The Catholic Church Hates Creationism

You have got to love the Roman Catholic Church in a way. Ok, so their views on contraception is really dangerous and wrong in this day and age, but at least they do have something when it comes to science.

The Panda's Thumb has an article on the RCC having an 'Evolution Congress'. And they don't want any stinking Creationists and IDiots there.

Ok, I guess that is a bit mean, Fr. Marc Leclerc said it rather nicer then that.

PZ Myers also writes on this issue, however I'm following the vein of PvM in saying that PZ is a bit wrong with what he has said.

I suspect that part of this involves what certain Catholics said of him when he wrote about a cracker. (As a side note, the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, was in a South Park episode.)

To be honest I prefer that the Catholic Church has decided to exclude Creationists and ID supporters from this congress. So they might have also said that the non-religious are allowed as well, but it might be for the best at the moment.

There would have to be Catholic creationists out there, even though the official stance on Genesis is that it is allegorical, especially when it comes to creation. This would help to encourage Catholics to support evolution, to look into the matter and see that there is nothing wrong.

I'm being rather optimistic here, but I think that if the largest denomination of Christians follows evolution, other denominations will follow. The Roman Catholic Church has between around 0.75 billion to 1.05 billion followers. If other denominations follow suit, then the creationist movement might start to shrink as more and more denominations will see that they can reconcile their beliefs with the facts.

However what will most likely happen is that regardless of how many denominations accept evolution, many of the US denominations will just brand evolution as "Atheistic Catholic Devil Worship" or something like that, which might push more people away.

Anyway, back on track.

Basically my point of view on this is similar to my view of religion in general. You have to have a middle ground at least, where they can relate to the desire for religion, yet still accept scientific advances. Just going about saying "you're wrong, you're wrong" is probably a far worse way of trying to convince someone that evolution is real, and works. They've built up this belief in their book and their specific version of God and then you yank it out from under them. What are they going to do? Immediately accept evolution as real? Or are they going to retreat further into their shell?

I want to comment on what the DI has to say about this, but at the moment Friday has only started in the US (It's just become Saturday here) so I guess they haven't had anything to say. I'll check on this later on today and if they say something will add it here.

Answers in Genesis Has A Journal?

I saw this on Panda's Thumb.

Answers in Genesis have their own "peer reviewed" "journal".

I must admit though that their page with the articles in it looks nice, and at least it's free for people to make fun of.

This one caught my eye.

Entitled Microbes and the Days of Creation without proper stupid protection you will lose several IQ points.

The abstract alone makes me think immediately of this (as a side note, the owner of that site is apparently on Myspace, and although wrong at times isn't really that stupid).

Clearly though they are trying to reconcile the lack of microbes with a literalist interpretation of Genesis.

The argument is as follows.

It's simply that micro-organisms exist in symbiosis with plants and animals. So nitrogen fixing bacteria that are found with peanut plants for example were created on the third day, with the rest of the plants etc. etc.

We do get to an interesting position though.

You know how some people believe that humans were created in the image of God?

Well then either God is actually a giant E. coli bacterium, and that humans were created to house that which was made in his image, or E. coli are just as important to God as we are. I mean the neutral E. coli are quite useful to the body.

If God was supposed to have made his creations perfect to begin with, why have a bacterium in you that gives you Vitamin K₂ but can also give you food poisoning if you have a specific strain?

Then there is the section on viruses.

It reads like the "good" viruses are there to help humans, when in fact they would be doing what they are doing to "survive". What exactly would you say for the undead or non-live?

For pathogens and "bad" viruses, well they are easily explained by the standard creation argument. Yep that's right. The "fall" was responsible.

I guess back in Eden HIV went about making people happy and immortal or something stupid like that.

For some reason I feel as if what I read is completely useless for science.

Wait a minute, no I don't.

It is completely useless for science.

Like everything in creationism there is no use for this "paper". It doesn't explain anything for science, it explains how creationists think, but not science.

Unless this AiG "peer reviewed journal" is actually an elaborate humour site it's rather pathetic to see them having to make their own journal, I guess they thought that proper journals wouldn't publish their stuff.

It's a creationist version of the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

Silly Creationists

Well, I think I will start with a conclusion here:

Creationists. I would like to point out to you here that just because one of your own (Kent Hovind, CSE) doesn't claim copyright on his material doesn't mean that everyone else does. There are things called laws, and no matter what you think, you can't disregard them at your leasure.

Well, we now return to a more regular format.

Over on Panda's Thumb they posed the question about whether the public would be able to see that awful attempt at a propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

I haven't had the chance to see the film because I haven't bothered to see if someone has placed an illegal copy up on a torrent site, and also because I am not in the US, but from what I have heard, it clearly is no Triumph of the Will (which is considered to be the greatest propaganda film ever).

