How apt

Posted on June 28, 2009 by Michael

From Conservapedia:

Attention Canadian evolutionists! Conservapedia now nearly ranks in the Google top 10 for the very popular search “evolution” at Google Canada! The Conservapedia evolution article ranks #12 at Google Canada for the search evolution![8] The article appears to be rapidly gaining prominence on the Canadian internet. Will this creation science wildfire spread to the USA, UK, and beyond? Please stay tuned for further developments!

They got their analogy right. Well, partially. Creationism is very much like a wildfire, though it isn’t anywhere near science. It’s a destructive force for not only science, but good in the world.

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The need to challenge

Posted on June 13, 2009 by Michael

More and more, I find myself presenting specific evidence for evolution to creationists. I have done it on For the Sake of Science, and I do it with personal acquaintances. I get the same results from both areas. Creationists have no responses. They are satisfied with believing without evidence, something otherwise known as “faith”. Honestly, these people actually are willing to believe in their inane anti-evolution versions of religion, yet when you tell them that Tiktaalik rosae was predicted to exist in rock layers dating to about 375 million years ago, what do they have to say? They question motivations (atheists just hate god and want to do anything that pleases themselves), quote scripture, and completely gloss over evidence. I’ve never heard a creationist rebuttal to any individual fossil (except maybe to the overhyped account of “Ida” – though not to the non-overhyped account). These people believe in massive coincidence because, well, doing otherwise is inconvenient.

But there are exceptions. It is with pleasure that I present one now.

Why are you not providing reliable sources of information on your website such as the Genome project? What you’re website is basically saying is that every field of science in every country on the planet is wrong. That’s quite an assessment on your part. Instead of attempting to prove evolution wrong, why not attempt to put your money where your mouth is. Here’s a recent challenge. Do this, and you’ll become quite wealthy: Challenging the Discovery Institute to Discover.

This is from a man who saw an anti-evolution billboard while driving. He visited the attached website. Naturally, he found egregious abuses of science. He exchanged a few emails with one of the people running the site, but couldn’t get any decent responses. He experienced one of the most common interactions with creationists. These people aren’t interested in the truth.

The rant made me feel better to get those things off my chest. It’s difficult to communicate with people that haven’t taken the time to simply read at least a portion of the information that’s available, when they sit there arguing against material that they haven’t taken the time to learn anything about, simply rejecting it prior to ever having spent any time even looking at it.

Importantly, it wasn’t simply the terrible responses from creationists that turned this man from a Christian to a non-believer. While he says his “eyes have been opened by the exposure of deception and misrepresentation the creationist movement exposes itself to time and time again”, he also shows that he actually gives a damn about truth.

I continued researching and reading and watching documentary films in an attempt to erode my lack of knowledge on the immensity of Evolution. I had known of the topic all of my life, but not to the depth that I was now pursuing. Up to that point, I hadn’t really paid attention to the debate that was going on around the country regarding this topic. I had no idea that people were so passionately against this. Not because I lived in a cave mind you, but just simply do to the fact that I focused my life on other areas of interest. I was also disappointed as to how we as Americans were perceived outside of the United States on the matter of Evolution. The shear immensity of the problem boggles the mind.

While researching, I was amazed to learn what we as a species have discovered through our research and efforts. I was also amazed to discover how the scientific field of Evolution affected other fields of science and even spawned new fields, and how all of these fields became interlaced and supported one another. It was incredible.

After a year and a half of self-imposed and self-paced learning, along with conversations with family and friends (a whole other story), the gnawing memory of my discussion with Julie finally got to me. At this point, I was too far gone with the knowledge of my discoveries to let it sit idly any further.

(“Julie” runs the aforementioned creationist website and is the person he originally emailed.)

I love this. The guy heard some information, looked into it, then made sure he actually had some background so he could decide accurately for himself. Naturally, evolution won out for him. Truth has a funny way of doing this.

But isn’t this always the story? I’ve read so many blog entries and forum posts where atheists/agnostics describe how they heard something absurd from a tick-in-the-skin creationist and decided to check things out for themselves. My story is similar. At a dinner with a friend, his mother (a creationist), and a few of his mother’s church friends (also creationists), I heard the church friends claim Earth was created 6,000 years ago. Well, to be fair, they actually questioned amongst each other if the number they heard was 6,000 or 7,000. I quickly looked into the issue. They were off by more than a smidge.

