My wife just ran across this YouTube video from last year's foray to Ken Ham's Kook House. The young guy is Derek Rogers, who got kicked out of the place (well, sort of: he got hassled by Security as we were walking through the exit hall anyway) for wearing an atheist bus T-shirt, then for expressing an opinion on the KHKH in the hearing of some tender Christian ears. PZ Myers is to Derek's right; we are right of PZ. Theo manages to make a few intelligent remarks while I lurk in the background grinning foolishly.
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Ken Ham: Liar, Hypocrite and Hate-Monger.
Ken Ham doesn't trust us:
And while I'm on the subject of Christian douchebags, I may as well as join the chorus pointing out that Pat Robertson is an evil old man whose God is created very much in his own image.
Dear Ham-head: I've read your website. I've been in your joke of a museum. I even exchanged brief words with you, some years ago. Substitute "creationist" for "atheist" in the last paragraph above and then it might be somewhere in the same ballpark as the truth. You wouldn't know truth if it ran over you on the Interstate.The Scripture tells us [atheists] “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1). Basically it comes down to the fact that they don’t want to have to answer to anyone—they want to set their own rules. They generally want to abort babies if they want or make marriage whatever they want to make it to be (or reject it altogether). They want to do what is “right” in their own eyes! Thus, a Creator who owns them, to whom they owe their existence, and against whom they have rebelled, is anathema to them!
It baffles the mind as to why these atheists even bother to try to aggressively convert people to their meaningless religion—after all, what’s the point? The only reason they would even bother is if they are engaged in a spiritual battle. Otherwise they wouldn’t care. They know in their hearts there is a God, and they are deliberately suppressing that, as the Scripture so clearly tells us.
[.....]
I’m sure most of you realize that you often can’t trust what atheists say. After all, if there is no absolute authority, there is no basis for right or wrong (just one’s own opinion). Thus, atheists can say whatever they want—even if it is not the truth.
And while I'm on the subject of Christian douchebags, I may as well as join the chorus pointing out that Pat Robertson is an evil old man whose God is created very much in his own image.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Three Scientists, Two Great Talks
....and one grandstanding git.
It's been a very biological week here.
The Chimp Lady
On Wednesday night, Jane Goodall spoke to a packed Centrepointe Theatre. I remember stories about Goodall in National Geographic, back in the 1960s, but sort of lost track after that. Her talk was largely autobiographical, covering the period from her childhood to the Gombe years. She told one amusing anecdote about how, at the age of about five, she hid in the hen house so she could see for herself that, yes, that big egg really did come out of the chicken. She also talked about the formation of the Root and Shoots program, which attempts to bring together conservation and development concerns, so that there is not a continual confict between the two.
The Finch Folks
Tonight was Peter and Rosemary Grant at Carleton, giving the final Darwin Week lecture (if it seems this is a little late for Darwin Week, that's because the Grants spend February in the field. I can see how the Galapagos is probably preferable to Ottawa in February). Their talk centred on mechanisms of speciation and adaptation in their study of Darwin's finches on Daphne Major and Genovesa.
The Galapagos finches are famed for their wide variety of beak shapes and sizes, each adapted for exploiting a particular food source in the sparse environment of the islands. Peter Grant talked a little about two genes (bmp4 and CaM, if I recall the names) that control respectively, beak length and thickness. Then he talked about how rainfall variation from year to year affected average beak morphology among two smaller finch species Geospiza fortis and G. scandens, by affecting the abundance of their preferred seeds.
Rosemary took over to talk about hybridization and genetic diversity. G. fortis and G. scandens differ in beak size, but are otherwise fairly similar. Though hybridization is possible, they are mostly kept separate by mating preference, which is based partly on morphology, but even more on having different songs. Now here's the fun part: the song an individual finch will sing throughout its life is learned as a nestling, from its father (when asked just now whether this constitutes cultural inheritance, our household social anthropologist looked very thoughtful, but refused to commit himself on the question). Female finches mate only with males that sing the right song. However, once in a while a nestling will imprint on the wrong species' song. When it grows up, it will most likely mate with the other species, producing hybrid offspring having an intermediate beak size.
Field surveys show that hybrids are just as fit as either parent species. So what keeps fortis and scandens from merging into one species? Answer: the fact that a hybrid will only backcross to the parent species that sings its father's song. However, even this small amount of gene-flow helps to maintain genetic diversity within each species.
It was a great talk -- straight-up science from the people who did the work. Stuff you had to pay attention to. Unfortunately, just as Rosemary Grant got down to the last few slides, the fire alarm went off, and the Q&A had to be adjourned to the courtyard . Which brings us to.....
....The Grandstanding Git
Before the talk started, we noticed an old acquaintance sitting a few rows back -- Jonathan Cucan, from CORE. After the evacuation we were all just standing around outside (fortunately, it was a pleasant night), he made a bee-line for Peter Grant, so I hung back within earshot. I didn't catch everything that was said (let alone remember even that much), but the exchange went something like this:
Cucan said polite things about the Grants' talk, then asked whether "he agreed with Dr. Einstein and Dr. Hoyle" about the complexity of the cell (or something along those lines -- Johnny's current schtick seems to be about biochemistry). When Dr. Grant worked with these marvelous organisms, didn't he see the hand of God? Grant shook his head, no he didn't, and went into an explanation about molecular biologists having theories which they are testing of how to form DNA and cell membranes etc, and gradually build up complexity. Cucan came back that "Dr. Hoyle" had proved that it was impossible to form a cell spontaneously....at this point, one of the organizers came to Grant's rescue and pointed out that other people probably wanted a turn to talk. Cucan left, no doubt satisfied that he had successfully delivered his payload of weapons-grade sanctimony into the enemy's stronghold.
I must confess I was disappointed: I was sort of hoping Cucan would at least try to argue something relevant to Grant's talk (my Inner Creationist managed to think up a couple). But our boy Johnny has a bit of a one-track mind.
I do like how Cucan specifically used the full titles for Einstein and Hoyle -- like, waving around a doctorate is supposed to impress someone who has one themselves. And a GIGO calculation by an astronomer (several decades ago, IIRC?) is supposed trump actual experts working on that specific problem? Pack it up, folks -- Fred Hoyle has spoken, and Johnny Cucan is his prophet! A lovely case study in creationist's slavish devotion to intellectual authority.
It's been a very biological week here.
The Chimp Lady
On Wednesday night, Jane Goodall spoke to a packed Centrepointe Theatre. I remember stories about Goodall in National Geographic, back in the 1960s, but sort of lost track after that. Her talk was largely autobiographical, covering the period from her childhood to the Gombe years. She told one amusing anecdote about how, at the age of about five, she hid in the hen house so she could see for herself that, yes, that big egg really did come out of the chicken. She also talked about the formation of the Root and Shoots program, which attempts to bring together conservation and development concerns, so that there is not a continual confict between the two.
The Finch Folks
Tonight was Peter and Rosemary Grant at Carleton, giving the final Darwin Week lecture (if it seems this is a little late for Darwin Week, that's because the Grants spend February in the field. I can see how the Galapagos is probably preferable to Ottawa in February). Their talk centred on mechanisms of speciation and adaptation in their study of Darwin's finches on Daphne Major and Genovesa.
The Galapagos finches are famed for their wide variety of beak shapes and sizes, each adapted for exploiting a particular food source in the sparse environment of the islands. Peter Grant talked a little about two genes (bmp4 and CaM, if I recall the names) that control respectively, beak length and thickness. Then he talked about how rainfall variation from year to year affected average beak morphology among two smaller finch species Geospiza fortis and G. scandens, by affecting the abundance of their preferred seeds.
Rosemary took over to talk about hybridization and genetic diversity. G. fortis and G. scandens differ in beak size, but are otherwise fairly similar. Though hybridization is possible, they are mostly kept separate by mating preference, which is based partly on morphology, but even more on having different songs. Now here's the fun part: the song an individual finch will sing throughout its life is learned as a nestling, from its father (when asked just now whether this constitutes cultural inheritance, our household social anthropologist looked very thoughtful, but refused to commit himself on the question). Female finches mate only with males that sing the right song. However, once in a while a nestling will imprint on the wrong species' song. When it grows up, it will most likely mate with the other species, producing hybrid offspring having an intermediate beak size.
