News : Grumpy Bob update on Noah’s Ark

Wonderful Life : More news coverage of the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm fracas:

Wales Online features a story on the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm furore (’Creationist’ zoo in row over school visits), in which a creationist zoo was awarded an imprimature of educational quality – apparently it’s a hot destination for Welsh schoolkids. The article quotes principally from the Zoo’s website, which clearly indicate the creationist bias of the establishment. One quotation is “After looking at the current explanations for origins and evolution, it is our view that the evidence available points to widespread evolution after an initial creation by God”. But what evidence actually points to any creation by a supernatural being (and what actual evidence is there for any god?). The article also quotes an NSS spokesperson:

“Parents should be clearly told what kind of place this is before signing their children up. Not only is it a creationist zoo, it’s a Christian one so children from other faiths or none are effectively being told their beliefs – or lack of them – are wrong.

“Noah’s Ark may be suitable for a Sunday school trip but not for a school trip to teach children about science and nature, especially if teachers are not qualified or able to separate fact from propaganda and explain to children that creationism is a minority view based on faith, not facts.”

I read the WalesOnline report shortly after watching Richard Dawkins’ TV programme on the issue of faith schools (Faith School Menace, More 4). There was a very interestign segment towards the end in which a child psychologist was demonstrating that when young kids are presented with two explanations for something, theyb will tend to choose the one that has a “purpose”. The inference of course is that when exposed to religious explanations (for example to of the diversity of life), they will be receptive, not just because the explanation is from an “authority figure”, but because religious explanations feature a cause and a reason. It seems to me that creationist zoos such as this one should not receive educational plaudits from dubious quangos, for this very reason.

News : BHA calls for inquiry as documentary reveals creationism in 'faith' schools

BHA news : BHA calls for inquiry as documentary reveals creationism in 'faith' schools:

The BHA has called for a full parliamentary inquiry into ‘faith schools’ following revelations in a new television documentary to be screened on Wednesday August 18 at 9pm on More4.

‘Faith School Menace?’, presented by BHA distinguished supporter Professor Richard Dawkins, features interviews with religious lobbyists, parents, pupils and experts including BHA chief executive Andrew Copson.

In the film Professor Dawkins discovers that RE lessons in some ‘faith’ schools present creationism as scientific fact, directly contradicting the evolution components of the national curriculum. In a particularly shocking scene, he finds that all 60 Year 10 science students at a Muslim secondary school reject the theory of evolution in favour of the Qur’an's story of Creation. The episode leads Professor Dawkins to call for RE to fall under the National Curriculum and for RE teaching in ‘faith’ schools to be inspected by Ofsted, a policy the BHA has advocated for many years.

The programme also presents the findings of an exclusive ICM poll, in which 59 per cent of the public said they were opposed to any form of state funding for ‘faith schools’.

The screening of the documentary comes as the BHA launches a major new fundraising campaign to support its work against state-funded ‘faith schools’.

BHA chief executive Andrew Copson said:

‘The programme confirms what the BHA has known for many years – that ‘faith’ schools can cause religious and socio-economic segregation and lead to thousands of pupils being denied a broad, balanced and inclusive education. What’s more, as this new poll demonstrates, they are opposed by a clear majority of the public.’

‘Throughout the BHA’s many years of campaigning on this issue, parents, teachers and pupils themselves have consistently opposed ‘faith’ schools. The reasons are clear – they are divisive, discriminatory and unable to fully recognise the rights of their pupils. Unfortunately, with the coalition government’s massive deregulation of education, the situation is only going to get worse.’

Speaking on the teaching of creationism in English ‘faith’ schools, Mr Copson commented:

‘The programme highlights why we urgently need a tightening up of the legal requirements to prevent creation stories being taught as anything other than religious beliefs. If, as this film seems to suggest, creationism is already being taught as fact in conventional ‘faith’ schools then how does the government propose to keep it out of religious ‘free’ schools, which will not have to follow the National Curriculum and are outside local authority control?’

Explaining the BHA’s call for a parliamentary inquiry, Mr Copson continued:

‘We are calling on the newly-formed education select committee to conduct a full inquiry into ‘faith’ schools, looking particularly at their impact on community cohesion, their effect on pupils’ rights, their effect on a balanced curriculum of objective teaching about religious and non-religious beliefs, and the extent to which science teaching may be undermined. Now is the time for politicians to take a critical look at the role of ‘faith’ schools and ask if they really are serving the best interests of children and the wider community.’

