As you may have recognized by now, Pandas Thumb is an excellent site for taking the pulse of the controversy the Intellignet Design movement is working so hard to keep alive.
I take the opportunity to link to a comment at PT that may demonstrate how the ID movement thrieve on creationist misconceptions: ID
Creationist misconception.
But the whole thread is of course very relevant.
I don't seem to have many readers of my blog, and I am not very active in keeping it alive and interesting but that may improve if I ever get more time on my hands. In the meantime, although I don't quite miss comments, it would have been nice to have some evidence that people have been here at all. You are all welcome whether you have anything to say or not. Just a hello, Kilroy was here.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Once again Intelligent Design...
The Pandas Thumb is a great site for anyone interested in watching the controversy between science and creationism. The creationists, whether of the YEC or ID variety or anything in between in the "Big Tent" og cerationism, regularly show up being confused even about the first thing about evolution:
It is NOT abou the origins of life on Earth! The theory of evolution simply begins by acknowledging the fact that at some point in time, life arose on the planet. A divine miracle or a natural development? Irreleveant, we know life is here and that's that. From there on, natural forces have brought us to where we are today. Even within the ID movement claims are often made that evolution is all right - but it needs the constant nudging by the hand of an Intelligent Designer, i.e. God, to take the right course.
Which remains to be proven. Arguments from incredulity and lack of knowlede is all they have. And most of the time, a faith in sore need of tangible evidence. Faith?
Butt look for yourself, Interesting debate with good points
It is NOT abou the origins of life on Earth! The theory of evolution simply begins by acknowledging the fact that at some point in time, life arose on the planet. A divine miracle or a natural development? Irreleveant, we know life is here and that's that. From there on, natural forces have brought us to where we are today. Even within the ID movement claims are often made that evolution is all right - but it needs the constant nudging by the hand of an Intelligent Designer, i.e. God, to take the right course.
Which remains to be proven. Arguments from incredulity and lack of knowlede is all they have. And most of the time, a faith in sore need of tangible evidence. Faith?
Butt look for yourself, Interesting debate with good points
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Elementary introduction to evolution
Links below.
A good place to start for people with a honest desire to learn, and to understand just what the dividing line between the scientific theory of evolution and pseudoscience, YEC and ID "alternatives" to science is.
"Teach the controversy"? There is no controversy over evolution, what we have is fundamentalism doing its best to keep creationism alive - in a desperate attack on science - to preserve faith in an infallible Bible.
"Critical thinking"? A code word word for using all the creationist crap you can dig up to cast doubt on science and the ToE.
How can you apply critical thinking if you only know creationism - and know science/evolution only from the cerationsist "perspective"? Quotes because it may not even be a true perspective, but just anything the can make look trustworthy to the innocent followers of the creationist campaign against science.
There is no harm in knowledge, is there? The more you can learn to know about biology and evolution - from the scientific sources themselves - not filtered and distorted through the myopic and conditioned mind of a creationist, don't you think that might be a good idea? Ignorance breeds stupidity.
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2013/02/basics-of-evolu.html
A good place to start for people with a honest desire to learn, and to understand just what the dividing line between the scientific theory of evolution and pseudoscience, YEC and ID "alternatives" to science is.
"Teach the controversy"? There is no controversy over evolution, what we have is fundamentalism doing its best to keep creationism alive - in a desperate attack on science - to preserve faith in an infallible Bible.
"Critical thinking"? A code word word for using all the creationist crap you can dig up to cast doubt on science and the ToE.
How can you apply critical thinking if you only know creationism - and know science/evolution only from the cerationsist "perspective"? Quotes because it may not even be a true perspective, but just anything the can make look trustworthy to the innocent followers of the creationist campaign against science.
There is no harm in knowledge, is there? The more you can learn to know about biology and evolution - from the scientific sources themselves - not filtered and distorted through the myopic and conditioned mind of a creationist, don't you think that might be a good idea? Ignorance breeds stupidity.
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2013/02/basics-of-evolu.html
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The war on science hottens up?
An interesting debate at Pandas Thumb:
The war on science hottens up?
The link opens at page three of the thread, that's where the real issue gets a deserved attention!