Field surveys show that hybrids are just as fit as either parent species. So what keeps fortis and scandens from merging into one species? Answer: the fact that a hybrid will only backcross to the parent species that sings its father's song. However, even this small amount of gene-flow helps to maintain genetic diversity within each species.
It was a great talk -- straight-up science from the people who did the work. Stuff you had to pay attention to. Unfortunately, just as Rosemary Grant got down to the last few slides, the fire alarm went off, and the Q&A had to be adjourned to the courtyard . Which brings us to.....
....The Grandstanding Git
Before the talk started, we noticed an old acquaintance sitting a few rows back -- Jonathan Cucan, from CORE. After the evacuation we were all just standing around outside (fortunately, it was a pleasant night), he made a bee-line for Peter Grant, so I hung back within earshot. I didn't catch everything that was said (let alone remember even that much), but the exchange went something like this:
Cucan said polite things about the Grants' talk, then asked whether "he agreed with Dr. Einstein and Dr. Hoyle" about the complexity of the cell (or something along those lines -- Johnny's current schtick seems to be about biochemistry). When Dr. Grant worked with these marvelous organisms, didn't he see the hand of God? Grant shook his head, no he didn't, and went into an explanation about molecular biologists having theories which they are testing of how to form DNA and cell membranes etc, and gradually build up complexity. Cucan came back that "Dr. Hoyle" had proved that it was impossible to form a cell spontaneously....at this point, one of the organizers came to Grant's rescue and pointed out that other people probably wanted a turn to talk. Cucan left, no doubt satisfied that he had successfully delivered his payload of weapons-grade sanctimony into the enemy's stronghold.
I must confess I was disappointed: I was sort of hoping Cucan would at least try to argue something relevant to Grant's talk (my Inner Creationist managed to think up a couple). But our boy Johnny has a bit of a one-track mind.
I do like how Cucan specifically used the full titles for Einstein and Hoyle -- like, waving around a doctorate is supposed to impress someone who has one themselves. And a GIGO calculation by an astronomer (several decades ago, IIRC?) is supposed trump actual experts working on that specific problem? Pack it up, folks -- Fred Hoyle has spoken, and Johnny Cucan is his prophet! A lovely case study in creationist's slavish devotion to intellectual authority.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
An Honorable Ignoramus
Everyone has by now read about how Gary Goodyear, our, um, excitable Minister of State for Science and Technology, replied to a question about his scientific views by proclaiming his religious opinions:
Oddly, it's not the creationism angle that bothers me the most about this. Yeah, that bothers me too, but many otherwise intelligent people fall for that, and still manage to be rational and competent at their jobs. It seems to me that the potential harm here depends on exactly how much control the Minister has over specific funding decisions (at least, such seems to be my subconcious rationalization).Canada's science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won't say if he believes in evolution.
“I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
But what really got me was this comment (emphasis mine):
Well, ain't that folksey? I also really dig "being there on this discovery stuff". Sounds like George W. Bush with an impact wrench, doesn't he?“Now I have got a portfolio that I am absolutely passionate about and frankly connected to,” he said, adding that his days of experimenting with engines in high school automotive class gave him an appreciation for what it feels like to come up with something new.
“When I was in high school, we were already tweaking with a coil that would wrap around the upper [radiator] hose and it got an extra five miles to the gallon. … So I've been there on this discovery stuff.”
Magic devices that dramatically improve gas mileage are an old standard of urban legends and scams -- and even among that sorry gallery, frigging with the cooling system seems one of the less likely candidates for improved fuel economy. That much should be obvious to anyone with even the smallest inkling of how engines actually work. It's bad enough that the government is cutting basic research in favour of "get[ting] some of these technologies out of the labs onto the factory floors. Made. Produced. Sold" (though even a creationist chiropractor could probably manage that kind of short-sighted mandate). But with the gas-mileage remark, Goodyear reveals himself as a gullible ignoramus who not only does not understand science, he's also clueless about technology -- he can't tell (as they say) shit from shinola. He's a jumped-up amateur mechanic who believes in woo -- chiro-woo, creation-woo, or car-woo; taken together it forms a pattern of consistent ignorance and anti-scientism.
And in case there is any remaining doubt of the man's complete babbling idiocy, he dispells it in this CTV interview (quoted at MacLean's blog):
We are evolving, every year, every decade. That’s a fact. Whether it’s to the intensity of the sun, whether it’s to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it’s running shoes or high heels, of course, we are evolving to our environment. But that’s not relevant. And that’s why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong…I don't expect Ministers to have Ph.Ds, or be professional scientists. But I do expect them to have at least a basic appreciation of the nature of the field they are responsible for -- enough that they're willing to listen to those who are expert in those fields.
Gary Goodyear shows himself to be utterly unfit for any position with influence over science or technology.
Fire. Him. Now.
Friday, March 21, 2008
When life imitates farce.....
Someone, please tell me this isn't just an effect of the bottle of Merlot I consumed tonight while watching the second Terminator movie. It's just absurd enough to be a dream occurring while Under The Influence. Here's the situation:
It seems that the ID propaganda movie Expelled: No Itelligence Allowed was shown tonight at the Mall of America in Twin Cities, WI.
It further seems that PZ Myers, flame breathing atheist and evo-devo-ist extraordinaire, together with renowned Trophy Wife and Blogging Daughter decided to see it.
To put the icing on the cake, Richard Dawkins happens to be in the neighbourhood on his latest book (and general rabble rowsing) tour. Being acquainted, they all (ie. famille Myers+Dawkins) decide to go see the movie together. Note that:
WTF? Someone who is in the movie can't go see the movie?
However, PZ's Trophy Wife and Blogging Daughter are, apparently, not on the the no-fly list, and are allowed in. But it gets better: since the icing is already on the cake, this would be like, the sugar swirlies around the edge, the pink roses in the corners and the candles: they didn't tell the rent-a-cops to look out for Richard Dawkins. Richard "Screaming Atheist" Dawkins.
So he got in. Dawkins. Got. In.
The combined stench of hypocrisy and incompetence wafts clear across two-and-a-half states, two Great Lakes and a good chunk of southern Ontario all the way to here where I can smell it. And I toddle off to bed with a belly laugh at these people. As Larry Moran says: now you know why we call them IDiots.
Tomorrow, I will awake to discover it's all a wine-induced dream, right? I mean, things that crazy don't happen in reality....
It seems that the ID propaganda movie Expelled: No Itelligence Allowed was shown tonight at the Mall of America in Twin Cities, WI.
It further seems that PZ Myers, flame breathing atheist and evo-devo-ist extraordinaire, together with renowned Trophy Wife and Blogging Daughter decided to see it.
To put the icing on the cake, Richard Dawkins happens to be in the neighbourhood on his latest book (and general rabble rowsing) tour. Being acquainted, they all (ie. famille Myers+Dawkins) decide to go see the movie together. Note that:
- Both PZ and Dawkins were interviewed under false pretences by the oh-so-truthful-Christian makers of this flick.
- Advance screenings of Expelled have been careful to, um, screen the attendees. Like, we wouldn't want any bad reviews, would we?
WTF? Someone who is in the movie can't go see the movie?
However, PZ's Trophy Wife and Blogging Daughter are, apparently, not on the the no-fly list, and are allowed in. But it gets better: since the icing is already on the cake, this would be like, the sugar swirlies around the edge, the pink roses in the corners and the candles: they didn't tell the rent-a-cops to look out for Richard Dawkins. Richard "Screaming Atheist" Dawkins.
So he got in. Dawkins. Got. In.
The combined stench of hypocrisy and incompetence wafts clear across two-and-a-half states, two Great Lakes and a good chunk of southern Ontario all the way to here where I can smell it. And I toddle off to bed with a belly laugh at these people. As Larry Moran says: now you know why we call them IDiots.
Tomorrow, I will awake to discover it's all a wine-induced dream, right? I mean, things that crazy don't happen in reality....
Sunday, March 2, 2008
A Skeptical Sort of Weekend
....and related themes like science and rationalism.
