British Centre for Science Education

BCSE Talk at Merseyside Skeptics

2012-01-28T07:39:00.000Z

Creationism in the UK – Closing the Ark Door After the T-Rex has bolted?

by Mark Edon

When: Thursday, February 16th, 2012 8.00 – 11.00 PM
Where: The Head of Steam, 7 Lime Street, Liverpool

Mark Edon, from the British Centre for Science Education will be talking about the current issues surrounding creationism in the UK; why Skeptics should care; how to argue against creationism and maybe even a bit of science.

More details here.

Creationism Country Style

2012-01-26T17:49:00.000Z

From here.

Debunking Corner - Age of the Earth

2012-01-19T16:00:00.000Z

A nice argument on the age of the Earth from Geoffrey Pearce via PZ Myers;

I am regularly approached by young Earth creationists (yes, even in the bedlam of sin that is Montreal...) both on the street and at home. If I have the time I try to engage them on the age of Earth, since Earth is something whose existence them and I agree upon. They will tell me that Earth is somewhere between 6,000 - 10,000 years old, and, when prompted, that the rest of the universe is the same age as well. I have taken the approach of responding to this assertion by pulling out a print of the far side of the Moon (from apod.nasa.gov).

I cannot tell you how handy this is! Once they've had a good look I usually point out that almost all of the craters were formed by asteroids smashing into the planet, and that the Moon has over 250 craters with a diameter of 100 km or more. After explaining that Earth is just as likely to be struck by large asteroids as the Moon (is more likely to be struck, in-fact, due to its greater gravitational well), I then ask them to consider what their time-scale entails: that Earth should be struck every couple of decades by an asteroid capable of completely ejecting an area about the size of New Hampshire (not to pick on New Hampshire). Since such an event has never been observed and there are no well-preserved impact structures anywhere close to this size range, I then suggest to them that the only sensible conclusion is that Earth is much older than they had thought.

This may seem a convoluted way of making a point about Earth's age, in particular since more precise and direct dating methods than crater counting are used for Earth, but I think that it may have an important advantage. In the past I have tried explaining to creationists how our understanding of Earth's age is obtained, but they seem to take the "what I can't see isn't real" attitude when they hear words such as "radioactivity", and "isotope". Conversely, many of them seemed to be somewhat shaken after seeing this image and hearing my explanation, with one even admitting that the Moon looks "very old". Furthermore, such images are a good starting point for discussing the degree to which chaos and uncertainty are inherent to the universe. Yay!

Symphony of Science - The Greatest Show on Earth

2012-01-18T18:23:00.001Z

A taste of creationist educational materials

2012-01-17T16:00:00.000Z

These are extracts from this rather excellent blog post analysing some creationist "educational materials". We don't know if these are used in the UK creationist schools run by the Christian Schools Trust as they won't tell us. We think they do probably give an idea of what kinds of things are being passed off as known facts in those schools.

Science 4 for Christian Schools, an evangelical-written and -approved science textbook published in 1990. According to the stamp on the inside cover, my copy was previously owned by The Country Church & Country Christian School in Molella, Oregon. So, thanks guys!

I read through the entire thing (it's quite short) and picked out these 11 pages and excerpts to share. Let's call this an adventure in anthropology. Here are 11 highlights from an evangelical-written science textbook, written and approved by the Bob Jones University young-Earth creationism team.

Science vs. faith

This is the first paragraph of the book and while, on the surface, it's about the Moon, it's actually setting up the thesis statement -- and perpetual paradox -- of the entire textbook.

. . .

How old is the Moon?

. . .
All theories are guesses, but not all guesses are theories.

There's semantic work at play here.

. . .
No guesswork required.

It sure must be easy to take a test when "God did it" is the right answer to every question.
Periscopes: Yankee war tools

. . .
End of days?

This stuck me as the strangest page in the textbook. This one REALLY strays away from the science thing and goes straight fire-and-brimstone.
. . .
Grand Canyon: Proof of a young Earth or not?

The syllogistic logic here for why the Grand Canyon is evidence of a young Earth is dizzying.

. . .
Glaciers and their water

This textbook was published in 1990. This glacier paragraph really makes you wonder how this would be updated today to address global warming.

. . .
I asked a friend from Maine, and apparently they really do eat fiddleheads.

I pulled this off page 63 of the book because it was emblematic of a pattern. After the first chapter on the Moon... which went hardcore creationism... the book actually settled down and became a regular science textbook. It almost seems like they had to throw in an innocuous mention of God or a Biblical quote here or there just to remind everyone that this isn't your average pagan science textbook.

This one was a great example. Totally gratuitous mention of God creating different ferns. Really, God can be inserted into any sentence in the book -- this one just got the call. But you can put it anywhere. "God created a group of tubed plants that do not produce seeds, the ferns." "Most ferns were created by God with large, split leaves called fronds." I guess that kind of makes God the Poochie of this textbook.
Magnets -- how do they work?

I saved this page for the penultimate point because it's my favorite in the book. Let's ignore the weird, weird photo of the girl for a second and focus on the text. "Electricity is a mystery. No one has ever observed it or heard it or felt it ... We cannot even say where electricity comes from."

The reason this page bugged me is because it doesn't come back to "God created it." I would actually accept that. This one is just misinformation for misinformation's sake.

We know exactly where electricity come from. Scientists don't disagree. And no one's saying electricity comes from the planet/universe being millions of years old or from dinosaurs or from the spirit generated by the Earth's religious diversity. This page is just the evangelical textbook equivalent of trolling.

Although, in their defense, perhaps if they make our heads explode that will generate electricity.
The disclaimer, and what it ultimately means.

I saved this for last. I noticed this one sentence that brings everything into perspective.
"Any references and ancillary materials are listed as an aid to the student or the teacher and in an attempt to maintain the accepted academic standards of the publishing industry."
What that means: We jammed our science textbook full of science because we had to in order to publish this. If it were up to us, "God did it" actually would have been at the end of every sentence.

. . .

If you believe that the word of the Bible is, indeed, the word of God and the absolute truth, I have no problem at all with that. If you want to teach your children that everything was created by God, I also have no problem with that at all either. But I find it unacceptable, irresponsible and actually sick to trick your children into your beliefs. It's not only disrespectful to them, it's disrespectful to your beliefs. It's a tacit concession that you don't think your beliefs can hold up in the face of a counter-argument... or that you don't think you can properly impart your beliefs to your children in an above-board way. When I read this non-textbook textbook, I see classic, not-so-thinly-veiled propaganda tricks. And that just spreads miseducation, confusion and, ultimately, acceptable ignorance. Which doesn't benefit anyone -- including your children, you or what you believe in.

View From the Pulpit: Intelligent Design Is Dead: A Christian Perspective

2012-01-16T16:00:00.001Z

A few extracts - see the full piece here:

In the nineties and early 2000s, ID seemed to be producing one novel argument after another... it was [then] possible to wonder seriously if ID was a serious intellectual movement, or just another fad that would die out on its own. That verdict is now in. ID is dead.

. . .

But there are other perspectives from which the folly of ID is evident. One of them takes us back to a Christian astronomer who worked at the dawn of the scientific revolution.

. . .

He began to consider special creation: a deliberate, separate act of God unconnected with any other natural event, direct and special tinkering by the divine hand. But in the end he withdrew from that conclusion, writing "before we come to [special] creation, which puts an end to all discussion, I think we should try everything else." Over 400 years ago, Kepler understood that to claim special creation is to put an end to scientific inquiry.

