Is There Anything More Pathetic Than Flood Geologists at GSA Meetings?

Yup. Actually, there is. And this is why the announcement that Flood geologists, those poor dumb souls who are so besotted with a Bronze Age work of fiction, are once again coming to the GSA's annual meeting should have you rubbing your hands with glee. Because, you see, the only thing more pathetic than Flood geologists is the fact that their own research has disproved their inane flood hypothesis.

Oh, yes, my darlings. That's delicious, isn't it? Tuck your napkin under your chin and go sink your teeth in to this bit of yum: "The defeat of Flood geology by Flood geology." It's eleven meaty pages of pure, savory, gourmet geo-goodness.

Really, all you need to do is grab Figure 1 and print it. Carry it with you. It's got everything neatly laid out, with little icons showing what bit of evidence says that the whole entire earth couldn't have been underwater at that time. And remember, this is evidence creationist geologists have found through their own research.

Here's my own quick-and-dirty summary:

Subaerial deposits - raindrop impressions, dessication cracks, continental basalts, in-situ root beds, dinosaur eggs, glaciation, fossil charcoal, eolian dunes, paleosol, trackways.

Low- energy deposits and long pass ages of time: Cretaceous chalk, algal growths, various sea critter beds, reefs, lacrustine (lake) deposits, fluvial (stream or river) deposits.

Diversification of terrestrial animals: "Because such speciation cannot occur during a single year when the entire planet is underwater and during most of which the relevant animals are dead, [flood geologist S.J. Robinson] argued that the entire post-Carboniferous portion of the geologic column must be post-Flood."

The Mountains of Ararat: can't have Noah landing there if they don't exist, and any flood deposits would have to be on top of them, so, uh, y'know, it was some other mountains of Ararat!

When you plot where examples of all of the above are found on a handy geologic timescale, you end up eliminating every bit of it, except for the Hadean Eon. It just doesn't work. It can't work.

And some of them know it:

In the words of Flood geologist Max Hunter (2009:88), “It is somewhat ironic…that, almost a half century after publication of The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris in 1961, the geologic record attributed to the Genesis Flood is currently being assailed on all sides by diluvialists…[and] there remains not one square kilometer of rock at the earth’s surface that is indisputably Flood deposited.”

So what's a Flood geologist to do?

The continued denial of the implications of their own findings is an example of what I call the gorilla mindset: the attitude that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but religious dogma says it is a gorilla, then it is a gorilla.

According to Flood geologists, this is a gorilla.

Yup. Pretty much. And these poor inane souls are going to be at GSA, shouting "Gorilla! It's a gorilla!" every time you show them a duck.

Show them Figure 1, and they might just cry.

Lying Liars and the Creationist Bastards Who Lead Field Trips

It's be a while since we've had the Smack-o-Matic off the woodshed wall.  I shall now proceed to lift it down reverently, blow the dust from it, give it a loving polish, and proceed to administer it to some very deserving bottoms.

If you are one of those people prone to troll about "tone" and has to look for a fainting couch whenever a Gnu Atheist is the slightest bit mean to those poor ickle Christians, you'd best exit the cantina now.  I have now prepared the Smack-o-Matic for maximum smackage, and I am about to be very Not Nice.

Check out this dastardly bunch of outrageous liars:

In almost every way, the “Garden of the Gods at Colorado Springs” excursion at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) last year was a normal — even enjoyable — field trip. Standard geologic terminology was used in the accompanying field trip guide, and throughout the trip itself. The trip leaders discussed past events in terms of millions and billions of years. At each stop along the trip, the guides relied on orthodox geologic thinking, including a standard examination of sedimentary features and the nature of contacts between units.

But in reality, the trip was anything but a normal geology field trip. Instead, it was an example of a new strategy from creationists to interject their ideas into mainstream geology: They lead field trips and present posters and talks at scientific meetings. They also avoid overtly stating anything truly contrary to mainstream science.

But when the meeting is over, the creationist participants go home and proudly proclaim that mainstream science has accepted their ideas. 

Who led the field trip? 

Lesse... we had not one but two buffoons from the Institute for Creation Research: Steve Austin and Bill Hoesch.  Marcus Ross, formerly of that noxious bunch of anti-evolution fucktards who plague my beautiful city of Seattle, also known as the Discovery Institute.  He's currently teaching at Liberty University, which is so anti-intellectual I'm not sure how anyone calls it a "university" without laughing themselves to death.  John Whitmore, who's with Cedarville University in Ohio, stuffing liberal Christian students' heads with nonsense.  Lest you be persuaded by the "liberal" part that there must be some sanity at that school, consider this factoid: "Cedarville’s official doctrinal statement declares, 'We believe in the literal six-day account of creation' and requires that all faculty 'must be born-again Christians' who 'agree with our doctrinal statement.'"  Oh, yes, liberal.  Liberal stupidity, perhaps.