Describing the BHA’s new ‘faith schools’ fundraising campaign, Mr Copson said:

‘The documentary comes at an opportune time for the BHA as this week we launch a major new fundraising drive to ensure we can continue to employ our dedicated ‘faith’ schools campaigner for another year. We hope the documentary will act as an incentive for all those concerned about the power and influence of religious groups in our schools to support our work. We must act now to ensure a fairer, more inclusive education for our children in the future.’

News : Zoologger: Live birth, evolving before our eyes - life - 25 August 2010 - New Scientist

Zoologger: Live birth, evolving before our eyes - life - 25 August 2010 - New Scientist

Debunking Corner - more Darwin slurs

From Dispersal of Darwin:

"Beck: “I am not a history teacher.” 

No shit, Sherlock.

On his program today, Beck espoused the anti-evolutionist claim that Darwin is somehow responsible for racism; he seems to imply that Darwin can be traced to the practice of slavery in America. Slavery, however, was an institution that predated Darwin’s birth and one which he was revolted by (during the Beagle voyage and, as some historians have argued, led to his developing a theory of evolution with common descent). He surprises his viewers with the historical connection between abolitionist Wedgwood with his famous image “Am I Not a Man and a Brother? and his grandson Charles Darwin. Darwin was…. wait for it… “the father of modern-day racism.” Yes, a famous abolitionist had a famous racist for a grandson. But, Darwin was himself a passionate abolitionist, and any claims of racism must be taken in context of the time he lived.

In the beginning of this segment (at this link), Beck urged his viewers to go out and read and get the information for themselves. Why, then, Beck, do you depend on misleading anti-evolutionist propaganda about Darwin and don’t go out and read about it for yourself? Here’s two suggestions: Voyage of the Beagle and Darwin’s Sacred Cause."

Creation Watch - Casey Luskin - a post from the US

Here are some extracts from a post from Matt the Skeptical Teacher who went to see Casey Luskin talk.  I have given you a taste of some of Matt's comments but click the link above for the full talk.  This is a classic demonstration of the current creationist playbook;


**Note: This allusion by Luskin to treating evolution “more objectively” set the tone for much of his talk.  In my opinion, it was simply a more sanitized way of saying “teach both views” or “teach the controversy”.You’ll see pretty quickly that was basically the intent of this phrase – the intelligent design movement (IDM) doesn’t seem to want to give up on their strategy to push their version of creationism in public schools.  It’s just that they know certain phrases are rhetorical losers, so they have essentially scrubbed the losing lingo and replaced it with something less recognized.  As the saying goes: “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.”


**Note: These references to Padian and Berman’s comments seemed to me at the time to specifically position ID-proponents as the victims of some kind of conspiracy to discriminate against them.  Of course, in scientific academia there is discrimination against non-scientific ideas.  If ID cannot meet the standards of scientific scrutiny, then it should be discarded; this is indeed what has happened, but Luskin and many in the IDM interpret & spin this as “censorship”.  Again, this is part of the public relations strategy on the part of the Discovery Institute to frame the discussion in terms of “fairness”.  But would it be “fair” to science students to seriously take time in their chemistry classes for the Four Element Model of matter (fire, earth, air, water)?  Would it be “fair” to include equal time for geocentrism in earth science & astronomy classes?  Would it be “fair” to teach non-scientific, alternate views of gravity (such as those advocated by Transcendental Meditation) in physics class?

**Note:  There are LOTS of problems at this point.  First of all, this definition of complexity is sorely lacking, both in detail and due to the fact that it isn’t quantifiable.  As someone asked in Q&A (not myself or Jamie), if you are going to claim to be doing science with ID, shouldn’t you have a way to quantify “complexity”?  Luskin’s response was something to the effect that yes the IDM should do that and they were working on it.  Pardon me, but the IDM and Discovery Institute has been at this for 20 years, and they still don’t have a quantifiable definition of “complexity” yet?  And despite this fact, they want ID taught in schools as a valid science alongside evolution?  Give me a break.

Another problem here is that this sort of argument is post-hoc in nature.  In other words, everyone already knows that Mount Rushmore is man-made; what is necessary here is for these folks to come up with a blinded test of their method without knowing whether or not the subject is designed ahead of time.  Here’s a simple way to do it:

1. Take two sets of a dozen drinking glasses.

2. Drop one set from a significant height into a clear plastic box so that they smash apart into a random jumble of broken glass at the bottom of the box.  This is the “naturally caused” pile of broken glass.

3. Take the second set of glasses and break them up with a hammer or whatnot in a very specific manner and then place the pieces into the bottom of a second box so that the pile of broken glass appears random.  This will be the “intelligently designed” pile of broken glass.

4.  Do all of this out of view of the ID-proponents (the test must be blinded), and then ask them to apply their method to identify the “naturally caused” pile from the “intelligently designed” pile.  Of course, the entire procedure would have to be performed many times to get a correct read on the statistics.