But the previous pages shows some of what madness science has to cope with these days.
Watching from enlightened Europe, it is a horror show going on over there!
The war on science hottens up?
The link opens at page three of the thread, that's where the real issue gets a deserved attention!
But the previous pages shows some of what madness science has to cope with these days.
Watching from enlightened Europe, it is a horror show going on over there!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Exit Center for Origins Research (CORE)
From Pandas
Thumb
Todd Wood has just announced that Bryan College is discontinuing support for the Center for Origins Research (CORE). I am actually kind of sad about this. Wood was almost the sole representative of critical thinking in the creationist movement. He also had the virtually unique trait of understanding what modern evolutionary biology actually said before opening his big mouth about it. I can’t think of a time when he quote-mined Gould’s punctuated equilibrium quotes or blamed Darwin for Hitler or used the other careless, bottom-of-the-barrel tactics ubiquitous with creationists of the ID or AIG varieties. And I can think of many times when he called shenanigans on creationists engaging in those sorts of sins.
Todd Wood has just announced that Bryan College is discontinuing support for the Center for Origins Research (CORE). I am actually kind of sad about this. Wood was almost the sole representative of critical thinking in the creationist movement. He also had the virtually unique trait of understanding what modern evolutionary biology actually said before opening his big mouth about it. I can’t think of a time when he quote-mined Gould’s punctuated equilibrium quotes or blamed Darwin for Hitler or used the other careless, bottom-of-the-barrel tactics ubiquitous with creationists of the ID or AIG varieties. And I can think of many times when he called shenanigans on creationists engaging in those sorts of sins.
Of
course, I think “statistical baraminology” is basically junk – the
“baraminic distance correlation” they use to look for discontinuity
depends entirely on the domain of analysis. If you use it on a group of
fossil hominids and humans, it will make evident the biggest split in
the character data in that very limited domain. And because cladistic
datasets don’t include uniform characters, only characters that change
within the clade being analyzed, all of the characters must change
somewhere, and typically this would mean that the “basal” and “derived”
groups will be anti-correlated.
But if your domain of analysis included characters from many other mammals and reptiles, fossil hominids and humans would appear nearly identical, i.e. highly correlated, because many characters that are identical for fossil and living humans would be included. Cladistic morphology datasets typically have very tight scope (focusing on a family or genus over which comparable characters can be easily scored), but DNA data has no such limitation. I think this is fundamentally why the statistical baraminologists could never find discontinuity in DNA datasets and soon abandoned DNA datasets.
Anyway, I fear that Wood is soon going to face a tough choice: to get a creationism job, he’ll probably have to knuckle under to creationist orthodoxy and stop criticizing the rampant intellectual shenanigans in his movement. To get a real biology job, he’ll probably have to give up creationism, at least young-earth creationism. Honestly, I suspect he’s intellectually closer to the latter option, whether or not he realizes it yet.
Read the comments there.
But if your domain of analysis included characters from many other mammals and reptiles, fossil hominids and humans would appear nearly identical, i.e. highly correlated, because many characters that are identical for fossil and living humans would be included. Cladistic morphology datasets typically have very tight scope (focusing on a family or genus over which comparable characters can be easily scored), but DNA data has no such limitation. I think this is fundamentally why the statistical baraminologists could never find discontinuity in DNA datasets and soon abandoned DNA datasets.
Anyway, I fear that Wood is soon going to face a tough choice: to get a creationism job, he’ll probably have to knuckle under to creationist orthodoxy and stop criticizing the rampant intellectual shenanigans in his movement. To get a real biology job, he’ll probably have to give up creationism, at least young-earth creationism. Honestly, I suspect he’s intellectually closer to the latter option, whether or not he realizes it yet.
Read the comments there.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Coppedge vs. JPL
Another "Expelled" case - they never learn...
A case of an employee being fired for incompetence, but making a case of religious discrimination out of it.
(DAVID COPPEDGE, an Individual, Plaintiff,
vs. JPL, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY.)
A case of an employee being fired for incompetence, but making a case of religious discrimination out of it.
(DAVID COPPEDGE, an Individual, Plaintiff,
vs. JPL, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY.)
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