Rationalist ruminations

The dishonesty of creationists' arguments

2009-04-30T04:49:00.002-04:00

The dishonesty of creationists' arguments
Below is a response I wrote on April 28, 2009 to a reply made by young earth creationist Arv Edgeworth to an article here:

Creationists' arguments against evolution, for intelligent design show dishonesty
by Jason Hoskin
(The Daily Toreador, 4/27/2009)

Bear in mind that young earth creationists fill their rhetoric with all kinds of pretensions regarding truth and honesty, promoting the idea that professional scientists and pro-science critics of creationist propaganda are the ones engaging in a dishonest conspiracy to put one over on people about evolution. Of course, it is exactly the rhetoric that creationists themselves use that demonstrates that it is they themselves who show (much) less than zero interest in truth and honesty, because they are the ones pushing their particular religious agenda on the basis of their particular religious concerns, based on which they generate all sorts of anti-science and pseudoscience propaganda. It is their own pervasive and flagrant use of deceitful rhetorical trickery that shows the sheer hypocrisy that is an integral aspect of the creationist attitude today. Whenever creationists proclaim or insinuate that scientists and pro-science critics of creationism pseudoscience and rhetoric are the ones being dishonest, one should always immediately point out the facts, delineate exactly how creationists are misrepresenting matters, and set the record straight - and then throw their claims of dishonesty right back in their faces. There certainly are ethical standards of truth-seeking and honesty, and creationists are so far below the bar they're not even in competition. These days creationists - but especially young earth creationists - have earned themselves a strong reputation for dishonesty.

By the way, I didn't mention this in my response to the Edgeworth's reply because it wasn't relevant to me dealing with his nonsense rhetoric, but the man parades himself as "Dr." Arv Edgeworth. After writing my response I learned that he uses the "Dr." title purely for bogus credibility (isn't it bizarre how these guys pretend to be so concerned about truth and honesty, yet we see them engaging in all sorts of these little deceptive tricks like this?) - it's nothing more than an honorary degree in Divinity (and it's hard to tell what organization even gave him the honorary degree, because he keeps that under wraps), and so not only has absolutely nothing to do with science but also does not even signify any kind of record of accredited academic achievement. These are the slimy ways of the young earth creationists.

Arv Edgeworth wrote (April 27, 2009):

Mr. Hoskin is not being honest in his attempt at showing that creationists are being dishonest. First, he says: "Fortunately, the pro-science advocates were successful in preventing the adoption of the "strengths and weaknesses" clause with respect to the theory of evolution." The "strengths and weaknesses" clause had already been in there for twenty years. They did not prevent anything from being added, they actually removed wording which could do great harm to scientific inquiry.

Well, actually, it has been widely reported in the media - incorrectly, as Arv Edgeworth points out - that creationists were trying to add the phraseology. So it's true that Jason Hoskin screwed up in not getting the details right, but hardly dishonest.

Discussing strengths and weaknesses is at the heart of the scientific method.

Discussing genuinely scientific strengths and weaknesses is at the heart of the scientific method. Using rhetorical trickery to throw in unscientific anti-evolution arguments based on religious motivations and pseudoscientific canards creationists have used for decades that have been refuted a hundred times over is not at the heart of the scientific method, and indeed has nothing to do with science. And it's dishonest to pretend that it is.

These are not "pro-science" advocates, they are "pro-evolution" advocates that may bring great harm to real science.

Evolution is part of modern science, just like meteorology, or chemistry, or astronomy, or other fields of science. Those who respect science are focusing on issues regarding evolution, precisely because that is the field of science being attacked by creationists.

Duh.

You also have to laugh at the irony of a creationist mouthing concern about bringing harm to real science, since that is exactly what creationists deliberately try to do.

Secondly, Mr. Hoskin says: "This clause falsely implies there is scientific evidence in favor of intelligent design creationism or against evolution." How does examining the strengths or weaknesses of a theory, which has been a part of science from the very beginning, imply there is evidence for or against anything? Mr. Hoskin is blowing smoke and not being honest about the issues.

In fact, it is Edgeworth and other creationists who are blowing smoke with their "strengths and weaknesses" rhetoric. This is because the "strengths and weaknesses" phrase is used by creationists to refer to their long-refuted pseudoscientific anti-evolution arguments, and not to genuinely scientific controversies that are being dealt with in the professional science literature. So we know who it really is who is not being honest about the issues, which is why their using rhetorical trickery.

Mr. Hoskin is also not being honest by saying if you "teach the controversy" you would have to allow for all the minor myths about creation to be taught. The fact they are called "minor myths" should settle that issue. When over 50% of the population in America believes man was created and did not evolve, I would say that is a controversy.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's a scientific controversy, which is, after all, the whole point. And it's not being honest to pretend otherwise. Scientific exploration, experimentation, analysis, and discovery is not a matter of public opinion. The determination of scientific facts is not a matter of popular opinion. It's dishonest, and scientifically illiterate, to pretend otherwise.

Mr. Hoskin, and others like him, do not want students to know a controversy exists, and that is being dishonest.

What is dishonest is engaging in false pretensions to try to fool children in public school science classes that something is a scientific controversy when not only is it based on religious motivations but is also based on pseudoscience arguments creationists have used for decades which have been refuted at least a hundred times over. Indeed, as we saw most recently in the Tammy Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania in 2005, it is well known that creationists use this specific strategy of trying to pretend that their religious concerns are "science" for the specific purpose of trying to get around the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment so that they can do this. The depths of the dishonesty that creationists engage in to do this is quite audacious.

He also clearly has a pre-conceived bias in this issue by declaring creation to be a myth.

Oh, well gee, we're talking about people whose ideas are based on a story in the book of Genesis in the Bible, which is a religious myth. It's a religious story told in mythological language related in a religious book. For example, it tells about God creating a firmament in the sky, separating the water on the planet by putting some of the water above the firmament, and placing the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament. There's a supernaturally created Adam and Eve formed out of the dirt, a talking serpent, miracle fruit from a Tree of Life (like the Fountain of Youth), and an Angel with a Flaming Sword keeping people out of the Garden of Eden.

I don't know about you, but I haven't heard about any scientific discovery of an angel with a flaming sword keeping people away from a garden lately. In fact, I've never heard of any such discovery at all. I'll bet you haven't either. So, yep, that's religious mythology all right.

Duh.

