Don McLeroy Wins!

March 3rd, 2010

No, it’s not that.

Fortunately, everyone’s favorite advocate of young-earth creationism lost his re-election bid in yesterday’s Republican primary for the District 9 seat on the Texas State Board of Education. Way to go Texas!

The quote-mining dentist has been extracted from the Texas State Board of Education. The man with his own flossophy of science no longer has the power to erode science education in Texas and beyond. I bet today was a hard day at the orifice for him. Let’s not rub it in, though, because he has fillings too.

So what exactly did Don McLeroy win?

THE FIRST ANNUAL UPCHUCKY AWARD!

Here’s the description of the award from the National Center for Science Education:

Which creationist was the most nauseating?

When it comes to dissing evolution (and science in general) there’s no lack of volunteers. How to decide which among them is the worst?

Enter the intelligently designed UpChucky Award, which recognizes supreme achievement in the field of persistently rejecting evolution in the most stomach-turning way imaginable. This crown of cluelessness, this diadem of density, this badge of bullpucky isn’t awarded to just any Darwin doubter. The UpChucky is bestowed on that one creationist whose efforts in the preceding year would inspire Darwin (or any rational person) to “drive the porcelain bus”.

The nominees:

Don McLeroy, former chair, Texas Board of Education
Don is a dentist and when he’s not drillin’, he’s fillin’ the Texas Board with an amalgam of misinformation and misunderstanding about evolution. His numbing effect on the board is accompanied by a high-pitched whine–the sound of Don drilling holes in Texas state science standards. (Thankfully, Texas voters just booted McLeroy off the board.)
Notable Don quote: “Somebody’s got to stand up to experts!”

Ray Comfort, Living Waters
Los Angeles-based evangelist Ray Comfort was best known for an unintentionally comic video with former child star Kirk Cameron about the divine design of the banana. Then Ray had a revelation: Darwin’s Origin was in the public domain! Why not distribute the work–with a “special” introduction blaming Darwin for Hitler–to college students nationwide? Why not indeed? But the tainted tome was roasted by critics and Comfort accused of plagiarism.
Notable Ray quote: “Behold the atheist’s nightmare! Now, if you study a well-made banana, you’ll find…”

Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute
Casey Luskin, according to his masters at the Discovery Institute, helps “educators and policymakers nationwide to teaching (sic) evolution accurately.” (We presume some words are missing–perhaps “establish barriers”?) This is a task to which he brings a logorrheic zeal, penning nearly 700 blog posts and press releases in the last five years.
Notable Casey quote: When asked if intelligent design–as mentioned in a proposed Florida law–constituted “scientific information”, Luskin dithered, saying, “In my personal opinion, I think it does. But the intent of this bill is not to settle that question. The intent of this bill is…it protects the ‘teaching of scientific information.’”

Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera isn’t a source of quality science journalism on its best day, but its coverage of the scientific papers about “Ardi” (Ardipithecus ramidus) really cranked up the reality distortion field. The headline: “Ardi Refutes Darwin’s Theory”.
Notable Al Jazeera quote: “[American scientists]…announced yesterday that Ardi’s discovery proves that humans did not evolve from ancestors that resemble chimpanzees, which refutes the longstanding assumption that humans evolved from monkeys.”

Congratulations to all of the nominees.


Posted by Jeremy Mohn

3 Comments »



“The Poetry of Reality”

February 26th, 2010

The latest installment from John Boswell at Symphony of Science:

Tags: , ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



Teach the Controversy!

February 21st, 2010

Via He Lives.

Tags: ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



Darwin, Barnacles, and the True Nature of ID

February 21st, 2010

Prior to the publication of the book that would make him a household name, Charles Darwin spent 8 years studying barnacles. He first became interested in barnacles during his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle when he discovered a tiny parasite that had burrowed into a conch shell. He would later discover that this parasite was a barnacle, even though it lacked certain features found in most other barnacles. Darwin’s curiosity about barnacles would eventually evolve into an obsession and to the publication of four volumes on the subject that would establish his reputation as a meticulous researcher and naturalist. Darwin’s barnacle research made him the world’s foremost expert on the critters and earned him the respect of scientists who might otherwise have ignored his later work.