Zimmer Zinger
The fun actually started last Wednesday, when we got to see Carl Zimmer deliver Carleton U's annual Discovery Lecture. The talk was great, ranging over creationism, a crazy Aussie biologist who plays with some of the most venomous reptiles on earth, science tatoos, the new Encyclopedia of Life, and the joys of science journalism. The most memorable nugget was his account of the phylogeny of venomous reptiles and their diverse toxins, all acting in different ways. It turns out that the genes that make them are each coopted from some other gene that produces a product used elsewhere in the body; eg. cytotoxic venom from a digestive enzyme and things like that. To top it off: afterwards we got Carl to sign our newly-purchased copies of Soul Made Flesh and At the Water's Edge. The only sour note was when the faculty person introducing Zimmer made some remark implying that us over-30's aren't hip to Web 2.0 stuff like blogs. Hrumph.
It occurred to me that I missed my calling: being a science writer would be the perfect career for a dilletante like me. The only problem is that I don't think I'm a good enough writer to sustain a marketable level of prose for a few decades (or even a few hours). Well, maybe when I retire.....
Freaky Friday
Friday night was the HAO meeting, this month being held jointly with the Carleton Secular Alliance and the newly-formed University of Ottawa Skeptics. In celebration of Darwin Day, the theme was evolution vs. creationism. Gilles Messier lead off with a brief presentation on evolution, followed by three "creationists" -- actually Xander Miller, Chuck O'Dale and Your Humble Narrator presenting real creationist arguments. I think Xander's presentation was best, as he rattled off a string of Hovindisms like a genuine charlatan. My own spiel felt a bit disorganized -- I just find it damnably difficult to take a mass of irrational bullshit and compose it into a coherent, connected narrative.
After the presentations the audience had a chance to shoot us down, with prizes for the best and worst refutations. The "good" prizes were books about evolution, of course. The booby prize (awarded to a guy who -- tongue-in-cheek -- just called us idiots) was a Bible.
Perpetual Saturday
Saturday morning found six of us from the Ottawa Skeptics back at the U of O (where at least, I now know where to find parking) for a demonstration of Thane Hein's Perepiteia generator -- rumoured (though denied by its inventor) to be a Perpetual Motion Machine. Theo and I will be writing a longer report for the Skeptics site later, so for now I'll provide just a brief summary of my impressions:
Today was the monthly meeting of the Ottawa Skeptics, held at our house. I only mention it to point out how much time we spent on this kind of activity (and with a bunch of the same people) this last week. Other than discussing Saturday's demo, the only occurrence of interest was that Lieutenant Kizhe bit our new member. Stupid cat.
Zimmer Zinger
The fun actually started last Wednesday, when we got to see Carl Zimmer deliver Carleton U's annual Discovery Lecture. The talk was great, ranging over creationism, a crazy Aussie biologist who plays with some of the most venomous reptiles on earth, science tatoos, the new Encyclopedia of Life, and the joys of science journalism. The most memorable nugget was his account of the phylogeny of venomous reptiles and their diverse toxins, all acting in different ways. It turns out that the genes that make them are each coopted from some other gene that produces a product used elsewhere in the body; eg. cytotoxic venom from a digestive enzyme and things like that. To top it off: afterwards we got Carl to sign our newly-purchased copies of Soul Made Flesh and At the Water's Edge. The only sour note was when the faculty person introducing Zimmer made some remark implying that us over-30's aren't hip to Web 2.0 stuff like blogs. Hrumph.It occurred to me that I missed my calling: being a science writer would be the perfect career for a dilletante like me. The only problem is that I don't think I'm a good enough writer to sustain a marketable level of prose for a few decades (or even a few hours). Well, maybe when I retire.....
Freaky Friday
Friday night was the HAO meeting, this month being held jointly with the Carleton Secular Alliance and the newly-formed University of Ottawa Skeptics. In celebration of Darwin Day, the theme was evolution vs. creationism. Gilles Messier lead off with a brief presentation on evolution, followed by three "creationists" -- actually Xander Miller, Chuck O'Dale and Your Humble Narrator presenting real creationist arguments. I think Xander's presentation was best, as he rattled off a string of Hovindisms like a genuine charlatan. My own spiel felt a bit disorganized -- I just find it damnably difficult to take a mass of irrational bullshit and compose it into a coherent, connected narrative.
After the presentations the audience had a chance to shoot us down, with prizes for the best and worst refutations. The "good" prizes were books about evolution, of course. The booby prize (awarded to a guy who -- tongue-in-cheek -- just called us idiots) was a Bible.
Perpetual Saturday
Saturday morning found six of us from the Ottawa Skeptics back at the U of O (where at least, I now know where to find parking) for a demonstration of Thane Hein's Perepiteia generator -- rumoured (though denied by its inventor) to be a Perpetual Motion Machine. Theo and I will be writing a longer report for the Skeptics site later, so for now I'll provide just a brief summary of my impressions:- We did witness the motor acceleration as claimed, together with a reduction in input power.
- He denied that he was building a PMM -- but continued to insist that it violated energy conservation, apparently unaware that that is practically the definition of one type of PMM. He also talked a lot about "violating Lenz's Law", and "regenerative acceleration" (by analogy to regenerative braking used by electric vehicles), and how it "takes energy to stop a car" (no it doesn't: you have to make the kinetic energy possessed by the car go somewhere else).
- Between the above and other pieces of the conversation, I take Thane to be sincere -- but very, very confused. He really doesn't seem to understand the terminology he tosses around.
- My undergrad degree is in electrical engineering, but I took no more than the basic rotating machinery courses -- and that knowledge now has three decades of rust accumulation. Thus I really can't speculate what causes the effect he is seeing, without a bit of remedial study (OK: I can speculate -- but nothing I want to trot out in public just yet).
- However, the attention this is apparently getting from serious academics suggests Thane may have stumbled on something interesting -- a method of increasing induction motor efficiency, or creating a novel speed-torque characteristic -- but I flatly don't believe he's doing anything that would re-write all of modern physics.
Today was the monthly meeting of the Ottawa Skeptics, held at our house. I only mention it to point out how much time we spent on this kind of activity (and with a bunch of the same people) this last week. Other than discussing Saturday's demo, the only occurrence of interest was that Lieutenant Kizhe bit our new member. Stupid cat.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Bits from a CORE dump
Years ago, I signed up to receive the newsletter of Citizens for Origins Research and Education -- or as I like to refer to this missive, the Kwarterly Kreationist Komix, since they never fail to amuse. Noteworthy tidbits from the latest issue:
A CreationMuseum Fun House for Ottawa?
Inspired no doubt by the success of their hero Ken Ham, the CORE board wants to build the largest creation museum in Canada. Since our only other known creation museum appears to be a modest-sized bungalow, this is perhaps not too ambitious a goal -- certainly we're not necessarily talking anything approaching the magnitude of Ham's Folly. However, CORE president Ian Juby does promise animatronic dinosaurs, while acknowledging it will take many years and millions of dollars to pull this off.
Too bad the money won't be getting spent on real science education.
Coming soon, to an obscure cable TV spot near you:
Juby is also producing a TV show called Genesis Week, which sounds like it will air in some low-rent religious cable slot. From the website, it appears they get a lot of their material from Carl Baugh and Don Patton. If you've been involved in the C vs. E circus long enough to be familiar with the Rogues' Gallery of creationism, you will know this means bottom-of-the-barrel stuff -- the most fact-free, pulled-from-the-anal-orifice version of creation "science". Baugh (like Kent Hovind) is the kind of creationist who embarasses other creationists.
But hey, the show is shot in High-Def, so it's gotta be good, right? I may or may not get around to watching (and having some fun with) the YouTube versions.
Abiogenetic Irrelevance
Under the title"The Mathematical Impossibility of Life by natural processes", someone (presumably also Juby -- in the absence of other attributions, I assume the whole newsletter is written by him) writes:
Juby continues:
Basically, it's the Argument From Frighteningly Large Numbers. It's also a case of GIGO: what does forming some particular random short protein from an amino soup have to do with abiogenesis? Pretty much nothing. It's not even an argument. Does any serious scientist postulate that the way to start off life is to assemble some "magic" protein? Over the years, I've noticed that a lot of creationists don't seem to even understand what an argument looks like. For a discussion of abiogenesis probability calculations that deals with the real world (as opposed to creationist straw men), see the t.o FAQ.