I also laugh at the irony when creationists start making complaints about other people having a "preconceived bias", when in fact we all know that it is creationists themselves who possess the preconceived bias of their particular religious beliefs which lead them to attack scientific results they don't like to try to prop up their religious beliefs. The young earth creationists in particular are most notorious for this, denying not just evolutionary science, but also denying geological science and astronomical science, as well as denying related areas of chemical science and physics. (And note that the Discovery Institute works hand in glove with young earth creationists - indeed, many of the Fellows of the Discovery Institute are explicitly young earth creationists.) So it's pretty dishonest for creationists to pretend that it is anyone other than they themselves who possess the problem of preconceived bias.

The common claim by evolutionists is: "There is no scientific evidence for intelligent design." When the smallest cell is more complex than a space shuttle, the most complex machine ever designed by man, I would challenge Mr. Hoskin to point to "anything" in the world around us that is not evidence of intelligent design.

Complexity doesn't imply design. We know that Edgeworth, a creationist, can repeat all sorts of creationist canards, but the fact of the matter is that none of these creationist arguments are found in the professional science literature. This is because bad arguments and bad data tend to die out rather quickly under the withering scrutiny of detailed logical and scientific analysis.

Besides, I never have yet seen a space shuttle get pregnant and lay eggs or give birth to baby space shuttles. (The point being that Edgeworth is, with this argument, precisely ignoring evolution - ignoring natural selection - and it certainly isn't scientific to deliberately ignore the scientific facts that contradict your argument. No, in science you take the scientific facts into account, and if your idea has been falsified, then - if you're concerns are genuinely scientific rather than religious - you'll move on from your bad data and bad arguments and modify your ideas accordingly. Something creationists don't do, which is why they're still throwing out these old anti-evolution arguments that have been refuted over a hundred times.)

Some humans at times may not use a lot of intelligence in the conclusions they arrive at, but that does not mean they were not intelligently designed.

This is an argument?

Some humans at times may not use a lot of intelligence in the conclusions they arrive at, and that means their conclusions are unjustified, which Edgeworth is good at demonstrating for us, as so many creationists are.

Thirdly, Mr. Hoskin says: "Clearly, the "teach the controversy" refrain takes as its premise that all ideas and belief systems are equally valid in a sense, so long as there are people endorse them." The whole basis for his support of evolution is because the majority of scientists endorses it.

Nope. The whole basis for his support of evolution is because the scientific discoveries and results support it. The fact that the (vast) majority of the scientists who work in the relevant fields of science that due to their very professional they would be most knowledgeable about the relevant details, and they accept that evolution is correct because of this, is just a secondary indicator.

By the way, it's dishonest to pretend that the scientific research and results don't exist and that scientists merely took a vote.

But the fact is, not all scientists do endorse it. Thousands of scientists from reputable universities with advanced degrees in science believe that Darwinian evolution is so flawed it cannot be repaired. But if someone doubts evolution, the evolutionists try to claim they are not really scientists. That is being dishonest.

Actually, what is being dishonest is to first argue that it's wrong to think that things are based on a vote, and then to turn right around and make an argument based on a vote - and a vote by creationists who have never published any scientific research on the subject no less!

It's also dishonest to pretend that the personal opinion of some guy who is a hydraulic engineer and who has never in his life conducted or published a single piece of scientific research in the professional science literature relevant to the subject in the first place, and whose opinion is based on the preconceived bias of his religious beliefs, and not on scientific research, is relevant to science.

Evolutionists - i.e., everyone who is not a creationist and who respects genuine science - do not claim they are not really scientists. They simply point out the fact that the personal opinions that scientists have, that are not based on the results from the kinds of scientific research that they themselves actually conduct and thus work with on a genuinely scientific basis, are not science.

And "thousands", huh? Well, first of all, young earth creationists simply don't count. Any scientist, even a scientist who is a psychologist, or food biology researcher, or cancer researcher, or perfume chemist, who believes that the universe and the earth did not exist more than about 6,000 years ago, by that very act proves that the preconceived biases of his religious beliefs have made his personal opinions incompetently irrational when it comes to dealing with scientific subjects that contradict his religious beliefs. So when it comes to their anti-evolution, their opinions are utterly irrelevant, precisely because they are not over genuinely scientific about evolution (their concerns derive from their religious beliefs and are thus scientifically irrelevant).

Creationists such as Edgeworth can play rhetorical games all day long, every day for the next hundred years, just like they've done for the last hundred years, pretending that "evolution is so flawed it cannot be repaired", but the fact of the matter is that they cannot produce the scientific research in the professional science literature that backs up their assertion. (And, yes, creationists really have been proclaiming the imminent scientific demise of evolution for over a hundred years, which is another example of the lack of credibility of the rhetoric they like to use.)

So all this nonsense about "thousands of scientists" is, again, just another example of the kind of dishonest rhetorical trickery that creationists love to use, just another smokescreen.

The most dishonest thing about this whole issue is evolutionists stating that evolution is science, and creation is just a belief system. They claim they have the scientific evidence, and creationists just have faith. That is not only dishonest, it is an absolute lie.

Indeed.

The fact of the matter is that in the professional science literature there are literally hundreds of research articles about all kinds of different aspects of evolution published each and every year. Therefore, one of the most dishonest "arguments" creationists love to make is falsely pretending that this scientific research doesn't exist and thus absolutely lying that evolution is not science.

Both groups are looking at the exact same evidence. Both creation and evolution are an interpretation of evidence, not the evidence itself.

And thus does Edgeworth give us yet another example of the dishonesty of creationist rhetoric. Just as one example, we have hundreds of examples of transitional fossils in the fossil record showing the evolution of organisms over time, yet in their rhetoric creationists are frequently found to be making the false claim that "there are no transitional fossils". There is also the simple fact that when we're talking about science, then we're talking about scientific interpretations of the evidence based on rational, scientific analysis, not unscientific mythological elements dreamed up in the religious imagination. But obviously Edgeworth wants us to ignore the distinction.

When a creationist starts talking about the dishonesty of his pro-science critics, you know the irony has only just begun.

The foolishness of the 'atheists are fools' "argument"

2008-07-27T20:45:00.006-04:00

If a man, who happens to be a Christian, has written a computer program that has some bug in it somewhere such that when you run his program to produce a list of purchases in a selected month but the "money paid" amount is wrong;

and a man, who happens to be an atheist, is assigned to perform the bug analysis, so he experiments with the program a little bit and digs into some of the program code and discovers that the bug in the program is simply that the query code that is run on the database is wrongly including purchases that have a "cancelled" status;

and then the man, who is a Christian, says, "You're an atheist, so you're just a fool. The Bible says so. So your claim that I've made an error in my computer program and your explanation and solution of it is wrong";

then the genuine fool - indeed, the idiotic moron (no joke) - would be the man who happens to be a Christian for using such a silly "argument" in the first place.

