House passes "DARK" Bill

Although I don't write about it nearly so much anymore, I've watched a LOT of pseudo-science in my day. While much of the most pernicious comes from the right wing, the left has its own variety often centered around the naturalistic fallacy. That is to say, "if it's 'natural' it must be healthy and if it's not, it must be un-healthy".

This has expressed itself most notably as the anti-vaccine movement, but more recently as the anti-GMO movement. When I first heard about this, 3-4 years ago, it seemed quite plausible to me. Companies have a long history of putting profits before people when it comes to safety. So could we really trust the safety of genetically modified foods?

But very quickly, I started reading up on the claims of those that opposed GM foods. The arguments simply fell apart. Shoddy science with poorly designed experiments and weak data. Logical fallacies. Fake experts. Massive collusion and conspiracy necessary to pull it off... It was no different than any other pseudoscience.

Which is why I have to say I fully support the ominously nicknamed "Deny Americans the Right to Know" or DARK bill that passed the house recently which, if it passed the Senate (unlikely), would prevent states from requiring labeling of GM foods.

While advocates say this would allow consumers to know what they are consuming, this isn't true at all. Saying something was genetically modified gives absolutely NO useful information because the term is uselessly vague. It is as informationally useful as saying your food contained yellow. Not yellow 5 dye which has been much maligned. Just something yellow. GM crops are so diverse that painting with such a broad brush says nothing worthwhile.

Almost.

There is one thing that labeling would do.

Imply that the foods are dangerous and in need of a warning label.

Which seems all too familiar. It's the tactic the Creationists tried to use in Cobb County Georgia in 2001 where they deemed Evolution too flawed to teach without putting a warning label in textbooks stating that evolution is JUST a theory. It was true, but presented out of context gave no useful information and the only thing it did was attempt to spread fear through sleight of word. This tactic didn't work in Cobb County. It shouldn't work anywhere else.

That's Not How Engagement Works

Let's say I'm a website designer for a company. I'm hired to produce a new website, a better website. It's hard to say exactly what defines a good website and I don't want to have to put together a huge poll of users asking for feedback. I just want to work with what I have available. Namely the analytics my ISP or Google or some other company provides.

One of those can be loosely defined as "engagement". Are users staying on the site longer? Are they clicking things? Do they visit more than just the homepage?

In an ideal situation, you'd hope the answer would be "yes" to many of these things. However, just because the answers are "yes" doesn't mean that it's a good website design. Rather, it could imply a very bad design; a website that is too confusing causing people to have to hunt for the information, making them click on more things for more pages and staying longer.

So simply looking at a situation in terms of a metric like this doesn't give the whole picture.

And the same applies for education where student "engagement" is often used as a proxy for good education. There's good reason for this. If students are engaged, studies show they retain more of the material. However, if the material is poorly constructed, then "engagement" may be more of a desperate attempt to rectify this. Worse, if the material is downright wrong, the students will likely still retain it thus, being a net negative on their education.

It seems several teachers in Louisiana don't understand this concept. In a stunning letter unearthed by Zach Kopplin, teachers state that a law passed in 2006 which led to "...students invariably get more involved in the lesson which leads to better discussion and in turn to a higher level of achievement...".

Sounds good, right?

The only problem is that the law has opened the door for Creationism, climate change denial, and any other pseudo-scientific trash politicians want to sneak into the classroom which is what these teachers are championing.

But this isn't how engagement, at least as a meaningful metric for academics, works. I recall a discussion in which I and many of my classmates were very involved in in high school. The teacher (thankfully not a science or history teacher) was explaining why she thought the moon landing was a hoax. Oddly enough, this was one of my first big encounters with pseudo-science and it was what led me personally, to do more research. It's what introduced me to Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy". So in this one case, it ended up being a positive. However, a few years later in my American History class we had to do presentations. I did mine on the space race and moon landing. Wouldn't you know it, there were questions about whether it had been faked.

Although my History teacher wasn't the one espousing moon hoax nonsense, I recall other spirited discussions in his class regarding the Kennedy assassination. This teacher was a big fan of conspiracy theories regarding this event. And students knew it. Thus, many times students would try to get him off topic, wasting valuable class time, by engaging him on this topic. This is another example of how student involvement can be a poor metric.

Thus, it is quite disappointing that so many teachers would defend bad science by perverting what can be a useful metric. But as the computer geeks say, "Garbage in - Garbage out."

Indiana Lawmaker Tries to Give Students Rights They Already Have

Over in Indiana, Sen. Dennis Kruse (obviously a Republican), recently failed to push through a bill to Creationism. I guess it's too much to expect that a guy that writes laws would know something about them. Like that the Supreme Court stated that teaching Creationism in public schools was unconstitutional in 1987. Fortunately, other people knew and that didn't get passed.

Not deterred, Kruse is trying a new typical strategy. It's been the ID/Creationist strategy ever since they got their asses kicked at Dover. They realize they can't teach the non-existent controversy, so instead, they try to get people to question evolution so they can push non-existent criticisms assuming that the teacher is sympathetic to Creationism, or if they're not, enough students can harass the teacher and disrupt the class that the teacher will be forced to give the section up due to the prohibitive amount of time it would take to address every single false "question".

The new bill basically ensures that students are free to question the teachers. Which in truth, they already are. Students are encouraged to ask questions. Teachers can and should be ready and able to answer them.

This bill is new in that the teachers would have to cite the research to support their answer. This is where the trick lies and takes it from simple questioning to harassment. It doesn't say, simply the "evidence", but the "research". So teachers would be forced to have a library of specific research that was done for every given topic. Which often is contrary to how science works, especially on the big topics.

See, the deal is that it is very rare that a single bit of research establishes an entire field. So saying "what piece of research proves common descent" is a question that a teacher can't given an answer to. Because it's not a "piece" of research. It's a body and teachers would now be required to provide, on demand, massive amounts of research.

Thus, all a student would have to do to disrupt an entire week of class, would be to ramble off a Gish Gallop of dishonest Creationist "criticisms" of evolution, and the teacher would now be required to answer every one of them, in detail. That's not conducive to teaching. That's not conducive to learning.

Which is precisely what Creationists want.

Happy New Year. Have an ID Bill Missouri!

It's been quite some time since I've seen any pro-Creationism bills introduced in my home state of Missouri. In general, it seems we learned from our neighbors in Kansas when they had their big kerfuffle and had their pro-ID standards struck down and were embarrassed nation wide (if you don't remember, Kansas' bill actually was put into law for some time and changed the definition of science to include the supernatural, whereas most bills die before ever becoming law).

But it seems Missouri has forgotten the lesson and a pro-Creationist bill introduced recently. And boy is it loaded with some stupid. Let's take a look.

One of the first things it does is define a bunch of terms:

"Biological evolution", a theory of the origin of life and its ascent by naturalistic means.

Uh, no. Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. That's how you can tell real scientists didn't have anything to do with this bill. Real scientists know what words mean.

A second quibble is that "ascent" is a poor word choice that makes the assumption that evolution has a goal towards "higher" species. This is nonsense.

Theory philosophically demands only naturalistic causes and denies the operation of any intelligence, supernatural event, God or theistic figure in the initial or subsequent development of life;

Again, it's pretty painfully obvious this was written by scientifically illiterate Creationists. Evolution doesn't deny the existence of God; it just makes Him superfluous.

"Biological intelligent design", a hypothesis that the complex form and function observed in biological structures are the result of intelligence and, by inference, that the origin of biological life and the diversity of all original species on earth are the result of intelligence.

Hey! That one is almost right! It didn't attempt to pass Intelligent Design off as a theory, whereas they admit that evolution is, although they don't make any indication that they know what the difference is.

Since the inception of each original species, genetic material has been lost, inherited, exchanged, mutated, and recombined to result in limited variation.

Wait, what? So this bill is passing straight lies into law? No, genetic material has not been "lost". Sometimes it is, but through gene duplication and other methods, the amount of information increases. Creationists often deny this. Furthermore, we've seen species diverge, thus giving lie to the idea that there is "limited variation" with "each original species".

Naturalistic mechanisms do not provide a means for making life from simple molecules or making sufficient new genetic material to cause ascent from microscopic organisms to large life forms.

A claim without any supporting evidence.

The hypothesis does not require the identity of intelligence responsible for earth’s biology but requires any proposed identity of that intelligence to be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation.

It claims not to, but every major ID proponent, from Behe, to Dembski, to Johnson, have claimed otherwise at some point.

Concepts inherent within the hypothesis include:
(a) The origin of life on earth is inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no plausible mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic origin of the first independent living organism;

Um, argument from ignorance.

(b) All original species on earth are inferred to be the result of intelligence directed design and construction. There are no significant mechanisms or present-day experiments to prove the naturalistic development of earth's species from microscopic organisms;

Another argument from ignorance, and one that's actually untrue. Genetics "proves" the common ancestry.