The last, Tim Clarey, gets hardly a mention in the article, so I did a quickie on Google.  All I can say is, Delta College in Michigan must be really fucking hard up for geology professors if they let the editor of  "Proceedings of the Second Conference on Creation Geology" (.pdf) teach.  Oh, but he's fun and stuff and he doesn't make you use the text book.  I wonder why that is....

I have something against these arseholes.  No, it's not because they're the kind of dumbshit Christian who tries to shoehorn 4.5 billion years of geology into 6,000 years and one really big flood (instead of "God did it!" at every turn, with creationist geologists, you hear "the Flood did it!"  All. The. Time).  They're welcome to be as stupid as they like.  They can play with their Magic Sky Daddy and believe the Bible's really really real and true and totally accurate even in all those bits that are flat-out wrong or completely contradict other bits of the Bible.  They're even welcome to come to conferences and present their "science" along with all of the supposed data they've amassed.  Go on, give us a laugh.  And if they've got real data, solid data, data that proves what they're saying beyond a reasonable doubt, bring it!  It's science, baby. 

Now, they haven't got that data and the chances they ever will are roughly on par with my waking up tomorrow and actually deciding that my day job is the best job in the whole universe, but still, let 'em try.

No, what I have against them is the fact that they're lying little shits who do their damnedest to snow everyone.  They're deceptive ratfuckers who, when among the real scientists, pretend they're down with this millions-of-years stuff.  They use the big geology words and sometimes even salt their bullshit with a little actual geology to disguise the taste of what they're serving up.  Just check this out:

Field trip 409 was not the first such creationist-led geology excursion at a GSA meeting. At the 2009 annual GSA meeting in Portland, Ore., four of the five trip leaders (Austin, Whitmore, Clarey and Ross) organized a field trip to Mount St. Helens to examine catastrophic erosion resulting from the 1980 eruption. After that trip, the Institute for Creation Research ran a headline bragging, “Christian Geologists Influential at GSA Meeting,” noting that Austin’s “peer-reviewed manuscript was published by GSA.”

In truth, every field trip guide that year was published in the book “Volcanoes to Vineyards.” Austin’s guide, “The dynamic landscape on the north flank of Mount St. Helens,” followed normal geologic thinking and contained no direct creationist arguments — though attempts to link Mount St. Helens to the Grand Canyon erosional processes might have proved puzzling to attendees. 

That, my friends, is despicable.  It's behavior beyond the pale.  These people pretend to be really real scientists, if slightly weird ones, with nary a mention of their Young Earth beliefs and their 6,000 year timeline and they don't breathe a word of Noah's Flood, all so that they can get their photo taken with actual really real scientists and pretend they've wowed 'em - and they lie about their supposed publications, and they deceive the folks back home, the poor innocent little fucktards in the pews, into thinking actual fucking geologists respect their Biblical bullshit.

Just one more example shall suffice to show what two-faced ratfucking rat bastards these assholes are:

“Millions of years” was a phrase that also appeared in Ross’ talk on Late Cretaceous marine stratigraphy; many of his slides used normal geologic time, with millions of years clearly labeled on axes. Nothing in his 15-minute talk hinted at nonstandard geologic thinking. Because most of the audience probably did not know Ross’ background, it must have been puzzling to them when the first question following Ross’ talk challenged him on how he could “harmonize this work with [his] belief in a 6,000-year-old Earth.” (This question came from University of Florida geology professor Joe Meert, who blogged about the exchange.)

Ross answered the question by saying that for a scientific meeting such as GSA, he thought in a “framework” of standard science; but for a creationist audience, he said, he used a creationist framework. Judging from the reaction of the audience, this answer caused more confusion than enlightenment. Ross pointed out that nothing in his presentation involved Young-Earth Creationism. But he then volunteered that he was indeed a Young-Earth Creationist.  [Outraged emphasis added]

Is it just me, or is that an insult to both the geological profession and the Christian faith?  I mean, seriously.  Is there anyone they won't lie to?


That's the reason I have not refrained from using the naughty words in abundance when referring to this merry band of despicable fucktards.  They don't even have the courage of their convictions.  They can't stand up and say, "I believe this, and here's the evidence I've found that might support that believe if you squint a lot and drink some Drano and pretend that radiometric dating doesn't exist."  They have to lie to us, and then they lie to believers who have no idea how science works but get a thrill up their leg when they think that their Bronze-Age beliefs are validated by actual scientists.  And that offends me on so many levels I can't explore them all.

The writer of the article describing this atrocity thinks we should allow them to continue to infest conferences.  And I say, "Yes.  By all means - if they are required to proclaim, baldly, up front, and without prevarication, just precisely what it is they believe."  None of these games where they play the Serious Scientist at professional, mainstream geology conferences and then spew Young Earth creationism all over the Christian circles back home, all the while proclaiming that because they didn't get run out of the conference on a rail, that means genuine scientists believe them.