If a man, who happens to be a Christian, gets caught up in having an adulterous affair with a woman;

and another man who is a private investigator, and who happens to be an atheist, is hired by the first man's wife (who didn't happen to inquire into his religious beliefs or lack thereof) to do some investigative work to discover whether or not her husband (who is a Christian) is lying to her about what he's doing with some of his time on his own, and in the course of doing his investigative work on the husband the investigator (who is an atheist) tracks him (using a GPS device attached to his car) and ends up discovering him and "the other woman" at a hotel in a nearby town, and he even takes some really "juicy" (i.e., incriminating) pictures with his camera, after which the investigator gives a full report to the wife;

and then when confronted by his wife using the critical information provided by the investigator (who is an atheist), the man (who is a Christian), points out to his wife, "You can't pay any attention to that investigator, because he's an atheist, and as God tells us in the Bible he's just a fool,"

then the wife will show the husband exactly how irrelevant his prejudice-pandering "atheists are fools" red herring argument really is, as she completely ignores the very foolish and totally stupid argument of her husband and tosses him out on his ear and then files for a divorce for his unrepentant attitude and defiance in the face of his own error.

It's quite ironic how Christians who go for the "It's perfectly okay for me to ignore the errors this man is pointing out in my statements, because, as the Bible tells us, atheists are fools" (Psalm 14:1 - "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'") are the very ones who are demonstrating their own foolishness by using such obviously fallacious rhetoric in the first place.

The fallacy (actually, multiple fallacies are wrapped up in it) is one of the kinds of arguments that are called "red herring" (more generally, fallacies of relevance).

Red Herring

The name of this fallacy comes from the sport of fox hunting in which a dried, smoked herring, which is red in color, is dragged across the trail of the fox to throw the hounds off the scent. Thus, a "red herring" argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question through the introduction of some irrelevancy. This frequently occurs during debates when there is an at least implicit topic, yet it is easy to lose track of it. By extension, it applies to any argument in which the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.

Argumentum ad Hominem

A debater commits the Ad Hominem Fallacy when he introduces irrelevant personal premisses about his opponent. Such red herrings may successfully distract the opponent or the audience from the topic of the debate.

Ad hominem
(RationalWiki entry, 7/20,2008)

It occurs when people who are unable to attack the argument being made attack instead the person making it. As such arguments have nothing to do with the topic, they have no weight, not even if the attack is true. Two plus two still equals four even if the first person to point this out was the most morally reprehensible person to have ever lived.

Ad hominem
(Wikipedia entry, 7/20/2008)

An ad hominem fallacy is a genetic fallacy and red herring, and is most often (but not always) an appeal to emotion.

An ad hominem fallacy consists of asserting that someone's argument is wrong and/or he is wrong to argue at all purely because of something discreditable/not-authoritative about the person or those persons cited by him rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself. The implication is that the person's argument and/or ability to argue correctly lacks authority. Merely insulting another person in the middle of otherwise rational discourse does not necessarily constitute an ad hominem fallacy (though it is not usually regarded as acceptable). It must be clear that the purpose of the characterization is to discredit the person offering the argument, and, specifically, to invite others to discount his arguments.

Example:

"You claim that this man is innocent, but you cannot be trusted since you are a criminal as well."

This argument would generally be accepted as reasonable, as regards personal evidence, on the premise that criminals are likely to lie to protect each other. On the other hand, it is a valid example of ad hominem if the person making the claim is doing so on the basis of evidence independent of their own credibility.

This particular piece of rhetoric ("atheists are fools"), used as an argument, also happens to function as another form of red herring at the same time, namely as an appeal to emotion by appealing to many other Christians' emotional prejudice against atheists: "This criticism of this creationist claim is wrong because the criticism is made by atheists (and you know how bad atheists are)." In other words, the rhetoric is being used to attack something an atheist has stated in discussion (regardless of whether or not what the atheist is talking about has any relevance to what is being discussed) on the basis of nothing more than anti-atheist prejudice.

Emotional Appeals

Emotional appeals all have two things in common:

1. They attempt to elicit an emotional response that will serve as the basis of any decision made, instead of presenting an argument and relying on its soundness.

2. As a result, they are never acceptable in an argument, though they can be quite effective in arousing non-rational responses.

Fallacious appeals to emotions are effective because it's easier for most people not to think critically, but to rely on their gut reaction; and it's easier for the person making the appeal to excite his listeners' emotions than to construct a persuasive argument.

Appeal to Prejudice. A prejudice is a predisposition to judge groups of people or things either positively or negatively, even after the facts of a case indicate otherwise....

By appealing to a prejudice in the listener, the person making the argument attempts to ensure a favorable reaction. Most often, such an appeal works on negative images, and extreme cases can be classified as so-called "hate speech" when directed against a group defined by race, ethnicity, or gender.

Finally - and note that this in only in the case of certain contexts in which this rhetoric is used, such as in discussions where a person who is an atheist has been discussing various factual errors and errors in reasoning used by creationists in their attacks against science - the function that the "atheists are fools" rhetoric serves is as a "begging the question" form of fallacy. The argument goes something like this: "We know that atheists are not able to correctly deal with facts and reason properly because of the very fact that they are atheists, therefore it is okay to ignore any of the criticisms stated by this atheist about creationist arguments since criticisms by atheists are wrong." In logical form, it's something like this:

Premise 1: Statements made by atheists are wrong.
(Atheists are not able to correctly deal with
facts and reasoning about the facts, because
atheists are "fools.")

Premise 2: This person who is stating criticisms
of creationism is an atheist.

Conclusion: Therefore, we can ignore anything
pointed out by an atheist because his
criticisms are wrong.

The conclusion merely assumes the truth of the first premise (it actually only restates the first premise).

Of course, the only way to know whether or not the criticisms being stated by the atheist are right or wrong (or irrelevant) is to actually deal with the facts (or dig into the information being purported to be factual) and to actually deal with the conceptual details of the reasoning that is being used with the facts that the person who happens to be an atheist is pointing out - and the very purpose of the "begging the question" fallacy being used is to prevent others from conducting such rational consideration.

So the use of the "atheists are fools" rhetoric as any kind of argument is based on a whole bundle of rhetorical fallacies. The fact that the Christians who use this rhetoric would even think that their "atheists are fools" "argument" has any relevance whatsoever for dealing with... well, with dealing with anything in terms of rational argument, especially in the context of discussing criticisms of creationist arguments to try to get creationists to deal with the scientific facts that show that their numerous arguments are permeated with factual and conceptual errors (as well as being ignorant about the actual science) is just another one of those amusing ironies of how so much of the rhetoric creationists love to use is itself quite foolish, being nothing more than the use of basic and well-known fallacies.