(c) Complex forms in proteins, enzymes, DNA, and other biological structures demonstrated by their constituent molecules in regard to size, shape, quantity, orientation, sequence, chirality, and integration imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth. Intelligence is capable of designing complex form;

Intelligence is capable of designing complex form. However, it's not exclusive. Roll a rock down a mountainside and the chips and nicks it accumulates are exceptionally "complex". But that doesn't mean it was done in any intelligent manner. Thus, they're trying to confuse people with a possibility as the only possible answer.

(d) Complex functions demonstrated by growth, reproduction, repair, food metabolization, waste disposal, stimuli response, and autonomous mobility in microscopic organisms imply intelligent design was necessary for the first life on earth.

In other words, "we're going to assume the first life was as complex as life is today requiring all these things." Evolution has never made such a claim. Thus, this is a strawman.

(e) Within the history of human experience, all exhibits of recurring discrete symbols from a set of symbols arranged in a specific sequence which store information and can be read by human intelligence, is itself the result of intelligence.

Since when are nucleic acids "discrete symbols"? We assign symbols to represent them, but that doesn't mean that's what they are. We use symbols to make things comprehensible, but we can't project backwards and assume the reverse.

(f) Intelligence-directed design and construction of all original species at inception without an accompanying genetic burden is inferred rather than random mutational genetic change as a constructive mechanism. Random mutational genetic change results in an increasing genetic burden and species degradation rather than species ascent;

Again with the ridiculous humancentric notion that there are "higher" and "lower" species. Also, they're making the absolutely false claim that mutations are only harmful. This is an outright lie.

(g) Intelligence-directed action is necessary to exceed the limits of natural species change, which is a combination of autogenous species change and environmental effected species change. Multi-generation breeding experiments illustrate the limits of natural species change and its inadequacy for developing required genetic information found in dissimilar species;

No. We have directly seen species diverge.

(h) The irreducible complexity of certain biological systems implies a completed design and construction at inception rather than step-by-step development, as indicated by the structures observed for sight, hearing, smell, balance, blood coagulation, digestion, and hormone control;

Wait... did they really just invoke Irreducible Complexity? That notion that got destroyed in the Dover trial? Hell, they're even including some of the exact systems that were shown to be reducible in that trial! It's cute they found some new ones to list, but it's still an argument from ignorance. Logical fallacies don't fly in real science.

(i) The lack of significant transitional forms between diverse species existing today and in the fossil record implies all original species were completed at inception rather than by a step-by-step development from other species. A lack of transitional forms is illustrated by the appearance of large complex life forms in the Cambrian fossil record without any significant previous fossils;

Wow. Two lies in one point. 1) We have a ton of transitional fossils. And even if we didn't, genetics and homology establish evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt. The fossil record is just bonus. 2) The Cambrian explosion has many fossils prior to it. Creationists just pretend they don't exist.

(j) Common designs and features evident in different species imply the intelligent reuse of proven designs analogous to the reuse of proven designs by human designers;

This is the gibberish that "common design implies common designer". No. If things weren't similar, then Creationists could claim it "implies a creative designer." Indeed, only a few hundred years ago, this is exactly the argument Creationists made. God was invoked to explain diversity.

The take away less is that a designer is assumed either way and since, no matter what, that's the case for common or different structures, there's no way to falsify the hypothesis. And if it can't be falsified, it's not science.

(k) The lack of significant present-day observable changes in species due to random variation, mutation, natural selection, adaptation, segregation, or other naturalistic mechanisms implies intelligence as the cause for all original species;

Again, an outright lie. We've seen numerous species diverge. When they diverge, that's very significant. But Creationists pretend that doesn't happen or use the term "species" so vaguely that it's meaningless.

From there, the bill goes on to proscribe "Equal treatment" which is defined as "the approximate equal teaching of each specified viewpoint for a single course of instruction in course textbooks" which should "contain approximately an equal number of pages of relevant material teaching each viewpoint."

That's right. The bill acknowledges that ID is merely a hypothesis, but claims it deserves as much time as a full fledged theory (which it spent considerable time lying about).

As expected, they go on to attempt to define "theory" but botch it:

"Scientific theory", an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy. The inferred explanation may be proven, mostly proven, partially proven, unproven or false and may be based on data which is supportive, inconsistent, conflicting, incomplete, or inaccurate. The inferred explanation may be described as a scientific theoretical model;

Nothing is ever "completely understood" in science. To do so would require infinite knowledge, something science doesn't claim to have (yet Creationists do!). Theories in science are not "proven" in an absolute sense. They are, however, proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If they are "partially proven, unproven or false ... based on data which is supportive, inconsistent, conflicting, incomplete, or inaccurate" then it's not a theory. The end.

Similarly, the sponsors of the bill can't manage to define a scientific law either:

(10) "Scientific law", a statement describing specific phenomena about the physical universe which has been verified by observation or experimentation and has no exceptions of verified empirical data. The statement may be described by formula;

"No exceptions of verified empirical data" you say? What about Newton's laws? There are numerous exceptions. Which is why the law had to be replaced... with a theory.

There's quite a few other ironies in the bill. For example:

If empirical data is taught, only such data which has been verified or is currently capable of being verified by observation or experimentation shall be taught.

Since every point listed in defining the thrust of ID is a logical fallacy, it is not "capable of being verified by observation or experimentation" in a broad sense. In narrow senses, some specific points may be, but every time those points have been raised, they have been found to be false.

Data with the appearance of empirical data which has never been verified and is currently incapable of being verified shall be identified as nonverifiable when taught orally or in writing;

You mean like Behe's claims of IC, or Dembski's entire concept of Specified Complexity which make up the core of many of the points previously raised?

If scientific law is taught, written textbooks statements identified as scientific law shall have no known exceptions of verified empirical data;

As previously pointed out, this actually has more of an effect on Physics than it does Biology.

But perhaps one of the most vile things the bill does, is after working so hard to (mis)define theory, they nearly admit that it's irrelevant anyway because they're going to mush everything up with false equivalence:

As used in this subsection, the term "theory" shall mean theory or hypothesis;

In other words, they don't care that ID hasn't been established. They're just going to promote it for no reason.

Here's another doozy:

If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth’s biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation

Either the sponsors of this bill are fiendishly smart, or incredibly stupid with this point.

As written, it would seem the intent of this passage is to prevent discussion that would link the designer to the Biblical God, thereby keeping it from running afoul of 1st amendment challenges under the guise that it doesn't promote any specific religion and is therefore secular. But Behe, Dembski, Johnson, et al claim to be able to infer the identity of the designer. Thus, if that was the intent of the sponsors, since those arguments are presumably scientific, there is a gaping loophole.

But then again, that may well be the intent, that those very arguments could sneak God into the discussion while excluding all other options. Again, either very clever or very stupid (as if the rest of the bill doesn't indicate the latter).

(6) If a scientific theory or hypothesis proven to be false is taught for historical, illustrative, or other reasons, the theory or hypothesis shall be identified as false when taught orally or in writing.

Wait... doesn't that mean the entire bill defeats itself?

As noted previously, the bill requires that all textbooks conform to this "equal time" nonsense. Obviously, this doesn't mean all textbooks are thrown out immediately, but all new ones purchased must be. In the meantime, the bill requires that a "supplemental textbook" be created. But the identity of the people to create it is asinine:

shall consist of nine individuals who are knowledgeable of science and intelligent design and reside in Missouri.

Wait... so they don't need to be Biologists? They can just be knowledgeable about any form of science to qualify?

It's no surprise why this is included: You probably wouldn't find 9 people that are Biologists in Missouri that would support such anti-science. Rather, as the Dissent From Darwin list shows, the vast majority of "scientists" that support ID aren't in any relevant fields. According to one survey, only about 0.01% of "dissenting" scientists are from a field which is applicable.

In other words, they want to include people that are illiterate in Biology to write material for a Biology class.

So here's a quick recap:

• The bill admits that evolution is a theory and ID is a hypothesis.
  
• It promptly tosses that distinction out the window to engage in some false equivocation.
  
• It incorrectly defines most of its terms.
  
• It throws out all of the typical Creationist/ID false claims against evolution and pretends that they're 1) honest criticisms and 2) a positive argument for ID.
  
• Leaves a wide open door to promote the Christian God as the identity of the Designer.
  
• Appoints non-experts to develop classroom material.

I sincerely doubt this bill will make it too far. However, I've looked at the wording of quite a few Creationist bills and I think this one rates pretty highly on the stupid density scale.

Poisoning the Well of Science in New Hampshire & The Back Handed "Help" From the NCSE

Word's been getting around that there are currently two anti-evolution bills in the legislature in New Hampshire. While such bills pop up all the time and are nearly as quickly struck down, these ones are interesting to me because they may be signaling a new(ish) approach from the anti-science crowd: Poisoning the well.

For those that don't remember how Creationists have tried worming their gibberish into the classroom previously, here's a quick recap:

• Straight out teaching Creationism - Ruled illegal in Edwards v. Aguillard
  
• Straight out teaching promoting Creationism "Intelligent Design" - Ruled illegal in Kitzmiller v. Dover
  
• "Critical Analysis" of Evolution using fake "facts" - Ongoing

So where does this new bill fall?