. . .

Kepler's fundamental axiom may be stated:

The universe has been designed; therefore it must be comprehensible.

Jump forward now to 1996, arguably the heyday of ID. That is the year Michael Behe came face-to-face with his own difficult scientific problem: the evolution of the bacterial flagellum, a tail-like rotor that aids in cellular locomotion. The complexity of the flagellum led Behe to conclude that it could not have evolved through any of the standard mechanisms of evolution.

Whether or not this is true is not important for my purpose. What is important is that, unlike Kepler, Behe went on to claim special creation. He had the flagellum in mind when he wrote in Darwin's Black Box, "It is a shock to us... to discover, from observations science has made, that the fundamental mechanisms of life cannot be ascribed to natural selection, and therefore were designed." Behe has led us to the fundamental axiom of ID, a sharp contrast to that of Kepler:

The universe is incomprehensible; therefore it must have been designed.

Although ID supporters do not name God as the designer in their official work, they are no less cagey about their Christian commitments than Kepler was about his. Yet they have opted for the path Kepler rejected, and, in so doing, "put an end to all discussion." That Kepler refused that road out of reverence for God is a tremendous irony.

Kepler reminds us that religious people do not need to shrink from science and its naturalistic methods, because they more than others have a rich tradition in which to locate these things, a context that allows them to take science seriously but not too seriously, and a strong bulwark against the lull of materialism.

For a person of faith, ID is not just an unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one. It reduces God to a kind of holy tinkerer. It locates the divine in places of ignorance and obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is out of place in Christian faith and theology.

Looking upon the new star in September 1604, could Kepler have envisioned stellar evolution, mass-transfer binary stars, and explosive carbon fusion? No, and so he remained silent. His humility, his belief in the richness of creation, and his expansive faith allowed him to admit ignorance while leaving the door of causal science wide open.

ID denies its proponents that freedom. Having opted to close the door on science, they steal from themselves the opportunity to see nature more deeply. In so doing they dig in their heels, refusing to be drawn, Kepler-style, closer to the creator God they all believe in. This is the great irony of ID.

Because ID is established in scientific ignorance, it cannot last. It is passing even now. And its religiously-motivated rejection by Kepler 400 years ago suggests that the seeds of its demise were planted even then. In this long view, it may be that ID never even managed to arrive.

Creationists in their own words . . .

2012-01-15T10:00:00.000Z

Dr GS Hurd occasionally enlightens our forum and recently provided a little treasure trove of words out the mouths of creationists.

Phil Johnson

"I also don't think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that's comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it's doable, but that's for them to prove...No product is ready for competition in the educational world." Berkley Science Review (Spring 2006).

Michael Behe

“Our intelligence depends critically on physical structures in the brain which are irreducibly complex. Extrapolating from this sample of one, it may be that all possible natural designers require irreducibly complex structures which themselves were designed. If so, then at some point a supernatural designer must get into the picture. I myself find this line of reasoning persuasive. In my estimation, although possible in a broadly permissive sense, it is not plausible that the original intelligent agent is a natural entity. … Thus, in my judgment it is implausible that the designer is a natural entity." “Reply to My Critics” Biology and Philosophy 16: 685–709, 2001.

William Dembski

In a 1999 article for the Christian magazine Touchstone “Signs of Intelligence,” Dembski confirmed the foundation of ID in John 1 when he assured readers that "Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." (“Signs of Intelligence,” 1999, Touchstone magazine).

Dembski gave a talk at the Baptist Fellowship Church in Waco, TX (March 7, 2004), that was taped recorded. Relevant to the current topic, Dembski, in response to an audience member's question said, “When you are attributing the wonders of nature to these mindless material mechanisms, God’s glory is getting robbed.” He further added, “And so there is a cultural war here. Ultimately I want to see God get the credit for what he’s done — and he’s not getting it.”

"My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ." William Dembski, 'Intelligent Design', p 206, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Religion (1999 Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Thanks Gary.

Sylvia Baker's Thesis, The Christian Schools Trust and the Sheffield Christian Free School Bid. An Expose of their creationist agenda.

2012-01-14T18:21:00.001Z

At first glance the proposed Sheffield Christian Free School (SCFS) looks to be everything Gove could have dreamed of when developing his free school policy. The independent Bethany Christian School behind the bid offers 25 years of promoting Christian and family values, and if accepted would offer the state sector a small, local, community minded school.

But the Bethany Christian School isn't quite as independent as you'd think. It operates as part of a network of independent Christian schools under the banner of the Christian Schools Trust (CST). And it just so happens that the CST board is rotten to its core with creationists, including one who has proved to be very keen indeed in the past on getting her unsubstantiated, unscientific, religious creationist ideology into UK schools - Sylvia Baker.

Sylvia Baker is one of the UKs leading creationists, specialising, it seems, in persecution complexes which appear to stem from her fellow students at university not taking her creationist drivel seriously. She is the author of the creationist classic 'Bone of Contention' which, to politely paraphrase a BCSE member, is full of factual inaccuracies that she has refused to correct.

Now Sylvia Baker has never hidden her creationist megalomania under a bushel but serious 'creationist doublespeak' translation skills are required to wheedle out CSTs creationist agenda. Luckily CST just so happens to form the basis of Sylvia's PhD thesis:

An Investigation of the New Independent Christian Schools: What Kind of Citizens Are They Producing? Sylvia Baker 2009 Warwick University.

And the answer to Sylvia's question? Creationist, homophobic ones!

Sylvia focuses exclusively on the CST and the sorts of education it provides in her thesis. In doing so, and in allowing her thesis to be published on line she provides ample evidence that hard line creationism is, and always has been, endemic at CST.

Though this post will be all about Sylvia Baker's thesis-it only really focuses on the creationist concerns it raises should groups like Bethany School succeed in their grab for cash (and even then does not do so as completely as I'd like). But believe me that is just a fraction of the doubts about the suitability of CST to run state schools raised by Sylvia's thesis. There is also the homophobic attitudes inherent there for example, or their particular socially backward take on Christian fundamentalism or maybe their dislike of so called secular courts having a say in how Christians should be allowed to behave.

It is hard to match the body of the thesis with its impressive title as it only looks at years 9 and 11, and hence not at the long term effects on adult citizens produced following an education in CST schools. Though to be fair Sylvia does recognise that limitation and expresses a hope that it will stand as a baseline for further studies. Currently is seems to be mainly an advert for parents keen to invest money in insuring their children continue to believe in God at 16. And in that respect it would appear that their money has been well spent. Though that depends on your definition of faith I suppose.

There is a limited attempt to make some kind of comparison between the attitudes of 625 13 and 16 year olds attending CST schools in 2006 (including the Bethany Christian School in Sheffield) with data collected in the 1990s as part of a large scale survey of religion and attitudes in teenagers. However as a comparison it doesn't really work - partly because the comparative data is rather old and pre-dates huge changes in education and attitudes, partly because Sylvia adds new questions and removes others. On her final 240 question survey only 78 match those on the original (p125). Of the creationist data, no comparisons are possible and so only the beliefs of the CST sample are examined.