Christians pretend critical scrutiny is "persecution"

2008-06-05T12:28:00.000-04:00

[I wrote this in response to "The Christian Persecution Delusion. Again." by Ed Brayton (Feb. 25, 2008).]

What theists/Christians who pretend to be "persecuted" for their religious beliefs really mean is that they don't want a bunch of people openly criticizing their religious beliefs for lacking rational justification (i.e., for being superstition), and if you do, then they'll whine and moan about being "persecuted." They're using this rhetoric to try to keep a lid on this open criticism of faith-based beliefs in "polite society."

This is one reason I have found the religious criticism of the "new" atheism for being "militant" so amusingly ironic. What religious people who say these kinds of things really mean is that they have enjoyed the free ride they've had when the expression of religious belief is "respected" (not subjected to rational, critical scrutiny) - and they've had free reign to bad-mouth atheism and atheists for centuries - and atheists in society have basically kept their mouths shut. What irks them is that atheism has grown enough in U.S. society that now atheists are not willing to just keep their mouths shut anymore.

A "militant" atheist is simply an atheist who doesn't automatically keep his mouth shut any more just because someone says, "Well, I believe this because it's my faith." Now we increasingly have "militant" atheists who won't let that be the end of discussion, but continue on, "Okay, so what? Now I want your reasons for that belief. Oh, you don't have any? So, what you're really telling me is that you arbitrarily believe it just because you wish to believe even though you can't rationally justify it. Therefore, there's no reason for anyone to believe it. And that's my point. That's why I don't accept your belief, and furthermore that's exactly what I'm openly telling everyone else when it happens to come up in conversation."

It is this openness of basic criticism that makes us "new" atheists so "militant." The "militant atheist" pejorative is nothing more than yet another example of the kind of rhetorical trickery commonly used by Christians and other theists to denigrate and try to ward off rational, critical scrutiny of their personal ideas.

Energy production and usage after oil

2008-06-03T09:44:00.002-04:00

[Note that I originally published this essay on Apr. 23, 2008 in some online discussion groups I'm a member of.]

Below are some articles that I have found to be of relevance to the "energy crunch" problem coming to human civilization in the 21st century. This problem occurs as the intersection of two issues.

First, "third world" countries around the world have been industrializing and substantially increasing their energy consumption, in line with other countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and so on that have had such higher energy consumption for many decades. So the demand for energy is increasing substantially.

Second, by far human civilization has come to rely on oil to produce the majority of the energy we use, but oil is a nonsustainable (nonrenewable) energy resource, and numerous experts in the oil industry and other analysts estimate that we will be reaching "peak oil" status within the next 10 to 20 years (the point at which, due to the relatively fixed amount of oil, it will reach maximum production but then production will decline after that point).

Demand increasing. Supply dwindling.

I don't happen to be one of the doomsayers, but this is an issue that people really should become increasingly aware of, in terms of (1) simply being personally conscious about ways in which to reduce their consumption of energy (energy conservation), (2) making social/political choices implementing social policies that reward more efficient uses of energy, and (3) also making social/political choices rewarding experimentation, development, and implementation of methods of producing energy that do not use oil.

By the way, in terms of energy consumption efficiency, I'm not thinking in terms of top-down government dictated social mandates, but more in terms of bottom-up economic choices. In other words, if it really is more energy efficient then it should be cheaper and people will buy it precisely because of that. These things can be very simple, such as using more energy efficient light bulbs. If you're only going four or six blocks, just walk instead of driving the car. (And I note that people are beginning to think along this line more, with gasoline approaching $4 a gallon.) On a government level, such a simple decision can have very significant consequence, such as when a city implements a policy to, over time, when a street light burns out, simply replace the street light with a more energy efficient light.

I have no personal vested interest in any particular energy producing method. I simply am aware of the fact of what oil is, and the fact that it really is going to run out over time over the next 100 to 150 years *or so*. (No one needs to quibble with me about the number. If you want to say it's 200 or 300 years, that's fine, my point remains the same.) I also happen to think that for me personally this is not a major issue, because I'm going to die an old man before it becomes a truly major problem. But I'm smart enough to realize that in the long term we need to consider what should be thought about and done now to help deal with the problem over time, for human civilization in following generations.

Also note that I have particular disdain for government boondoggles, wasting tax money giving handouts to wealthy big business agricultural interests Note that this doesn't just waste tax money, but more importantly it actually *diverts attention and effort away from methods that really work*. I'm not saying what I'm saying here because I have any bias against biofuels, because I don't. (Indeed, in the online references below you'll see me refer you to another example of biofuel production that I am led to believe is far superior to corn ethanol.) It's just that I've never read anything over the last twenty years that has ever led me to judge that the corn ethanol projects have been anything more than a waste of time and tax money.

Also, it amazes me how much so many people are confused about hydrogen fuel cells and the so-called "hydrogen economy." This is NOT an alternative production of energy. (Note that here I'm not referring to atomic fusion.) The idea of hydrogen use has to do with another issue entirely, which is coming up with ways to reduce our impact on the environment with our high energy usage. Hydrogen is ONLY an "energy carrier." You can think of it like a battery - you have to put energy into the battery to get it out. Hydrogen has nothing to do with thinking about energy production, but is only tangentially related in terms of coming up with methods of consuming energy more "cleanly." (And it's debatable whether hydrogen is even, or can be made to be, a feasibly efficient energy carrier.)

There is no one solution to this problem. There are many solutions will grow and evolve in combination in terms of scientific and technological development, and economic feasability, as our societies are forced to move away from our primary dependence on oil, since ultimately we really don't have any choice about it. The oil isn't going to run out in 20 or 30 years, but it *is* going to run out. It is not a sustainable energy resource in the long term, and we all know it.

With all this in mind, I provide you with some recent online references, about a variety of ideas concerning energy production besides oil.

Geothermal Heat Pumps

U.S. Leads World in Wind-Power Growth

"Grass Gas" Shows Promise as Superefficient, Clean Fuel

Tapping tidal energy: the wave of the future

A Solar Grand Plan
(Scientific American, December 2007)

ITER Project (Fusion Energy)

Glenn Morton's Oil Crisis Page

What in the world is happening to energy?

The Hydrogen Economy

Is teaching creationism only being fair to the children?

2008-06-01T16:30:00.003-04:00

[Note that I originally published this essay on Feb. 28, 2008 in some online discussion groups I'm a member of. This version has been very slightly edited with a few word changes.]

In regard to teaching creationism in public school science classes, when creationists say things like, "It's only fair (to the children) to teach both theories," what they really mean is that since they don't like the science, because it contradicts their religious beliefs, they want to teach their religious beliefs to children. "It's only fair to teach both viewpoints."