Oh, and apologies to the estate of Leni Riefenstahl for making the comparison between the two films.

Anyway. It had been reported by PZ Myers that the Expelled people had nicked an animation from Harvard, changed the colours around and call it their own.

Well today things have changed.

Now, ERV (a blog that I will read more of), and Threads from Henry's Web (ditto), have talked about this already but I will as well.

ERV has a copy of the letter, and NSCE has a fancy copy.

XVIVO, the people who had made the Harvard animation, have sent a letter in which they claim that the Expelled people have nicked their stuff.

Now, I don't know how important this segment is to their film, but it would certainly cause some hassle I guess. If it was one of the most important things then I guess that nobody will be able to see the film because it wouldn't make any sense at all. If not, they might just put some more quote mined Dawkins, or maybe something about PZ being evil.

[Please see the start of the post for the gripping conclusion]

Are They Getting Stupider?

I've stayed out of the PZ Myers getting kicked out of the Expelled screening while Richard Dawkins got in, but now I have more of an opinion rather then "Silly Creationists, you're acting like hypocrites".

Panda's Thumb reports that Uncommon Descent has added their own Argument from Ignorance to the whole thing.

Apparently you are not allowed to use identification which does not have your actual name on it.

This is actually assuming that Dawkins was actually registered at all. Or that he "sneaked" into a private screening.

Panda's Thumb once again shows us that the people who supposedly knows what is going on don't. Unless a public website that you can RSVP to is actually some ruse to get people to sign up to a movie that they might not be allowed to go to...

Now here is where I would like to point to many, many sites that point out that PZ was in the right but I fear that I will lose my train of thought, instead I'll let you read it from the pen (How can it hold a pen?) of a PZ Myers.

Now if you haven't bothered reading the UcD blog. I would say that the funniest part has to be:

"Dawkins was fully aware he was sneaking into a private screening to which he wasn’t invited and attempted to hide his presence by using his legal first name in the registration."

Really?


So if I were to say go to his Wikipedia page and look at what is immediately on the screen will I find that his first name is Clinton?

Hmmm...

Did you know that he was born in Nairobi?

And that he holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science?

Not going to well at the moment...

What's this bolded text at the start of the article?

Clinton Richard Dawkins

Well I'll be, it is.

And the point of that rather pointless set of words that will grace the infinite internet until it blows up or I decide to delete it?

Well it's like complaining that someone used their legal first name by registering with their legal first name. I would have at least thought if there was such a problem with using your first name instead of the name you use more often there would be some law preventing you from using your actual name.

I wonder if J.E.B. Stuart ever had that problem?

Random Guy: "Uh, you're not on the list"
J.E.B. Stuart: "Yes I am, I'm right there" *points out name on list*
Random Guy: "No, that's for Jeb Stuart, the General. This says 'James Ewell Brown Stuart'"
J.E.B. Stuart: "I implore you, the name I pointed out is me"
Random Guy: "Please leave before I call the police"

It only gets stupider from here.

I could write one about L. Ron Hubbard (the "L" stands for "Lafayette")

Why is it that if it was supposedly a "private" screening that PZ Myers family, Dawkins and and assorted other group of people that were accompanying them were allowed in?

Must be a selective definition of "private" which probably means something along the lines of "Not public, as in people who appear in the movie they are trying to get in to can't enter but everyone and their dog can".

So in the end we come down to two possibilities:

1. Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers are scheming lying people who sneaked into a private screening of Expelled for mischievous purposes.

Or

2. The whole ID Movement is now in damage control because they royally screwed up and acted rather hypocritically considering their view that mainstream science supposedly censors their proponents but their actions at this one screening managed to get a story in The New York Times, and are trying to find a way to discredit the people involved who don't support their viewpoint.

I'll let you decide.

Peppered Moths

One of the finest examples of evolution is the Peppered Moth or Biston betularia. In fact it is so great that I am learning about it again in first year Biology. This is also the first post that I have written discussing Creationism so I hope I don't stuff this up.

Now I don't know if I can really say that I love Biology, I must admit that I prefer Chemistry but for me to live up my dream I need to understand something about Biology anyway.

Now for those that don't know the Peppered Moth (I prefer the common name, less italics to write in) can be found in the UK and can be found in two varieties a melanic variety (which is dark) and a lighter form.

Although the experiment undertaken by Bernard Kettlewell in the 1950's the effect started from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

Before the huge increase in factories the forests were clean and had light coloured lichen growing on the trees.

The lichen allowed the lighter moths to survive easier compared to the melanic ones because they could easily camouflage themselves on the trees and not get eaten by the birds that preyed on the insects.

Naturally the darker moths were easier targets and were eaten.

However the Industrial Revolution changed the rules.

The drastic increase of factories spewing out smoke created plenty of soot that killed off the lichen and covered the trees in black soot.