The new bills require that teachers tell students about "the theorists' political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism".

As if that has anything to do with anything when it comes to statistically sound science. Religion, or lack thereof doesn't change the observations or the math (unless someone's lying, which Creationists do all the time).

So what's this all about? One of the bill's sponsors, Jerry Bergevin (R-District 17), says that he wants things taught this way because of "the people who came up with the ideas.... It's a worldview and it's godless." He blames evolution for the Holocaust and the school shootings at Columbine.

Well guess what! So is gravity! After all, it's not Intelligent Falling! But as always, the anti-science crowd is singling out evolution for being "different". It's not. It's still well tested, robust science.

But despite Darwin being initially religious, Bergevin is trying to smear evolution by poisoning the well. This is really a subclass of the red herring fallacy, which attempts to distract from the real issues by invoking guilt by association.

It's one of the most pathetic, childish ways of arguing and Bergevin should be ashamed, but apparently doesn't have the good sense to be. To be fair, it's a tactic Creationists like Kent Hovind and Answers in Genesis have been taking for a long time, but when it comes to schools, they've largely been out of the picture for some time now.

So what does this mean?

It's hard to say. It could be just a coincidence, or it could be the start of a new strategy by the Creationist camp since their "critical analysis" has been stopped by and large since it's devoid of any honest information.

If it's the latter, then what's driving it? Is this a throwback to the harder line, totally bugnuts Creationists like Hovind and AiG? If so, I welcome it. It's only further evidence that the loons at the Discovery Institute have failed, and the old camp is one that's been so thoroughly defeated that the future battles will be a cakewalk.

But perhaps I'm reading too much into this.

Meanwhile, there's one more thing I think that's worth pointing out, and this is the response to this claim from the NCSE.

For some time, many science bloggers (especially PZ and Jerry Coyne) have accused the NCSE of going too far in defending evolution, to the point of actually promoting religion. I think the NCSE's response in this case is a pretty good example of this.

Instead of simply pointing out that Bergevin is committing a fallacy by trying to smear evolution without addressing any of its facts, they ignore this central issue, and instead, bend over backwards to point out

Evolutionary scientists are Democrats and Republicans, Libertarians and Greens and everything. Similarly, their religious views are all over the map, too. ... If you replace atheism in the bill with Protestantism, or Catholicism, or Judaism or any other view, it's clear to see it's not going to pass legal muster.

While this is vaguely true (there are religious scientists, many of whom I've written about on this blog), what's more notable is that the scientific community is about as non-religious as it gets. But the NCSE hides that, thereby giving the appearance that the religious component is far larger than it really is.

In other words, the NCSE is actually helping Bergevin because they're acting like his accusation is something of which they should be ashamed. Yes, evolution doesn't mention God. Yes, there are more non-religious scientists than there are religious. NO, this is not something we need to shy away from.

The reason is that the first point, not including God in the equations, is exactly what makes science work! Science began making its huge strides forward in explaining how the world works, in repeatable, testable, and meaningful ways, precisely when it cast off the shackles of the supernatural.

The second point, as I've pointed out, is nothing more than a logical fallacy.

But the NCSE doesn't seem to want to own up to these facts. Instead, they want to cozy up to religion and protect it, coddling the fear of atheism and in addition, the naturalistic method that makes science work.

More on Darwin vs. the Sun - Science & Epistomology

Over at Universe Today, I just posted an article looking at a Catholic magazine and review called the Month from 1889 in which they covered the controversy over the age of the Earth as required by both Darwin and astronomers. History has shown Darwin as the victor in that, but there's something I left out of the article and wish to comment on here. Namely, the closing statement of the article.

Essentially, it concludes that because science, at that present moment could not fully answer the controversy that,

Science then, even by its own showing, is altogether incompetent to furnish us with a guiding line, by which we may regulate and order our lives. And as the nature of man instinctively feels the need of some such guide, and will be content with nothing less than the truth, it follows that a trustworthy basis for faith and deed must be sought elsewhere.

Although this article is now over 120 years old, I still hear this exact same argument used today (as well as the anti-science one I quoted in the UT article). I left this part of the UT article because it doesn't deal with science as much as epistemology and was better suited for here.

This sort of thinking pisses the hell out of me. While it makes a true statement, that humans are curious and want to know how things work, it promotes the cheapest and most superficial form of knowledge available, if one can even call it knowledge. Namely, it suggests that if you cannot have a satisfying and correct answer immediately from science on demand, then we should reject science and go for anything else that provides convenient and easy answers. The article promotes a search for truth, but provides no basis for establishing it and rejects the only reliable means by which to do so.

The ultimate irony in this is that the article spent several pages extolling the knowledge gained by science from Kelvin, Newton and other visionaries. But only because it provided the author with easy answers that confirmed his own biases. I suspect that if the author had lived in those times, he may have rejected the findings he later accepts. It's only from the retrospective vantage that the answers look clear.

This article highlights the confusion often apparent when new territory is being explored, but as with so many things before, the actual answer eventually came though. However, it didn't come by turning away from the search because it wasn't immediately gratifying. It came from working hard and looking for evidence. As Dan Meyer has said before, "no problem worth solving is that simple."

I cannot agree with this statement more. Instead of allowing for these cheap answers, as gussied up as they may be, we need to demand real answers. And we need to be promoting this to students and the public at large. Are things unknown in science? Absolutely. Are some of the things being hashed out today going to be wrong? Absolutely. Does this mean everything in science is wrong? Hell no. Does it mean that we should forsake science and turn to snake-oil salesmen? Absolutely not.

Those like the author of the article who answer yes to the last two of those questions should get no respect. It vexes me greatly that they still do.

Louisiana Gearing Up for Another Evolution Battle?

It looks like Louisiana school boards are looking to insert the "teach the controversy" nonsense into their classrooms. They're scheduled to have a debate on whether or note they need to balance their textbooks with "information questioning the theory of evolution."

*snrk*

This comes after the school board asked a review council to look over the textbook before approving it and weigh in. Fortunately, it looks like the team is at least somewhat qualified as there was an 8-4 vote to approve it by that council. Obviously the school board was looking for a different answer because they're still stalling to try to open up "debate" on the issue. This sounds reminiscent of the Kansas Evolution Hearings in which the school board flew in "experts" in Intelligent Design on the taxpayer's dime to tell the board what they'd already decided on.

Of course, the advisory council obviously has some scientifically illiterate fools on it.

State board member Dale Bayard said he plans to vote against the texts—which the state textbook-adoption committee overwhelmingly approved—and will urge his colleagues to join him.

“The textbooks in the life sciences that were proposed ... did not include all science that is currently available on the subject [of evolution],” he said, asserting that some findings “refuting” the theory have been ignored.

Additionally, the author did have to do the job of poor journalism and get quotes from someone completely unrelated to the discussion, talking to a Reverend from the 'Louisiana Family Forum, an advocacy group whose stated mission is to promote “biblical principles in the centers of influence”'.

Right. Because a reverend is an expert on what should be taught in science classes. And not to be satisfied with just trashing evolution, he went on to state he had "other issues such as global warming and “embryonic issues.”"

Thanks for reminding us that this isn't just an attack on evolution. It's an attack on science.... being waged in our classrooms. It's disgusting.

Careful There, Doc...

Brittish doctors are calling Homoepathy "witchcraft". There's nothing surprising about this. Magical treatments with no basis being dispensed by people with nothing more than faith and bad statistics is no different than magical spells with no basis being dispensed by people with nothing more than faith and a few frog legs.

The doctors rightly point out that these "treatments" do nothing more than the placebo effect and are calling for the end to taxpayers footing the bill for this bogus treatment. But in going beyond these facts and using a perfectly valid analogy, the group may have just opened up the door to a law suit. After all, that's exactly what happened to Simon Singh because Brittish law doesn't protect the free speech of citizens, but rather protects those that get their feeling hurts by not being told exclusively what they want to hear.

Hopefully the homeopathic group won't be as stupid as the BCA. After all, Simon won his appeal. Hopefully that will set some precedent.

Friends and Enemies

For the past several years, I've had a growing interest in communicating science. I hold that in a world that makes growing use of technology, scientific literacy is of high importance. Thus, when the IAU created a sub group dedicated to Communicating Astronomy with the Public, I was sure to check it out.

Part of the project features a journal with articles related to the topic of science communication. The newest one just came out.

After reading some of the articles, I must say, the content seems to be thinner than the paper it's printed on. There's a cute article on The Ten Commandments for Presentations. There's nothing in that that's not covered (at length) in a basic public speaking course. Nor is it anything I've not heard from professors assigning presentations.

There's a Guide to Free Desktop Planetarium Software that has a nice list, but doesn't give much information on ease of use or potential functionality for communication. It assumes that the person interested in them will already know what they want to do with it. This is like a journal that's supposed to be about how to build a house for people that may have only used a screwdriver to open their computer case, featuring reviews of miter saws. That's all well and good, but they still won't know how to build a house.