There are two serious problems with this. One is a category problem, and the other is a fundamental legal problem.

The category problem has to do with the fact that in science classes you're supposed to be teaching... well, uh, science.

Creationism isn't science. When creationists use the term "both theories," they're using a false comparison based on a semantic ambiguity of two different meanings of the word "theory." Look up "theory" in the dictionary.

A scientific theory is "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena" (American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Ed.). Creationism is only a "theory" in the sense of "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture," and a faith-based conjecture, at that. These two meanings are almost the opposite of one another. The first is based on extensive scientific examination and testing. The second is basically an initial hypothesis, or just a guess.

These are not the same thing at all. There is no comparison. The scientific theory of evolution has been repeatedly tested, experimentally refined and verified by scientific research, and is fruitfully used to guide further scientific investigation. The "theory" (i.e., the religious doctrines) of creationism is none of these things. It's religious doctrine believed on faith.

Religious doctrine is not science. Anti-evolution rhetoric based on religious belief is not science. Pseudoscience claims, motivated by religious belief, and used to pretend creationism is scientific, are not science.

Thus, to teach children "both theories" is to seriously confuse them, even fundamentally mislead them, about science. It is not at all fair to children to tell them, "We're going to teach you about science," and then teach them sectarian religious concepts as if they are science, or teach them false claims about science based on religious motivations and call it science. When something isn't science, we shouldn't be misleading children by pretending it's science. Creationism doesn't belong in science classes because it isn't science. Attacks against evolution based on creationist beliefs don't belong in science classes because they aren't science.

The legal problem has to do with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution. In numerous court cases it has been determined quite consistently that the idea of teaching creationism as if it's science in public schools is a violation of the First Amendment. (Because it's sectarian religious belief, not science.)

In particular, in the 2005 case in Pennsylvania (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District), it was determined that the current popular form of creationism called "intelligent design" is simply another tactic of the creationist strategy of trying to get religious beliefs into public school science classes by falsely pretending that sectarian religious beliefs are science. (The case didn't determine anything we didn't already know about this creationist tactic, it's just that the case is an example of arriving at the same conclusion through a formal legal process.) Again, this is a violation of the First Amendment.

Creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in public school science classes is simply one major skirmish of a culture war going on in the United States between people with conservative religious beliefs and everyone else. We are where we are at now as the result of our cultural history, and in this case it's the result of religious traditions in the United States that have opposed evolution and other areas of science for over a hundred years. The current threads of anti-evolution thought began with the backlash against the promotion of science education that started in the late 1950s, most notably from the movement started by the young earth creationist Henry M. Morris. The young earth creationists virtually singled-handedly created the idea of a "scientific creationism," by generating a significant body of pseudoscience literature misrepresenting and distorting science, filled with false "scientific" information.

To this very day we are still dealing with the false "facts" and fallacious arguments that young earth creationists put out in the 1960s and 1970s, still dealing with the fallout of a whole generation (almost two now) of conservative religious people brought up being taught all these false claims about science that are not actually scientific at all. In discussions with creationists that are about specific areas of science, the problem is not what creationists know, but what they think they know that just ain't so. Creationists will often say that their disagreement with scientists isn't about the facts, but about the interpretation of the facts. Yet in actual discussions with creationists, when dealing with the specific details about specific areas of science, we find that creationists dispute the facts all the time. (Most often they're simply unaware of the facts, but when you bring them to their attention they deliberately and defiantly ignore them.)

The solution to this particular skirmish in the culture war is to meet it head on. The reason the problem has become as extensive as it is right now is precisely because in the past when people with certain religious beliefs attacked science, we've had the general social tendency to "turn the other cheek" and give space to them - out of a misplaced respect for religious belief. If people want to believe things on the basis of faith, and they do this privately, more power to them. But when people speak out publicly, attacking science, using pseudoscientific claims that are factually wrong and using arguments that are logically fallacious, they need to be confronted head on just as publicly, specifically addressing their erroneous claims and explaining why they are wrong. They should not be given undue respect for publicly proclaiming manifestly false claims about science merely because their false claims are motivated by religious belief.

It's because those who came before us did not meet creationists head on as openly, forthrightly, and explicitly as should have been done, that the problem has festered and grown so that now we have the even worse problems we're having. So now it's up to us to deal with it, and now we know we cannot shy away from this because we see what shying away from the problem in the past has led to. If we do not meet these creationists head on, and deal with them with all the forthright critical scrutiny they deserve, they really will sabotage science education in this country, as has been their objective for almost 50 years.

And that's the only thing that's fair to the children of this country.

Relevant online references

2005 Creationism Trial (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District)

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial documents

Decision by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III (12/20/2005)

1987 Creationism Trial (Edwards v. Aguillard)
Edwards v. Aguillard
U.S. Supreme Court Decision

1981 Creationism Trial (McLean v. Arkansas)
McLean v. Arkansas Documentation Project

McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education
Decision by U.S. District Judge William R. Overton (1/5/1982)

1975 Creationism Trial (Daniel v. Waters)

Is biological evolution "just a theory"?

2008-02-11T16:39:00.000-05:00

In the creationist rhetoric we often see the claim that evolution is "just a theory." When creationists say this they are using the colloquial meaning of the word "theory" in order to pretend that evolution is just a guess, a speculation, a conjecture. While a guess or conjecture is one dictionary definition of the word "theory," when we're talking about science and how the word "theory" is being used by scientists in reference to evolution (the theory of evolution), then what we need to know is how the word "theory" is used in the context of science.

The first two definitions of "theory" as given in the American Heritage Dictionary are what are relevant to the context of science:

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.

For example, we also have the theory of gravity. Gravity is not just a guess, not just a speculation, and neither is evolution. So when creationists pretend that evolution is "just a theory" in the sense of being merely some kind of guess or speculation they are not using it in the dictionary sense of the word as the word is used in science when scientists refer to the theory of evolution. The dictionary sense of the word tells us that evolution is a set of scientific principles "that has been repeatedly tested" and that "can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."

Creationists often play games with words like this in their rhetoric to try to obfuscate the actual facts and confuse people about the proper understanding of the relevant concepts - in other words, creationists love to play all kinds of word games to misrepresent matters as much as possible - but we should be careful to clarify such words correctly as part of showing why the creationist rhetoric is wrong.

Evolution is indeed a scientific theory, not because it's merely some kind of speculation, but precisely because over the many decades since Darwin the theory has been so extensively tested and refined in a variety of ways and in a variety of areas of scientific research.

Kids in U.S. forced to deal with creationist propaganda on their own

2007-10-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

In the article "Don't Ask, Don't Tell: No Good for Creationism" (Wired Science section, 10/12/2007), Brandon Keim reports that the head of science at the Institute of Education in London - who happens to be a priest in the Church of England - is recommending that science teachers openly confront creationist propaganda:

"The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins," he said.

