LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

Noticed yesterday that the October, 2007 issue of Discover magazine is dedicated to The State of Science in America. There are a couple of articles of possible interest to members of this community, but the most obvious one is "One Universe, Under God".

Eric Greiner, who has been teaching biology in the Pennsylvania public school system for six years, is a practicing Christian, and does not believe in human evolution. “I do not believe that our bodies have evolved to what they are today by chance or random mutations. The human body is too intricate and each system perfectly enhances our ability to perform as a whole. There has to be something bigger, and I believe God is what made it possible and perfect.” In the classroom, Eric rarely deals with human evolution, and therefore doesn’t feel the conflict between his teachings and his personal beliefs, but if a student questions them, he lets them know they’re free to choose. “Every now and then, I have a student that will bring up religion and evolution. I would reiterate that this is what scientists believe and that they don’t have to agree with them and that, not to get into detail, but there are things that I don’t believe, and that it’s OK for them not to agree with it either.”

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Holland: Creationists rewrite natural history

[...] The world's best known wildlife broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough, has called on the BBC to stop Christian fundamentalists from deleting references to evolution from his documentaries.
( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

There's a rather long post at Making Light about misrepresentations for the sake of advancing the cause of "creationism."

It’s not possible to produce such programs honestly. Chopping logic and falsifying arguments like that can only be done by someone who knows that he or she is doing it. To put it another way: if you know enough about the Book of Job or the Tel Dan stela to make up really effective lies about them that will fit into your preordained agenda, you know enough about them to know you’re lying.

This process of cooking up faith-promoting lies is not evidence of religious faith. Say you profess the basic Christian package: God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, created all things, and wants us to love and understand Him.* If you truly believe that, how can you fear scientific knowledge? Creation doesn’t lie.** Surely it must follow that to know more about it is to see further into God’s ways.

(There are two married women. Both their husbands are accused of being present at a particularly wanton and disgraceful stag party. Both husbands deny it. One wife accepts this denial at face value, dismisses the story, and goes on with her life. The other wife goes into a frenzy of fact-checking, affidavit-gathering, and timeline construction, in order to demonstrate once and for all that her husband couldn’t possibly have been at that party. Which woman has faith in her husband?)

slacktivist

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Wired: Suspect Missing in Evolution Death-Threat Case

( Excerpt. Click Headline for full story. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Salon: American Taliban on the warpath against evolution (Salon may require you to view an ad to get a site pass)
Denver Post: Threats by religious group spark probe at CU-Boulder
Panda's Thumb blog: Threats against University of Colorado Biologists

( Excerpt from Salon story. Click Headline for full story. )

sunfell

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY legless123)

One of the sites I visit is B3ta.com and, this week, they have an image competition about Creationism so I thought you lot might be interested.

http://b3ta.com/challenge/creationism/popular/

In my opinion, this is the best one....







Mods? If this isn't in the spirit of this community please feel free to delete.

Cheers

Legless

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY idragosani)

PZ Myers has posted a carnivale in his Pharyngula blog on the opening of Ken Ham's new museum. PZ has collected many quotes from websites, newspapers, etc on the opening.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY fooltheworld)

This was discussed a while back. It's the debate where "The Way of the Master" Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are supposed to prove God's existence without using faith. This is part 1 but you should easily find all of the clips on YouTube.



I haven't finished watching yet so I don't know whether the banana is the proof. :p

ETA: You can go the Rational Responders website for a highlight summary if you'd rather not watch the entire thing. http://www.rationalresponders.com/

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's a very interesting Flickr photoset on evolution outreach.

Evolution Outreach

The battle is on between the teaching of science and the assault of religious pseudoscience. These pictures can be used in pro-science talks. As the author says, do it for the children!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY bodylotion)

Anyone know anything about the Thomas More Law center? I found this http://www.thomasmore.org/resources.html at their site. It includes free book covers with the 10 commandments, and a book marker with questions to ask biology teachers about evolution.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

A friend in Kansas (yeah I feel sorry for her too) just directed me to this Flash intro (titled "Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups") to "Answers In Genesis". Apparently, they now have at least one billboard up in Olathe (a suburb of Kansas City) directing people to the Science Proves It site.

The ability these people have to make spurious arguments, and to twist logic, is amazing. It's just bizarre. When did we pass through the looking glass?

EDIT: I've found a photo of the offending billboard here. I found it through DefCon here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dunesong)

Hello all :)

Here is an interesting bit from the Pandas thumb:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/03/what_were_up_ag.html

Excerpt:

An elementary school teacher in Bennett, Colorado, has been suspended for showing her class a 12-min portion of the opera Faust, according to reports in the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

-snip-

Parents accused Ms. Waggoner of devil worship and, in at least one instance, of not being a Christian, as if not being a Christian were somehow reprehensible. In fact, Ms. Waggoner, herself an opera singer, describes herself as a Christian and has two Christian recordings among her credentials.