But they'll never be honest, because they know real geologists will never accept them if they tell the truth.  So the liars for Jesus will continue to lie.  And geologists, like biologists, will have to expose their Trojan-horse antics before, like termites, they undermine the foundations.

Unchaining Ourselves

The Great Chain of Being needs breaking.  Brian Switek took bolt cutters to it in a SciAm guest post last week, and my, how the creationists howled.  Got so bad that Bora called in the cavalry.  Did my duty, registered so I could comment, and laughed my arse off because these silly little nitwits howling their protests got me to thinking a lot more seriously on the subject.  What follows is an expanded version of the comment I left.

First, an explanatory image, taken from a wonderful lecture by evolutionary biologist Lindell Bromham:

On this depiction of the great chain of being you can see that plants are higher than inorganic things, animals are higher than plants, humans are better than animals, angels are above humans and so on. You might say, ‘Oh, we don’t believe in that any more.’ Yet, if you pick up any evolution textbook or even a popular science evolution book, you will often find something that looks very similar to this.

And creationists apparently can't stand it when somebody like Brian comes along and says this:

At the beginning of the 20th century, American fundamentalism was gaining momentum and the public circus that was the Scopes trial turned the teaching of evolution into a controversial public issue. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, anti-scientific opposition to evolution remains a prominent cultural force. Be it straight-up young-Earth creationism or its insidious sibling intelligent design, fundamentalism-fueled views of science and nature abound. Groups such as the National Center for Science Education are continually tracking the spread of anti-evolution agendas which would further erode the quality of scientific understanding. Perhaps this is why we keep returning to the March of Progress. When the fossils and stratigraphy are laid out so plainly, how can any reasonable person deny that evolution is a reality? Yet, by preferring this antiquated mode of imagery, we may have hamstrung ourselves. Given all that we have gleaned about evolution from the fossil record—especially the major pattern of contingent radiations cut back by extinction before bursting into numerous splendid forms all over again—why not bring this wonderful "tangled bank" imagery to the public?

Yes!  Having come out of a march-of-progress, great-chain education, I can give you plenty of reasons why it's well past time to break the chain and go to the bank.  And don't tell me it's too complicated for kiddies and laypeople to understand, and that a nice, neat line is the best way to introduce folks to evolution.  It's not.  Far from it.

Ultimately, that linear way of explaining evolution set me back several years.  Yeah, it may be simple, but it's too simple.  It doesn't leave room for all the side trips, dead ends, and scenic routes, and it doesn't give a person room to think outside of a destination.  That confused the hell out of me, because there are plenty of things that didn't reach the supposed destination, but were there for a good part of the journey.  It's like supposing several cars worth of people can only travel between Phoenix and Flagstaff: you can't explain then why some of them buggered off sideways to Prescott instead.


View Larger Map

Handy map illustrating the concept for those who aren't from the area.

Then I started reading books on evolution.  And there was this tree:

Darwin's Sketch

Once I saw the tree, started thinking not in chains but in trees and bushes, it started to make sense.  Not every branch goes "up."  The top of the tree isn't the only place to be.  It's still a simple model, but it's one that leaves plenty of room for all the bits that don't fit when you chain yourself to the Great Chain.

That's true in a lot of things about life.  It's time to let go of the black/white either/or thinking and embrace the world as it is: fuzzy, chaotic, contingent, and far more interesting than mere lines from A to B.

So grab your bolt cutters, my darlings, and join Brian Switek in cutting those chains.

Why Talking to Idiots Gets You Nowhere

Finally finished this paper that's been in my tabs for days: "Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of a Pseudoscience."  Stumbled across it playing on The Panda's Thumb, and while it took me forever to read because I've had the attention span of a spastic on caffeine pills lately, I got quite a lot out of it.  Namely: if one goes about disproving IDiotic blathering about how evolutionary theory can't explain X, they'd better not be doing it in order to convert the cretins.  May as well spend your time trying to convince me that curling is an exciting and dramatic sport to watch - you'd have better luck making a conversion.  Mind you - I find nearly every sport in the universe dead boring.

No, the only time the IDiots become useful IDiots is when they inspire evolutionary biologists to figure things out and demolish IDiotic arguments from the foundations up - not because any amount of evidence will make these dumbshits realize they're wrong (none will), but because of the ricochets.  Knocking down an IDiot's argument is a fantastic way to teach ordinary folk like me about biology.  It makes it more interesting, what with the controversy and the smart people vs. the Dumbskis sorta thing.  It's also a good idea to have a refutation ready so that innocent bystanders don't get snookered. 

Besides, it's fun.  Especially when the poor howling IDiots snivel and have to rush out to move their goalposts.

Anyway.  There's my thoughts.  It's an entertaining paper, too, so you lot may enjoy reading it yourselves.  Which you should go do now, because I'm off to watch another Harry Potter film.