Instead, they should tackle the issue head-on but in a way that does not alienate students, he argues in the book, Teaching About Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism.

Check out the comments to the article on that page and you'll see an example of the results of ignoring creationism in public schools in the U.S. Now we have two whole generations (at least) of people who have been brought up on the pseudoscience propaganda pumped out by organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research, started by young earth creationists Henry Morris and Duane Gish, and the Creation Research Society.

I completely agree with Keim's proposed solution - indeed, in online discussion groups when this issue comes up I have suggested the same thing - that instead of ignoring the problem in public schools science teachers should confront the issue head-on and openly deal with the young earth creationism and old earth creationism in the classrooms, educating students about the scientific errors of creationism instead of just hoping that kids can deal with the sophisticated anti-science creationist propaganda machine all by themselves. We have religious fundamentalists who have dedicated themselves to fooling people - and especially children - about science for the deliberate purpose of propping up their religious dogma. We need to help the kids out.

However, while I'm not familiar with how this might or might not work in Britian, I know that this would never work in many, or even most communities in the U.S. A public science teacher who openly confronted creationist ideology in the classroom to expose the scientific fraudulence of their rhetoric would be quickly hounded out of his job by creationist parents and other creationists in the community. Make no mistake about it, these people would never tolerate open criticism of their religious doctrine in science classes in public schools. Doesn't matter that it's science we're talking about.

Top 10 Standard Rhetorical Fallacies used by Young Earth Creationists

2006-10-03T23:45:00.000-04:00

Top 10 Standard Rhetorical Fallacies used by Young Earth Creationists

1. There is no empirical evidence of the world having existed longer than 10,000 years.

2. Scientists make mistakes all the time, therefore evolution (and geology and astronomy which are just part of evolution) might be all wrong, therefore in science you can't know that young earth creationism is wrong.

3. This is an argument about scientific interpretation (uniformitarianism), not an argument about the facts.

4. How do you know what happened back then? Were you there?

5. God just made things appear to be old.

6. Geology is an evolutionist conspiracy.

7. Astronomy is an evolutionist conspiracy.

8. Evolution is a religion, not science.

9. Evolution is an atheist conspiracy.

10. People accept evolution (and geology and astronomy which are part of the evolutionist conspiracy) to support atheism.

Creationists using Google Ads for fraudulent advertising

2006-09-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

I'm checking out some science news, and a Sep. 18 article at PhysOrg.com (one of the science news sites I frequent; they have an RSS feed) with the title "Why Evolution Drives Some Cells to Altruism" looked interesting. So I click over to read the article, and I'm promptly assaulted by not just one, but two, fraudulent advertisements by fundamentalists. These are fraudulent, because PhysOrg.com has signed up with Google for science related advertising, yet what we're seeing is that some religious people are gaming the system and posing their religious ads as science. Of course, this is just another aspect of the deceitful strategy that a lot of creationists in the United States started using a few decades ago when they determined to begin their "scientific creationism" charade with young earth creationism back in the 1960s for the specific purpose of trying to do an end-run around the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. But that doesn't mean we should put up with their deceitful shenanigans. We should complain to PhysOrg.com, and in turn complain to Google for the fraudulent ads. Google has mechanisms to filter out prank ads, and I think we need to let Google know what's going on to get them to filter out religious ads from a site that is paying for science related ads.

Since the ads are dynamically posted, I took a screenshot. I shrunk it for display here with my post, but if you click on the image that will give you the full size screenshot.

Stars observed from 2,500 years before Universe was created

2006-08-18T11:14:00.000-04:00

In astronomy, we literally witness objects and events from times in the past before when young earth creationists claim the Universe was created. In this particular case, we're observing a globular cluster (NGC 6397) in the Milky Way galaxy from approximately 8,500 years ago. Will young earth creationists take the facts into account and acknowledge the observational falsification of their religious doctrine?

A few will, but then they won't be young earth creationists any longer. But those who refuse to take the scientific facts into account are, of course, completely wrong to pretend that young earth creationism is scientific.

Incidentally, the Intelligent Design advocates of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture pretend to be expressing concern about teaching science properly. But if their concern about proper science was genuine, then why is it that they cannot bring themselves to express criticism of the religious viewpoint of young earth creationism, which is completely falsified by science - even going so far as to award positions on the staff of the CSC to young earth creationists? Answer: Because their expressed concern about science is a charade, and part of the long-time creationist conspiracy to promote religion as science.

Faintest Stars in Globular Cluster NGC 6397
(Hubble Space Telescope News Center, 8/17/2006)

Looking like glittering jewels, the stars in this Hubble Space Telescope image at left are part of the ancient globular star cluster NGC 6397. Scattered among these brilliant stars are extremely faint stars. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has taken a census of the cluster stars, uncovering the faintest stars ever seen in a globular cluster. Globular clusters are spherical concentrations of hundreds of thousands of old stars.

The Advanced Camera found the faintest red dwarf stars (26th magnitude), which are cooler and much lower in mass than our Sun, and the dimmest white dwarfs (28th magnitude), the burned-out relics of normal stars. The light from the dimmest white dwarfs is equal to the light produced by a birthday candle on the Moon as seen from Earth.

The image at lower right shows the faintest red dwarf star (the red dot within the red circle) spied by Hubble.

The image at upper right pinpoints one of the dim white dwarfs (the blue dot within the blue circle) seen by Hubble. The white dwarf has been cooling for billions of years. It is so cool that instead of looking red, it has undergone a chemical change in its atmosphere that makes it appear blue.

The images were taken with visual and red filters. NGC 6397, one of the closest globular clusters to Earth, is 8,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Ara.

"Teach our religious anti-evolution arguments" (aka, "Teach the controversy")

2006-07-09T21:50:00.000-04:00

If creationists are anything, they are masters of rhetorical games, manipulating words to mean all sorts of things other than what they actually mean. The dictionary even has a word for this: newspeak.

newspeak (noun)
Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.

(From Newspeak, a language invented by George Orwell in the novel 1984.)

(American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition)

As each of their tactics to legislate their creationist beliefs into public school science classes gets shot down in court for violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (i.e., they get caught trying to shove their religious beliefs down kid's throats), they just morph their rhetoric into some new tactic (while also deceitfully pretending they didn't really mean the previous tactics; no, of course not, as they quietly retract their previous material from circulation and as their web pages that advocated the previous tactics mysteriously disappear from the internet and they try to warp the history of what they said and did before into nonexistence; more of an Orwellian 1984 approach than you thought, huh?).