5. If there really is something to the ID method of “inferring design”, then the ID-proponents should be able to determine correctly the “intelligently designed” piles of glass at a rate significantly higher than chance (well over 50%).

The fact that I’ve never seen any ID-proponent perform, or even seriously suggest, such a blinded test of their design inference methods speaks volumes, folks.  And remember: they’ve been at this for 20 YEARS!

View From the Pulpit: Catholic Herald

Darwinism: is it a threat to the Catholic faith? | CatholicHerald.co.uk

A debate developing in the comments as well.

Debunking Corner - Distorting Darwin - A Film Review

From eSkeptic we get a thorough analysis of the creationist film Darwin: The Voyage the Shook the World;

"What follows are claims made in the film, followed by responses from scientists that I interviewed. Responding to the claims are John R. Hutchinson, Brian Charlesworth, and Nick Matzke. Dr. Brian Charlesworth is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He obtained his Ph.D. in genetics at Cambridge, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. He received the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 2000, and the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnean Society in 2010. His research interests include population genetics, molecular evolution and genome evolution, and he has published over 200 research papers and three books. Dr. John Hutchinson holds a Ph.D. in Integrative Biology at the University of California, and earned a National Science Foundation bioinformatics Post Doc at the Biomechanical Engineering Division of Stanford University. He lectures in Evolutionary Biomechanics, and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Nick Matzke is a graduate student instructor in Integrative Biology and Evolutionary Biology at Berkeley, and holds degrees in biology, chemistry, and geography. He is former Public Information Director at theNational Center for Science Education.

Claim: The chance of the four bar mechanisms of the human knee joint occurring by evolution is zero. There are too many changes that have to occur simultaneously.

John R. Hutchinson: “This ‘irreducible complexity’ argument makes numerous fatal flaws. An important one is that evolution proceeds by using old structures for new functions. It is thus a logical fallacy that the changes must occur simultaneously. Furthermore, the “four bar linkage” system of the “human” knee is seen (with subtle or striking variations) in virtually all land-dwelling four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods), and so it is not an exclusively human feature. Our system shows subtle modifications of the general tetrapod theme that are specializations for bipedalism from a more primitive system of ligaments, but still reveals the community of descent in its common structure. Considering the similar (but varying according to function) morphological patterns in these ligaments, this is actually strong evidence for evolution.”

Claim: Darwin was influenced by books on geology postulating a long, slow process of deep time, and so he overlooked evidence that geological processes occur rapidly. He also transferred his pre-conception of deep time to geology. Today he would be disappointed by the evidence for his theory.

Hutchinson: “Of course some geological processes proceed swiftly but others, like continental drift (which Darwin didn’t know about but is important for evolutionary science today), have been proven (as much as science can prove things) to be painfully slow. To allege that Darwin would be unhappy about the current state of the evidence presupposes the assumption that all geological processes are fast. Thousands of expert geologists today would not agree with that statement, which would give Darwin succor, not lament.”

Claim: Darwin’s famous finches can be explained by climate changes with cycles longer than the short time of his observations. Finches’ beaks get bigger and smaller in reaction to climate over tens of years, not tens of millions.

Hutchinson: “Peter and Rosemary Grant’s studies since the 1960s of the finch populations have shown some slow and some “fast” changes as a result of (or correlated with) the local environment, but this in itself was not surprising. It is exactly what evolutionary theory predicts: rates will vary depending on environmental conditions. The recorded changes within finch species have been small relative to the changes that are inferred to have happened over thousands or millions of years between finches. Hence, observations have strengthened, not weakened, evolutionary theory.”

Claim: The genomes of plants and animals show much redundancy. This goes against the idea of randomness. There is an abundance of information that is utilized for adaptation, and this is unexplained by any selective mechanism.

Hutchinson: “This is a total non sequitur. Some redundancy is understood as gene duplication, which is a rather random event. Some makes sense as building safety factors against the loss of critical genes by genetic damage or error. It is not unexplained. It is completely reasonable in a modern evolutionary sense. Things that can be ‘utilized for adaptation’ cannot be ‘unexplained by any selective mechanism’ because the very process of adaptation involves selection.”

Matzke: “The genomes of animals and plants, at least those with large genomes like humans, are mostly junk. And whatever you’ve heard from creationists, or even certain poorly-informed scientists, saying that ‘junk DNA’ isn’t junk is mostly wrong. The fundamental fact supporting the idea that most DNA is basically junk is the fact that genome size in complex multicellular plants and animals varies hugely (~100 times smaller to ~100 times larger than the human genome), and doesn’t correlate with organismal complexity. Some ferns and salamanders have genomes dozens of times bigger than the human genome. Some fish are 10 times smaller. They all have roughly the same number and type of genes, and roughly equivalent complexity.”