Explaining Monkeys and Uncles to Christine O'Donnell

Yes, I know the election is old news.  Yes, I know Christine O'Donnell lost.  But she speaks for a hefty ignorant chunk of the population when she spouts that snide "Then why are there still monkeys?!" line at the slightest whiff of evolution.

Brian Switek explains a few things about monkeys, uncles, and why your cousins don't vanish merely because you survived:

In any family tree you care to draw – whether from a broad evolutionary perspective or a narrowed genealogy of close relatives – each point among the branches is going to fall into one of two categories: linear relatives and collateral relatives. Your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. are all linear relatives, while cousins, uncles, and aunts are collateral relatives who are more closely related to you than most other people but are not direct ancestors or descendants. That’s simple enough, and the same sort of logic can be applied to evolutionary relationships.

Read the whole thing, and you'll be well-prepared the next time some ignoramus thinks he or she has stymied you with the monkey schtick.

As For Being Shrill, Strident, Etc.

Once again, the "tone" argument's making the rounds (does it ever cease?  It circles like a dog attempting to capture its own fugitive tail).  Ophelia Benson's already pointed out a few of the more annoying examples.  And she led me to this delightful bit by Jason Rosenhouse, which comes just in time, because a dear (and horribly neglected) friend of mine posted rather more sensibly on the issue (hi, Paul!).  I'd meant to come up with something thoughtful and considered that would explain my position, but find I don't have to.  All one has to do is read Jason's post and imagine me standing there jumping up and down going, "Me, too!"

I'd quote from it, but I can't find a single bit I want to excerpt because I want to excerpt it all.  But if you've ever wondered what we shrill, strident, unabashed defenders of evolution, atheism, and all things rational are thinking, this is pretty much it in a nutshell.

And remember, my dearest Paul, that we're not trying to convert the unconvertable.  Nothing we do will reach the men and women who spend their days swearing Jesus rode a dinosaur.  Politeness won't do it, any more than a good sharp smack will.  Think of the old psychologists-changing-a-lightbulb joke: the only way anything works is if they want to change.

No, we're rallying the troops and aiming at the fence-sitters.  And as one of those who got knocked off the fence and had some good sense jolted in to me by those horrible shrill Gnu Atheists, as a person who disavowed woo for science because PZ, Orac et al didn't have any trouble calling a spade a silly little shite, I can testify that being contentious sometimes does more than raise morale for the choir.  Sometimes, it awakens passion, wonder, and courage in people who might've sat it out.

It takes all kinds.  Changing the world isn't a simple task!

(For those who haven't had the pleasure, I can wholeheartedly recommend Paul's lovely Cafe Philos blog.  After a long day in the trenches, it's nice to sit with a cup of coffee and just enjoy some thought-provoking serenity.)

Clueless Reporter + Creationists = FAIL

Yep, woke up too early after falling asleep too late.  But that's all to the good!  I got to spend time upon the intertoobz, and wouldn't you know that Brian Switek wrote up one of the most delicious dishes of fail I've seen in, well, days.  Here's what happens when a frigate bird crosses the paths of credulous "journalists" and a couple of creationists:

Sadly, some people still get duped by the fantastic claims espoused by “professional monster hunters.” Last week on Salem-News.com, reporter Terrence Aym posted an article proclaiming: “Dinosaur Found Alive: Two Species Recorded in Papua New Guinea.” (The piece is a shortened version of an article Aym posted to Helium.com.) Citing eyewitness accounts collected by “serious researchers” Jim Blume and David Woetzel, Aym reports that at least two types of pterosaur—flying archosaurs which were not dinosaurs—still soar over Papua New Guinea, and he even provides some video to prove it.

The trouble is that the video provides a pretty clear look at what is definitely a frigatebird, probably a female great frigatebird (Fregata minor) based upon the dark feathers and white patch on the chest. 

[snip]

Then there is the problem of Aym’s sources. Both Blume and Woetzel are creationist explorers who have tried to promote the existence of living pterosaurs and dinosaurs. In fact, Woetzel has gone as far to propose these living pterosaurs as the “fiery flying serpent” of Isaiah 30:6 in the Bible, claiming that the pterosaurs also give off a kind of bioluminescent glow they use to catch fish. For Woetzel, such anecdotes are enough to prove that humans and pterosaurs have always coexisted, and in a Creation Research Society Quarterly paper he asserts that “evolutionists have appropriated the natural fascination with the terrible reptiles to propound their belief in naturalistic origins and billions of years of evolution.  By God’s grace we should strive to tear down this high place and point people instead to the great Creator.”

Apparently Mr. Aym never learned in Journalism 101 that one should actually, y'know, verify your sources.