Interestingly, Darwin’s barnacle studies influenced the development of his ideas concerning evolution, as Darwin himself noted in his autobiography:

The Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class; and my work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the ‘Origin of Species’ the principles of a natural classification.

At the time of Darwin’s research, barnacles were quite poorly understood. Many naturalists classified them as mollusks. By carefully dissecting hundreds of specimens, Darwin was able to demonstrate that, although their shells make them look like mollusks, barnacles are in fact related to lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. In their larval stage, they look like tiny shrimp and swim around at the surface of the ocean. When a barnacle is ready to settle down, it uses its antennae to pull itself along and find an acceptable location. Upon finding a suitable site, the animal uses a strong adhesive to attach itself head-first to the surface. From that point on, it lives inside its shell, using its feathery legs to filter food out of the surrounding water.

For centuries, barnacles were an enigma. Their relationship to other animals was clouded by their derived traits, features that made them unlike any other members of the animal kingdom. However, careful study of their anatomy led Darwin to correctly conclude that they are crustaceans. Darwin saw through the façade of the barnacle’s shell to the core, or essence, of the creature in order to identify its true nature.

This is a valuable lesson that can be applied elsewhere.

The video below recently showed up as a response to one of my YouTube videos. The audio is from a November, 2002 episode of Science Friday. It features Kenneth Miller, Lawrence Krauss, and Stephen Meyer discussing the dust up over science standards in Ohio in 2002.

To put this in context, this was when the Intelligent Design Movement was still actively promoting the teaching of ID in public school classrooms.

Around the time this discussion took place, John Calvert (leader of the Kansas-based Intelligent Design Network) was gallivanting around Ohio arguing that it was legal for science teachers to teach the “Design Hypothesis” in public school science classrooms. In fact, Calvert went so far as to argue that it was illegal to prohibit science teachers from teaching ID.

Remarkably, these arguments were being made in the absence of an accepted ID curriculum. This is demonstrated by John Calvert’s March, 2001 legal opinion:

Develop Curriculum for Showing the Evidence relating to the Design Hypotheses.

Although I am not aware of any accepted curriculum for use in discussing the evidence of design, efforts are being made to develop constitutionally neutral curriculum which would be consistent with the Policy Statement. I expect curriculum may be available within the near future. I will provide copies as soon as it becomes available.

I encourage school districts, school teachers and school administrators who have a desire to develop curriculum, to do so. I believe IDnet can put them in touch with scientists and educators who could provide assistance.

Such a curriculum never materialized. That’s not surprising, of course, since there never has been a positive scientific case for ID. Eventually, ID promoters in Ohio abandoned the teaching of ID and shifted their focus to the “critical analysis of evolution.”

Then came Kitzmiller v. Dover and the collapse of intelligent design. Ever since the Kitzmiller ruling declared that teaching ID is unconstitutional, the leaders of the ID movement have abandoned legal arguments like those made by Calvert in Ohio. They are now simply asking that teachers be given the “academic freedom” to teach the “full range of scientific views” regarding evolution.

But has the essence of their argument really changed?

Of course not.

The material that ID promoters want taught in science classrooms today is exactly the same as it was in Ohio in 2002. Regardless of the current façade, careful dissection will reveal the real core of the ID movement: the religiously-motivated desire to engender unreasonable doubts concerning evolutionary theory in the minds of young people. The currently popular catch-phrases like “academic freedom” and “critical analysis” are merely shells that have been erected to hide the ID movement’s true nature.

Darwin’s work on barnacles teaches us a valuable lesson: Sometimes you have to look beneath outer appearances in order to discover the true nature of something.