But the article that really bugged me was How Can We Make a Friend Out of an Enemy? How astronomers and journalists can get along better. I think it's the most disingenuous piece of tripe I've ever come across.

The reason? It makes me damn well never want to speak to a journalist again. The entire article is a poor justification on why journalists screw up the science so badly and tries to make the point that if we want to interact with journalists, it should be entirely on their self-serving terms:

The science journalist is supposed to write critically about science; about the process that creates theories and, of course, about the theories themselves. The science journalist, in other words, is not someone who creates acceptance. Just as the political reporter is not the mouthpiece of the government, the business writer is not the mouthpiece of business, the restaurant critic the mouthpiece of food industry, the science writer is not the mouthpiece of the scientific community.

...

“Although scientists often speak of a ‘necessary’ cooperation with journalists, a ‘distance’ between them is essential to my mind. A distance that guarantees the independence of and critical analysis by the media that is necessary if the general public are to be able to form their own opinion.

OK. Fine. You can't simply repeat what scientists tell you. A bit of critical analysis is perfectly fine with us. After all, peer review is our bread and butter. A bit more isn't really a lot of skin off our backs. But if journalists are going to do the reporting, can you at least (1) get the facts right and (2) know what you're talking about enough to make intelligent "criticism"?

The article answers that, "no". Journalists can't do that and they shouldn't be expected to do it.

The mass media do not portray science in an exact manner; they do not even consider this as their task.

...

The frequent complaints of science about ‘incorrect’ or ‘distorted’ reports or about a seemingly ‘wrong’ selection of news therefore miss the mark. It is not possible to achieve an ‘adequate’ media representation of research that will also satisfy the research scientists themselves.

Excuse me?! You want to come use our data, and don't even want to represent it accurately? Why the hell should we talk to you at all?

Can the journalist be an ally for the scientist? No, or at best only to a certain extent, as journalism has to be independent of astronomy, its object of study. But does this mean that the journalist is inevitably an opponent who works in a world that is incompatible with the scientist’s realm? No, not at all, as many excellent reports, films or radio documentaries have been shown that have reached huge audiences and have had a positive impact on the discipline. Labelling journalists as either friend or foe does not fit reality. But just because an unquestioning alliance is impossible, this does not mean we need to renounce a good and trusting relationship between the two professions.

Haven't I heard this defense before?

"We've done some good things, so let's overlook all the absolutely asinine and horrible things we've done wrong."

Sorry. It doesn't work for me. Sure the mass media has done some great documentaries. But look at what else it does: It perpetuates anti-science under the banner of "telling both sides of the story." And this article goes so far as to try to justify that too!

A good journalist can be recognised by the fact that he does not take sides in an issue, even when the cause is good.

And here I thought journalists were supposed to report the facts and interpret them; Not to take fantasy and report on that while misinterpreting reality. That serves no ones interests except the journalists' own pocketbooks.

So what's the justification for that?

The journalist’s duty is to the consumer, the reader or viewer — not to politics, not to the powerful and not to science.

That's all well and good to say, but misrepresenting an entire field that you're relied on for accurate commentary doesn't serve the consumer. Hollowing out a story so to the point its a strawman by simply stating a conclusion without any supporting evidence and tossing in a few sound bites doesn't serve the consumers interest of learning something about science. Inflating absolute nonsense to create controversy, although it may entertain the consumer doesn't serve their interests. At least not if you're a journalist. If you're a comedian, sure. But then you're in the wrong profession.

The article goes on to try to explain the bizarre logic of journalists:

In journalism, only a story that reaches the recipient is a good story.

How do journalists decide what to write for consumers? Good stories. How do you know if it's good? Consumers receive it.

This is circular logic plain and simple.

The article makes it clear that journalists are blind to their own distortions:

It is not about hyping and distorting a topic. It is about developing a feeling for processing it in such a way that people from outside the profession will be interested.

Sadly, journalists, in their "processing" of information must frequently rely on "hyping and distorting a topic." The first half of the sentence says it's not their goal, but the second half justifies doing it anyway.

Additionally, they try to justify another pet peeve of scientists:

Sometimes journalists might prefer to interview the best communicator rather than talk to the best researcher.

...

A scientist, who is not able to convey in a few sentences what his or her research is about, is not suitable for the mass media.

A scientists that's deemed "not suitable for mass media" does some great research. But the journalist can't write a story without their soundbites which the scientist in question can't give. So they go to their pet scientist who may or may not know anything about the research in question and ask him for quotes to mine.

Again, this doesn't serve the interest of the readers. Sure it's "digestible", but they've lost the actual story and in doing so, science journalists have missed the point.

So what's their conclusion from all of this?

Articles, radio documentaries or films could all be improved if astronomers and space scientists were to extend their knowledge about the media so that they can cooperate with them on a basis that is reliable and constructive for both sides.

I think the first part of this is good. Scientists should learn more about media. This article has certainly taught me a lot after all. It's taught me they're a bunch of untrustworthy bastards and we should kick their sorry asses out of the ivory towers.

This article makes it perfectly clear that they're not wanting to "cooperate ... on a basis that is reliable and constructive for both sides." They're wanting us to kowtow to their standards. Yet nowhere in the article does it suggest that journalists should learn the science well enough to know which facts its ok to omit and still have an accurate story. Oh wait.... they don't care if it's accurate. Only if its well received by consumers.

If the author of this paper wants something that's constructive for both sides, then they need to realize they need to realize that the door swings both ways. Scientists need to better understand what makes a story "newsworthy":

any information that journalists publish has to meet certain criteria, which are fundamentally different from those in science: news has to come from a serious source and also be new, which means that it is not previously known. Journalists speak of news factors if a topic affects many people, if it takes place in their spatial vicinity or social proximity, if it is of consequence, if it is dealing with a conflict, if people hold strong opinions on the topic, rouses emotions, is entertaining or has anything to do with celebrities.

Journalists need to understand that many of those things that they just listed as "fundamentally different from ... science" are in science. Many major cities have prestigious universities that are doing great research. That's "in their spatial vicinity". These discoveries are the things that allow us to understand how the universe works which lets us better protect ourselves from disasters (both natural and man made). This is "of consequence". There are legitimate disagreements in science (I'm not talking about, Intelligent Design/Creationism, Plasma Cosmology, Astrology, Anti-Vaxxers, Climate Change denialists, etc....). Journalists don't need to inflate these delusions to make a story that "deals with a conflict." Astronomy lets us explore the vastness of the universe which any astronomer will tell you "rouses emotions."

So this article is really nothing but a long winded, arrogant justification for the failures of science journalists. Not that they see it as failures. They're doing their job. But their job isn't to communicate science. It's to report on science and whether or not they represent it faithfully is less important than keeping consumers happy. In short, scientists need to stop thinking that journalists have any role or intention in communicating science. I suggest not wasting your time with them unless the journalist in question has a good track record of actually forming that constructive basis for both sides.

But what really needs to be done, is to explore new outlets for science communication; To develop a network of reporter-scientists instead of science reporters, who realize that, when the consumer is interested in getting news about science, giving them good science is in their best interest.

(Note: many of the quotes I cited are not from the author of the paper, but are quotes used in the paper. I did not distinguish between them and did not feel a reason to do so given that at times, the author uses so many quotes that she has little material of her own and she allows the quotes to speak for her.

If anyone wants to see the actual author of individual passages, feel free to read the original article.)

Going after the frauds

Here's a story that makes me happy: A fraud selling useless herbal remedies, claiming they could cure cancer has been charged with fraud after taking in $1 million from people, some of whom ended up dying.

And what sorts of idiots lapped this up?

The faithful of course.

Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?

Now that I'm through laughing (or perhaps crying) at the anti-evolution pamphlet, I'll go over the second one I received.

Obviously, the title gives it a pretentious start: The question is only "ultimate" if you presuppose the answer to be "yes". Otherwise it's equally as yawn-worthy as asking whether or not you've been touched by his noodly appendage.

The first section is called "Asking the Crucial Questions". The way this one starts off just pisses me off; It's a description of the collection of the data for the Hubble Deep Field. Ugh. You just know that this scientific set up is just going to end up being twisted into some bizarre collection of BS. Indeed, it ends pointing to a box (on page 15) asking "Our Awesome Universe: How Big is Big?"

It never even winds up answering the question. It stops at the size of galaxy clusters with a comparison to oranges. But it does pose another question: How did this all come to be.

Skipping back to page 4 where I left off where it poses several more such questions, quoting Stephen Hawking asking, "What is our place in [the universe] and where did it and we come from?" as well as Sagan. There's some quotes from historians asking about a supposed "purpose" for Earth and its inhabitants.

The authors of the pamphlet make a bold declaration:

We can find the answers to these questions. Evidence of God's existence is both abundant and available.

I'm smelling the smelly smell of something smelly. It's their definition of "evidence". I'm willing to bet it includes logical fallacies, lies, and personal testimony. I hope they don't keep me waiting....