Sylvia's survey ends up examining four distinct areas, two of which, the religious beliefs of the teenagers and their personal concerns, are largely uncontroversial and two of which, their attitudes to the creation/evolution debate (and yes I know there is no debate) and their moral values, raise many concerns for anyone opposing fundamentalism (p113-125). The survey uses a Likert scale (strongly agree through to strongly disagree) and the statistical analysis is done by SSPS package using crosstabs and frequencies (p125). I'm unfamiliar with the package and Sylvia does not make clear which statistical test is used, often they are just simple comparisons of percentages. However looking at her tables I would guess Chi Squared was used whenever she attempted to test for significance.

She starts by looking at controversies surrounding faith schools in general and a group of new independent Christian schools that seem to have arisen 40 years ago around these issues. However she does not widen her research to include the more moderate state faith schools, many of whom would not touch her creationism and fundamentalist views with 100 barge poles strung together, and she does admit that the schools she examines are at the "extreme end of the spectrum" (p 14). She is honest about her involvement both as the founder of one of those schools and as a core member of the CST team which has a very large hand in their running, including their inspection (p18).

From the start Sylvia's creationism and that of CST is apparent. In the very first chapter she refers to there being Christian Worldviews and Christian Curricula - peculiarly creationist terms. And interestingly when summarising the debates arising around faith schools following 9/11 she specifically states:

"Within the charge of indoctrination lies a particular concern about the teaching of creationism" (p 23)

Whilst much later on in chapter 7 she says:

"The teaching of creationism as an alternative to the theory of evolution constitutes one of the most controversial issues involving the new Christian schools" (p160).

In fact at various point throughout the first and seventh chapters she refers to the concerns of others regarding the teaching of creationism, but at no point does she attempt to allay those fears by making it clear that it should never be taught as a scientifically valid notion anywhere. In fact she goes out of her way to make it abundantly clear that she and her colleagues at CST believe it an essential part of their role and she is proud of the fact that CST schools are blatantly creationist. For example she forwards a highly subjective and unsubstantiated claim about those taught creationism:

"...What appears to be missing is any kind of verifiable objective data which would help answer the question of what the effect would be if the teaching of creationism alongside evolution became widespread in British schools. Also missing is any evaluation of pupils who have been taught that way; are they 'indoctrinated' as their critics claim, or are they rather the ones, as their teachers claim who are not indoctrinated because it is they who have been taught to evaluate the evidence." (p 26)

Now it is difficult to know how to respond to this particular piece of creationist propaganda for so many reasons. However the first and most obvious response is to point out to Sylvia that what also seems to be missing is any verifiable objective data on the effect of teaching astrology alongside the solar system or alchemy alongside displacement reactions. Nor do we have verifiable objective data on the teaching of holocaust denial alongside the teaching of WWII in history. What Sylvia has failed to understand is that creationism is not science! In the 50 or so odd years it has been around it has consistently failed to substantiate a single claim it has made or to produce a single peer reviewed piece of evidence! Nowhere in her thesis does Sylvia acknowledge this inconvenient and glaringly obvious truth and nowhere does she provide any justification at all for actually teaching it alongside evolution. Without evidence, creationism is no more valid than astrology, far less if you stop to consider the sheer weight of evidence against it.

Secondly, one only has to attempt to debate with a creationist for 5 seconds to witness its crippling effects on their ability to evaluate evidence. So those taught creationism, when evaluated, are found to be completely unable to deal with, respond to or understand the pertinent issues. They are impervious to logic and intellectually unreachable. It is worth remembering that many of the children attending CST schools will have been there from a very young age as well - and hence subject to a long period of brainwashing.

In addition, any truly competent individual critically evaluating the evidence thoroughly - and that is usually trained scientists who have spent years studying the relevant area - will reject creationism out of hand. Anyone genuinely taught to critically evaluate the evidence seems to find mountains of the stuff supporting evolution as the only current explanation for the data and observations. In addition critical evaluators of the evidence seem to notice a distinct lack of any evidence at all for a 6000 year old Earth or adolescent dinosaurs on Noah's ark.

And it is worth remembering that it is only really issues that do not support the book of Genesis that are subjected to creationists 'critical' analysis of science. And to only single out evolution for speical disparagement is to deliberately confuse children about its status.

As Sylvia gets into her stride she provides a hell of a lot more evidence that pushing a creationist agenda is a clear aim of CST and has been since its inception. For example when looking at the reasons for setting up the new Christian schools she states:

"A specific factor leading to the desire on the part of church leaders and Christian parents for an education founded on biblical Christianity was the emergence in the 1960s of a renewed interest in the creation/evolution debate" (p 63-64)

Also on numerous occasions she repeats the claim that a Christian Curriculum is necessary and that part of that includes creationism. She details the importance of the publication of a book called The Genesis Flood (p 64) which is the creationist classic that led to the scourge that is modern creationism. And she states that:

"Christian parents became aware that their children were being taught a different view of origins at school" (p 64)

Whilst Sylvia does state that creationism did not directly lead to the formation of the new Christian schools, she does cite it as a significant factor that they would promote and follows up with discussion on how specific Christian curricula could be developed. Much of what she quotes and writes about curriculum development I personally have heard from other creationists in various places. Mainly the concept that Sylvia raises of a 'null curriculum' i.e. one in which God is not mentioned, and a belief that even state faith schools are secular in their delivery of many academic topics.

Now it is difficult ot understand how any school, however devout, can deliver such a God focused curriculum. How for example is God incorporated into foreign languages or history? I guess therefore that a lot of the 'null curriculum' refers to normal science as taught in normal faith and non faith schools around the world. But for CST it would appear that creationism must be the central pillar of any science teaching and Sylvia details the development of various CST science curricula (pp 64-75) based around the creation/fall/redemption model:

"The new Christian schools approach the teaching of this controversy (creation/evolution) within the curriculum in a variety of ways. However they all start from the purpose that the Universe and everything in it was created by God and designed for a purpose" (p 74)

This however ignores yet another fact. There is no scientific controversy. No scientist seriously considers the book of Genesis to be a literal historical account and no genuine scientist seriously doubts the current theories of evolution. One has to ask why Gove should have to consider bids in the 21st century from schools that fabricate scientific controversies to support their personal absolute belief in a pre-scientific religious text? One has to seriously ask why taxpayer's money should be thrown away considering bids from a trust that has developed a creationist science curriculum that no real scientist would give houseroom.

Sylvia also admits that surveys have shown tha CST are overtly creationist:

"In a survey conducted in the early 1990s Geoffrey Walford discovered that all but one of the 53 schools (in the CST) treated biblical creationism as fact. Two thirds of the schools taught evolution as well as creationism but all of them treated it as a theory. In nearly every case it was taken for granted that he Bible account of a six day creation was literally true and evolutionary theory false" (p 75)

A more updated survey in May 2006 revealed:

"Similar questions were put ot head teachers of Christian schools attending a CST conference. The results showed that the 12 schools represented all taught the theory of evolution alongside creationism. Eleven taught that the theory of origins conveyed by evolution was false. The schools took a more diverse approach to the matter of the age of the Earth. Eight taught unequivocally that the Earth was only thousands of years old. Of the remaining four, three taught it was ancient and one did not take a positition" (p 75)

Shockingly eleven of the schools were secondary entering students for GCSEs.

However none of this would really matter if, as Sylvia claims, those taught creationism as fact alongside evolution were magically more adept at critically evaluating the evidence. If Sylvia's research showed that to be the case, than I would expect CST students to show a wholesale rejection of the nonsense that is creationism and widespread acceptance that, by any definition of science, evolution offered the only current scientific and realistic explanation.