Of course, Juby's "solution" to his invented problem is the usual GodDidIt. That's another common characteristic of creationist "argument" -- probably the single central fallacy at the core of all the others: they think "It happened by magic" is a respectable and scientific(!) answer.
Until the next CORE dump.....
A Creation
Inspired no doubt by the success of their hero Ken Ham, the CORE board wants to build the largest creation museum in Canada. Since our only other known creation museum appears to be a modest-sized bungalow, this is perhaps not too ambitious a goal -- certainly we're not necessarily talking anything approaching the magnitude of Ham's Folly. However, CORE president Ian Juby does promise animatronic dinosaurs, while acknowledging it will take many years and millions of dollars to pull this off.
Too bad the money won't be getting spent on real science education.
Coming soon, to an obscure cable TV spot near you:
Juby is also producing a TV show called Genesis Week, which sounds like it will air in some low-rent religious cable slot. From the website, it appears they get a lot of their material from Carl Baugh and Don Patton. If you've been involved in the C vs. E circus long enough to be familiar with the Rogues' Gallery of creationism, you will know this means bottom-of-the-barrel stuff -- the most fact-free, pulled-from-the-anal-orifice version of creation "science". Baugh (like Kent Hovind) is the kind of creationist who embarasses other creationists.
But hey, the show is shot in High-Def, so it's gotta be good, right? I may or may not get around to watching (and having some fun with) the YouTube versions.
Abiogenetic Irrelevance
Under the title"The Mathematical Impossibility of Life by natural processes", someone (presumably also Juby -- in the absence of other attributions, I assume the whole newsletter is written by him) writes:
Many evolutionists attempt to cop a plea by claiming that evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life. This is nonsense -- the entire point and principle of evolutionary theory is to remove the need for a Creator.No: the above is nonsense. I'm sure Francis Collins and Ken Miller (not to mention Charles Darwin himself) would be surprised to learn that "the entire point and principle" of their work is to "remove the need for a Creator". The purpose of evolutionary theory is to explain terrestrial biology by the methods of science. Historically, it had the effect of knocking the props out from under a particular class of religious apologetics -- the Argument From Design -- but that is a philosophical by-product, not its intent. By Juby's logic, one might as well claim that the purpose of gravitational theory is to explain the solar system without the need for God to personally push the planets around (which was actually a live argument -- about 300 years ago!).
Juby continues:
But when one looks at the impossibility of life by natural processes, it quickly becomes evident why anti-creationists are avoiding this subject like the plague!It's very convenient to just be able to make up claims about your opponents' behaviour, isn't it? Yeah, we avoid talking about abiogenesis, except when we don't. We then get Juby's attempt to prove that abiogenesis is impossible, which consists of a calculation of the chance of randomly assembling a particular chain of amino acids 200 units long (ie, a small protein). He correctly points out that the chance of getting this right on the first try is 20200, and that you would have to try some 10242 combinations every second for the entire 20 billion-year history of the universe to "produce one protein".
Basically, it's the Argument From Frighteningly Large Numbers. It's also a case of GIGO: what does forming some particular random short protein from an amino soup have to do with abiogenesis? Pretty much nothing. It's not even an argument. Does any serious scientist postulate that the way to start off life is to assemble some "magic" protein? Over the years, I've noticed that a lot of creationists don't seem to even understand what an argument looks like. For a discussion of abiogenesis probability calculations that deals with the real world (as opposed to creationist straw men), see the t.o FAQ.
Of course, Juby's "solution" to his invented problem is the usual GodDidIt. That's another common characteristic of creationist "argument" -- probably the single central fallacy at the core of all the others: they think "It happened by magic" is a respectable and scientific(!) answer.
Until the next CORE dump.....
Monday, June 4, 2007
How I found Jesus at the RASC
PZ Myers notes with approbation the RASC Ottawa's no-nonsense endorsement of science. Ottawa-area commenter bPer relates an incident at a RASC observing session (as well as a recent update), revolving around a certain mutual acquaintance. The conjunction of fundamentalist religion with the RASC prompts me to recollect a bit of personal history, which in an effort to bore everyone to tears and drive my site stats into the basement (but what the hell, yesterday was my 50th birthday, which seems like an appropriate occasion to get autobiographical), I will now relate.
First, a little background: my parents were agnostic, having abandoned their ancestral Methodism about the time of the Second World War. So that was my default from an early age. Religion was a hobby some other families did, or that I heard about during Religious Education at school (which they still had at the time). I had the usual kid's fascination with dinosaurs -- one of the first books I read myself was Danny The Dinosaur, about a young brontosaurus trying to find his way in the Mesozoic world (note: this is not the same book as comes up on a Google or Amazon search). Somewhat later, I graduated to Sam and Beryl Epstein's Prehistoric Animals, which covers the history of life from the Cambrian to the present, with a couple of decent explanatory chapters on the geologic column and the theory of evolution (according to the mid-1950s state of knowledge, ie. isotope dating was in its infancy, and plate tectonics was still mired in Wegener's unworkable drift hypothesis). It was one of my favorite books; I read it many times, and I still have it.
By the time I was about 8, I could not only spell "palaeontologist", I knew I wanted to be one, and would tell any adult unwary enough to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a precocious little nerd ;-).
In junior high school my interests shifted to physics -- the school library had a number of books which explained particle physics, relativity, quantum mechanics and cosmology without requiring the reader to understand the math behind them, and I read them all. The sheer wierdness of the world thus opened up fascinated me. More precocious nerdity - how many 13 year-olds even care what a neutrino is? So getting into the astronomy hobby was a natural next step - there was an active club at the school, and I spent quite a few nights out with friends chasing lunar eclipses, occultations or meteor showers. For a while, I was grinding my own 6-inch telescope mirror (a project that never got finished). I also joined the RASC Toronto Centre (obviously they didn't have a website c. 1970), which met every second Thursday evening in the basement of the McLaughlin Planetarium.
One night in late 1972, I was returning home from RASC on the subway with several other high school student members. When we reached the end of the line, one of our party who had his parents' car in the park-and-ride, offered to drive everyone home. So we started driving. And the conversation quickly turned religious. It turned out that the driver and at least one of the passengers were Evangelical Christians, and always ready to witness to any unbelievers who came their way. As an eager young agnostic, I put up a couple of arguments, and got a bit of unconvincing rebuttal; I forget the details now and it doesn't matter. (I should emphasize that, though I've long forgotten the details of the conversation, I don't recall it being the kind of creepy stealth evangelism practised by the aforementioned current nuisance in RASC Ottawa. These people had some social skills AND a genuine interest in astronomy for its own sake, not just as a hunting ground for converts.)
What did matter, in the end, is that as I was dropped off, one of my companions pressed into my hand a small booklet entitled Now I'm Free. This I read before going to bed. The tract (the gist of which can be found here) recounts the story of one Tom Skinner, a black youth running with gangs in the slums of Harlem who is converted by a radio preacher, reforms his life, and goes on to become an evangelist. The arguments he gives for theism didn't strike me as very good, even at the time, but what did impress me was his account of the way his life, and those of his fellow gang-members were changed by faith in Christ. In fact, it impressed me so much that I bought the whole package -- or to put it in the conventional Evangelical terminology, that night I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. (As I think y'all are aware, I got better later).
One can propose all sorts of psychoanalytic causes for my conversion -- some of which are plausible, while others are ruled out by the details of the situation. But subjectively, it was very much a rational decision: here was evidence (this guy's experience), and here was his explanation, and it seemed to fit, and there was no other obvious explanation; QED. I realize now that my standards of evidence were naive (hey, I was 15 -- everyone is allowed a little youthful folly) . Personal testimonial is a poor kind of evidence, whether for gods or for patent medicines. Even if the narrator is sincere (and I have no reason to think Skinner wasn't), their memory may be selective or confabulatory; and strong belief can, I think, impel life change even if the subjective impetus is imaginary. And of course, evaluating religious faith in the same way as one evaluates a medical therapy, the whole double-blind control thing is missing -- so much for any pretence Skinner's "experiment" has to being "scientific". For every conversion that magically results in a dramatically reformed life there are several more where the convert falls away after six months, or continues to be an alcoholic, or a philanderer, or basically the same jerk they were before, only now they go to church. But, aside from the occasional big-name evangelist caught with his (or her) pants down, you don't hear so much about the failures, for the obvious reason that they don't go on the sawdust circuit.