The next page starts off with the new section with the title "Evidence All Around Us".

So what is their evidence?

Cosmic fine tuning.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That's not even worth addressing beyond a good laugh. After all, ridicule is a good response to the ridiculous.

So what else they got for me?

"A world of design and purpose"

*headdesk*

Sorry, not impressed with arguments from incredulity.

I'm thinking the authors must have sensed just how pathetic their arguments were, because their next section attempts to drag the opponents down to their level:

Supporters of evolution like to point out that the acceptance of the idea of a divine Creator requires faith in someone or something we cannot see. Yet they are far more comfortable admitting that all who believe that life evolved from inert matter also have faith in a theory that cannot be proven - and is founded on far more fragile evidence than that which supports the faith of believers in a Creator.

That's right. Equivocate on the term "theory" and claim that the Miller-Urey experiment and all its subsequent follow ups never happened. Ignore the fact that your previous two "evidences" were based on poor logic and a logical fallacy and as such, don't count at all. Ignore that this means even the slightest bit of real evidence for naturalistic abiogenesis would be infinitely more than that of the Creationists since they have exactly none.

Yet none of that stops them from claiming "Evolution has become, in a real sense, another religion."

As the saying goes: Don't argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

They then go back to mumbling about "natural laws" proving God, obviously missing the operative word there (natural). They even claim abiogenesis violates the "law of biogenesis". Which just goes to show how little these people know about scientific terminology. After all, they already dropped the ball (probably intentionally) on the definition of "theory". Why should we expect them to have any inkling just how solid "laws" like the "law of Gravity" end up being in the extremes.

The next few pages are more ramblings about how "designed" things look (go go gadget Behe quotes!) and flaunting personal incredulity.

*facepalm*

The next section is on "The Beginning of the Universe".

The thrust of this?

"OMG! Universe had a beginning! Thus God."

Even though they seem to accept the Big Bang, they still try to invoke God as a first cause without reason. The faulty reasoning is apparent when looking at two quotes together from the section "Where science stops":

...everything scientists know simply breaks down at the moment of creation.

...the universe leapt into existence from nothing.

If everything we know breaks down, then how do we know it came "from nothing"? As they themselves are admitting, scientists can't (yet) know! Thus, the entire claim is just Creationist projecting what they want to believe into the unknown. In other words, it's yet another God of the Gaps.

So to what do they make the logical leap in the face of ignorance?

We must seek a source other than science to understand who or what existed before the origin of the universe. And only one source offers a truly believable and rational explanation - the Bible.

There is only one alternative to the biblical claim of supernatural creation by a supreme Intelligence. Atheists must argue that the entire universe came from nothing without a cause.

Holy false bifurcation Batman! If you're not a Bible Believing Christian, you're an atheist!

Again, I'm having some problems with their use of the English language. Namely their claim that the Bible is "believable and rational". Rather, it's annoyingly vague and can (and has) be twisted to agree with any claim with which you happen to come up with.

Which is precisely what they try to do in the section "Understanding Genesis: 1:1-2 which attempts to shoehorn the Genesis account into what we know of history through science. Of course, they ignore that the order is wrong on many key points (flowering plants were much later on the scene than Genesis claims).

The rest of the section is more of the same: It's a rip off of Privileged Planet. And it's completely destroyed by the Anthropic Principle.

The next 14 pages are a restating of the anti-evolution pamphlet so I won't even bothering touching that again.

Then there's 13 pages on "Life's Purpose and the Consequences of Ideas" which is just a long section that claims you can't be good without God because (Godwin's Law).

The last 10 pages is a sort of "get to know Jeebus" section and is a brief overview of their sect's beliefs, interspersed with claims that they actually gave some real evidence and claims that flout the need for evidence in the first place (since they can just shove God outside the universe and it solves everything anyway).

Thus, the opening title is just as weak as I predicted: They failed to justify why it's any more of an important question than how much beer I'm going to get from the eternal beer volcano as I toast with the midget.

So in the end, my "ultimate question" (at least for the moment) is what to have for breakfast....

Creation or Evolution: Does it Really Matter What You Believe?

The first of the pamphlets I've picked up is the one on Creation or Evolution: Does it Really Matter What You Believe?.

The first section is entitled “Society's Dramatic Shift”. It laments the time when, “[o]nly a few generations ago laws prevented the teaching of the theory of evolution”. It complains that, “[t]he Bible is banned from classrooms in American schools, and serious discussion of the biblical view of the creation of our universe and our human origins is forbidden.”

The juxtaposition of these two quotes is amusing: They claim to want a fair discussion, but prefer laws to prevent evolution from being taught. Yeah. Real fair.

The second quote is an outright lie: Bibles are allowed in schools. There's numerous Bible history classes across the nation. This certainly permits the discussion of the biblical creation story. However, whether or not it will be taken seriously is unclear.

They then claim that there's a growing number of critics speaking out against evolution citing the “current intelligent design debate” which posits a “Creator” because they don't like “random chance”. Man, three buzz words in a single sentence. Not bad. They even manage to conflate ID with a Creator. Oh well. I guess they're bound to get something right. Even a broken clock still gets the time right twice a day.

Next up, they appeal to an argument from authority from Wernher von Braun where he waffles about design in the universe and even brings up nonsense about “random chance” producing the “human eye”. To be sure, von Braun was a very religious man. Not trusting rocket technology to what he considered to be a godless regime, but instead wanting it to only be held by a nation which largely expressed his favored religious morals. However, such design quotes are a dime a dozen and without the evidence, they're worthless.

From there, they go on to invoke some arguments from ignorance based on reproduction:
How does evolution account for sexual reproduction
Why do babies need care for so long?

Darwin even gets a quote saying, “I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything: and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them. (Emphasis added by Creationists).”

What's not mentioned is that the supposed “quote” wasn't directly from Darwin. It came from the Lady Hope story of Darwin's deathbed recantation which was rejected by his children. In other words, it's entirely false.

The next paragraph is again lying about how court decisions are “effectively banning public expression of religious beliefs”. Again, an outright lie. Public is fine. Government sponsored and endorsed is not. They attempt to justify this as being bad saying that it causes “languish[ing] in the sorrow and suffering that results from rejecting absolute moral standards.” My my. What a slippery slope. A leads to B even if the evidence suggests otherwise. But of course, they claim this is what evolution predicts: a bunch of greedy, backstabbing bastards. Shame that group cooperation works so nicely to increase survivability.

On the next page it's more Evolution = Religion. "Evolution teaches us that man created God." Err... no.

It then quotes someone named Louis Bounoure who they claim was "Director of France's Strasbourg Zoological Museum and professor of Biology at the University of Strsbourg". The quote is:

volution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.

Want to take a guess where this quote really came from? I'll give you a hint: It's not who it's attributed to. Rather, it's from a renowned liar.

Hm. I guess that's too general. Let's narrow it down a bit: He's in jail for tax fraud.

Guess that made it obvious: Kent Hovind made it up. Doh!

The next section is titled "Science, the Bible and Wrong Assumptions". It begins claiming that many scientists are fleeing from evolution because the "scientific knowledge has increased, [and] researchers have not been able to confirm the basic assumptions of the evolutionary theory". LOL! That's completely backwards: Evolution, like all science, was accepted into the mainstream precisely because the basic assumptions and more have been confirmed!

The supposed wisdom of "some states' educational boards" is invoked, claiming that they're somehow better informed than "scientists and educators".

There's a few quotes from Phillip Johnson predicting the demise of evolution, likening it to a battleship whose "sides are heavily armored with philosophical barriers to criticism". I'll agree that the USS Evolution is well armored. Not with supposed barriers to criticism, but rather, with barriers to BS via the scientific methodology which defends against false criticism.

The authors discuss how "science has refuted some religious notions about nature and the universe that religious leaders mistakenly attributed to the Bible." What sorts of things? Dunno. It's not mentioned. But I can think of at least one: the notion of a 6,000 year old Earth. Oh wait.... That really is in the bible if you buy it wholesale like these people do which is highlighted in their rant on Catholics for the next few paragraphs in which they reprimand them saying, "taking the Bible literally has not been a hallmark among Catholics through much of the 20th century."

Finally, after their diversion on Catholics, they try to get back to the claim that the ideas that science has debunked weren't really in the bible. It brings up the idea that the Earth floats through space. It claims the bible got it right saying in Job 26:7 that the Earth "hangs on nothing". Guess they're trying to ignore Job 9:6, Psalm 75:3, and I Samuel 2:8 which say the Earth rests on "pillars".

There's an entire section devoted to "Darwinism and Morality" where, for 8 paragraphs they invoke the slippery slope of "without religion there is no good".

Finally, on page 19, they start addressing "evidence" in a section on "What Does the Fossil Record Show?" What's the first sentence of this section? The old "Evolution is just a theory, not a law" shtick. *YAWN* Been there. Heard that. Got the T-shirt.