I suppose I have these inane folks to thank for spurring me toward the absolute beauty that is science. I just wish more people would actually look into the stupid claims of ignorant creationists who hate, disavow, avoid, dismember, and spurn science in favor of their ugly, ugly beliefs. Actual evidence is a far better tool for revealing truth, and that is beauty.

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All it takes to refute something…

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Michael

…is for some journalist to say you did. According to the headline on that article, James Perloff refuted evolution at some half-baked meeting.

Perloff tried to draw parallels throughout history, attempting to connect individuals such as Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, Josef Stalin and Adolph Hitler with the teachings and rationales of Charles Darwin. He also told of his own life’s inner conflict, saying he was briefly turned into an atheist at a young age due to Darwin’s theory.

Perloff went on to say, “Survival of the fittest does not explain arrival of the fittest,” and that, “[the theory of] evolution is just speculation on the past and should not been seen as scientific fact.”

There you go. EVILution has been defeated. Good job, Perloff. Honestly. It should be clear to everyone. If someone can make bogus, tinsel thin connections between ideas and people Real America loathes, then the idea must be false. Just pretend that logical fallacies don’t exist and the argument is air-tight.

The event was held in front of a small gathering and was kicked off with a prayer along with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Harold Shurtleff of West Roxbury, regional field director for the John Birch Society.

I remember as a very young kid playing Street Fighter. When the levels got too hard or my older brother beat me a bunch of times in a row, I’d start up a game just by myself. I would have a Player 2 set up, but no one was controlling it. I’d just wail all my 32 bits on that character. It made me feel good. Does anyone get the feeling that conservatives have the same frustration? I mean, the exact same frustration – one born out of immaturity and a lack of rationale. These people are kicking and screaming their prayers and flag-based prayers all over the place because it makes them feel good. Of course, I was a child when I did it. What excuse do these people have? There are more examples.

Take Sean Hannity. He’s a huge idiot. (I heard him say in the middle of a broadcast, and I paraphrase, “…that isn’t an arrogant statement. America saved the world from Totalitarianism. It did this multiple times. The world has us to thank. That isn’t an arrogant statement.”) He refuses to refer to Obama as “President Obama” in virtually every instance. He insists on calling him “The Annointed One”, or “The One” for short. You can feel his anger and immature frustration. People very rarely identify whining correctly (they tend to conflate it with active disagreement). This is not one of those cases. Sean Hannity and the new breed of ultra-radical conservatives are big, fat whiners.

Conservapedia is another great example of a bunch of crybabies. Their page on evolution (which is just a page on creationism) has a section titled “Creation Scientists Tend to Win the Creation-Evolution Debates“. I kid you not. This is their version of 32-bit wailing. They absolutely cannot win. Rather than to accept reality, they set up these conversations in their own heads where they win every time. Sean Hannity does it. John McCain did it. Dubya definitely did it. This is the path of conservatives in America. Yell and whine and if that doesn’t work, beat the crap out of Blanka.

Filed under: Creationism, News | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

I accepted

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Michael

I accepted the invitation to see Expelled. It was about what I expected.

I didn’t subject myself to that horrid movie since I’ve already seen it, but I did make sure to show up toward the end. I caught the last bit with the interview with Richard Dawkins. It’s hilarious. Ben Stein, horrid economist, understander of science, and vaguely entertaining actor in the 80s, asks Dawkins to put a specific number on the probability that God does not exist. Dawkins says he doesn’t feel comfortable doing this, but Stein persists. To the creationist audience that’s going to interpret absolutely everything as supporting their inane ideas, this comes across as gold. Dawkins seems to be stumbling. The truth is the question is absurd. It would be like asking a creationist to scientifically put a number on the likelihood God does exist. The more stupid breed of creationist will say “100%”, ignoring my qualifer “scientifically” – words, meanings, definitions, and honesty are irrelevant to these mooks – but the rare creationist will see the absurdity of this. More aptly, however, this would be like asking the likelihood that an elephant, shark, or wolf would evolve. No scientist is going to give a straight-up percentage. It doesn’t make sense to that, and even if it did, there are far too many variables to be in the least bit accurate. This, contrary to what the creationist mind thinks (if we are to follow its ‘logic’ to its end), does not mean elephants, sharks, or wolves could not or did not evolve. But even more aptly, it’d be like asking the likelihood that fairies do not exist. The whole thing ignores the point of the argument.