But smartly or stupidly, now I was a Christian, species fundagelicus, and I started reading the Bible and praying and picking up all the other cultural norms of my new peer group. Obviously, it didn't take me too long to run into the whole Genesis vs. Natural History issue. If there had been a more active and systematic Creation Science push going on in my immediate environment I might have got (temporarily) sucked in, but as it was I only heard pro-Creationist lessons occasionally, and that mostly arguments I already knew were bogus (eg. Second Law of Thermodynamics). However, the single biggest factor that kept me from ever being a YEC, or even much of an OEC, was: I already knew that science had a coherent narrative of biological history, embedded in a larger narrative of geological history, in turn embedded in a still larger cosmological narrative. And it all hung together. Thus, I fairly soon came round to a compatibilist view of Genesis, and eventually to a mythological view. It was important to understand that God created us, and that we were fallen; it was not important to me to be able to point at a particular allegedly historical event as the foundational "fact" of that theological belief.
Last fall, that inestimable primate John Wilkins posted an excellent four-part series entitled "Why are creationists creationist?" (the thesis of which receives support from a recent paper by psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg), analyzing how one's worldview is formed by environmental cues, heavily influenced by childhood conditioning. In Wilkins' terms, by the time of my conversion I was already well-committed to the "scientific concept space" (scroll down to the big graphic), thus non- or pseudo-scientific views had little traction except perhaps as short-term speculations. As Bloom and Weisberg would put it, many of my naive intuitions had already been replaced by scientific ones -- it's safe to say that anyone who has wrapped their mind around relativity and QM has had their innate Aristotelian mechanics thoroughly shredded. In short, I was open to a universe of possibility, that might well do things that seemed quite astonishing -- such as assemble living cells from pre-biotic soup, and then evolve them into cabbages and kings.
So: my involvement in the RASC lead me (accidentally) into Christian fundamentalism, but also helped protect me from some of its worst effects. Life is full of ironies.
First, a little background: my parents were agnostic, having abandoned their ancestral Methodism about the time of the Second World War. So that was my default from an early age. Religion was a hobby some other families did, or that I heard about during Religious Education at school (which they still had at the time). I had the usual kid's fascination with dinosaurs -- one of the first books I read myself was Danny The Dinosaur, about a young brontosaurus trying to find his way in the Mesozoic world (note: this is not the same book as comes up on a Google or Amazon search). Somewhat later, I graduated to Sam and Beryl Epstein's Prehistoric Animals, which covers the history of life from the Cambrian to the present, with a couple of decent explanatory chapters on the geologic column and the theory of evolution (according to the mid-1950s state of knowledge, ie. isotope dating was in its infancy, and plate tectonics was still mired in Wegener's unworkable drift hypothesis). It was one of my favorite books; I read it many times, and I still have it.
By the time I was about 8, I could not only spell "palaeontologist", I knew I wanted to be one, and would tell any adult unwary enough to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a precocious little nerd ;-).
In junior high school my interests shifted to physics -- the school library had a number of books which explained particle physics, relativity, quantum mechanics and cosmology without requiring the reader to understand the math behind them, and I read them all. The sheer wierdness of the world thus opened up fascinated me. More precocious nerdity - how many 13 year-olds even care what a neutrino is? So getting into the astronomy hobby was a natural next step - there was an active club at the school, and I spent quite a few nights out with friends chasing lunar eclipses, occultations or meteor showers. For a while, I was grinding my own 6-inch telescope mirror (a project that never got finished). I also joined the RASC Toronto Centre (obviously they didn't have a website c. 1970), which met every second Thursday evening in the basement of the McLaughlin Planetarium.
One night in late 1972, I was returning home from RASC on the subway with several other high school student members. When we reached the end of the line, one of our party who had his parents' car in the park-and-ride, offered to drive everyone home. So we started driving. And the conversation quickly turned religious. It turned out that the driver and at least one of the passengers were Evangelical Christians, and always ready to witness to any unbelievers who came their way. As an eager young agnostic, I put up a couple of arguments, and got a bit of unconvincing rebuttal; I forget the details now and it doesn't matter. (I should emphasize that, though I've long forgotten the details of the conversation, I don't recall it being the kind of creepy stealth evangelism practised by the aforementioned current nuisance in RASC Ottawa. These people had some social skills AND a genuine interest in astronomy for its own sake, not just as a hunting ground for converts.)
What did matter, in the end, is that as I was dropped off, one of my companions pressed into my hand a small booklet entitled Now I'm Free. This I read before going to bed. The tract (the gist of which can be found here) recounts the story of one Tom Skinner, a black youth running with gangs in the slums of Harlem who is converted by a radio preacher, reforms his life, and goes on to become an evangelist. The arguments he gives for theism didn't strike me as very good, even at the time, but what did impress me was his account of the way his life, and those of his fellow gang-members were changed by faith in Christ. In fact, it impressed me so much that I bought the whole package -- or to put it in the conventional Evangelical terminology, that night I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. (As I think y'all are aware, I got better later).
One can propose all sorts of psychoanalytic causes for my conversion -- some of which are plausible, while others are ruled out by the details of the situation. But subjectively, it was very much a rational decision: here was evidence (this guy's experience), and here was his explanation, and it seemed to fit, and there was no other obvious explanation; QED. I realize now that my standards of evidence were naive (hey, I was 15 -- everyone is allowed a little youthful folly) . Personal testimonial is a poor kind of evidence, whether for gods or for patent medicines. Even if the narrator is sincere (and I have no reason to think Skinner wasn't), their memory may be selective or confabulatory; and strong belief can, I think, impel life change even if the subjective impetus is imaginary. And of course, evaluating religious faith in the same way as one evaluates a medical therapy, the whole double-blind control thing is missing -- so much for any pretence Skinner's "experiment" has to being "scientific". For every conversion that magically results in a dramatically reformed life there are several more where the convert falls away after six months, or continues to be an alcoholic, or a philanderer, or basically the same jerk they were before, only now they go to church. But, aside from the occasional big-name evangelist caught with his (or her) pants down, you don't hear so much about the failures, for the obvious reason that they don't go on the sawdust circuit.
But smartly or stupidly, now I was a Christian, species fundagelicus, and I started reading the Bible and praying and picking up all the other cultural norms of my new peer group. Obviously, it didn't take me too long to run into the whole Genesis vs. Natural History issue. If there had been a more active and systematic Creation Science push going on in my immediate environment I might have got (temporarily) sucked in, but as it was I only heard pro-Creationist lessons occasionally, and that mostly arguments I already knew were bogus (eg. Second Law of Thermodynamics). However, the single biggest factor that kept me from ever being a YEC, or even much of an OEC, was: I already knew that science had a coherent narrative of biological history, embedded in a larger narrative of geological history, in turn embedded in a still larger cosmological narrative. And it all hung together. Thus, I fairly soon came round to a compatibilist view of Genesis, and eventually to a mythological view. It was important to understand that God created us, and that we were fallen; it was not important to me to be able to point at a particular allegedly historical event as the foundational "fact" of that theological belief.
Last fall, that inestimable primate John Wilkins posted an excellent four-part series entitled "Why are creationists creationist?" (the thesis of which receives support from a recent paper by psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg), analyzing how one's worldview is formed by environmental cues, heavily influenced by childhood conditioning. In Wilkins' terms, by the time of my conversion I was already well-committed to the "scientific concept space" (scroll down to the big graphic), thus non- or pseudo-scientific views had little traction except perhaps as short-term speculations. As Bloom and Weisberg would put it, many of my naive intuitions had already been replaced by scientific ones -- it's safe to say that anyone who has wrapped their mind around relativity and QM has had their innate Aristotelian mechanics thoroughly shredded. In short, I was open to a universe of possibility, that might well do things that seemed quite astonishing -- such as assemble living cells from pre-biotic soup, and then evolve them into cabbages and kings.
So: my involvement in the RASC lead me (accidentally) into Christian fundamentalism, but also helped protect me from some of its worst effects. Life is full of ironies.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Hallelujah! Rocks are Designed by God!