But it appears that what Sylvia really means by critical evaluation of evidence is actually an uncritical acceptance of Sylvia's particular biblical beliefs and a rejection of any evidence to support evolutionary theory beyond the narrow definition allowed by creationism. Because time and again Sylvia and CST make it clear that this is an essential component of their faith, and that permeates every lesson including science, as stated in some of its documents, for example:

"The Christian Schools Trust affirms a high view of God as the creator and sustainer of the Universe and of all living things. It categorically rejects the notion that living things have come into being by a random and purposeless process in which God has played no part. It rejects the creatures and affirms the belief, held by many scientists both past and present, that nature provides abundant evidenc of the hand of a designer" (p 354)

And

"Acccording to the evangelical viewpoint held by those who are running the schools the manner of the creation of the first man and woman is of essential importance to the gospel of Jesus Christ" (p 168).

And Sylvia makes it clear that by creationism she means the pseudoscientific nonsense, including Intelligent Design, that she has played such a prominent role in promoting:

"....creationism can be used in different ways. For example it is often used pejoratively to mean an anti-science position founded on ignorance and imported in recent years for the United States......forms of creationism have a long history in the UK. The Creation Science Movement (formerly the Evolution Protest Movement) was founded in Britain in 1932......while the Biblical Creation Society, again a British organisation was founded by academic theologians and scientists in 1976 (www.biblicalcreation.org.uk)......... Problems also exist concerning the position of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. It is frequently referred to as a version of creationism, although it consistently denies this" (pp 152-153)

Nowhere however does Sylvia point out that none of these so called creation 'science' and ID organisations have produced a single piece of peer reviewed evidence to support creationism or ID. Nor does she point out that the courts in the US have clearly decreed that ID is not science but creationism in a different form and hence has no place in any science classroom.

In appendix three the ways in which creationist pseudoscience is expected to be presented in CST schools is detailed. (pp 354-356) and under the heading:

"Statement concerning: The place of the teaching of the Creation/Evolution debate and Intelligent Design in schools affiliated to the Christian Schools Trust" (p 354)

It lays out that at primary level only creationism will be taught in a framework throughout all lessons not just science, and it specifically states:

"it would not be confined to RE lessons, giving the impression that it would not matter if the opposite were taught in other subjects (p 355)

Though it does allow for some mention of an evolutionary "debatable" option with older children expressing interests in dinosaurs or fossils. This is interesting given some of the recent claims made by those at Bethany School in relation to their free school bid.

At secondary level it is apparently presented as a debate with evolution - ignoring the fact that surveys of CST schools had already shown it to be a debate loaded in favour of the CST pre concluded creationist viewpoint. And ignoring the fact that in the CST, all of their secondary provision is a continuation from their own primary and nursery departments. Hence ensuring that creationist indoctrination begins from an incredibly young age (50% of their schools, the remaining 50% are primary only) (p 354). It would take a strong willed child to stand up against that, assuming they had any chance at all to come across the relevant science in sufficient detail anyway - which seems very unlikely.

Annoyingly, yet again, Sylvia and CST ignore the inconvenient fact that debate suggests two valid ideas. Creationism has no evidence, scientific credibility or logical validity therefore there is nothing to debate! They may as well debate whether the moon is made of rock or cheese with Wallace and Grommet as evolution versus creationism with Sylvia, though Wallace at least has the excuse of a play dough brain.

At the end of the day the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it is definitely the results of Sylvia's survey that make the most frustrating and heartbreaking reading. The only truly professional thing she manages is to produce some excellent unambiguous questions to test what the children of the CST schools believe. And her results clearly show she has achived her aim of churning out science rejecting creationists. The most telling and depressing from her numerous sets of results on this of these are from table 7.2:

"Teenage pupils from the new Christian Schools their beliefs about science and the Bible:

God created the world as described by the Bible. 78% agree 6% disagree
God created the Universe including living creatures out of nothing 74% agree 6% disagree
God formed man out of the dust of the Earth 71% agree 7% disagree
God made woman out of mans rib 72% agree 8% disagree
There was once a world wide flood as described in the Bible 81% agree 4% disagree
The world was once perfect but has been destroyed by sin 81% agree 5% disagree
I accept the idea that living things were made by a process of evolution 10% agree 67% disagree
Science disproves the Biblical account of creation 19% agree, 34% don't know, 47% disagree
You can't be a good scientist and believe in the Bible 8% agree, 68% disagree" (p 167)

And of course there is Sylvia's conclusions, which again make heartbreaking reading:

"To summarise the great majority of young people in the new Christian schools accept a face value reading of the early chapters of the Bible. They reject the theory of evolution and accept the existence of a supernatural designer. They hold a traditional Christian view of Noah's flood and of the 'fallen' nature of the created order" (p 170)

In short, by the end of their education within CST schools - they have become hard line creationists.

Now this blog has barely scratched the surface of the creationist nature of CST. It is an organisation that has hidden itself from inspection by setting up it's own inspection agency (The Bridge Schools Inspectorate) in response to changes in the law requiring even independent schoools to be inspected.

And chapter 4 where Sylvia details the impact of polictical changes on the schools makes for interesting reading. For example she expresses annoyance with the national curriculum and CST seem to have spent a lot of time in court fighting various changes in legislation, such as the ban on corporal punishment in schools where Sylvia laments

"effectively a secular court had decided how religious faith should be practised" (p 91)

Or their many hours in court fighting employment legislation, particularly the equality of sexual orientation bills (pp 97-99) lest they have to employ gay people or allow in the children of gay couples.

Sylvia concludes that she produces children who at 16 believe in God which is what their parents wanted and paid for. I would argue that in using creationism to achieve that aim, CST has neither encouraged, taught or even frightened them into belief, but has in fact conned them. Are their parents really content with faith based on lying about science rather than on its own merits?

Sylvia boasts that CST produces moral upstanding youngsters. That is debatable. In many respects that many parents would be concerned about such as wanting to work, she finds no significant differences between CST children and others. On other measures those differences are based on data gathered years ago. State schools have changed in that time and children today are far more likely to be involved in things like charity work than in the past. Also without any control for things like background, income or parental involvement those results are difficult to interpret.

She boasts that the children from her schools do well in science. That is difficult to confirm without access to very detailed data, but if children who firmly reject evolution and accept creationism are able to gain marks on exams that require the opposite, I would seriously question their honesty.

My conclusion is that CST is creationist to its core. It would not be able to put aside for one moment its creationist beliefs to teach evolution and science as it is taught in other schools i.e. a theory that rests on mountains of evidence about which there is NO debate. I think it is incapable of understanding where it is wrong and why. Creationism is rooted in its faith, unlike many Christians for whom evolution is fine and the book of Genesis metaphor. Or indeed unlike milder creationist Christians for whom Genesis is incidental to their faith but not essential. Based on this analysis I do not think they should ever be allowed to run state schools with taxpayers money. Bethany school is a CST school. Bethany school took part in Sylvia's survey. If Gove is serious about creationism not being taught than every bid from a CST school should be rejected and that includes Bethany's bid for a Sheffield Christian Free School.

"Everday Champions creationists" evolve into "Exemplar" but are they still creationist?