I never cease to be amazed by how much the man got right.

Tags: , , ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



Science Café Hays – February 2010

February 19th, 2010

No, really, how small is it? Is it dangerous?

Join us next Tuesday, February 23, as Dr. Cathy Clewitt of the FHSU Physics Department instructs and engages us in conversation about nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is the result and process of manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular scale. Like any other new technology, nanotech inspires its own peculiar risks and concerns. According to Wikipedia,

Some of the recently developed nanoparticle products may have unintended consequences. Researchers have discovered that silver nanoparticles used in socks only to reduce foot odor are being released in the wash with possible negative consequences.[52] Silver nanoparticles, which are bacteriostatic, may then destroy beneficial bacteria which are important for breaking down organic matter in waste treatment plants or farms.[53]

A study at the University of Rochester found that when rats breathed in nanoparticles, the particles settled in the brain and lungs, which led to significant increases in biomarkers for inflammation and stress response.[54]

A friend of mine expressed concern about the possibilities for harm posed by nanites. I, Robot fears aside, her remark helped me understand that there is a large group of people who have an inherent distrust of technology, and by extension, of the scientists who make the technology possible. These people aren’t necessarily cranks or unintelligent or willfully ignorant; they just don’t know enough about the subject to have an informed opinion. And in the evolutionary sense, it’s smarter to fear the unknown than it is to embrace it.

Thus, we have Science Cafes in Hays, born out of a determination to meet the general public where it is instead of where we’d like it to be. Come on down to Cafe Semolino, 110 W. 11th Street, next Tuesday evening for an invigorating discussion with other science-curious folks, and great science from scientists themselves.

Tags: ,

Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



Continuously Evolving

February 19th, 2010

A confluence of recent changes to the services we use for blogging here at stand up for REAL science have required us to leave Blogger and make the switch to WordPress.

The new RSS feed for the blog will be:

http://www.anevolvingcreation.net/standup/?feed=rss2

Please update your links accordingly.

Along with the switch to WordPress, I have also made a long overdue update to the html code for the rest of the pages on the website in order to improve the overall functionality and to standardize the appearance. One significant improvement is the new “Contact Us” page that allows you to send us an email directly from the site without having to open your email client.

All of the old Blogger posts will remain in their current locations (although we also imported them to WordPress). If you currently have a link or bookmark for something we have posted previously using Blogger, it will still work for the forseeable future.

This is not an extinction event. Cheryl and I plan to keep advocating for REAL science in public school science classrooms. We’re simply parting ways with Blogger.

Consider it an evolutionary divergence.

Tags:

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

5 Comments »



Happy Birthday!

February 12th, 2010

Today we celebrate the birthday of Charles Darwin: February 12, 1809. Many of Darwin’s quotes have been quote-mined over the years by creationists trying to smear Darwin and/or his revolutionary theory of evolution. (Well, revolutionary for 1859, anyway.)

But my favorite quote is the one Jeremy uses at the top of this page:

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”

Once again, the (no)Discovery Institute is promoting its “Academic Irresponsibility Freedom Day.” Jeremy showed here how the DI’s campaign is built on a shifty quote mine.

Someone for whom I have a great deal of respect told me,

Academic freedom does not bestow the right to actively misinform students. Those who would knowingly mislead students about science are not exercising academic freedom. They are demonstrating a lack of academic integrity.


Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



Antievolution Legislation Update

February 5th, 2010

The Mississippi anti-evolution bill that would have required public schools to present “scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution” has died in committee.

It appears that the Mississippi legislature’s search for “scientifically sound arguments” by antagonists of the theory of evolution came up empty.

Next time, maybe they’ll complete their search before they file the bill.

Hat-tip: NCSE

Tags: ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



Surprise, suprise, surprise!

January 25th, 2010

No, unfortunately, I’ve learned by now that the surprise would be if the Discovery Institute didn’t engage in repeated quotemining.