Unlike many creationists I don't consider engineers to be scientists, so I don't always have a lot to contribute to the science/pseudoscience discussion. But every so often, the ID/Creationists stray over the line into my territory. Like when a doctor starts saying silly things about both science and engineering.
About a month or so back, a new star appeared in the Intelligent Design firmament: Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, and with an impressive record as a practicing physician. It started (more or less) with his post at the Discovery Institute blog on why evolution is useless in medical practice, which begat a flurry of rebuttals from medical bloggers like Orac. Additional fun and games ensued as Egnor replied to his critics, or issued fresh pronouncements, resulting in a blizzard of blog posts that I won't even try to select from (Google Is Your Friend). Along the way, Orac issued Dr. Egnor a challenge (summarized here):
However, it gets worse. Apparently, doing this kind of "reverse engineering" of the natural world implicitly invokes the concept of "design" (presumably by You Know Who):
But lets do a simple case study using Egnor's reasoning (insofar as I can decipher it):
Consider a rock -- a moderate-sized, hold-in-your-hand, ordinary rock. Doing an initial black-box analysis, I observe that it has a certain heft to it -- with some simple apparatus I could measure its volume and mass, and calculate its average density. What else? I tap it with a hammer, and observe that it doesn't shatter. From this I make an inference about the internal structure of my rock: it's not hollow (this cannot be taken for granted, as some rocks are). To confirm my hypothesis, I hit it really hard and smash it open. Sure enough, it's solid all the way through.
Now, does this internal part serve any function? Sure it does: it supports the outside, and contributes to the mass. In other words, it enables the "black box" behaviour, just as much as the specific constituents of DNA enable its observed behaviour. And if I'm entitled to make the "design inference" in the one case, I'm entitled to make it in the other. So I conclude: my rock is designed by an intelligent entity.
It should be noted, of course, that this is entirely consistent with traditional Christian theology, which holds that everything in heaven and earth is in some sense under the sovereign supervision of God. But for some reason, the IDists (despite almost all being Christians of some stripe) only think that some things are designed. Maybe they're heretics; I don't know :-).
1. See, for example: page 197 of Michael Behe Darwin's Black Box, Simon & Schuster 1996
About a month or so back, a new star appeared in the Intelligent Design firmament: Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, and with an impressive record as a practicing physician. It started (more or less) with his post at the Discovery Institute blog on why evolution is useless in medical practice, which begat a flurry of rebuttals from medical bloggers like Orac. Additional fun and games ensued as Egnor replied to his critics, or issued fresh pronouncements, resulting in a blizzard of blog posts that I won't even try to select from (Google Is Your Friend). Along the way, Orac issued Dr. Egnor a challenge (summarized here):
- Explain, specifically, how the design inference is "of great value" in medicine.
- Explain, specifically, how the design inference has been of "enormous help in scientific research in general and medical research."
To untangle the structure of DNA, they inferred design, not chance. They reversed-engineered DNA. They collected physical data about the structure of DNA (X-ray diffraction studies, Chargaff’s rules, the physical chemistry of nucleotides, etc), and then they designed a model of the molecule to understand its structure and function.Egnor seems to base much of his argument on the following Wikipedia entry (bolding is Egnor's, red text is mine):
Reverse engineering... is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device or object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation…Reverse engineering is essentially science, using the scientific method. Sciences such as biology and physics can be seen as reverse engineering of biological 'machines' and the physical world respectively.The Wikipedia entry has since been edited to remove the text in red -- a change with which I heartily agree. Yes, there is a conceptual similarity between the work of reverse engineers and that of research scientists. Both groups start with a "black box" (the externally-observed behaviour of their study system), draw inferences about what might make it behave that way, and then find methods of literally or metaphorically "looking inside the box" to elucidate its inner workings. But, really, the resemblance ends there. To apply the term "reverse engineering" to both activities is to illegitimately impose a concrete term from the one domain on to the other, on the basis of an abstraction properly seen as underlying both.
However, it gets worse. Apparently, doing this kind of "reverse engineering" of the natural world implicitly invokes the concept of "design" (presumably by You Know Who):
Much of modern biological research, and most research in molecular biology, is reverse engineering. Some scientists infer design explicitly. Some use the design inference implicitly, even if they disagree with its philosophical implications. We can’t do modern biology, at least at the molecular level, without using reverse engineering, which is the inference to design.[emphasis mine]This simply compounds misapplied terminology with confused logic. What on earth does Egnor mean here by "inference to design"? In reverse engineering, we know that the system under study is designed and built by humans -- it's not an inference, it's part of the background knowledge we start with. (As an aside, that piece information is often useful in the reverse engineering process: knowledge of human psychology and standard practices can inform our investigation into the study system. This stands in contrast to IDists, who claim that one can study design while knowing nothing about the nature of the designer(s)[1]). But in the case of natural-world research science, we don't know in advance that the object of study was designed -- that is the very "inference" the IDists want us to make. Egnor's attempt to impose "design inferences" on his historical example seems to rest on Watson and Crick's own words concerning the relation between the structure and function of DNA:
It is probably impossible to build this structure with a ribose sugar in place of the deoxyribose, as the extra oxygen atom would make too close a van der Waals contact.and:
It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.As far as I can see, this is no more than to say that, because the molecule functions in a certain observed way, it must have a structure that allows for it to behave that way -- which says nothing about it having been designed (or not) by a concious agent.
But lets do a simple case study using Egnor's reasoning (insofar as I can decipher it):
Consider a rock -- a moderate-sized, hold-in-your-hand, ordinary rock. Doing an initial black-box analysis, I observe that it has a certain heft to it -- with some simple apparatus I could measure its volume and mass, and calculate its average density. What else? I tap it with a hammer, and observe that it doesn't shatter. From this I make an inference about the internal structure of my rock: it's not hollow (this cannot be taken for granted, as some rocks are). To confirm my hypothesis, I hit it really hard and smash it open. Sure enough, it's solid all the way through.
Now, does this internal part serve any function? Sure it does: it supports the outside, and contributes to the mass. In other words, it enables the "black box" behaviour, just as much as the specific constituents of DNA enable its observed behaviour. And if I'm entitled to make the "design inference" in the one case, I'm entitled to make it in the other. So I conclude: my rock is designed by an intelligent entity.
It should be noted, of course, that this is entirely consistent with traditional Christian theology, which holds that everything in heaven and earth is in some sense under the sovereign supervision of God. But for some reason, the IDists (despite almost all being Christians of some stripe) only think that some things are designed. Maybe they're heretics; I don't know :-).
1. See, for example: page 197 of Michael Behe Darwin's Black Box, Simon & Schuster 1996
Monday, April 2, 2007
Creationist Forum -- Eamon's View
On the evening of February 23, Citizens for Origins Research and Education (CORE) held the first of three "Evidence Forums" in a small auditorium at the Ottawa Citizen building. Four of us from HAO/Ottawa Brights Meetup were in attendance, along with maybe 20 other people of unknown affiliation (though mostly likely from local churches where creationism is taken seriously – which fortunately is probably not all that many). Theo and I are old hands from talk.origins, and have been getting the CORE newsletter for about 15 years, so we knew more or less what to expect, but I think it was a bit of a surprise to our friends. The speakers were Jonathan Cucan and Rev. George Desjardins (the third presenter, Paul Milne had to cancel).
Even before the official proceedings got started, things got interesting. Cucan and Desjardins got up a bit of one-line repartee about things seemingly irrelevant to the evening's stated topic. “Global warming?” said one of them (I forget which one). Dismissed with a snicker -- yes it's happening, but it's not our fault. Apparently the sun has increased its output in the last few decades (something like that). Ditto, Antarctic ozone depletion -- caused (snicker) by bromine. Church-state separation? -- it's (snicker, guffaw) a myth. There was no expansion on any of these points; they were just sort of throw-away comments to warm up the audience. To me the experience was sort of like watching a comedy duo act in which only the performers seem to be getting the punchlines (but think themselves devastatingly humorous).