Anyway, there was a “discussion” after the movie ended. By this I mean one guy who claims to have a degree from Oxford and I had a back and forth. The details are becoming fuzzy, but to give you an idea of the sort of thing he was saying, take this. I brought up that no papers supporting intelligent design have ever been peer reviewed and published. He countered by pointing out that Michael Behe and William Dembski both have books out that have been reviewed. For the dumber of you out there (i.e., creationists who think he delivered me a knock-out punch), that is not peer review. The criteria for getting published in, say, Nature is just a tad more difficult than the criteria for seeing your book on the shelves of Barnes & Noble. Mainly, the bookstore criteria is that it will make some money. I had difficulty making this point because the leader of this whole shindig kept trying to interrupt our discussion, but I did get to mention that those books have been peer reviewed in the sense that The God Delusion has been peer reviewed. At that point, this guy (a pastor) completely misunderstood the point and not only asserted that Dawkins’ book had been panned but that it was very poorly written. Again, I was cut off before being able to counter, but c’mon. I can understand someone being so driven by a fear of evidence that they outright reject Dawkins’ arguments, but the man is a fantastic writer. Saying otherwise is just being petty.

After the discussion was mysteriously cut short by 30 minutes, I continued speaking with this pastor. He claimed that the Lucy fossil had been found over an area of 300 feet and only 1% was discovered. I told him he was wrong. This is common; creationists will get these untruths flowing at their churches (usually pushed by the leaders) and entirely believe them. Research? Confirmation? Nah. It’s a convenient thing to believe. You can do your own 30 second Yahoo! or Google search if you’d like, but if you don’t already know the answers, they are: Lucy was discovered all in one location with no duplicate bones nearby (in other words, it was certainly one animal); her body is surprisingly complete, not at 1%, but 40%. From my memory of her images, I would have guessed something a little higher, but I refrained, opting instead to get his email. I gave him this information, plus some other things debunking some wrong ideas he had about black holes (time does not “become irrelevant” at the event horizon). No response has shown up in my inbox.

Overall, it was about what I thought it’d be. A lot of quiet people who would nod their heads to the one or two more vocal creationists in the group who would invariably give me the same old tired arguments coupled with a few random numbers they think are impressive but are really just wrong. Standard.

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What science is all about

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Michael

All which is between “~~~” is from Jerry Coyne.

~~~

I have sometimes written that evolutionary biology doesn’t have much practical value in medicine or other areas impinging on humanity’s material well being. Here is one example of what I’ve said. However, my friend and colleague David Hillis at The University of Texas in Austin — who played a big role in trying to make the Texas State Board of Education teach real science – has taken exception to my view. I asked him to let me know how he thought that evolutionary biology had been of use in medicine, and he wrote me an email with his answer, which he’s given me permission to post. He’d wants to emphasize that it’s an off-the-cuff response rather than a comprehensive reply, which of course I appreciate; but I think it’s worth posting:

OK, here are just a few examples from the thousands that are in the literature, off the top of my head:

Using positive selection to identify the pathogenic mechanisms of HIV in humans: PNAS 102:2832-2837 (one of many such studies that are now appearing and are using positive selection in pathogens to identify pathogenic mechanisms).

Using phylogenies and positive selection to predict which currently circulating strains of influenza are most likely to be closely related to future flu epidemics: Science 286: 1921-1925.

Using evolutionary analyses to track epidemics in human populations: many examples that have wider health implications, but our study of transmission in a forensic case was an interesting example with a specific legal application; PNAS 99:14292-14297.

Using evolutionary analyses to identify new disease outbreaks: new examples in every single issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Using phylogenetic analyses to identify whether polio outbreaks are from native circulating viruses or from reverted, escaped vaccines (which tells health workers which vaccines to use in these areas to eradicate disease): see review in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 82, No. 1.

Identifying changes in sodium channel genes that are under positive selection for TTX resistance, which has led to understanding the function of human diseases that are caused by the corresponding substitutions in human sodium channel genes: Mol. Biol. Evol. 25(6):1016–1024. (I included this one to show that all of the examples are not from virus work; this is the original evolutionary work from Manda Jost and Harold Zakon, with our collaboration, but there has been follow-up on the understanding of human diseases that are produced from these same mutations, now that they have been replicated by in vitro mutagenesis)

This just scratches the surface. I think there are now more papers that use evolutionary methods and analyses in the human health literature than all other areas of biology combined. I think it is crazy to not acknowledge the numerous and important human health applications of evolutionary theory and methods.

David

Well, this is good enough for me–I gladly retract my earlier opinion that evolutionary biology hasn’t been of much use in medicine. Thanks, David.