The rest of the section is a gaps fallacy claiming there's no transitional fossils, even invoking some quotes over 25 years old to support this. There's also a pretty obvious quote mine from Niles Eldridge regarding the uniformitarian view of evolution. The bit they quote obviously argues against that, but I strongly suspect that immediately following the end of the quote, it argues for Punctuated Equilibria. They even go so far as to quote Gould describing the reasoning for PuncEq, but completely remove any discussion of what it is until a page later at which point they call it "inherently unprovable". Yet, a simple search for "Evidence of Punctuated Equilibrium" turns up #1 as an article from 2006 on tracing Punc Eq through genetics.

Later on, they claim "the only logical place to find proof for evolutionary theory is in the fossil record." I guess genetics and homology don't count as science.

Another amusing claim comes on page 29 where they claim that "[t]he deceptive, smoke-and-mirror language of evolution revolves largely around the classification of living species." Right.... We have trouble defining species.... So can you please define a "kind"?

On page 32 we find a confused definition of how science (although they're only discussing evolution) works. They claim that "evolutionists" only look at similarities (and then claim that's evidence of common descent). I guess they never read Origin of Species which the entire foundation of evolution is based in why there are differeces. The truth is, we look both ways.

Regardless, they claim that any similarities are the result of a "common Designer", as if they aren't also two-facedly arguing the differences imply a creator too.

There's another quote from Gould in which he says "In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and 'fully formed'." They key word the Creationists ignore in this quote is "local area". It should go without saying that, when you look at too localized an area, you get the wrong picture. If you only look at your local surroundings, the Earth is flat. It's only when you step back that you see the large picture.

The picture the authors are obviously trying to ignore is that Punc Eq is a real force and even in its absence, species migrate!

Next up is Behe invoking the complexity of the cell. There's then the standard fare on the Cambrian Explosion and the "life from non-life is impossible" without explaining why and it's the end of the section. Thank goodness.

But the next section doesn't look much better: Can Evolution Explain Life's Complexity?

It claims that evolution is impossible because all features must "be in harmony and synchronized with other bodily modifications, or the changes would be of no benefit". It gives the example of a wolf that could run faster, but claims that it would have to also have a stronger heart to keep up with the additional exertion.

What a stupid example. Small steps don't put an appreciable strain on the other features such that it will be of "no benefit." Rather, it's a small benefit that will be bounded shortly thereafter if the other features don't catch up. But by no means must all features be in lockstep as the authors claim.

On the next page, they're true to the form I predicted earlier about waffling over "kinds". They claim that evolution produces nothing new because it only produces "certain kinds of individuals."

Ironically, the quote they used to support this came from Tom Bethell who they then quote as claiming evolution was "on the verge of collapse." This was nearly 80 years ago.

Next up: There's no such thing as a beneficial mutation and species are fixed around a point via "invisible but firmly fixed boundaries that mutations can never cross."

The next section ("The wondrous cell") is a list of Behe talking points:
- Mousetrap
- Irreducible Complexity
- The Eye
- Blood Clotting

"Oddities in Nature That Defy Evolution" is the next section. It's again, a list of arguments from ignorance. The first one is a Hovind favorite: The bombardier beetle. Then bird migration, salmon's cycle of returning to the location of birth, the camouflage of certain fish; They're all chalked up to "I don't know how this could form via evolution, so it didn't thus God." *SIGH*

The final section is "The World Before Man: The Biblical Explanation". In here, it flits through the biblical narrative as it applies to Earth: God created some stuff, there were some angles, there were some people. It even argues that the Earth could be old. But it still argues that God is magically popping all species into existence. I'm with Miller that such a God not only contradicts the evidence, but is theologically worthless.

The only evidence they claim for this is the previous 60 pages of lies and distortions about evolution that, even if they were true, would still only amount to a God of the Gaps argument. In other words, that was 71 pages of typical Creationism.

WTF Spencer, Iowa?

Up in Spencer Iowa, a small town's school board is doing something monumentally stupid: They're trying to shove religion back into schools. And they're not even being subtle about it.

The draft resolution reads like typically uninformed religious propaganda. It starts off requiring that staff and students be granted rights they already have:

School will not discriminate against private religious expression.
School will educate about, not indoctrinate religious faith.

*headdesk*
Students have always had the right to private religious expression. It's when they start doing it publicly, in a manner that disrupts the curriculum or the academic environment that it becomes unacceptable.
Schools have always had the ability to teach about religion. This is something the religious right frequently whines about because to teach about it, means we don't leave out the things they'd rather not have people know.

But it doesn't get any better.

Promote dialogue between schools and community concerning faith.

Yes. Invite sectarian groups to proselytize. Smart one there. And who gets to pick which groups are invited in to do this?

Create a climate of academic freedom concerning faith issues.

This idea sounds wonderful, but how fairly will it be applied? I remember a few years ago a similar notion of allowing religious groups to distribute “backpack mail”. But as soon as a Pagan group wanted to use it, it drew complaints.

Allow for student and employee religious expression within the law.

I feel pretty repetitive here, but students do have this right. Teachers, not so much. If the “within the law” statement is actually upheld, then this resolution doesn't actually mean anything.

School will neither promote, or disparage religious faith.

Which isn't never been allowed to in the first place! Why is this crap included in here? I think it's pretty obvious: A critical analysis of these people's religions and the history of their religion doesn't necessary cast it in a positive light. That's not disparaging it. It's being honest about it. But such people are so thin skinned that they can't tell the difference anymore.

The next section is “Definition”. The one for religion is stupidly vague:

Religion-a specific system of belief which may or may not include a deity, is not limited to orthodox belief systems or practices.

Oh look! Words to equivocate with! Let's not define the difference between “belief” based on evidence and “belief” based on blind faith.

The next one is even worse:

Evolution – The belief that an unguided process of mutation and natural selection resulted in the existence of life on earth.

I can guarantee no one with any scientific knowledge beyond a basic course helped write this crap. Evolution is not unguided. Natural selection is a powerful guiding force. Evolution does not have anything to do with the “existence of life on earth”. It only discusses the diversity.

The section on “Graduation exercises and other Extra-Curricular Activities” is nothing but things that have been ruled against by courts in the past:

a. Content of speeches by private individuals will not regulated on religious content.
b. School will permit the graduating class to choose whether to have an invocation and or benediction to be given by student volunteer in a non-proselytizing and nonsectarian manner.

The first one is basically saying that the school will not keep out preaching. The second contradicts the first saying that proselytizing is not ok. Make up your minds guys. It even contradicts itself by allowing for a “nonsectarian benediction”. While a benediction can be just a general well-wishing, given the title of the document (Religious Liberty), it's safe to assume that it's talking about a religious one.

Like the school I mentioned before, this school is trying to allow for distribution of religious materials too:

a. Religious materials may not be singled out for specific regulation based on content.
b. Students may distribute religious materials at reasonable times and manners designated by the school.

Again, something that sounds good, but just wait till someone with views they don't want tries to apply for the same rights. As for the second statement, students already have these rights, but it's pretty worthless anyway. Unless you want trashcans full of Chick tracts.

The section on “Religion in the Curriculum” is just a mess.

1. Curriculum areas that overlap religious faith shall demonstrate respect for affected religious convictions.
2. Electives to be offered at Spencer High School:
  a. The Bible in History and Literature
  b. Critic of Darwinism, a scientific approach. (provide a balanced review of evidence for and against the theory of evolution, using texts which include “Darwin’s Black Box” by M. Behe)

The idea that topics that may overlap must “demonstrate respect” is just code for “tiptoe around anything we don't like to hear” which destroys the stance of neutrality they're pretending to create. As far as the elective courses, the first one is fine. The second is, well, at least they're admitting the “criticism” of religion is a religious exercise. But seriously, Darwin's Black Box!? That book's been torn up and down so many times now it's not even funny. That's hardly “balanced”. Nor does “Darwinism” even exist beyond a silly Creationist strawman!

And just so the whole thing ends on a stupid note:

Teaching about the holidays. Discussion of the significance in an objective and historical nature will be allowed.

Sure. So they're going to admit that every Christian holiday is a rip off of other religions? Yep. Thought that one through real well...

HT: Stupid Evil Bastard

You're doing it wrong.

Although I don't often say too much about it, there's more forms of dangerous pseudo-science out they aside from Creationism. The anti-vaccination movement is one that seems to be growing a lot recently (or is at least getting more attention) that I've been growing pretty concerned with.

Another is the recent actions of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). While I, nor anyone else I know has a problem with a good back rub to relieve some stress, Chiropractors and those they dupe seem to be under the delusion that spinal alignment fixes all sorts of problems. The evidence simply does not support this.

So what happens when a prominent figure points this out?

If you haven't been following the story of Simon Singh at Bad Astronomy, go do so. In short, instead of actually presenting their evidence in court when their practice was called for what it was ("bogus"), they decided to sue.

And against all reason, they won.

The decision is obviously being appealed, but the entire assault against honest inquiry via abuse of the legal system is staggering. And fortunately, a lot of people seem to be realizing it.

In response, the Vice-President of the BCA wrote an article in New Scientist entitled In Defense of Chiropractic. And boy did he bungle it.