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000Z

Remember the openly creationist stance of the ECC free school hopefuls in Newark? Here is a reminder from the tes:

Pastor Gareth Morgan, the church leader and the driving force behind the free school bid, confirmed that creationism would be taught across the curriculum, should the school be given the green light.

“Creationism will be taught as the belief of the leadership of the school," Pastor Morgan said. "It will not be taught exclusively in the sciences, for example. At the same time, evolution will be taught as a theory."

The church website carries a video that states: "If creation is true, there is a purpose to life. If evolution is true, there is no purpose to life." It adds that "if creation is true, then man is a fallen creature and we need a saviour. If evolution is true then man is an evolving creature and we don't need any saviour".

In comments at the TeS link, John Harris (who lectures on evolution at the church) writes:

EVOLUTION IS A RELIGION

This whole website is a waste of time. Uneducated, dogmatic, close minded, humanistic, evolutionists trying to impose their false religion on mankind! What’s worse, is that they deceitfully call it SCIENCE. It is nothing but a religious worldview that has NOTHING to offer to science or humanity other than lies. They use the principle of variation-within-a-kind ie small variations (micro-evolution) which is a fact; to promote the idea that one kind of animal can change to a completely different kind of animal (macro-evolution) which is a LIE. This has NEVER been observed, cannot be demonstrated or tested. Check out the definition of empirical science. You won’t find evolution in there!

and much more on the same lines.

A link on the ECC website, now taken down, gave the reason why their proposal, which went to the site interview stage, was rejected:

The Secretary of State carefully considered your application, the views and beliefs of your organisation as set out in your application, your responses at interview and information about your organisation available in the public domain. He was unable to accept that an organisation with creationist beliefs could prevent these views being reflected in the teaching in the school and in its other activities. It is his firm view that the teaching of creationist views as a potentially valid alternative theory is not acceptable in a 21st century state funded school.

In fact Mr Gove has now changed the terms and conditions for funding of free schools and has added the following clause:

The Academy Trust shall not make provision in the context of any subject for the teaching, as an evidence-based view or theory, of any view or theory that is contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.

DfE further stated:

No school, free or otherwise, will ever be allowed to teach creationism instead of valid and thoroughly evidenced scientific theories.

The Education Secretary has been crystal clear that teaching creationism as scientific fact is wrong. He will not accept any academy or free school proposal which plans to teach creationism in the science curriculum.

All free school proposals are subject to due diligence checks by the new specialist unit within the Department for Education to ensure that people that are setting up the school are suitable.

Valid and thoroughly evidenced scientific theories, such as evolution, will always be the foundation of science teaching in all schools in England.

So surely ECC should just give up shouldn't they? After all they are perfectly entitled to disagree with the policy and to speak out against it but their cause is lost for the time being.

Actually no. First of all they are now in denial about what their own people said their intentions were in the first place. Secondly they are changing the name of the application. Thirdly they are now claiming they will be really, really good.

The exemplar free school application here thoughtfully explains in its FAQ that it’s really the same proposal in disguise:

What is different about your proposal this time?

We believe that the previous proposal, was fundamentally sound on academic, cultural and financial grounds,  and we therefore do not see the need for any major changes to the proposal.

We also know that the only reason the proposal was unsuccessful was that the DfE felt that there was not enough evidence that our teaching would not be influenced by the theological beliefs of the sponsor organisation, Everyday Champions Church (ECC).

As a result  the main changes to the proposal that we are making are:

1.    ECC is no longer our sponsor organisation. This means that we can better demonstrate what was always the intention; that the Christian ethos on which we will build the school is separate and distinct from Christian theology, which is the basis for a church

The school will no longer have a designated faith status but will simply be a school that demonstrates a Christian ethos. This gives us far more flexibility with our admissions policy, without compromising the Christian values on which we will build that ethos

They are running presentations on the 14 th and 18 th of Jan. Perhaps a member or supporter can attend and provide a report for our creation-watch pages?

Evolution of Protein Complexes

2012-01-12T14:42:00.001Z

One of the recurring modes adopted by Intelligent Design creationists is to adopt the strategy whereby an example of a complex biological system is looked at and it is decided that evolution cannot explain its origin. We see this enshrined in bogus concepts such as ‘irreducible complexity’, ‘specified functional information’ and the like. By claiming a process of inference, ID creationists seek to declare that an intelligent designer must have been involved in the appearance of such complex systems.

Of course, the problem with this strategy is that one by one, these examples are likely to fall to genuine scientific advance (examples include Behe’s favourites such as the bacterial flagellum and the vertebrate immune system). A neat example of an approach to better understanding the evolution of protein complexes has just appeared as an Advance Online Publication at Nature (Finnigan et al (2012) Nature “Evolution of increased complexity in a molecular machine”doi:10.1038/nature10724). There’s also an accompanying News and Views article (Doolittle (2012) Nature “Evolutionary biology: A ratchet for protein complexity” doi:10.1038/nature10816).

Where are the Transitional Fossils?

2012-01-08T07:54:00.002Z

BCSE Newsletter

2012-01-03T18:40:00.000Z

The latest BCSE newsletter has just gone out and is shown below. Previous newsletters can be seen here. If you want to be on the distribution list drop me a note at mark @ bcseweb dot org dot uk.

Dear friends of the BCSE,

Another busy few months since our last newsletter.

We will give you a brief taster of events here but please click through the links to read more.

Evolution Not Creationism

We were very pleased to welcome the big hitters to the ring with the launch of this campaign by David Attenborough in September. We would like to encourage everyone to sign their petition.

The CrISIS campaign petition has now hit the target of 5,000 signatures and will be moving on to the next stage soon - we will keep you all posted.

Creationist Free School activity in your area? If so, we need to hear from you.

The Education Secretary told one of our committee that in his view, the public interest required him to refuse a Freedom of Information Act request for information about unsuccessful Free School applications, for fear of discouraging further applicants, and we expect that requests for information about pending applications would also be refused.

We must therefore rely on locally gathered information about Free School applications from creationist organisations. If any such applications come to your attention, please let us know (as well as expressing your opinion locally, and writing to your MP). We know that at least one such application is currently under consideration (see next paragraph).

Christian Schools Trust

These folks are openly biblical creationists and are pushing a Free School application, for the Bethany school group in Sheffield, which seeks Free School status in 2013. If granted, this would mean that the entire cost of running and maintaining the school, which is now private, would have to be met from the existing local authority education budget, although the authority would have no control over its actions.

This from their FAQs:

"Will the SCFS curriculum include creationism?

Yes. Christianity has a clear and distinctive creation story which is relevant to all areas of the curriculum. We know that ’some people think differently‘ so we will be sure to give full weight to other views of the origins and purposes of life. Our science curriculum will be broad and well-balanced, looking at the assumptions, evidence and interpretations behind scientific theories. Michael Gove’s view that ‘teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact’ will be taken into account."

In a recent Radio Sheffield call-in programme, they repeatedly proclaimed their own brand of biblical literalism as the only real form of Christianity, thus denigrating the views held by the vast majority of Christian believers in this country now, and indeed for the past two centuries. One of CST’s own leaders, Sylvia Baker, conducted a survey of CST and similar schools, and found that only 7% of their students end up accepting the reality of evolution as a process over many millions of years, a statistic that the Bethany representative presented with some pride on the radio programme. He might also have added that 80% of their students believe not only Noah's worldwide flood, but Adam's chest operation in the Garden of Eden, to be matters of historical fact (details here).