Once again, the DI is promoting its so-called “Academic Freedom Day” for February 12th, the birthday of Charles Darwin. The DI is pimping this movement based on this ostensible quote from Darwin:

A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.

Jeremy laid bare the DI’s deception at about this time last year.

It’s telling that a movement that loudly claims to be concerned with freedom and truth has to resort to quotemining and deliberate deception to gain and retain its followers. Can the DI’s bad tree of behavior really be expected to produce good fruit? Matt 7:16-20


Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



2012 – Science Cafe in Hays

January 21st, 2010

What fun!

Tuesday night’s Science Cafe in Hays was certainly stimulating. For starters, the scheduled presenter (Dr. Paul Adams) was tasked elsewhere by his boss so the presentation was given by a local astronomy buff recruited for the task. The substitute presenter, Megan Adams*, is a gifted public speaker who kept us on our toes with her no-holds-barred approach to debunking ridiculous ideas and with her wry quips. Paul joined the Cafe via Skype video from Topeka.

Megan began by explaining four of the common prophecies regarding 2012:

1. The Mayan calender ends on December 21, 2012.
2. Earth is destined to collide with the undiscovered planet Nibiru.
3. Various alignments of the planets, the galactic plane, the solar system’s plane, and the spin of the earth will wreak havoc on the earth’s spin and/or magnetic field.
4. The solar cycle will be at a maximum, producing gigantic solar flares which will wipe out life on Earth.

Each of these was shown to be in conflict with scientific evidence; some examples are given at the National Geographic website. In short:
1. Mayan calendars were notoriously inconsistent. And think about it – when your 5-year calendar ends with December 31, does it mean civilization will come to a screeching halt? Of course not – you just go get a new calendar!
2. There is no such thing as “planet Nibiru.” Period.
3. Those alignments have happened lots of times during the 5-billion-year history of the earth. If such an alignment was capable of destroying Earth, we’d have clues by now.
4. Although 2012 will be the peak of a solar maximum, there is no data to suggest this maximum will be any more catastrophic than any other solar maximum – which happens every 11 years.

The Fort Hays State University Leader had an excellent summary of the evening on its front page, and the Hays Daily News ran a blurb as well.

During the discussion after the presentation, one of the 50-some attendees presented a prophecy I hadn’t encountered: the Lakota Sioux White Buffalo prophecy. As she told it, the birth of a white buffalo is supposed to signify the return of a Sioux deity, and of course all signs point to it happening in 2012. This idea was promoted along with the slowing of the earth’s spin which is being hidden by the scientists from the general public, and is the reason time seems to pass so much more quickly as we get older.

Neither contention was presented with any scientific support.

One nugget of wisdom that this speaker did note was that as people, we need to be treating each other much more nicely. (Of course, my own thought was, “why should we only treat each other well if we think doom is imminent?” But I digress.)

It should be noted that

Although she said she did not believe the world would end Dec. 21, 2012, Adams admitted she had a slight ulterior motive: her 21st birthday is Dec. 22, 2012.

She said even the end of the world could not keep her from celebrating.

“If the world ends on the 21st, I’ll hang on and survive and still celebrate on the 22nd.”

(*in interests of full disclosure, yes, I am proud to be Megan’s mother!)


Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



Missouri Loves Company

January 18th, 2010

Last week, Cheryl reported that Mississippi is the first state this year to be visited by the Ghost of Intelligent Design known as “Academic Freedom” legislation.

Apparently, some members of the Missouri legislature did not like the spectre of Mississippi being the only state possessed by anti-evolution legislation this year. According to the NCSE, eleven Republican representatives recently tried out their skills as ghost whisperers by summoning the ghost of Intelligent Design into Missouri science classrooms via House Bill 1651.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Robert Wayne Cooper, introduced similar bills in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2009. All of Cooper’s previous bills passed away.