This rather glaringly points up the incredible inanity of creationists, as well as the piss-poor quality of reporters.  It's pretty pathetic when you have to turn to cryptozoology and ridiculous postulations about surviving pterosaurs to shore up your faith.  They're not even trying to shoehorn facts to fit the Bible - they're just making shit up.  If they weren't so faith-blind, they'd have a pretty good shot at a lucrative career writing fantasy.  Alas, people this god-deluded don't make good novelists.  Too preachy.  Fantasy fans want fun, not fundamentalism.

Brian, darling, thank you for giving me a good sendoff!  Now I must away to say my goodbyes to the cat (hopefully without getting maimed in the process) and brave Seattle morning traffic so I can bring you all some awesome geology, plus flowers.

If you're needing amusement whilst I'm away, call up your local creationist, tell him you've got living proof the descendants of the dinosaurs still walk among us, and give him a budgie.

Geologist to YECs: "Shh Even Before You Start!"

Perusing Chris Rowan's links from Highly Allochthonous, you'll find a delicious smack-down of Young Earth Creationists before they can even fill their lungs to trumpet a paper studying the effects of a sudden flood.  This post is a must-read for everyone who's sick to death of YECs beating the already dead uniformitarian horse into a mushy pulp.  You've heard 'em.  Every time geologists discuss the fact that some landforms have been created rapidly by major events, like floods or eruptions, the YECs pounce.  They crow over the fact that those evil scientists have had to admit that rapid change happens.  To which the geologists say, "Well, duh."

Here is a paragraph that sums it up brilliantly:

I would argue that rapid and significant processes are included within our current understanding of processes. For example, I study the processes and deposits of turbidity currents, which are essentially submarine avalanches of sediment. The recurrence of such events varies but is typically on the order of hundreds to thousands of years. Moderate to large turbidity current events would surely be labeled “catastrophic” from our point of view. Yet, entire sedimentary basins are filled with the deposits of hundreds of thousands of individual catastrophic events. While each event may be short-lived and cataclysmic, they occur very regularly over time and incrementally stack to produce a stratigraphic succession. We might consider some volcanic systems similarly — each eruption event might be catastrophic, but over time this is how the volcano is incrementally constructed.

Now, you young IDiots: put the sledgehammer down and back away from the dead horse.

Creationist Sidewalks Must Be Very Dirty

They've obviously never hosed mud off of them.  Otherwise, they would understand why streams cut through loosely-consolidated pyroclastic deposits so much more quickly than metamorphic rock.  And they'd know why we laugh so very hard when they try to compare stream erosion in the area of Mount St. Helens with the Colorado's long saw through the Colorado Plateau.

I feel for the trees that lost their lives so that this drivel could be published.  At least part of that small forest will find a useful new life as post-consumer recycled paper.

A Masterful Summation of the Week's Dumbfuckery

George has the roundup, complete with commentary.  He's hit very nearly every story I'd thought of highlighting.  It's too bad he's busy with his own blog, or I'd hire him on to do this one.

When you're done with the weekly dumbfuckery, don't forget to watch George give a Church of Christ cretinist a sound intellectual thrashing.  Here's the bit I'm going to memorize for future debates with various and sundry IDiots:

Macro- versus micro-evolution?  Seriously?  Let me ask you; don’t millions of small steps add up to a long journey?

And this, from his notes:

Say; “Prove it!” to evolutionists! (But won’t accept any evidence as proof.  And anyway, proof is a mathematical concept; science deals in probabilities)

Which gave me a bit of a brainwave.  Such as saying, "Okay, fine, I'll prove evolution - after you prove you're X," in which X = any attribute of the person in front of me such as tall, dressed, or suchlike, and during which I won't accept any evidence presented, no matter how obvious it is.  That could lead to hours of cheap entertainment, at least until the IDiots snatch their toys and run sniveling home to mommy.

George sometimes flatters me with comments regarding the sagacity and wit of my writing, but I have to tell you the truth, my darlings: if blogging were a car, George would get shotgun.  I'm definitely a backseat sort of blogger, compared to him.

Dumbfuckery Double-Header

Yes, I'm still being mercilessly flogged by my Muse.  No, I didn't get a chance to read so much as one word of political news today.  Yes, I was allowed, begrudgingly, to peruse Pharyngula and Thoughts in a Haystack over dinner.  Briefly.  Long enough, anyway, to see there's a perfect double-header of dumbfuckery.

Those of you who read your Pharyngula daily already know about this:

Renew America, the bizarrely, deeply, weirdly conservative web site founded by Alan Keyes, really had to struggle to find someone crazier than Pastor Grant Swank and Fred Hutchison and Bryan Fischer and Wes Vernon (let alone Alan Keyes himself), but they have succeeded. They have Linda Kimball writing for them. She has written the strangest history of evolutionary biology ever — I think she was stoned out of her mind and hallucinating when she made this one up. It's called "Evolutionism: the dying West's science of magic and madness". The title alone is enough to hint at the weirdness within, but just wait until you read where evolution comes from.

