Do Something Good!

Go to "Big Think", watch a video, and vote for it. Every time you do, Pfizer will donate one dollar to a "Donors Choose" Public School Project.

Science Education is deteriorating in America, and this is something cool you can do to help.

ID Misconceptions

Someone on the WWGHA forum posted the following:

"Almost every discussion involving evolution that I'm privy to, there are misconceptions about evolution that come up. Heck, I'm sure I've probably said things that misrepresent or misunderstand evolution, just by virtue of the fact I'm not an evolutionary biologist.Out of interest, I wonder if there are similar problems with people's understandings of various forms of creationism and of Intelligent Design.Does anyone here know of common misconceptions about creationism and/or ID that wrongly influence people's attitudes to them?"

My Response:
A common misconception about ID concerns "irreducible complexity". A lot of people think that the only way an IC system could evolve is by all parts being produced at once. In fact, a lot of people think that this is Michael Behe's position, when it is not: he has admitted that IC systems could evolve in a step by step manner. He simple argues, from his own incredulity, that it is "improbable".

One Year Anniversery!!

I just remembered that I have now been blogging for just over one full year now. I've managed to go from only few visits a day to hundreds of visits everyday. I have made well over 200 posts.

In celebration, here are some of my earliest posts, which you may or may not have read:

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2007/08/well-if-you-dont-know-already-aig-is.html

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2007/08/ambulocetus-and-whale-of-tale-as-told.html

http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2007/08/letter-to-young-earth-creationists.html

AaronRa: The Twelfth Foundational Falsehood of Creationism

This is a really great video explaining why creationism isn't science:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc

This is totally off subject, but scientists are planning on creating a "mini big bang" next month. Really cool stuff.

A Creationist Conference

Over at the EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse has written two posts about his attendence to a creation science seminar:

Part I

Part II

Here are some interesting things he notes:

Creationists tend to fancy themselves as science-savy when they are anything but.

Most creationists are not dogmatic idiots, but simply people who misunderstand science. Of course, the leaders of creationism, the ones who give the talks and write the books, usually are charlatans; Yet the ones who follow all this nonsense simply do not understand science.

One creationist gave a talk about how the Creation "Model" was highly incomplete and unevidenced. I was surprised that there are creationists who will actually acknowledge such. Apparently, the guy giving this talk wrapped things up by saying that Christian Apologists don't need to focus on empirical evidence so much as talking about spiritual things.

With that last observation, it should be very clear to anyone who does not already know this that: Creationism is ultimately an emotionally inspired belief. This is why the battle against creationism will not be won simply by evidence. It is, of course, always a good idea to talk about the nature of science and the evidence for evolution, and to recommend helpful books and websites. That may go a long way in convincing those who have an open mind.

Evolution Education

Reading this NY Times article about evolution education really disenheartened me.

Excerpt:

"Animals do adapt to their environments, Ms. Yancey tells her students, but evolution alone can hardly account for the appearance of wholly different life forms. She leaves it up to them to draw their own conclusions. But when pressed, she tells them, 'I think God did it.'

Mr. Campbell was well aware of her opinion. 'I don’t think we have this great massive change over time where we go from fish to amphibians, from monkeys to man,' she once told him. 'We see lizards with different-shaped tails, we don’t see blizzards — the lizard bird.'

With some approximation of courtesy, Mr. Campbell reminded her that only a tiny fraction of organisms that ever lived had been preserved in fossils. Even so, he informed his own students, scientists have discovered thousands of fossils that provide evidence of one species transitioning into another — including feathered dinosaurs."

As the article rightly implies, this resistance to science is the direct result of religious ignorance gone runamuk.

Tom Willis' "Final Solution" for Evolution

Tom Willis, one of the kooks at 'Creation Science Association for Mid America' has written a very nasty and wicked article in which he suggest the following possible solutions to the "evolutionist problem":

"Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.

Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce "Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent - Potentially Dangerous." I consider this option too dangerous.

Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, this should, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.

An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent too much progress. They might invent gunpowder. A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned out to be intelligent enough to invent it.

All options should include 24-hour sound system playing Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris reading Darwin's Origin of Species, or the preservation of Favored Races by Means of Natural Selection. Of course some will consider this cruel & unusual, especially since they will undoubtedly have that treatment for eternity."

(END OF QUOTE)

One of the "Answers in Genesis" books was advertised at the bottom of the article. I would strongly suggest that creationists distance themselves from this man and his organization. Surely most creationists are not this wicked. I strongly encourage creationists to consider this man's words before they once again claim that evolution is responsible for the horrors of the holocaust or the systematic slaughtering of dissenters carried out by communist regimes.