Claim: The beauty of the peacock’s tail worried Darwin because it serves no function as camouflage, and a huge amount of genetic information went into creating the tail’s intricate structure. Darwin created the theory of sexual selection to explain why the tail feathers are so beautiful, but experiments have shown that females cannot detect some of the features, and none have any real effect on selection.

Hutchinson: “This is misconstruing a large body of research on sexual selection. As in any field of science some ideas have changed over two centuries, but sexual selection is still heavily favored as a major evolutionary mechanism. In some cases the targets of selection are counterintuitive, and females may choose traits that are not obvious or are indirectly correlated with obvious traits. But that is not a fatal flaw for sexual selection. It has just modified it. That evolutionary biologists and not creationists have discovered this information is rather telling. Creationists have contributed nothing to this area.”

Charlesworth: “There is indeed a large body of research confirming that female animals do favour males with ornaments such as the peacock’s tail, just as Darwin postulated. Sexual selection is one of the best documented phenomena in evolutionary biology.”

Claim: Darwin made the mistake of believing that layers of sediment and lava occurred in long ages in the Andes, when in fact the lava was injected in much more recent volcanic activity. Liquid rock was injected as parallel silt in preexisting soft sediment, negating the need for deep time.

Hutchinson: “Intrusions of volcanic material can enter into many younger/older rocks and confuse dating, but that does not pose any significant problem for the theory of deep time. It is just a methodological challenge for determining precise ages. A vast body of astronomical, paleontological, geological, chemical/physical, and other evidence overwhelmingly shows that the universe is billions of years old and the Earth about 4.7 billion years old. There is no convincingly contrary scientific evidence.”

Claim: Darwin believed that some races were inferior to the white race, which predisposed him to believe that some humans did not come from the same source.

Hutchinson: “This was the predominant view of many people worldwide at the time and probably since the dawn of human culture. It is a classic historiographic error to judge people of the past by today’s standards and not the standards of their time. It is thus no surprise that Darwin had some views that some today might consider racist. But compared against the cultural norm of the time Darwin was actually progressive, e.g. in disfavoring slavery.”

Charlesworth: “Darwin in fact proposed that all humans originated in Africa from a common ancestor with chimps and gorillas. Modern research in paleontology and genetics has confirmed this view, with many fossil intermediates between apes and humans, and a high degree of DNA sequence similarity among modern humans that shows that they shared a common ancestor much more recently than their common ancestor with apes. Given the record of racism and slave-ownership among creationist Christians in the U.S. and elsewhere, it is unfair to point to some remarks of Darwin about inferior races. In his autobiography, Darwin mentions his friendship with a black taxidermist in Edinburgh, whom he describes as an intelligent and pleasant person, and of course he abhorred slavery.”

Claim: The argument for evolution is circular, and full of errors. Naturalism is a paradigm of philosophy and there is no quarrel between religion and science — the quarrel is between naturalism and science.

Hutchinson: “This trots out some old chestnuts of creationism that have been thoroughly demolished in the past by scientists and philosophers. Evolution is descent with modification. That is not circular. The claim is idle semantics at best. Science does not work except in a naturalistic paradigm, so the two are inseparable. What happens between religion and science/naturalism is up to the individual to decide.”

Charlesworth: “Biologists study evolution in exactly the same way as other scientists deal with historical phenomena. They examine the available facts concerning what contemporary processes could operate to explain them on the assumption that these would have operated in much the same way in the past as in the present (just as we all assume the sun will rise tomorrow), and see how well they explain the historical patterns. This works amazingly well. In the Origin of Species, Darwin provided a whole series of facts about biology that make perfect sense in the light of evolution — descent with modification. Subsequent research has thrown up a huge number of others. Any of these can of course be explained as an arbitrary whim of a Creator, so creationism can never be falsified, in contrast to evolutionary hypotheses. In addition, the mechanism of evolution by random mutation and natural selection (and some other processes unknown to Darwin) is a typical scientific theory, which has been receiving ever-increasing support over the 150 years since Darwin. Any good book on evolution lays this out. The creationists disparage evolutionary biology because it conflicts with their religious beliefs, and they are simply not prepared to face up to the evidence. While there are plenty of open questions, and the accepted interpretations of many specific phenomena have changed over the years, this is true of even the most solidly established sciences such as physics. Science would grind to a halt if we had complete explanations of everything. Appealing to non-natural processes to explain away difficulties simply means you are not doing science.”

Check out our creation-watch entry on this film that was shown in Leeds in late 2009 here.