That is some awesomely crazy shit.  And John's got a good chaser:

That would be the ever ridiculous WingNutDaily and, in particular, the even more ridiculous Ellis Washington, who "graces" its virtual pages. His latest screed, "Darwin is freezing over," really has to be seen to believed. The manner in which he connects Anthropogenic Global Warming, evolution, humanism and "shyster lawyers" is truly a textbook case of muddled thinking, the engine of which is willy-nilly correlation without any attempt to demonstrate causation, as exemplified in this...

"This" being an argument that would have looked batshit fucking insane if I hadn't read snippets of Linda Kimball's padded room thesis first.  Alas, it loses points on not being the most insane thing I've read today, but it stands strong on stupidity.

And now, alas, the Muse is calling me.  Since she's threatening to use the whip if I don't come quietly, for my own self-preservation, I'm going.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Hormone-Deficient Salamander?

Or would that be an insult to the salamander?

Although, a pronounced lack of adult refinement characterizes the arrested development displayed by both axolotls and creationists, I admittedly find the comparison between the two species somewhat inaccurate, and, in all honesty, disrespectful.  After all, axolotls, unlike creationists, are physically and behaviorally adapted to their environment — the high-altitude lakes they call home.  Creationists on the other hand, have suffered from such complete and total developmental arrest that they remain today only as anachronisms, psychologically better suited for long degraded and extinct habitats –like those settings more common to the time of Socrates.

And yes, the whole post is that delightfully snarky.  Do enjoy, my darlings.

The "Darwin Was Wrong" Saga

I must tip my shot glass at Ron Britton.  He has neurons of steel and nerves of tungsten carbide.  This man actually subjected himself to a Darwin Was Wrong conference, at a church, so that he could report back on the fundalicious fucktardeness.

Hilarity ensues.  We're up to Part 6 so far.  I can't wait for the rest.  Go treat yourselves.

Awesomeness on the Intertoobz

Yes, there are times when I escape the clutches of endless work and go spelunking the intertoobz strictly for fun.  And, like a good cantinera, I sometimes bring choice selections back for patrons of the cantina.  Like this delight, found via John Pieret, proving that Sarah Palin is actually Satan:

Given the interest so many people seem to have had in alleged prophecies about Barack Obama in the Bible, I am really astonished that the same individuals have been so slow to draw attention to the far clearer references in the Bible to another figure in modern politics. As any New Testament scholar can tell you, Palin is mentioned 141 times in the New Testament. Palin, you see, is the Greek word for "again." But the original meaning has not stopped people from making much of the alleged references to Barack Obama, and so presumably should not be allowed to stand in the way of finding (Sarah) Palin in there too.

Read on for the shocking truth!

Ed Brayton has some excellent entertainment news:

Matt Sigl sends a cease and desist letter to George Lucas, demanding that he stop making movies that destroy the legacy of his earlier work by sucking in the worst possible way.

It's about time someone took legal action.

Ed's also got a report on the stunning stupidity of the creationists who made a little film about their trip to the Galapagos in an ill-fated attempt to debunk Darwin.  I'm not going to excerpt it.  You must simply read it.  But for entertainment of this caliber, you really must have a snack.  Mrs. DoF has just the recipe.  And before you stop at the fact it's called "puppy chow," just listen to Mr. DoF's description:

We also have something called “puppy-chow”, which she makes from Ghiradelli chocolate and natural peanut butter, simmered on a double-boiler before being rolled together with Crispix cereal.

You know you want to scroll down the comments in that post for the recipe.  Go on and do it.  Make yourself a nice batch, settle in, and enjoy the bounty.

Arizona's Stupidest State Senator

Via PZ comes news of the latest Arizona politician to make an utter ass of his/herself:

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R-Snowflake), arguing in favor of a bill to allow uranium mining north of the Grand Canyon, casually says that the earth is 6,000 years old, and therefore a little uranium mining isn't going to hurt anything.

[snip]

Outside of this fuckwit insisting (not once, but twice, in the course of 40 seconds) that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, I think my favorite part was when she said of the uranium mine, "and you'll never even know the mine was there when they're done."


You want to take this:




And replace it with this:

Midnite Mine
An otherwise scenic view is scarred by the remains of uranium mining.

By Elly Hale, EPA
Midnite Mine
Wellpinit, Washington

And tell me we'll "never even know the mine was there when they're done"? Really? Because, you see, the research I found on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area begs to differ.

Ms. Allen, you are a dumbshit. I'm ashamed my beautiful home state contains a state senator as stupid as you, and I do hope your district wakes the fuck up and cleans up that blight ASAP.

Son of Expelled

Creationists lying to scientists in order to snooker them into appearing in a creationist "documentary"?

It is Son of Expelled!

Stand by for Bride of Expelled and Expelled 2: Electric Bugalloo, I'm sure.

What Did We Tell You?