May they rest in peace.

Tags: ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



Mississippi is dah loser!

January 13th, 2010

Sweet! (added in edit: Because it’s not Kansas this time!)

According to the National Center for Science Education the state of Mississippi has become the first state legislature of 2010 to file an anti-evolution bill.

But check this out:

“The lesson provided to students … shall have proportionately equal instruction from educational materials that present scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution.”

“proportionally equal” ????

Hmmm.

If the time devoted to the evidence supporting evolution is “proportionately equal” to the amount of evidence supporting evolution, and the time devoted to the evidence against evolution is “proportionately equal” to the amount of evidence against it, then the lesson becomes easy to plan:

99.99% of the time would be devoted to the evidence supporting evolution, while 0.01% of the class time would be devoted to . . . well, since there’s no credible evidence against evolution, that time could be used to discuss the anti-evolution movement in the US.

That 0.01% of class time could be used to point out the uniformly religious motivations of the anti-science movement, like the quote from the bill’s sponsor:

“Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground,” and adding, “All these molecules didn’t come into existence by themselves.” – Gary Chism (R-District 37), to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (January 24, 2009)

Somehow, I doubt Chism recognizes what the word “proportionately” means.


Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



2012: The End of Time?

January 12th, 2010

Collision with rogue planet Nibiru. The end of the 13th Baktun of the Mayan calendar. The alignment of the equators of Earth, Sun, and the Milky Way Galaxy. Earth passing through the Galactic Plane. Earth spinning wildly out of control. Disastrous geomagnetic reversal. Solar storms. Global consciousness shift, a reincarnated Quetzalcoatl, and Timewave Zero.

Well, it certainly sounds disastrous, don’t you think?

Join us next Tuesday, January 19th, at Cafe Semolino’s (map) in Hays for our first Science Cafe of 2010. Dr. Paul Adams, FHSU’s Anschutz Professor of Education and Professor of Physics, will give us the background behind these scary-sounding events. More importantly, he will help us understand why each and every one of us should be concerned about the effects of 2012 prophecies:

NASA’s Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictions—some of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

“A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened,” Morrison said.

“I’ve had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn’t want to be around when the world ends,” he said. “Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn’t have to suffer through the end of the world.”

Hays’ Science Cafe is sponsored by the FHSU Science & Mathematics Education Institute, Kansas Citizens for Science, and Cafe Semolino’s.


Posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams

No Comments »



A Very Worthy Cause to Support

January 8th, 2010

Put down that spoon.

This PSA is from WildAid. Many more celebrity PSAs can be found on their website.

Pass them around!

Hat-tip: Adrian Thysse at A Natural Evolution


Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



The Cambrian Explosion: No Dilemma for Darwin

January 8th, 2010

I have been home from work for three snow days in a row. Along with scooping snow and playing with the girls, I’ve had some unexpected free time.

Time to relax, read, and learn something new.

It’s a great time to take in a YouTube lecture like the one below:

The lecture is given by Stephen Westrop, the curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma.

Here’s the description of the lecture posted on YouTube:

The Cambrian Explosion was one of the most important episodes in the history of life. Over some 20 to 25 million years, beginning about 543 million years ago, life in the oceans diversified. Today, we find abundant fossils of hard-shelled animals of this age in many parts of the world. The famous Burgess Shale of western Canada formed after the Cambrian Explosion but its unusually preserved fossils give paleontologists a glimpse of a nearly complete Cambrian community. These extraordinary fossils also show the wide range of animals that must have evolved earlier in the Cambrian Period. In this presentation, Westrop takes a look at recent research that gives us a new understanding of this evolutionary “explosion” of ocean life.

Tags: , ,

Posted by Jeremy Mohn

No Comments »



« Older Entries

Disclaimer:

The thoughts and opinions expressed on this blog are solely our own. They do not necessarily represent the views of our employers or any other organization with which we are affiliated.