The colours of the moths changed. The melanic moths started to become more common, not being the rare variety anymore but the common one.

Kettlewell managed to show in his experiment that the darker moths were prevalent because the birds found it harder to find them in the soot covered forests.

After the 50's with a program that cut down pollution they found that the moths returned to their original colour diversity.

Now creationists seem to have a problem with this trying to find ways of disproving the hypothesis. The Panda's Thumb mentions them claiming that the results were "faked" and Talk Design has an article that quite thoroughly shows how first the creationists are wrong and how the book Of Moths and Men is also wrong.

This site which is probably getting more exposure then it should, says the following:

IMHO...a couple of issues with the most recent peppered moth study. It's still a moth, and the evolution is an oscillation of populations, just like the finches of Galapagos. Of course, the Darwinists will appeal to the "great creators", random chance, natural selection, and the jackpot, hundreds of millions of years. Given enough time, anything can happen, right?

What we see here is what we can call 'a quite stupid comment'.

It isn't the worst that I have heard from a creationist. The number one thing is a tie between someone claiming that macroevolution was "a rock turning into a banana" or "the Peppered Moth isn't an example of evolution because the pollution was man made but evolution is natural"

Trying to claim that the Peppered Moths has nothing on evolution because it is "still a moth" is a moot point. What was shown here was that the moths adapted to survive, those that were born melanic in a dark environment meant that they were more likely to survive.

The evolution was not just an "oscillation of populations" it was an increase/decrease clearly in the allele frequency of the population. Which, anyway, has nothing in common with the Galapagos finches. The Galapagos finches arrived on the island, most likely from a storm on the mainland and over time they reproduced but they also filled unfilled niches in the ecosystem. The one that I can think of at the moment is the Warbler Finch which is a finch that has adapted itself into a type of warbler, but it is still a finch.

The next line of that comment is just standard creationist drivel, make it sound like a religion and somehow it becomes an idea that is characterised by a belief system but clearly shows a lack of understanding of evolution.

Random chance only affects life if it is something that does not target specific species, for example an asteroid hitting the Earth. It doesn't discriminate between a fit animal and an unfit animal it just kills and whatever manages to survive is bloody lucky.

What he calls the "jackpot" (millions of years") is not always the case. It does not take millions of years for bacteria to become resistant to types of medicine, nor does it take millions of years for various species to become immune to the effects of bacteria like Wolbachia.

To finish, what makes creationists funny (or even IDers) is that they try so hard to disprove something but they don't understand the thing they are trying to disprove, so they fall back to fallacies...

Frivilous?

I found this on The Panda's Thumb.

It isn't really nice to hear.

At this point in time it is rather late here so I won't say too much at the moment in regards to facts, my opinions however can and most likely will make me late for my Marine Science lecture tomorrow.

PZ Myers, the excellent author of scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/>Pharyngula has come under attack because he decided to be honest when he wrote a review on a book written by some creationist.

So now he and Seed magazine are under attack by this guy who is claiming, supposedly that PZ Myers (Who has nothing to say on the matter) used the review to ridicule the guy who wrote the book that he was reviewing.

So what?

If I write a really bad book should I honestly expect that the reviewer to be really nice and not hurt my feelings?

If I do then I am thinking like a complete idiot.

Now here in Australia we all know that we have some rights, although technically not enshrined anywhere (the Constitution lists two fully if I remember correctly and touches on a third one) but we know that there is a point where you can't do a thing when it comes to words.

There are some problems, like a fencing company having to take down a sign for a supposed rude word even though it is a rather clever play on the word 'erection'. If you have thought of anything except building fences, then, shame on you.

In the US from what I hear there seems to be a very weird way of doing things. It seems that you have a right to say whatever the hell you want, but you can't insult someone?

I love how there are blatant contradictions of freedoms like this.

I don't know what was written because I haven't looked yet, but I do know that as long as PZ was within the law, and I feel confident in saying from what I have read of his blog, he has, he can say whatever he wants.

If he gave the book a poor review then he gave it a poor review.

No need to sue someone over it.

Or supposedly claim "considerable mental and emotional distress" and demand financial damages.

Having your name run into the ground by the media for something you didn't do, that causes "considerable mental and emotional distress, getting a bad review doesn't. Most authors get bad reviews once in a while, they don't sue people over it.

It's like asking for US$15 million for financial compensation...


...

oh, yeah that is the amount he is being sued for...

...

Now US$15 million is a ridiculous amount to ask for after being given one bad review. It's quite like asking for $7 million because your $2 clothes peg broke. The amount wouldn't even fit a proper slander crime in this case.


There is one good thing though. If the media start going on about it there would be a lot of free publicity for PZ Myers, and they say that any publicity is good publicity.

Unless you happen to be that US Gridiron player who pleaded guilty to the dog fighting ring...