~~~

Imagine a creationist making the claim that evolution doesn’t have much practical value in medicine (something with which I am hugely surprised Jerry Coyne ever said) and then retracting it when presented with counter-evidence. It would never happen. Creationism rejects all principles of science.

Filed under: Evidence, Evolution | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Evolution debate ends in compromise

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Michael

Absolutely not.

For 20 years, Texas science teachers have been required to cover the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Two decades later, that rule has been changed. They traded the curriculum for a new set of standards.

Board of Education member Bob Craig said the new curriculum will require students to use critical thinking to discuss, analyze and evaluate the information for yourselves.

Lies. The new ‘standards’ will set science back.

For example, the revised biology standard (7B) reflects two discredited creationist ideas — that “sudden appearance” and “stasis” in the fossil record somehow disprove evolution. The new standard directs students to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil records.” Other new standards include language such as “is thought to” or “proposed transitional fossils” to make evolutionary concepts seem more tentative.

These people are stupid. Straight up stupid. Not politically, of course. They are, naturally, quite coy in that respect – that is the second most notable characteristic of the creationist mind. The most notable, of course, is the ability to simply not understand a single, damn thing about science. These people hate science. It conflicts with the beliefs with which they grew up, so they act like little babies and fail to realize that they are wrong. They assume what they hear of science must be incorrect because it does not fit their fairy tale. It’s rather pathetic, really.

By making these changes, the board of education hopes students will use reasoning and experimental testing to examine all sides of scientific explanations, including evolution.

“You need to have that critical thinking by the student,” Craig said, “and you need to have a free discussion of any scientific explanation.”

The revisions apply to students in kindergarten through 12th grade who take the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS test. However, they focus primarily on high school students.

“Have that free discussion, analyze and evaluate,” Craig said. “Critique those scientific explanations, and encourage critical thinking because that’s what we want to do in all fields.”

Scientists have that free discussion. High school students are not qualified in the least bit to tackle any of the vague, coy-creationist, sneak-attack, trojan, flat-out-fucking-liar terms listed.

“Somebody’s got to stand up to experts!” cries board chair Don McLeroy.

Don McLeroy is the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. He is also a dentist. Next time 9 out of 10 of his colleagues tell you to do this or that with your teeth, tell them they aren’t allowing you to freely discuss, analyze, or evaluate any of the evidence. Tell them it is YOU that should be critiquing the field of dentistry. Those arrogant experts have been holding down the ignorant layman for far too long, I say!

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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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Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics, Creationism | Tagged: , , , , | 21 Comments »

Common sense wins

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Michael

The atheist bus campaign has been whirling around the globe over the past several months. It was briefly stopped in Ottawa because of a stupid policy that states this:

…religious advertising which promotes a specific ideology, ethic, point of view, policy or action, which in the opinion of the city might be deemed prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system is not permitted.

The only religious ad which could fit into that description would be one that says “No one is wrong and everyone is the best at everything” (thank you, Principal Skinner for that one).

Fortunately, the city council has some common sense.

Council voted to allow the ads — which read “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life” — to be displayed on OC Transpo buses after city solicitor Rick O’Connor told councillors the ban wouldn’t hold up in court.

They saw the obvious legal troubles and put their foot down. It’s the anti-Dover of behaviors. Of course, not everyone can be so smart.

Orleans Coun. Bob Monette said the ads are offensive and shouldn’t be allowed on public property.

“I believe they are in very poor taste and derogatory to anybody who believes in God,” he said. “I am concerned they are judging other people’s beliefs. It’s public property and it’s inappropriate.”

That’s exactly what it’s doing. What doesn’t judge other people’s beliefs? Why is that a bad thing in the least? Besides that, when, exactly, did religion earn this hyper-respect? Its ideas are flimsy at best. It has done nothing to show it has any worth in an intellectually-concerned society. Creationism/intelligent design-creation go to support this point.

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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.

Filed under: Creationism | Tagged: , , , , , , | 15 Comments »

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