His first claim is that no real Chiropractor actually believes they can treat entirely unrelated illnesses like asthma, digestive disorders, infant colic, menstrual pains, sport injuries, tension headaches, and migraines.

[The criticism] has the clear intention of suggesting that modern chiropractors cling to the 19th century idea that spinal misalignments are responsible for the majority of diseases. While a tiny minority retain this view, most are aware that such claims have long since been debunked.

Orly? Then why, according to they very article that the "defense" was responding to did the author point out that the illnesses I just referred to are, in most cases, believed by more than half of Chiropractors to be treatable through their profession?

A 2004 survey by the UK General Chiropractic Council revealed that most chiropractors believe they can treat asthma (57 per cent), digestive disorders (54 per cent), infant colic (63 per cent), menstrual pains (63 per cent), sport injuries (90 per cent), tension headaches (97 per cent) and migraine (91 per cent). According to a 2007 survey, 69 per cent of all UK chiropractors see themselves as more than just back specialists, and 76 per cent consider Palmer's original concepts to be "an important and integral part of chiropractic".

Oops. Either you're lying or didn't do your homework.

Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that he knows he's lying. And the BCA is hurriedly trying to cover it up. Sounds like the guys over at Uncommon Descent.

But the bungling doesn't stop there. The author then tries to justify the notion that Chiropractic medicine is safe. How? By saying it doesn't cause stroke:

Claims that chiropractic is dangerous overlook two recent pieces of research. One found no causative association between chiropractic manipulation and stroke. The other concluded that the incidence of stroke after chiropractic was no greater than after a consultation with a general practitioner

Well huzzah!

So it doesn't make things worst (most of the time). But that still doesn't mean it makes things better which is the claim that Singh was making in the first place.

But even if it doesn't directly harm people, it does indirectly by making people think that they're going to get better through this bogus treatment. They forgo treatment that actually does solve the problem. And that's when Chiropractic treatments, faith healing, and all the other "alternative medicines" stop being just silly, and suddenly turn dangerous.

Of course, the author's mouth is so big, he has to shove his foot in it a few more times. He claims:

[Critics overlook] the fact that many accepted medical interventions have little or no research evidence to support them.

Translation: "Woot! We don't have to have standards because lots of other alternative practices don't either! If we can drag everyone down to our level we can all win!"

Pathetic. Sounds just like Creationists trying to abuse the term "theory" to try to get themselves on the same level as honest science.

I'd love to see patients form a civil action lawsuit against the Chiropractic association under the notion that, aside from a placebo effect, they been hoodwinked to pay good money for a treatment which provides no discernible benefit in most cases.

So, dear BCA, if you think that's a real defense, think again. You're doing it wrong.

Spiral structure

I’m not entirely sure why, but recently, in various forums I hang out on, I’ve been seeing a particular creationist argument pop up that’s fairly annoying. The argument is that the universe can’t be as old as astronomers say it is because, if it were, the spiral arms in galaxies would “wind up”.

This argument is pretty convincing at first, because it plays on the expectation that galaxies are fairly straightforward systems without dirty little tricks up their sleeves. If this were the case, galaxies would behave like the solar system wherein the things towards the center go around quickly and objects towards the edges slowly work their way around. Thus, if you started everything on a straight line, the inner part would have orbited several times while the outer edges would barely have budged thanks to the fact that those inner bits not only move faster, but have a shorter distance to travel in their smaller orbits.

Expectation wise, galaxies shouldn’t have graceful arms that tend to only go about half a full turn. Unless, of course, those expectations are wrong. And I’m sure by now most readers are anticipating what should be the obvious answer: They are.

The first thing that’s wrong is that galaxies don’t behave like our solar system. This was first realized in 1959 in the galaxy M33 by Louise Volders. In the 1970’s, this non-Keplarian motion was discovered in more and more galaxies by Vera Rubin, which is one of the foundations for the need for Dark Matter. Instead of velocities trailing off in an exponential decay like we see in the solar system, most galaxies tend to have fairly flat velocity curves as shown in the figure. A flat rotation curve means that galaxies don’t wind up and if they do, it would be very slowly.

Of course, this raises an even more interesting question. Even though we’ve established that these arms could be very old, it still doesn’t say anything about why you have regions in the galaxy where they exist in the first place. What’s so special about spiral structure!?

The answer to this question is profound because it gets to the very nature of what spiral arms are and, as with before, it’s something that completely defies what you’re probably thinking if you’re not already familiar with this topic: Spiral structure is the result of spiral density waves...

Whatever the hell that means.

Unfortunately, there’s no real good way I’ve yet come across to explain this. Silly analogies with traffic jams tell you what is going on, but says nothing of why it happens. And that “why” is fairly important, lest we be accused of making up just-so stories.

I’m going to skip the math since it requires a course in mechanics and quite a bit of calculus to go through and I’ll just get to the heart of what it reveals.

Let’s start off with an idealized galaxy in which we have everything as simple as we can get it. Let’s pretend the galaxy is a perfectly uniform distribution of gas and dust in perfectly circular orbits around the center. Yeah right. No galaxy really starts off that way. Galaxies are in clusters and being acted on by one another. Many galaxies have satellites that perturb them and they were formed from smaller lumps that have gotten cannibalized. They’re dynamic places, so if we introduce some perturbations to the system, we can ask what happens then.

No need to really do this for the whole galaxy at this point. We can just look at the case of what would happen to any single star. It ends up that if you knocked a star out of its ideal orbit, the combined forces of the rest of the galaxy would work to try to restore its ideal position. But as with most restorative forces, it will tend to overshoot. Thus, you get harmonic motion. Not only do you get this towards and away from the center of the galaxy though, you also get it in the direction of motion. The combination of these two motions means that the star would make little orbits about its idealized location. The Sun does this too. Its motion in relation to the idealized point it should be (known as the Local Standard of Rest or LSR) is known as “Peculiar Motion”.

So let’s try to picture what that looks like. In this image, I’ve drawn the idealized LSR for our star in green. On top of that, I’ve sketched the path it would travel around an idealized point in red at four different points in the full orbit. The extent of this is grossly exaggerated of course, but it will illustrate the point.

Now let’s have the star make an integer number of rotations around its small circle every time it goes around the full big circle. If we take the star to be at its furthest from the center of the galaxy at point a, then it would be at its closest at b, furthest again at c, and closest again at d. Now putting the overall true motion of the star (in blue) in with the smaller wobbles, the true motion becomes apparent: Stars have elliptical orbits.

What’s more, the way these elliptical orbits line up isn’t the same at all distances from the center of the galaxy. Rather, the orientation of the major axis of the ellipse will rotate as you move out. That means that if we drew is successive ovals, each one would be slightly skewed resulting in a pattern like the one I’ve shown here.

The result of these skewed orbits is that at some points around the galaxy, stars tend to all bunch up more than at other places. And what happens when you get a bunch of massive things bunching up? It creates a gravitational potential. The result is that stars will speed up as they fall in making a lack of stars on the trailing edge but then be slowed down again as they exit, creating a pile up on the front edge. If spiral arms really were some magical place that could get wound up, we shouldn’t expect to see this. But we do, which suggests that the Creationist version of spiral arms doesn’t fit reality.

And this is what a spiral arm is. It’s the crowding together of a bunch of stuff as its slowed down exiting the potential well caused by the spiral wave. And it turns out these things are very stable. So the Creationist claim that they must be very young because galaxies should “wind up” is just wrong. It’s using a horribly outdated idea of what spiral structure is. Not that this is surprising.

But how robust is this explanation? Turns out it does very well to explain not just the very nice two armed spirals like M51, but it also can explain the not so neat spiral galaxies like M101. It just takes a different number of orbits around the small path per full orbit. And even the flocculent spirals with patchy arms can be explained through this, using non-integer numbers of rotations or linear combinations of many states.

I hope that clears up what’s really going on with spiral structure. If you’re really interested in seeing the math behind this, it should be in most junior/senior level astronomy texts.

"A Strawman from an ID Proponent (say it ain't so!)" OR "A Corrected Conversation"

Over at Evolution Lies and Distortions, Luskin's got a cute version of a "dialogue with a Darwinist" in which he tries to paint a picture in which those supporting evolution refuse to actually address the issue and instead respond to everything pointing out the Wedge Document stating that the Discovery Institute outright claimed to want to undermine all of science by destroying methodological naturalism, or just pointing at how badly the ID movement got it's ass handed to it in Dover.

Of course, that's not really how evolution proponents actually respond. But Casey isn't known for paying attention to what evolution supporters say.

At the very least, there's a caveat at the end in which Luskin states:

A real scholarly debate between those on both sides of the intelligent design controversy would have much more technical arguments. Nonetheless, the sad truth is that when many criticize intelligent design in the media, courtrooms, classrooms, and even scientific journals, their arguments often fail to rise above those of the "Darwinist" antagonist presented here.