After an opening prayer, Rev. Desjardins started the presentation with a list of factoids about “fulfilled prophecy” and so forth – basically, Josh McDowell-type stuff. There was, however, one jaw-dropping moment worth mentioning: someone (an acquaintance of Cucan's from the RASC) who asked something about aliens. Desjardins replied that yes, he thought they existed, there was some possible Biblical mention of them – and they are our ancestors. *boggle*. We didn't really get into this point, but I'm guessing that Desjardins subscribes to some form of the ancient-civilizations-developed-high-technology-including-space-travel schtick. On this view, UFOs would be some of those antediluvians coming back for a visit from their colony on wherever. Fascinating how pseudo-scientists often manage to go in for several kinds of crackpottery, simultaneously.
Anyways, none of this was really what we came for, so Theo asked where the creationism was – which got Jonathan Cucan rolling. And rolling. Basically, Cucan has two modes of argumentation: Argumentum ad Sneer (described above), and Argumentum ad Steamroller. In the latter mode, you get about six words into your objection, and he interrupts to tell you how wrong you are, and continues at length.
So what we got was the old Gish Gallop (which was more or less what I expected, of course). Since the format was informal, various audience members (including us four heathens) were interjecting questions and responses at quasi-random intervals, so I'll just summarize a few of the points I recall or took notes of (I mostly gave up trying to take notes):
There are 100,000 scientists who reject evolution (though he later revised this to 10,000). No cite, of course. And how many of them are actually engineers or doctors, or whose credentials are otherwise unrelated to the job of figuring out earth history?
The Urey-Miller experiment “failed”. Not sure in what way, but this was followed by further claims about the impossibility of abiogenesis, as proven by certain “scientists” (read: the Institute for Creation Research). We got a spirited back-and-forth going about this, between Cucan and us. I objected that any kind of probability calculation was conditional on the model under consideration, therefore universal assertions on the subject are impossible. I further objected that simply saying “....therefore God did it by a miracle” is a non-explanation – no different from saying “It happened by magic”. At this point, Cucan interrupted me to re-assert: No, no: these scientists have proven that abiogenesis is impossible – missing the point of my objection.
Cucan mentioned several claims made by the ICR's RATE project as knock-down (with the obligatory sneer and a chuckle) proofs that “evolutionary scientists” have it all wrong and the evidence points to a young earth:
- Rock samples from modern lava flows at Mount St. Helens were potassium-argon dated to between 500 thousand and three million years old (the obvious implication being that K/Ar – and isotope dating in general -- doesn't work). This appears to be a reference to dacite rock from the MSH lava dome which they had analyzed by a commercial lab which provides such services. The short answer is that such dates are close to the lower limits of the K/Ar dating method (ie. where minor argon contamination can give a falsely old date), and it also appears that Steve Austin (the ICR geologist who did the work) did not prepare the samples correctly. See here for a detailed examination of this claim.
- Next he said something a bit confusing: that they asked the same laboratories (he specifically mentioned Harvard and Yale) to check for the presence of retained helium in the samples – the idea being that a young rock may contain helium, but a truly ancient rock will have lost all its helium by diffusion. As near as I can tell, he's managed to conflate two claims coming from his own side – the MSH dacite K/Ar work (above) with a separate claim about He retention in zircons from a site in New Mexico. About the latter, the short story again appears to be that both the mineralogy and the lab work were incompetent: helium diffusion rates vary widely according to conditions, and the method used to measure retained He was wrong.
- Next up we had “Diamonds are a creationist's best friend” ie. that measurable amounts of carbon-14 can be found in diamonds – which should not be the case if diamonds are millions of years old, as all the C-14 should have decayed away. This was discussed on talk.origins, and once again (no surprise!): the claimed C-14 “date” of 58000 years is close to the limits of the method, where contamination and background noise can skew the results.
The details of the above can get pretty technical (more than I understand, or have time to get up to speed on – though I doubt Cucan knows any more about it than I do), but the most charitable assessment I can give his claims is: they're simply not the knock-down killer of standard geology that Cucan likes to spout them as. (My non-charitable assessment is: they're complete crap from a bunch of ideologues whom Cucan considers infallible heroes).
Raymond Damadian, Martyr for Creationism: Damadian was one of the key developers of the MRI medical diagnostic technology, but was passed over for the 2003 Nobel Prize in medicine in favour of two other scientists who also worked in the field. Creationists like to claim that this was due to Damadian's young-earth beliefs – a clear example of persecution. In fact, there is to my knowledge no evidence that Damadian's beliefs influenced the Nobel committee (or that they were even aware of his beliefs); it is pure speculation. But creationists just love to play the persecution card. (There was extensive discussion of this on the talk.origins Usenet group at the time.)
The point of showing up for events like this, of course, is not that you'll convince the presenters, or any of the True Believers – that's pretty much an impossible task. But in the audience there are likely to be the novices and fence-sitters -- those who haven't yet drained the kool-aid right to the dregs. It's important to show these folks that, actually, the “evolutionists” have heard the creationist side, and have answers. The purveyors of nonsense shouldn't get a free ride with the public. After the meeting was over, but people were still hanging around, I got into a bit of a conversation with one gentleman from the audience about transitional fossils. I gave him the URL of the talk.origins FAQ, along with the names of several of the early whales for him to look up for himself.
Then I went to have a little chat with Cucan himself. A few snippets from this conversation,as I recall them:
Cucan claimed that scientists were coming round to creationism. When I stated that I didn't believe him, he replied with an anecdote about a personal acquaintance – a computer scientist – whom Cucan had given his creationist spiel, and the guy had converted and been baptized, hallelujah. I didn't get the chance to point out that computer science is not, strictly speaking, science, any more than engineering is: his friend's CS degree is not much different from my Master's degree in Systems and Computer Engineering, and neither credential is relevant to the age of the earth, or biological evolution. This claiming of peripheral professions as “scientists” in order to inflate the numbers is a standard part of creationist rhetoric.
Next he went off into some story about how trilobite eyes are just as complex as frog's eyes, which was supposed to prove...something – I would guess about how evolution is supposed to make things more complex over time. So I (a little tired of the torrent of verbiage) interrupted to tell him he didn't understand evolution – at which point he interrupted back to say that I didn't understand evolution! Oh boy. “Simple” seems to one the trigger words that will cause Cucan to immediately interrupt and steamroller you.
I pointed to the Bible lying on the table and said (more or less), Look, don't tell me that you lot are interested in evidence or truth, because your heroes at the ICR have made a commitment that any and all conclusions they come up with must be consistent with a literal interpretation of this book....(interruption) No, no Cucan replies, if you come up with something that contradicts the Bible then you re-examine your interpretation. Which is of course, rubbish: if these guys were actually listening to the evidence instead of bending it to fit their hermeneutics, they'd all be hanging out with Francis Collins in the Theistic Evolution camp. Consider for example, the case of Kurt Wise (one of the few YECs with legitimate credentials in earth science), who is on record as admitting that, even if all the evidence pointed to an old earth, he would remain a YEC for theological reasons. Or read any of the prominent YEC websites (or the most recent CORE newsletter) calling for uncompromising allegiance to a strict YECism, and criticizing the old-earth interpretations like “Day-Age” as compromising with the Great Satan of evolutionism (you have to understand that “compromise” is a very dirty word to fundamentalists). So I just flatly don't believe Cucan's claim – it is obvious to anyone who spends any time interacting with YECs (or indeed, any other variety of creationist) that with them, ideology trumps evidence.
One of the other organizers, a young minister whose name I don't recall, chimed in with the old canard about evolution being invented as an excuse to ignore human accountability to God. I came down hard and fast on him, to the effect that the statement is a calumny which I would not allow to stand. Cucan stepped in fairly quickly with some conciliatory words to the effect that you can't apply that to individuals – though it's clear he still believes the statement as an historical generality. This is one of my hot-buttons: there are certain common creationist ad hominems (Nazi comparisons and Darwin-was-a-racist being the other ones which come to mind) which are so false, vile and slanderous that they should never be allowed to go unchallenged. Never ever. Zero tolerance.
There was another one of these things in March, which we missed, but we're planning to show up for the final one on April 20.
Creationist Forum - Theo's view
We have been on the mailing list for the Ottawa creationist group CORE for some years. Recently, having received an invitation to their "Scientific Creation Forum" we rounded up a few members of the Humanist Association of Ottawa and the Ottawa atheist meetup/bookclub and assembled us a "posse" (ok, maybe I have been watching too much Firefly).