Remember how Brian and PZ and about twenty bajillion other science bloggers warned us that all the hype over Ida was going to become a creationist field day? It did:

Right on cue, the Worldnutdaily shows us why what the scientists, PR people and media outlets who overhyped the find of an early primate fossil did was detrimental to the public's understanding of science. Such exaggerations and overblown statements are easily turned around and made to cast doubt on the validity of science and the theory of evolution.

[snip]

Of course, the Worldnutdaily also has to add their own distortions to the list:

History is replete with discoveries initially proclaimed as some sort of missing link, but later proved to be hoaxes.

And then, of course, they can only name two - Archaeoraptor and Piltdown Man. The Archaeoraptor hoax was perpetrated by a Chinese farmer, not by a scientist, and the Piltdown Man hoax was nearly a century ago - and was discovered by scientists.

Ironically, the article also mentions Nebraska Man, which was another textbook example of the media overhyping a fossil find and building far too much out of a simple tooth. The scientist who actually reported the find, HF Osborn, authored a careful and tentative identification of the find; it was a popular British magazine that turned that into a picture of an ape man, complete with wife and child.

But in this case, the scientists themselves have been caught up in the hype and participating in the very thing that destroys their credibility. I hope this will serve as a warning to other scientists not to do the same thing, but I fear it won't.

Probably not. But for once, just once, I'd like to see people learn from boneheaded mistakes.

Hell, while I'm wishing, I'd like a ranch with horsies, too.

Is There a Fake Doctor in the House?

Most of you have probably already seen PZ's post ripping "Dr." Don Patterson's testimony before the Texas State Board of Education. You probably laughed merrily at the man's utter ignorance about evolution. Just another liar for Jesus, right?

Well, yes, but some people get inordinately impressed by a doctor's testimony. I'm sure there's plenty of regular ol' folks who might take what a doctor says pretty seriously, even if what he's saying is seriously fucking stupid. This is where it may be useful to note that Don Patterson isn't actually a doctor. Tristero does the detective work:

So...just in case you don’t believe Patton would lie about everything, go here:

Since early 1989, Don Patton, a close associate of Carl Baugh and leader of Metroplex Institute of Origins Science (MIOS) near Dallas, has claimed a Ph.D. (or "Ph.D. candidacy") in geology from Queensland Christian University in Australia.[33] However, QCU is another unaccredited school linked to Clifford Wilson. [34] When questioned about this at a recent MIOS meeting, Patton indicated that he was aware of some problems relating to QCU, and was withdrawing his Ph.D. candidacy.[35]
However, the printed abstracts of the 1989 Bible-Science conference in Dayton, Tennessee (where Patton gave two talks) stated that he was a Ph.D. candidacy in geology, and implied that he has at least four degrees from three separate schools.[36] When I asked Patton for clarification on this during the conference, he stated that he had no degrees, but was about to receive a Ph.D. degree in geology, pending accreditation of QCU, which he assured me was "three days away."[37] Many days have since passed, and Patton still has no valid degree in geology. Nor is the accreditation of QCU imminent. Australian researcher Ian Plimer reported, "PCI, QPU, PCT, and PCGS have no formal curriculum, no classes, no research facilities, no calendar, no campus, and no academic staff....Any Ph.D. or Ph.D. candidacy at QPU by Patton is fraudulent."

And in case you think that web page is outdated, go here and check out Patton's academic credentials:

Four years, Florida College, Temple Terrace, FL (Bible)
Two years, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN (Geology)
Two years, Indiana Univ./Purdue Univ., Indianapolis, IN (Geology)
Two years, Pacific School of Graduate Studies, Melbourne, Australia (Education)
Ph.D. in Education granted 12/10/1993

That's right, folks. He claims he's a geologist but he didn't finish a degree in geology in either school he attended for that science. He spent two years studying education at a bogus school in Melbourne and was awarded a "PhD in Education."

Actually, that, too, is a lie. Go here and read, really read the document Patton claims proves he graduated with a "PhD In Education" because it doesn't and he didn't. If he got a doctorate at all from this school, he is a "Doctor of Christian Education."

Let's not mince words here. Don Patton is the real thing. Oh, he's not a geologist. But he is, without a doubt, a genuine, 100% authentic liar and con man who doesn't know a damn thing about science and has no business being taken seriously by anyone truly concerned with a child's education.

Aren't IDiots wonderful? Their doctors are as fake as their science.

The Presuppositionalists

Science Sunday continues...

Two posts, one on The Panda's Thumb and one on Thoughts in a Haystack, explain brilliantly why creationists stubbornly stick to their pseudo-science in the face endless evidence debunking them mercilessly.