For those interested in the evolution - creation/ID side of things that have been popping up here as of late Pandas Thumb is a good resource. Another is http://www.talkorigins.org/

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about the rejection of a religiously motivated lawsuit over an evolution website:

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, that claimed an evolution education Web site unfairly promoted religions that accept the theory.

Jeanne Caldwell of Roseville, who sued in October in U.S. District Court, failed to prove her religious beliefs were offended enough to amount to a concrete injury, a judge ruled Monday.

The "Understanding Evolution" site, created by the University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education, has links to evolutionary theory teaching materials and religious groups who say the theory does not violate their beliefs.

The suit claimed the university was unconstitutionally expressing preference for religions accepting the evolutionary theory.

It names two UC Berkeley professors and a National Science Foundation administrator as defendants. The judge has not ruled on the science foundation's motion to dismiss.

"We are very pleased with the judge's decision and are hopeful that the defendants can now concentrate on helping to educate students about science," university counsel Christopher Patti said Wednesday.

The "Understanding Evolution" Web site is at http://evolution.berkeley.edu.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY velvetpage)

Interesting link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml

It seems to me that this goes neatly in hand with the general trend towards discrediting evolutionary science, and thereby, real science in general. Not specifically dominionist, perhaps, but part of the general trend and something to be aware of.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY exotic_princess)

...because they'll be wanting to come out against this, at least I would think so!

Because, of course, God wouldn't have been wise enough to possibly have CREATED the Big Bang... or that of course, Satan is blinding these scientists with false data...


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A NASA space probe has peered back in time to a bare instant — less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second — after the Big Bang, astronomers reported on Thursday.

"We have new evidence that the universe suddenly grew from sub-microscopic to astronomical size in less than the blink of an eye," Bennett said at a telephone news conference. "This tremendous inflation of the universe happened in much less than a trillionth of a second."

There is a website linked at the end of the article with results of the probe, descriptions of the Big Bang Theory, etc.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY instantr)

I went to the library today, and by the periodicals was a magazine entitled "Creation." It was full of all sorts of articles attempting to attack evolution, but my eye was caught by a cover story, "How Did Dinos Get So Big?" The article was talking about how many extant reptilian species undergo lifelong growth, and fossil evidence supports the idea that dinosaurs did the same, trying to convince the reader at the same time that many species of dinosaur were simply uncommonly large examples of other species (for example, T. Rex was just an uncommonly large tyrannosaur, nevermind the distinct two-digit forelimbs). Anyway, there was one caption for a pair of photos that caught my attention:

DINOSAUR SKULLS
Top: Apatosaurus excelsus
Bottom: Diplodocus carnegii

The skulls below are from two huge
sauropods with different names. Yet the
skulls are almost identical. Thus they are
likely from the same Diplodocid kind.
Diplodocus was a very long and slender
variety (27 m long, but only 10 tonnes),
while Apatosaurus was a slightly shorter
but much heavier variety (25 m, 35 tonnes).
So while there are many dinosaur names,
there were most likely comparatively few
created kinds. This means that Noah's Ark
needed comparatively few pairs of
dinosaurs.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY multiclassgeek)

Creationism in UK education syllabus

According to the article, Creationism/ID ideas are being used as examples of "different ways of interpreting epirical evidence".

I'm not too worried about this at the moment, since
(a) It's not a political issue pushed for by lobbyists
(b) The exam boards in question are insisting that Creationism is *not* to be taught as fact
(c) I'm confident that a Religious Right situation is still a long way off in Britain (we have a population that doesn't really care, and a national Church of England who prefer to avoid sticking their noses into politics, except on big issues)

But I thought it might be worth mentioning here... Commentators are bringing the American controversy about Intelligent Design, even though this would seem to be only tangentially related

On the other hand, some might well consider this the Thin End Of The Wedge.

Opinions?

NB for Americans: GCSEs are the exams taken by British children at age 16. They mark the end of the point at which schooling is compulsory

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Thumper Stumper No Tracthandlers, Godbotherers or missionaries!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY linda_a)

DOVER, Pa. -- A Philadelphia-based group that promotes creationism is planning to go door to door in Dover, York County on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Michael Marcavage, the director of the conservative organization Repent America, said his group is visiting Dover because they "want to be where the enemy is diligently attacking."

Last election, Dover voters elected a school board that is against the teaching of intelligent design in biology class.

Intelligent design states that the universe is so complex it must have been designed.

Link

Well this is interesting. I wonder how many people in Dover are going to keep the deadbolts locked when these people come by. I'd say it is rather intrusive. Though knowing people who'd do this, I shouldn't be so surprised. Privacy means nothing in Dominionism and fundamentalism.

[EDIT: I just found another article in the York Dispatch with more information here: Article Link and more information on this group in their website here.]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- The state Board of Education on Wednesday rejected a state panel's proposal to change high school standards on evolution by calling on students to "critically analyze" the theory.

Science teachers had complained that although critical analysis is part of all science, the wording was really a backdoor attempt to force educators to teach religious-based alternatives. In a 10-6 vote, board members agreed.