We will shortly be posting a fuller analysis of the Sylvia Baker thesis and survey on our website. In any case, it is important that we hear from you about CST and other creationist activity in your neighbourhood, especially as regards attempts to enter or infiltrate the publicly funded school system. As Dr. Baker's thesis makes clear, the CST position is driven by its own peculiar theology,, which pervades all its educational activities. In the circumstances, quite apart from the insult to science, it is difficult to see how a CST school could fulfil the obligation, incumbent on all faith-related schools within the public system, to show respect and consideration towards pupils who do not share their faith.

In view of the Education Secretary's reticence, it is particularly important for members and supporters to notify us of any such activity that they come across.

We also urge members to let us know about, and attend, public meetings regarding such applications in their area.

Members should challenge the applicants with the statement made by the Department for Education in response to the application for Free School status from Everyday Champions Church:

The Secretary of State carefully considered your application, the views and beliefs of your organisation as set out in your application, your responses at interview and information about your organisation available in the public domain. He was unable to accept that an organisation with creationist beliefs could prevent these views being reflected in the teaching in the school and in its other activities. It is his firm view that the teaching of creationist views as a potentially valid alternative theory is not acceptable in a 21st century state funded school.

This is available on the ECC website here.

There are no grounds for complacency; CST has friends in high places (although not, we think, the very highest) and may know something we don't so please help where you can.

C4ID and friends in High Places

Talking of "friends in high places", the Centre for Intelligent Design, the Glasgow Glove-puppet of the US Creationist organisation the Discovery Institute, recently put on an expensive inaugural dinner and have been bragging about it ever since.

"The audience of some 90 invited guests included leading scientists, philosophers, Parliamentarians, educationalists, theologians, lawyers, and representatives of the media and business sectors. Given the controversial nature of the subject and the desire not to inhibit discussion, C4ID requested that the identity of the participants remain protected. The attendance of so many significant figures signals real interest in the topic, but, as Lord Mackay stressed in his introduction, their presence was not taken as an indication of support for the position of Intelligent Design (ID)."

The "scientific" claims made by Meyer are getting on for two decades old now and have made no impact within scientific circles as they are mostly "not science" sprinkled lightly with error. To an audience not trained in the relevant scientific disciplines the combination of polished rhetoric and science jargon is superficially appealing.

But writing books and holding lectures doesn't make Intelligent Design into science.

If any members or supporters attended or have reports of the event please let us know.

In typical creationist style the Discovery Institute in the form of a Scottish student lashed out at criticisms of the event on the UK based Christians in Science forums. This particular article also displays with great clarity the central fallacies of the Intelligent Design position.

World Around Us - TES and DfE claims

We have previously told you about this creationist website masquerading as a science resource for schools. There is a lot more research on this group to be seen on our wiki here.

First of all the TESS have published a response by one of our committee members and you can see this here.

Secondly the web page now seems to be claiming or strongly implying DfE support for their materials, on the basis of a letter from DfE welcoming the production of all new educational materials, but specifically refusing to comment on the content and quality of such offerings; yet another example of the level of truthfulness and candour that we have learnt to expect from creationist groups. We covered this here; I wrote to the DfE via their web page as detailed in that blog posting and received a response stating the following:

"The Government’s policy on creationism and intelligent design is clear. The Government is committed to high quality science education reflecting the consensus within the scientific community about the validity of current explanations of the origins of the universe and the diversity of life on Earth.

The Secretary of State of has made it very clear that teaching creationist views as a potentially valid alternative scientific theory should have no place in a 21st-century state-funded school.

The Department receives many requests for endorsements of education materials, as was the case with the World Around Us website. It appears this request received a standard response, which makes it clear that we do not endorse or promote third party resources but did not consider the specific contents of the website in question.

The Department does not approve or endorse this or any other website which suggests that creationism and intelligent design have a valid scientific basis or that these ideas present a valid scientific challenge to mainstream theories.

The Department is now considering what further action to take in the light of the representation of the correspondence which appears on the website in question. Once again, thank you for drawing this to our attention."

We wait with interest to see what happens.

Everyday Champions Church - A firm "No" from Michael Gove

As mentioned in the CST story above, the ECC Academy application was rejected as Michael Grove was "unable to accept that an organisation with creationist beliefs could prevent these views being reflected in the teaching in the school and in its other activities." Furthermore "It is his firm view that the teaching of creationist views as a potentially valid alternative theory is not acceptable in a 21st century state funded school."

Despite the overwhelming evidence we gathered regarding their creationist beliefs, mainly consisting of their own public statements on the matter, they are now disappointed:

"We feel very sad that the application has seemingly been rejected solely due to the Schools perceived association to creationist beliefs."

They were due to meet with the DfE again a few weeks ago and we await developments with interest.

Here is to a great 2012 for science education.

Mark Edon

BCSE Secretary

- - -

BCSE

If you want to know more about the BCSE please check out our wiki, blog and discussion forum.

If you want to join us then please click here.

Talks

We have conducted several talks to various groups including Skeptics in the Pub, Student Societies and Humanist Groups. We are keen to raise awareness of the issues around creationism and the education system. Remember that we are religiously neutral and would particularly value discussions with religious groups concerned with the activities of creationists.

If you want us to talk to your group then please get in touch mark at bcseweb.org.uk

Social Media

BCSE is now on Facebook and Twitter.

Creation Watch

Our "Creation-Watch" campaign continues with many more opportunities in 2012.

- - -

If you have questions or concerns about a situation at your school please contact us in confidence at creationwatch at bcseweb dot org dot uk

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If you know of anyone else who would benefit from these email updates please ask them to email us at subscribe at bcseweb dot org dot uk and we will add them to our distribution list. If you do not wish to receive any further updates from us then please send a blank email to unsubscribe at bcseweb dot org dot uk .

More Unintelligent Designs

2012-01-02T10:50:00.000Z

The superbly (badly) designed "Centre for Unintelligent Design" continues to grow apace.

There are now more than 100 examples and the list is still growing.

A big well done to Keith Gilmour for putting this together.

PS this is purely down to Keith and not a BCSE project as incorrectly claimed by the scottish creationist Jonathan MacLatchie here. (Where does he get his information from?)

PPS this contains a nice admission from Steve Fuller that the arguments against bad design are theodicy.

PPPS remember folks - Intelligent Design is nothing to do with God.

More Evidence that Creationists are Charlatans

2011-12-28T21:01:00.002Z

From here;

Young-earth creationists and cdesign proponentsists do this sort of thing all the time. They try to spin the results of scientific investigation to create unjustified denial, in the process they show their ignorance of even the basics of the scientific field they are discussing, undermining their credibility. And rather than admit that they should be learning about science rather than pontificating arrogantly about it, they try to hide the evidence of their gaffes.
If any person promoting young-earth creationism or intelligent design tells you they are a Christian or a moral person or anything else of the sort, I hope that you will tell them that actions speak louder than words, and will not allow yourself to be duped either by their false claims about science or their false claims about their own honesty.

Discovery Institute to buy the Vatican

2011-12-24T19:11:00.002Z

The Discovery Institute, the public and commercial face of the Intelligent Design Creationism movement have made a bold bid to buy the Vatican from the Catholic church.

From here.