The latest tactic from the Discovery Institute, which is now being echoed by creationists across the various creationist subcultures, is that teachers should "teach the controversy" - which itself just another deceitful false premise from the creationists. In fact, when teaching about evolution - or various other areas of science - teachers do teach about various scientific controversies and arguments (though, granted, at the high school level they certainly don't go into all of them or into a lot of detail about any of them; for example, how many kids even take physics in high school?). What is bogus about this new creationist tactic is that creationists are not referring to teaching about actual scientific controversies and arguments, even while they pretend that that is what they're referring to. What they're really referring to is that they want their long-discredited religious-based anti-evolution arguments taught.

And so the creationist rhetorical games continue, even while the ink on Judge Jones' decision in the trial against the creationists on the Dover, Pennsylvania school board has barely had time to dry. So in the months ahead we shall watch the creationists moan about "democracy" and "fair play" even while they themselves ignore the factual and logical fallacies of their arguments, ignore genuine scientific research, ignore the fact that they've had their day in court (in fact, they've had a number of them), and ignore the fact that the First Amendment is a fundamental part of our democracy.

Root of All Evil?

2006-07-03T21:42:00.000-04:00

A couple of online video gems, hosted by Richard Dawkins, for your viewing pleasure:

Root of All Evil? (Pt. 1)

Root of All Evil? (Pt. 2)

Astronomical distances, and the death of young earth creationism

2006-01-06T16:33:00.000-05:00

In a discussion forum I sometimes participate in, former young earth creationist Glenn Morton recently clued me in to a recent astronomy article about the determination of the distance of one of our Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms from the Earth.

Here is the article reference:

"The Distance to the Perseus Spiral Arm in the Milky Way"
(Science magazine, December 8, 2005)
by Y. Xu, M. J. Reid, X. W. Zheng, and K. M. Menten

The scientists state:

We have measured the distance to the massive star-forming region W3OH in the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way to be 1.95 ± 0.04 kiloparsecs (5.86 x 1016 km). This distance was determined by triangulation, with the Earth's orbit as one segment of a triangle, using the Very Long Baseline Array.

1.95 kiloparsecs is about 6,360 light-years, so what this means is that we're observing this location right here in our own galaxy (let alone all of the other billions of galaxies in our universe) from about 6,360 years ago.

Glenn writes:

This measurement has an error of 40 parsecs (130 lightyears), or 2% of the distance. This means, that the [spiral arm] lies between 6,226 and 6,487 light-years distance. The error is so small that there is no way that this very close [spiral arm] can fit within the 6,000 year universe of the YECs.

Here you can see a nice map of our Milky Way galaxy showing the relative positions of the Earth and the Perseus spiral arm:

The Universe within 50000 Light Years: The Milky Way Galaxy

This is just another example of the fact that right within our own galaxy, we're observing even relatively nearby parts of our galaxy from a time in the past BEFORE young earth creationists say that the Universe existed, thus proving that young earth creationism is false, and showing why young earth creationism is just as obsolete as geocentrism.

Just so everyone is aware of this, there are other geometric methods used to determine interstellar and intergalactic distances (i.e., they don't depend on magnitude measurements of Cepheids or other kinds of cyclically pulsating stars). They just don't happen to be the particular parallax method using the Earth's orbit as the triangle baseline, but the baseline is "in reverse" being at the location of what is being observed. Here are three examples of this, one in our galaxy, one in a neighbor galaxy (Large Magellanic Cloud), and one in a galaxy that's part of another galaxy cluster:

Star V838 Monocerotis
(about 20,000 light-years from Earth)

Supernova 1987A
(about 168,000 light-years from Earth)

"A 4% geometric distance to the galaxy NGC4258 from orbital motions in a nuclear gas disk"
(about 23,500,000 light-years from Earth)

Of course, according to young earth creationist rhetoric, astronomical science is really just a form of atheistic evolution, and astronomers are nothing more than evolutionists engaging in the worldwide evolutionist conspiracy.

Hmmm... I hope I don't lose my secret decoder ring!

Unsettling this settled dogma came Galileo and his telescope, a mere decade after Giordano Bruno (1548?-1600) was murdered by the Church in the flames of Campo dei Fiori -- for unorthodox opinions. In his Sidereus Nuncius or Starry Messenger (1610) Galileo announced his support for the Copernican view of the universe: the earth moving around the sun, and Jupiter circled by moons.

Blasphemy! cried the clerics. Not at all, replied the scientist. Look here and see for yourselves. It is impious to look, said some; these so-called moons are delusions of the devil, said others. Jesuit Father Christoph Clavius ingeniously argued that "to see satellites of Jupiter men had to make an instrument which would create them." Such a discovery contradicted the prescribed number of bodies in the heavens. Galileo counter-argued that a figurative interpretation of the biblical statements would save his observations from the taint of heresy. He wrote as much to his friends, Father Benedetto Castelli and the Grand-Duchess Christina -- but to no avail.

Father Tomasso Caccini, a Dominican, preached a sermon against him grounded in a tasteless pun (after Acts 1:11) on the scientist's name: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven?." Galileo had said, "[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word," (Opere Il Saggiatore) so, not content with reviling astronomers, Caccini assured his flock that "geometry is of the devil" and that "mathematicians should be banished as the author of all heresies."

The Archbishop of Florence called his discoveries unscriptural. A Father Lacazre claimed Galileo's researches cast "suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation." The word in clerical circles was that such a cosmology "upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a planet, and only one among several planets, it cannot be that any such great things have been done especially for it as the great doctrine teaches. If there are other planets, since God makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited; but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam? How can they trace back their origin to Noah's Ark? How can they be redeemed by the Saviour?" And, not surprisingly, one cleric, the Dominican Father Nicolò Lorini called Galileo's discoveries "atheistic."

From: The War on Galileo
by Ronald Bruce Meyer

In the "ID is just as scientific as evolution" blah-blah category

2006-01-06T15:34:00.000-05:00

Online "colleague" Robert Baty just referred the following to me:

What Is Science?
Part II: Pennsylvania 's Intelligent Design case
By Lloyd Eby
World Peace Herald Contributor
Published January 5, 2006

[Excerpt]

If we make, for example, the scientific law-like statement "Pure silver melts at 961.78 degrees Celsius," we are necessarily going beyond our experience and observation because we have not tested every sample of silver in the universe to see whether that statement is true, nor could we do so.

So that statement, and every scientific statement like it, should be regarded as being metaphysical. Metaphysical claims go beyond scientific data itself into an extra-observable domain where statements or claims go beyond the evidence for them.