It's nice that Luskin at least admits that much, Luskin obviously fails to analyze the reason: It's a lot easier to spread lies (see especially: Gish Gallop) than to clean them up. In the media you get a few sentences, if you're lucky. In the courtrooms their points were addressed, but Behe still whined that it wasn't good enough because it didn't meet his contrived definition of IC. And what is Luskin whining about in classrooms? Since when does the DI want ID taught in schools? In journals, ID proponents can't even make a positive argument, so of course they're not going to make publication.

Regardless, let's go through the "conversation" here quickly and try to fix things:

ID Proponent: DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Your definition and analysis of "information" is fundamentally flawed.

ID Proponent: Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Logical fallacy - Argument from ignorance/incredulity as well as distortion of real Cambrian "explosion".

ID Proponent: Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Logical fallacy - Argument from ignorance/incredulity. Contrived definition relying on strawmen as well as previously stated logical fallacy. Abuse of statistics and misdirection.

ID Proponent: Human intelligence. Creative Genius. Love. Music. Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Beethoven.

Evolution Proponent: Logical Fallacy - Argument from ignorance/incredulity.

ID Proponent: Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Logical Fallacy - Argument from ignorance/incredulity. Additionally, all been shown to be reducible.

ID Proponent: Science. Evidence. Data. Observations. Intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Please learn what the first two mean then come back when you have the 3rd and 4th. kthxbai.

ID Proponent: theism: Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennett. Sam Harris. Eugenie Scott. Barbara Forrest. Stephen Jay Gould. E.O. Wilson. Michael Ruse. P.Z. Myers. Many others. Wedge? Irrelevant.

Evolution Proponent: Dishonest conflation of personal personal philosophy with scientific methodology. Also, need we mention that every major ID proponent is Christian and most, like Dembski, Johnson, etc... have all stated that they are operating on explicit theistic agendas.

ID Proponent: Judges can’t settle science. Courts can’t change data.

Evolution Proponent: Neither can people who refuse to use the scientific method. At least courts actually require evidence.

ID Proponent: Judge adopted false definition of ID.

Evolution Proponent: Which came directly from your textbooks and was a word for word copy of creationism... er.. cdesign proponentistism.

ID Proponent: Judge ignored positive case for design.

Evolution Proponent: Logical fallacies are not a "positive case".

ID Proponent: Judge copied many errors into ruling from ACLU. Judge ignored ID rebuttals. Judges make mistakes all the time.

Evolution Proponent: Few were actually mistakes despite your claims. Judges accept findings of fact all the time.

ID Proponent: Judge ignored peer-reviewed pro-ID publications. Meyer, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Dembski, The Design Inference. Beye/Snoke, Protein Science. Others.

Evolution Proponent: Because none were peer reviewed and those that were didn't make a positive case for ID. Just a negative case against evolution that did not hold up to scrutiny.

ID Proponent: Judge ignored pro-ID research. Minnich's flagellum research.

Evolution Proponent: It wasn't ignored. It was refuted. Meanwhile, you refuse to accept the T3SS as a reducible form of the flagellum because of your contrived definition of IC.

ID Proponent: (Type III Secretory System has ¼ flagellar parts.) Not an explanation. Huge Leap.

Evolution Proponent: Still fits your definition.

ID Proponent: Flagellum: Rotor, Stator, Bushings, Motor, Propeller, U-Joint, Rotary Engine 100,000 RPM. Irreducibly complex.

Evolution Proponent: Again, reduces to T3SS if you don't make dishonest caveat that system must retain same function.

ID Proponent: Then provide step-by-step evolutionary model.

Evolution Proponent: Sorry, not playing your "explain everything or you've explained nothing" game. Even when well detailed explanations are given, Dembski rejects them out of hand saying he wants more. Again reveals ID double standard on evidence.

ID Proponent: (ID has no research.) Minnich. Axe. Dembski. Marks. Meyer. Behe. Snoke. Gonzalez. Biologic. Others.

Evolution Proponent: Again, their logical fallacies do not count as research.

ID Proponent: (NAS rejects. AAAS rejects. “Steves” reject.) That’s Politics. Thomas Kuhn was right. “Science not a democracy” –Eugenie Scott. All majority views started off as minority views.

Evolution Proponent: Being a minority view doesn't mean it's right either. Evidence does. Yours has been judged and failed.

ID Proponent: ID also has science. Plus Darwinism has politics: NAS anti-ID edicts; AAAS anti-ID edicts; Witch hunts (Sternberg, Crocker, Gonzalez, others).

Evolution Proponent: No. ID has logical fallacies that it calls science. The "anti-ID edicts" aren't politics, they're upholding of the scientific process. Sternberg et al were not "persecuted" for ID position but rather for other reasons.

ID Proponent: DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Not Bible based.

Evolution Proponent: Repeating yourself are you? Already addressed the silly "information" claim. Pandas shows ID is bible based as does admissions from Johnson, Dembski, etc...

ID Proponent: Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Not Faith based.

Evolution Proponent: Already addressed. While arguments themselves are not faith based, the motivation to used flawed arguments are.

ID Proponent: Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Not Divine Revelation based.

Evolution Proponent: Already addressed.

ID Proponent: Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Not Religion.

Evolution Proponent: Already addressed.

ID Proponent: World’s most famous evolutionist Richard Dawkins (who is anti-ID): “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

Evolution Proponent: Point being? I'm still waiting for a refutation of that that isn't based in the aforementioned logical fallacies.

ID Proponent: DNA Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick (who is anti-ID): "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.“

Evolution Proponent: Quite true. Otherwise we get into supernatural gibberish that no longer conforms to the scientific method.

ID Proponent: Former NAS president Bruce Alberts (who is anti-ID): “The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. . . . Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.”

Evolution Proponent: And that's supposed to be an argument for design? Hey everyone! The earth looks flat! That means it is! In-duck-tive reasoning a la Behe!

ID Proponent: Theological Objection—Irrelevant. Theological Answer: God is eternal, has no designer.

Evolution Proponent: Eternal universe, having no designer is more parsimonious.

ID Proponent: Knowledge of designer not necessary for design inference.

Evolution Proponent: Oh shit. And here I was trying to take ID to it's logical conclusion (if designer is more complex than creation, and complex things require designer, then infinite regression). Sorry for actually trying to apply your nonsense to scrutiny to show the fundamental flaws. Regardless, evidence and not logical fallacies are required for design inference. Still waiting on that.

ID Proponent: Why does the universe exist?

Evolution Proponent: Loaded question. "Why" implies intent.

ID Proponent: Science seeks truth. If ID is right, ID is progress.

Evolution Proponent: Science seeks truth through the scientific method. ID rejects this by allowing for supernatural causation.

ID Proponent: Naturalism failing. How did flagellum evolve? Evolution of the gaps.

Evolution Proponent: Argument from ignorance/incredulity. Extrapolation for evolution justified given overwhelming success on all levels (again, parsimony). ID has no positive track record.

ID Proponent: Where are Cambrian ancestors? Evolution of the gaps.

Evolution Proponent: Many have been found. You choose to ignore them.

ID Proponent: How did the first cell arise? Evolution of the gaps.

Evolution Proponent: Logical Fallacy - Strawman. Evolution doesn't have to explain where the first cell came from (abiogenesis) any more than gravity has to do with where the first mass came from.

ID Proponent: ID is positive. DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Human intelligence. Love. Music. Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Beethoven. Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Science. Evidence. Data. Observations. Information in nature requires intelligent design.

Evolution Proponent: Sorry. I wasn't impressed by your logical fallacies earlier. I'm still not impressed by your arguments from ignorance/incredulity.

ID Proponent: How did any single biochemical pathway arise? Evolution of the gaps. ID dramatically superior.

Evolution Proponent: Already addressed.

[Empty Silence; Crickets]

ID Proponent: OMG! We're being persecuted! Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system! Let's make a "documentary" about it and lie to interviewees to get statements to quote mine from! Let's try to bypass the scientific process and get directly into schools and then claim we don't! Let's appeal directly to churches, steal creationists arguments, definitions, methods, etc... and wonder why we're being called a Trojan horse! Let's also refuse to address that our own founder (Johnson) has explicitly admitted that "This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy" as well as Dembski and most other leaders. Let's substitute logical fallacies for evidence! Let's refuse to admit that the Wedge document has any relevance and call it part of a "fund raising campaign" which means either we're lying on that, or were lying to investors! But we're still honest! Let's take our own and martyr them with false evidence so we can be persecuted more (just like Jesus)! Let's predict that we're going to do well in a trial and pull out at the last minute and then bitch about it (just like people bitching about an election they didn't vote in)! Let's make flash animations to mock our opponents instead of honestly addressing their claims. Let's make up arguments like IC that have unmeetable criteria that have no justification. Let's make up arguments like specified complexity which are crappy math, but still impress and scare Americans since they rely on big numbers. Let's plagarize and then offer a not-pology! Let's quote mine in our newest and best book! Let's never ever ever make a positive argument!

Evolution Proponent: GTFO!

ID Proponent: (Slamming door on way out) PERSECTUTION!111?!11eleven!1