First, honored patron of the cantina Richard B. Hoppe gives us this fantastic analogy:

Once in a while an analogy comes along that deserves wide dissemination. I got one such this afternoon on the Ohio Citizens for Science list, and I’ve got permission to quote it from Joe Hern, its author. Joe was musing on the video of Michael Schermer interviewing Georgia Purdom, creationist geneticist at AIG. (I don’t know how long that URL will be good, so grab it if you want it.) Joe, who IIRC is a former YEC himself, captured the creationist mindset perfectly:

The psychology behind why Creationists seem to make up stuff that fit their theology is best understood by recognizing precisely how we feel when we see a magician pull a rabbit from its hat in a magic show. We do not need to know how it works to “know” it is not really magic. We do not entertain ideas that we may be ‘missing’ a step in our epistemology. We would roll our eyes at anyone who insists to us we are not thinking critically to accept that there may be true magic involved. The key component of this thought process is that we ‘know’ we do not have to look into it… it’s a foregone conclusion that there is no magic involved.

To the creationist, this is the exact same thought process. They ‘know’ God is real, that what he wrote is literal, and there is no reason whatsoever to even begin to entertain the idea that the ‘evidences’ for evolution are really evidence. It’s a foregone conclusion that such ‘evidences’, regardless how intellectual or damning they sound, are “simply” ways man makes data fit their own ideas, as Dr. Purdom stated.

[snip]

That really is what we’re up against: presuppositionalist thinking vs. evidential thinking, in Purdom’s terms. As I remarked in my AIG creationists on the jury post last week, for creationists evidence is not a means of testing presuppositions: evidence must be interpreted so as to corroborate them or one will fall into apostasy.

That being so, you can bet that when one of them starts to sound like they understand science, they're going to veer off into IDiocy within a few seconds. Friend and fellow Elitist Bastard John Pieret has a perfect example:

Dr. Terry Mortenson, of Answers in Genesis, described as an "apologetics ministry" rather than a scientific organization, places science and the Bible in direct conflict:

"The Bible says the earth was created before the sun, moon, and stars -- contrary to the big-bang theory. The Bible says that plants were created before sea creatures -- contrary to…evolutionary theory," Mortenson points out.

"And then the Bible says that there was no death before Adam's sin -- no animal death, no human death. But evolution says there were hundreds of millions of years of death in the physical world. So you have to ignore the details of the Bible to accept evolution."

[snip]

Naturally, Mortenson claims that there is "an enormous amount of scientific evidence that supports that God created separate kinds of plants and animals ... and there's an enormous, massive amount of evidence in the geological record for Noah's flood."

But as we already know, that "scientific" evidence is evidence only if you ignore the "evidentialist approach" and, instead, adopt presuppositionalism by starting with the authority of the Word of God instead of with the "authority of human reasoning." In short, there is scientific evidence for the biblical account if, and only if, you start by assuming the Bible is true. Besides the danger of his disappearing up his own butt running in such tight circles, Mortenson is being less than honest in not explaining that the "evidence" is not coming from actual evidence but from assuming his conclusion from the outset.

I'm not ashamed to admit that "disappearing up his own butt" gave me one of the most amusing mental images of my young life. Icky, but amusing.

Here we have the reason why they must be "less than honest." Their religion doesn't allow honesty. When you've painted yourself into the corner of Biblical inerrancy, and your entire worldview - your very idea of salvation - is predicated on that perfection, facts either have to be doctored or denied. There's no other way out.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said something in his lecture that pertains here. When you memorize facts versus ideas, you're susceptible to thinking the world is coming to an end when facts change. And that's precisely where the creationists and IDiots are. Thus, presuppositionalism, and all of the antics that ensue.

All we can hope for is that enough evidence dogpiles on them to cause catastrophic cognitive dissonance, leading to a crop of ex-creationists. At least in the meantime, lookers-on learn a bit more science, and get to point and laugh as a bonus.

Pwnd by Pieret

The mudskippers stand in awe of John Pieret's awesomeness.

John Pieret, reporting the timely death of a Mississippi anti-evolution bill, delivers the perfect cut:

Unable to stop with the Discovery Institute's patented "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what we mean," this person, who disregards his solemn oath to "faithfully support the Constitution of the United States," revealed his true aims:

Speaking to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (2009 Jan 24), the bill's sponsor, Gary Chism (R-District 37), was candid about his motivations, explaining, "Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground," adding, "All these molecules didn't come into existence by themselves." But he was pessimistic about the prospects of the bill, telling the conservative Christian on-line news source OneNewsNow (2009 Jan 26; "I am confident that this bill is ... dead on arrival ... I don't think the [committee] chairman will even take the bill up." Yet he also told OneNewsNow that "he would consider drafting another bill next year supporting the teaching of the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory in public school classrooms."

And, by the way, Representative Chism, I do believe that fish walk on the ground, I do, I do.

Perfecto.

By the way, if anyone in the audience has mad skillz with the Photoshop and would be interested in creating a giant walking catfish eating Rep. Chism alive, Eamon Knight would like a word with you.