Rummaging About in the Genetic Junkyard Skepticon 4 PZ Myers

2011-12-12T20:06:00.002Z

In his own irreverent style PZ Myers pounds a creationist mouse with a sledgehammer - 20 times;

More mangling of biology by ID creationists

2011-12-12T06:24:00.000Z

Over at Wonderful Life:
More mangling of biology by ID creationists
In which British Intelligent Design creationist Jonathan McLatchie crosses Larry Moran's radar (indirectly starting a discussion on homology joined by philosopher and ID creationist Paul Nelson), annoys Jeffrey Shallit, and claims the discovery of fossils thought to be Cambrian top predator Anomalocaris' eyes make it 'a tough day to be a Darwinian'.

Why we still have to take creationism seriously - Eugenie Scott

2011-12-11T20:26:00.000Z

This is a little US focused (understandably) but it also explores the wider strategies we are already seeing here in the UK today.

The Meaning of “Biblical Literalism”

2011-12-11T19:18:00.000Z

From the excellent "Science and Religion: A View from an Evolutionary Creationist";

Although the focus is on the idea of how to interpret the creation narratives in a literal, yet textually faithful fashion, Moritz, in quite concise language, points out the glaring origin of modern young-earth creationism and how different it was from the understanding of biblical literalism of the day:

Even more recently, such as at the time of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), the actual face of biblical literalism was quite different than one might expect—especially if one has in mind young earth creationism with its insistence upon a 10,000 year old recently-created earth and its focus on ‘‘flood geology’’. Around the time of the Scopes trial in the early twentieth century, there is no record of any biblical literalists within normative Christianity who interpreted the Bible as claiming a recent creation in six 24-hour days or that Noah’s flood had anything to do with how one should interpret the record of global stratigraphy. Indeed, literalists at that time saw Noah’s flood as a local phenomenon and ‘‘even the most literalistic Bible believers accepted the antiquity of life on Earth as revealed in the paleontological record.’’ The one exception to this general rule was the Seventh Day Adventists—a sect of Millerites who, after 1844 (and disillusioned by Christ’s failure to return), regrouped under the leadership and supernatural visions of the teenage prophetess Ellen G. White—a charismatic young woman ‘‘whose pronouncements Adventists placed on par with the Bible’’. White and her Seventh Day Adventist followers harbored no doubts about the correct reading of the early chapters of Genesis because in a trancelike vision White was ‘‘carried back to the creation’’ by God himself, ‘‘and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six [24 hour] days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week.’’ White likewise saw that during Noah’s flood, God created all the various geological layers of sediment and fossils by burying the organic debris and causing ‘‘a powerful wind to pass over the Earth...in some instances carrying away the tops of mountains like mighty avalanches...burying the dead bodies with trees, stones, and earth.’’ Thus, from the divine dreams of Ellen White young earth creationism was born and, ironically, it was conceived in stark opposition to the reigning biblical literalism of the day.

Most young earth creationists that I know are, I believe, unaware of this information. How, or if it would change their Christian walk is unclear. It is instructive to read Ron Numbers' The Creationists to see how dominant the Adventists were in the formation of modern-day young earth creationism.

A reminder of what the BCSE does not want to see in publicly funded schools

2011-12-08T18:34:00.001Z

Debunking Corner - Creationism is an intellectual black hole

2011-12-06T07:47:00.000Z

Stephen Law has put up a whole chapter of his latest book on his blog and it is about a couple of the standard tricks employed by bullshit merchants down the ages. He chooses a group that are past masters to illustrate his point - Creationists.

This is an excellent overview and strongly recommended for all. Here is just a few tasters but please read the whole thing here.

“But It Fits!” is one of the most popular strategies for immunizing beliefs against refutation. In fact, “But it fits!” does double duty. Not only is it a great immunizing strategy, it can also be used to create the illusion that a ridiculous belief system is not, after all, ridiculous, but at least as well confirmed as its rivals. I’ll explain how “But It Fits!” works by means of a particularly impressive example: Young Earth Creationism.

. . .

How, you may be wondering, can any sane, reasonably well-educated person believe that Young Earth Creationism is just as scientifically credible and well-confirmed as its more orthodox scientific rivals? After, isn’t there overwhelming empirical evidence against Young Earth Creationism? What about the fossil record, which reveals the species currently living on this planet have evolved from common ancestors over many millions of years? And of course, you might well add that the fossil record is merely one piece of evidence for the theory of evolution. The theory is also powerfully confirmed by discoveries in genetics (indeed, an overwhelming case for evolution can now be made even without appealing to the fossil record at all) . Surely there’s also a mountain of evidence that the universe is much older than ten thousand years. For example:

. . .

How, then, do so many Young Earth Creationists convince themselves that their theory is not falsified by the empirical evidence? How are they persuaded that it is in fact scientifically confirmed? Let’s begin by looking at how they approach the fossil record.

. . .

To summarize: Young Earth Creationism is supposedly:
(i) not falsified by the empirical evidence, but actually consistent with it.
(ii) good science
(iii) at least as well confirmed as the theory of evolution, etc.
All three of these claims are false. To begin to see why, let’s start with an analogy.

. . .

The claim that Young Earth Creationism is at least as well confirmed as its scientific rivals relies crucially on what we might call the “fit” model of confirmation. According to the “fit” model, confirmation is all about “fitting” the evidence. But more is required for genuine confirmation than mere “fit”, which any theory, no matter how absurd, can, in principle, achieve. So what else is required?

. . .

While scientists and philosophers of science may disagree on the details, most would sign up to something like the following.
In order for a theory to be strongly confirmed by the data, at least three conditions must be met. The theory must make predictions that are:
(i) clear and precise,
(ii) surprising, and
(iii) true

Debunking Corner - Johnson decoded

2011-12-06T07:19:00.000Z

From the excellent Sandwalk:

Larry Moran starts with, "The IDiots have been complaining of late that we aren't addressing their very best arguments in favor of Intelligent Design Creationism. They think we're just picking off the low-hanging fruit by attacking amateurs and Young Earth Creationists. This isn't true, but that's not a surprise since much of what they say isn't true."

He then pulls apart Johnson's position and finishes with this, "I doubt that most readers will have the stomach to get through the entire hour and that's a shame because more people need to understand what we are up against. Phillip Johnson's understanding of evolution is inferior to that of the average high school student in Canada. His friends at the Discovery Institute don't recognize this because their understanding of science is no better. They think there's still a debate about the science when, in fact, that debate was lost a long time ago."

Go read it all.

Debunking Corner - ID at work

2011-12-05T21:08:00.000Z

From here;

The most significant misunderstanding Johnson repeatedly exhibits is that he thinks modern evolutionary biology is synonymous with his understanding of the meaning of the term "Darwinism": all biological change is due to mutation and natural selection. The fact that other mechanisms, such as genetic drift and endosymbiosis, are now an essential part of the picture, seems to have escaped him completely. Ignorance or dishonesty? I'm not sure; maybe it's a mixture of both.

"The fossil record hasn't gotten any better, in the intervening century and a third... [since 1859]"

Another blatant lie. Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861. Since then, we have thousands and thousands more discoveries that add significantly to our understanding of evolutionary history: Diplodocus, Maiasaura, Paranthropus, Australopithecus, Ardipithecus, Pakicetus, just to name a few.

These examples, chosen just from the first 22 minutes of the video, give the flavor of the ignorance and misrepresentation offered up by Johnson. This video would make a great educational experience and expose the dishonest anti-intellectualism at the heart of creationism.