The meeting was to be held at the headquarters of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, and we speculated for a bit as to whether there was any connection between the paper and CORE, and if not, whether the room could be booked by the public, and might be a possible location for Ottawa Humanist meetings.
Our posse of 4 was among the first to arrive, but eventually there were about 20 people seated, and the meeting started, unfortunately minus the promised scientist (Organic Chem PhD). The MC, Jonathan Cucan, opened with a bible reading/prayer, then turned the floor over to George Desjardins. Dejardins spoke on the "reliability" of the bible: that it was directly handed to humans from God, that it was accurate, that modern archaeology was consistently confirming "facts" from the bible, that the bible's authenticity was confirmed by fulfillment of prophecy, etc. I had heard all this before (not to mention the fact that I had at one time been convinced that it was true), so I raised my hand and asked when we were going to get to the discussion of Scientific Creation, which was the advertised topic of the meeting.
So, on we went to Scientific Creation. Cucan gave an account of his first challenge to his faith by the theory of evolution ("it's not even a theory, it's just a hypothesis", he says with a sneer and a smarmy laugh). Apparently, when he was 10 he came home from school and told his father that he was very upset because his science teacher had told him that the earth was billions of years old, but he knew that the bible said that God had created the universe only a few thousand years ago. His father re-assured him that the teacher was wrong and the bible was the authority on the matter, at which point young Jonathan decided to devote the rest of his life to defending Young Earth Creationism (YEC).
Cucan's view, typical of many creationists, is that any threat or challenge to the theory of evolution (or even any threat or challenge to conventional science) is a point in favour of of young-earth creationism. His technique is to fire off a series of objections which appear logical and plausible to the audience, and demand an explanation. Of course, all of these claims could be easily debunked in 5-10 minutes, with the assistance of Our Friend Google and the talkorigins archive, but it only takes 20-30 seconds to assert the claim (and in Cucan's case, laugh derisively and move on to the next one before giving anyone in the audience a chance to get a word in edgewise).
In addition to those listed in Eamon's report, here are a few more:
One of his major thrusts was regarding the complexity of DNA, and how it is utterly impossible that the DNA required to assemble something as "basic" as a blade of grass could just come together "by chance". Interestingly, when I stated that grass was not a very good example of a "simple" organism, he responded with glee, saying that if even grass was not considered simple, how could we expect the DNA for anything "really complex" like humans to have arisen, "by chance". At that point, I tried to explain natural selection. Cucan evidently was not listening, but apparently some members of the audience were, and there was some good discussion with them afterwards - they asked about how "something as complex as the eye" could have evolved "by chance", and we were able to provide some insight as to how natural selection works for making eyes - no ID required here.
At the end, I had a one-on-one discussion with Cucan. He first said to me that evolutionists were losing the battle since so many atheists were becoming Christians, and then said that the secular education system was being threatened since so many Christian parents were pulling their kids out of public schools and colleges where evolution was being taught. He proceeded to explain that both evolution and creationism were "just theories", and ought to be taught side by side. I confirmed his previous statement that he rejected evolution in favour of YEC for religious reasons, and asked him why it should be taught in science class. He responded that evolution was also religious, so I asked him how that could be, given that many religious people accept evolution and conventional science. That appeared to give him pause to think - he eventually conceded that he believed that Christian evolutionists are wrong, but not in peril of their immortal souls!
We skipped the March meeting (but did pause to wonder what account Cucan might have given to the audience about the "challenges" he had presented, and whether he would have suggested that the anti-creationists were afraid to return). We're back to the battle for the April 20 meeting - if you are in the Ottawa area, come one out for the show.
The meeting was to be held at the headquarters of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, and we speculated for a bit as to whether there was any connection between the paper and CORE, and if not, whether the room could be booked by the public, and might be a possible location for Ottawa Humanist meetings.
Our posse of 4 was among the first to arrive, but eventually there were about 20 people seated, and the meeting started, unfortunately minus the promised scientist (Organic Chem PhD). The MC, Jonathan Cucan, opened with a bible reading/prayer, then turned the floor over to George Desjardins. Dejardins spoke on the "reliability" of the bible: that it was directly handed to humans from God, that it was accurate, that modern archaeology was consistently confirming "facts" from the bible, that the bible's authenticity was confirmed by fulfillment of prophecy, etc. I had heard all this before (not to mention the fact that I had at one time been convinced that it was true), so I raised my hand and asked when we were going to get to the discussion of Scientific Creation, which was the advertised topic of the meeting.
So, on we went to Scientific Creation. Cucan gave an account of his first challenge to his faith by the theory of evolution ("it's not even a theory, it's just a hypothesis", he says with a sneer and a smarmy laugh). Apparently, when he was 10 he came home from school and told his father that he was very upset because his science teacher had told him that the earth was billions of years old, but he knew that the bible said that God had created the universe only a few thousand years ago. His father re-assured him that the teacher was wrong and the bible was the authority on the matter, at which point young Jonathan decided to devote the rest of his life to defending Young Earth Creationism (YEC).
Cucan's view, typical of many creationists, is that any threat or challenge to the theory of evolution (or even any threat or challenge to conventional science) is a point in favour of of young-earth creationism. His technique is to fire off a series of objections which appear logical and plausible to the audience, and demand an explanation. Of course, all of these claims could be easily debunked in 5-10 minutes, with the assistance of Our Friend Google and the talkorigins archive, but it only takes 20-30 seconds to assert the claim (and in Cucan's case, laugh derisively and move on to the next one before giving anyone in the audience a chance to get a word in edgewise).
In addition to those listed in Eamon's report, here are a few more:
- Ocean Salinity: The oceans are not salty enough for a multibillion year old Earth
- Bromine caused the Ozone Hole (not related to evolution, just a general attack on conventional science): According to Cucan, when scientists got to Antarctica, they were shocked to find that the ozone hole was caused by bromine. (I think he actually got this from "Reasons to Believe" , where it is cited as evidence that the earth's atmosphere is such a complex system that there must be a Supreme Being personally supervising all the chemical reactions.)
- Human/Chimpanzee DNA comparison: The ~99% similarity of human and chimp DNA is often cited as evidence that the 2 species have a relatively recent common ancestor. Cucan was delighted to cite recent research that "revised" the conventional statistic to 95-96%. This, of course, casts doubt on the validity of the Theory of Evolution!? (The actual quote from the NIH: The DNA sequence that can be directly compared between the two genomes is almost 99 percent identical. When DNA insertions and deletions are taken into account, humans and chimps still share 96 percent of their sequence.)
One of his major thrusts was regarding the complexity of DNA, and how it is utterly impossible that the DNA required to assemble something as "basic" as a blade of grass could just come together "by chance". Interestingly, when I stated that grass was not a very good example of a "simple" organism, he responded with glee, saying that if even grass was not considered simple, how could we expect the DNA for anything "really complex" like humans to have arisen, "by chance". At that point, I tried to explain natural selection. Cucan evidently was not listening, but apparently some members of the audience were, and there was some good discussion with them afterwards - they asked about how "something as complex as the eye" could have evolved "by chance", and we were able to provide some insight as to how natural selection works for making eyes - no ID required here.
At the end, I had a one-on-one discussion with Cucan. He first said to me that evolutionists were losing the battle since so many atheists were becoming Christians, and then said that the secular education system was being threatened since so many Christian parents were pulling their kids out of public schools and colleges where evolution was being taught. He proceeded to explain that both evolution and creationism were "just theories", and ought to be taught side by side. I confirmed his previous statement that he rejected evolution in favour of YEC for religious reasons, and asked him why it should be taught in science class. He responded that evolution was also religious, so I asked him how that could be, given that many religious people accept evolution and conventional science. That appeared to give him pause to think - he eventually conceded that he believed that Christian evolutionists are wrong, but not in peril of their immortal souls!
We skipped the March meeting (but did pause to wonder what account Cucan might have given to the audience about the "challenges" he had presented, and whether he would have suggested that the anti-creationists were afraid to return). We're back to the battle for the April 20 meeting - if you are in the Ottawa area, come one out for the show.
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