American creationists as an alternative to Darwinian evolution.

Asked whether it was true that “God created the world sometime in the last 10,000 years”, 32 per cent agreed, 60 per cent disagreed and eight per cent did not know.

A third of people in Britain believe the world began sometime around the agricultural revolution. That’s inanity. These people do not believe with any reason, but with stupid, stubborn, ill-formed faith. The worst part is that some of the same numbers are reflected in the teacher population.

Interestingly, this article takes on the subject a little more directly. Rather than simply remain topical and report on the survey plus a few recent events, it ventures into some of the points in the creationism-evolution debate.

Paul Woolley, the director of Theos said: “Darwin is being used by certain atheists today to promote their cause.

“The result is that, given the false choice of evolution or God, people are rejecting evolution.”

There is a tad bit of truth in what Woolley is saying, but not in his primary message. The choice is clear: either the world needs a designer or it does not. The answer is that it does not. Of course, that does not mean God does not exist. He very well may. That, unfortunately for theists, does mean God is a superfluous idea, whether he be a personal god or simply a deity.

Where Woolley gets it right is that people do perceive this choice and thus reject evolution. These people are known as “dumb”.

Prof Dawkins expressed dismay at the findings of the ComRes survey, of 2,060 adults, which he claimed were confirmation that much of the population is “pig-ignorant” about science.

“Obviously life, which was Darwin’s own subject, is not the result of chance,” he said.

“Any fool can see that. Natural selection is the very antithesis of chance.

“The error is to think that God is the only alternative to chance, and Darwin surely didn’t think that because he himself discovered the most important non-theistic alternative to chance, namely natural selection.”

Methinks the journalist is rather familiar with the issue and knew what questions to ask Dawkins. I almost want to say he simply quoted Dawkins from some writings not directly related to this article, but that would be irresponsible of me. At any rate, it sounds like we have some attempt at a tad bit of science education going on here. Natural selection is not chance. We don’t need to know that for the purposes of the article, but it is good to know, none-the-less.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, accused Dawkins of evolving into a “very simple kind of thinker”.

He said: “His argument for atheism goes like this: either God is the explanation for the wide diversity of biological life, or evolution is. We know that evolution is true. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

“I’m an evangelical Christian, but I have no difficulties in believing that evolution is the best scientific account we have for the diversity of life on our planet.”

That’s a honker of a strawman. Dawkins argument is closer to this: God is necessarily complex. Complex things do not come about by chance. Either God came about by chance or he is the product of natural principles. If the answer is chance, then we’re just proposing the question we sought to answer. That is, we want to know how all this complexity (the Universe and all it entails) came to be. It cannot be random chance. By postulating God, we’re postulating something more complex. If the Universe cannot be chance, God cannot be chance. If the answer is natural principles, then he isn’t much of a God, is he?

Of course, there is another option: God is beyond Nature and thus neither chance nor the product of anything. At this point we’ve ventured into la-la land. This is blind guessing with no basis, no evidence. It may be true, but we have no reason to be postulating it, much less any reason to think it remotely reasonable. If God is beyond Nature, not only can we not study him, we cannot experience anything related to him. If we can experience him, then he is within Nature and thus we are able to study him. Of course, there is nothing in Nature which shows a link to some exo-Universe being, so let’s move on and discuss things that make sense.

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Examining Deuteronomy 22

Posted on January 31, 2009 by Michael

I was glancing through Deueronomy 22 and noticed a few odd items. The first is that the dual use of an oxen and a donkey while plowing is prohibited by God (22:10). It displeases him. The second is God’s Sarah Palin-like attitude toward rape victims.

23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;

24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

I guess God’s rape kit is a handful of stones and a pocket full of hatred.

Here’s the clear interpretation of this: a man who rapes a woman in a city should be stoned to death. Okay, immoral enough reaction in itself, but there’s more. The woman, because she did not scream for help, should be stoned to death as well.

…

and people claim God is a source of morality? I wonder if the guy even has a clear idea of what constitutes a moral system. Life is not being black & white (as most conservatives think it is, incidentally). Aside from being a rape victim, the woman could have been afraid, mute, gagged, or threatened. God seems to assume by not screaming that the woman liked it. Illogical fella, no?

But, this deity isn’t all evil. He has some empathy for country rape.

25 But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.

26 But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:

27 For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

Since the woman couldn’t scream out for help, she’s in the clear. What if there was a farmer? Shouldn’t the woman have screamed to him? Simply being in a field does not necessarily change the situation. The principle in 22:23-24 seemed to be that the woman had help available to her yet did not seek it. Given that not all fields are empty and devoid of humans, she should have screamed out, even if it was to no avail. It’s almost as if people who lived in highly rural areas where it would be uncommon – in their personal experience – to see a farmer wrote this. Hey, crazy idea! Maybe people did write this fundamental evil? I’d expect God to cover a few more angles. Like, all of them.

So let’s break down what’s important here. It’s perfectly fine for my point to grant that the coming of Jesus somehow changes the immorality we see here. It’s a common tactic of Christians: the Old Testament should be interpreted through the lenses of the New Testament. Okay, sure, whatever. But there still remains the problem that at some point in time, God was telling people to stone rape victims. Even if it is granted that the New Testament changes how we should interpret these words insofar as how we should act now (i.e., we do not stone rape victims because we recognize that as evil), there still remains the problem that God told people to murder women who were raped. He still did these things. God is still guilty of these crimes, even if he corrected his misbehavior down the line.

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Playing with language

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Michael

It’s become quite popular, especially since the release of The God Delusion, for the proponents of religion to throw certain terms on to their secular counterparts. Take for example this excerpt from a recent interview with Richard Dawkins.

So, ironically, you have an evangelistic zeal about this.

As a science teacher, it is an important thing. “Evangelistic” would be an unfortunate word, if it suggested loyalty to some sort of book. It’s loyalty in my case to scientific evidence.

“Zeal” I’m happy to live with.

The zest with which those of religious persuasions thrust terms on to atheists that are generally reserved for their own world views is getting out of hand. The above excerpt is just one example. Pay attention and you’ll see far more. Atheists and humanists are “devoted” and evolution is a “religion”.

These terms can generally be discarded because 1) they tend to just be rhetoric, 2) they tend to come from people who believe in dinosaurs around the time of the agricultural revolution, and 3) they’re blatantly wrong and ill-thought. We should, however, pay some attention because they’re also delightfully ironic.

Evolution is called religious belief. People say “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”. Blah, blah, blah. That’s fine rhetoric, but it’s also fine humor. What is the point in calling evolution “religious” or using terms related to faith when speaking of atheism? It’s to indicate that these things have little to no basis; those who use these terms are being derisive – that’s the whole point. Faith in evolution is a bad thing because it is merely faith. It has no substance behind it. Of course, that’s patently stupid. Evolution is nothing but evidenced. But these creationists/less-honest-creationists-who-hide-behind-the-lie-of-intelligent-design are correct about one thing: faith is a bad thing. It should be derided. It serves little purpose but to delude people.

I suppose I’m fine with Bible-thumpers calling me a man of faith. I just hope they begin to realize that by doing so they are undermining the very basis for their beliefs in magic and skyfairies.

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