This is a beautiful example of the sheer obfuscation that creationists do so love to engage in, in their desperate attempt to either (1) pretend that ID is scientific, or (2) pretend that evolution is as unscientific as ID.

Any chemist or physicist or engineer today who made the statement "Pure silver melts at 961.78 degrees Celsius" should be placed in the stocks in the public square for ridicule. But again what we're seeing is a simplistic caricature of science, and of the philosophy of science, as given by creationism supporter Lloyd Eby, and right now it is ID advocates in the stocks in the public square being ridiculed – and quite rightly too!

In reality, we might have something like "Pure silver melts at 961.78 at sea-level pressure in a normal atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon-dioxide, but in our experiments we have found that in an atmosphere containing at least 1.3% xenon at at least 10 atmospheres of pressure..." (this is a totally made up example).

In other words Eby pretends that scientists have a certain lack of conceptual sophistication. Of course, in the real world of science, it is ID advocates who have no sophistication at all since they don't even try to show up, since it is ID advocates themselves who refuse to participate in the world of professional science (or in the world of professional philosophy either, for that matter; e.g., ID advocate William Dembski does not even try to submit any articles to professional philosophy or philosophy of science journals).

But let me address, too, the claim by Eby regarding scientists making "metaphysical" rather than "scientific" claims. What we're observing is the typical creationist love of word games. "It's not really science, it's metaphysics, and ID is metaphysics so it's okay to say it's science too" is the form of Eby's argument. Well, no, it's not really "metaphysics," it's science, and, no, ID advocates are never as detailed and precise as that, and they don't engage in the scientific process which is a whole cycle of question-hypothesis-data gathering-analysis-conclusion-question-hypothesis-data gathering-analysis-conclusion that professional scientists engage in, along with the critical wrangling that scientists engage in all the time probing each others' data, probing their analyses, probing their conclusions, even probing their questions, and digging into more and more details ever more.

The statement "Pure silver melts at 961.78 at sea-level pressure in a normal atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon-dioxide, but in our experiments we have found that in an atmosphere containing at least 1.3% xenon at at least 10 atmospheres of pressure..." goes beyond direct experience precisely because that is what science is for, to understand what is beyond our direct experience. We learned about and knew a lot about the atomic structure of matter and about atoms themselves many, many decades before we ever directly observed a single atom. The claims made about atoms were scientific claims precisely because they were and are always subject to the evidence, the relevant data. As scientists gather more data (dig into and gather more details), empirical claims always have the potential for revision. Any empirical claim may even be totally correct as far as it goes at a certain level of detail, and still be subject to revision - i.e., having further level of conceptual detail added to it - upon the acquisition of more relevant data by which we learn more about the empirical concept in question.

For example, 20 years ago (in the early 1980s) a few astronomers built up a general concept about the Kuiper Belt (also see Wikipedia entry Kuiper Belt) that was correct, but this concept was general and had little detail, whereas now after astronomical technology reached the point where astronomers could directly observe the relatively larger objects in the Kuiper Belt, on the basis of this newly acquired data they could add considerable detail to the general concept of the Kuiper Belt.

This is exactly how scientists work on various concepts about evolution in science as well. Which is why evolution is not somehow, magically, for-the-good-of-ID-rhetoric, any different philosophically from other areas of science, whether physics, or astronomy, or chemistry, or geology, and so on.

The task at hand for ID advocates is that they seriously need to stop jabbering with their word games, and just roll up their sleeves and get to work doing some real science work. And if they're not doing that, then they really just need to shut up and stop trying to deceive everyone.

On the Dover, PA Intelligent Design trial (1)

2006-01-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

It's pretty incredible how creationists and ID advocates are spinning (i.e., twisting, distorting, misinforming, and outright lying, in their typical way) their total defeat in this trial.

For example, right off the bat we've had creationists all over the country, such as Phyllis Schlafly, lying to everyone by pretending that Judge Jones must be some kind of liberal activist judge ["False judge makes mockery of case for 'intelligent design'," townhall.com, 1/2/2006]. (No, according to these creationists, Jones couldn't actually just be taking science and the First Amendment seriously now, could he?) Of course, the truth of the matter is that Jones has a judicial record, and this record shows that creationists are just lying - and Jones himself explicitly discussed this very point in his ruling, predicting that this is one of the tactics of deceit that creationists would use, and he thus explained to creationists ahead of time why such an accusation would be wrong. But creationists didn't and don't care about the truth (which is, of course, one of the problems that provoked this trial in the first place), have ignored Jones' judicial record, have ignored Jones' warning about the error of this precise misrepresentation, and have been spouting this lie all over the country.

Look how these people are just foaming at the mouth over the ruling. Christine Flowers spins that the judge "believed that it was his duty to protect innocent children from a dangerous theory" ["Dover & the cult of science," Philadelphia Daily News, 1/4/2006]. The truth of the matter is that the judge - quite correctly - believed that it was his duty to uphold the Establishment Cause of the First Amendment and protect innocent children from religious zealots who would love to use public schools to force their religious beliefs down the kids' throats, and not only that but to falsely pretend that their religious beliefs are science.

Flowers spins that the Dover school board tried to "force science teachers to tell their students that evolution was not the only possible explanation for the origins of mankind," which seems like a pretty straightforward statement by Flowers except for the use of a single word that turns her statement into misrepresentative distortion. The school board tried to force science teachers to pretend to students that evolution was not the only scientific explanation of human origins. And that's just plain wrong, since evolution is indeed the only scientific explanation.

Flowers spins sarcastically that Jones with his ruling "put an end to the silly notion that evolution could be challenged in the classroom." Which is nothing more than a bald-faced lie. What Jones did very specifically was deal with the fact that ID is not scientific but religious, and thus is not a scientific challenge to evolution, and thus doesn't belong in a science class in a public school, and even when taught about in appropriate classes (such as social studies or religious survey classes) should be taught in a nonsectarian manner.

The profusion of misrepresentative distortions such as these that ID advocates and other creationists have built up for themselves over the years and decades has become such a standard part of their rhetorical vocabulary that they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the errors of their ways, even when such events as this trial forces them to confront those errors.

The one and only lesson that ID advocates and other creationists should have taken and learned from the trial and the ruling is that if they want to claim that creationism or some aspect of creationism is scientific, then they must actually, genuinely do some real work in real science and come up with some results that legitimately back up what they claim. Until then, all they have is deceitful rhetoric built into a house of cards, and it will continue to collapse every time someone like Judge Jones blows on it with the tiniest puff of rationality. Of course, since ID really is religious and not scientific in the first place, this is the lesson that ID advocates and other creationists are completely ignoring.

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (Wikipedia)
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial transcripts and documents
Full text of Judge Jones' ruling (12/20/2005) [PDF document]