Why Do People Laugh At Creationists - Part 37

2011-12-04T08:11:00.003Z

Creationists at Work - Harun Yahya - Wolverhampton University 2011

2011-12-02T18:07:00.002Z

Intelligent Design Creationists and the Meyer lecture

2011-12-02T11:20:00.001Z

Jonathan M who seems to have become a regular blogger for the Discovery Institute has noticed this blog (Wonderful Life) once again (From the Darwinist Blogosphere, Stephen Meyer’s Trip to London Elicits a Typical Reaction) in a posting at the bizarrely named Evolution News website – no comments permitted there, it would seem. The BCSE believes Jonathan M to be Jonathan MacLatchie (sometimes his name is given as McLatchie), an undergraduate student in forensic science [UPDATE: Jonathan is now taking a Masters degree in Evolutionary Biology & Systematics at the University of Glasgow (!) ] who appears to have absorbed a typical strategy beloved of Intelligent Design creationists: of devising neologisms that don’t correspond to normally used science terminology, and combined this with ignorance of biology. P. Z. Myers was exposed to some of his ‘thinking’ while visiting Glasgow.

Read more at Wonderful Life

Astronomy, physics cosmology - all wrong, Bank of England - all wrong

2011-12-01T07:45:00.000Z

Following on from our previous post and Richard Dawkins and the aliens another british young earth creationist weighs in with his thoughts on how whole swathes of modern science including physics astronomy and cosmology are probably wrong because those scientists don't agree with his interpretation of the bible.

This is as clear a demonstration why creationism should kept out of schools as you can hope to see.

PS

The Bank of England and the monetary system are also all wrong for the same reason.

If anyone can understand this please let us know what he is on about;

"What are the ethics of the Bank of England deciding to appropriate peoples' savings in this fashion? At what point does "thou shalt not steal" apply to such activities? Is it right for the Bank of England to issue banknotes but effectively have a "carte blanche" to reduce their value as and when it pleases, after the fact? The evangelical church in the West seems sadly mute in untangling such questions today - where have the theologians gone?"

To the theme of ghostbusters;

If the economy fails,
and you are feeling poor,
Who you gonna call?
Theo-logians

If the stars don't agree,
with what you think,
Who you gonna call?
Theo-logians

If the atoms don't work,
in the way you want,
Who you gonna call?
Theo-logians

Suggested further verses in the comments please. . .

Dawkins and Little Green Men and the lack of integrity of ID/Creationists

2011-11-30T22:05:00.000Z

We are expecting C4ID to start making silly claims about Richard Dawkins shortly, here is the antidote to their silliness;

He answers the point they are about to make (according to A Noble anyway) in the first few minutes but the rest of the video is pretty interesting anyway.

Is it possible to be a rationalist (a believer in the laws of logic) but not believe in evolution?

2011-11-24T09:00:00.000Z

Mark Pallen has an excellent post up on his blog here.

A quick extract or two (four);

Perhaps requiring the least mental gymnastics is the "Omphalos hypothesis". . .

The first real philosophical show stopper is metaphysical solipsism. . .

. . .final state of infinite information the Omega point.

In fact, insofar as none of these scenarios is verifiable, they fall outside the realm of science and bring no additional explanatory power. So, you don't really have any excuses for dismissing evolution! Wise up and smell the cladogenesis!

American Creationists Dump on UK Christians.

2011-11-23T20:52:00.000Z

We don't expect much from Uncommon Descent or is that "commonly indecent"?

If Christians don't agree with their own views then the insults start to fly;

"“Simon”, who cutes himself out as a four-year-old boy with an eye patch"

"The impression one comes away with is: The vast mediocrity of the British “Science Faith community.” One senses it’ll be a long time before these people break any new ground anywhere, except awards for stuff like “I turned to the Big Noise Around Here, and he said he couldn’t see anything in it either, which strengthens my ignorance.”"

From here.

4Thoughttv

2011-11-21T18:33:00.001Z

Should creationism be taught in schools?

Next week should intelligent falling be taught in physics class?

Three speakers who say yes and three who say no.

The week after should the flat earth be taught in geography lesson?

Three speakers who say yes and three who say no.

Any other bright ideas?

Setting Fire to Creationist Strawmen

2011-11-16T18:48:00.000Z

Jonathan Wells’ motivation for his second doctorate (and quote-mining)

2011-11-12T10:37:00.000Z

There's a post over at Uncommon Descent in which Jonathan Wells laments quote-mining as applied to his career history (Here’s Jonathan Wells on destroying Darwinism – and responding to attacks on his character and motives*). Wells has had an eventful life, as judged by his account at Uncommon Descent (and his page at Wikpedia) - he sounds like a guy it would be fun to talk to. Apart from the gulf that lies between us over science, that is.

Wells has not one, but two doctorates. The first is in Religious Studies (Yale, 1985), the second in Molecular and Cell Biology (UC Berkeley). What's interesting is the reason why someone with such a commitment to the Unification Church (and with such strong opposition to evolutionary explanations of life's diversity) would embark upon a PhD in a subject related to one he has such difficulty in accepting. Incidentally, the Unification Church was founded by Sun Myung Moon (known in the media as the Moonies), and was the subject of much alarm in the UK during the 1970s due to its perception by the media as a destructive cult.

At any rate, Dr Dr Wells claims to have been selectively misquoted as to his motives in undertaking his second PhD. Personally, I find this quite amusing, given the typical quote-mining strategies often employed by creationists to discredit Darwin and evolutionary biology. The quotation that's doing the rounds on the internet, and which Dr Dr Wells believes is being improperly taken out of context reads as follows:

“Father’s [Sun Myung Moon's] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism.”

Dr Dr Wells paints a scenario that differs from this account in some respects, mostly because there is rather more detail:

I still felt called to devote myself to toppling Darwinism, however, so in 1988 I resigned from my position to return to graduate school—this time in biology. I applied to several schools in California and moved there with my family, only to learn that I had not been admitted anywhere. I took a job as a medical laboratory technologist (the Army had taught me a trade!) and sometime afterwards went back to New York to attend a meeting between Unification Church leaders and Reverend Moon. When he learned that I was planning to go back to graduate school he admonished me not to do it, saying that I was too old (I was 45 at the time). After the meeting, however, I prayed for a long time and decided that I had to continue on my course.

I returned to California and applied again to various graduate schools. In 1989 I was granted interviews at Cal Tech, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, and U.C. Davis. I chose Berkeley, where I completed a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology in 1994. By then—having been exposed to the actual evidence—I was skeptical of Darwin’s claim that all living things share a common ancestor. [my emphasis]

The essence of the disputed internet quote is that Dr Dr Wells undertook his second doctorate with the specific aim of trying to undermine 'Darwinism' (Wells conveniently elaborates on what he means by Darwinism) - but judging from the emphasised words in the quoted section, this would seem to be the case, though without Moon's blessing.

But over at this site (which appears to be run by the Unification Church), we see this account, penned by Wells (Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.):

Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.

Presumably this refers to Wells' first PhD, in Religious Studies. Wells continues...

I eventually decided to join the fray by returning to graduate school in biology. I was convinced that embryology is the Achilles' heel of Darwinism; one cannot understand how organisms evolve unless one understands how they develop. In 1989, I entered a second Ph.D. program, this time in biology, at the University of California at Berkeley. While there, I studied embryology and evolution.

It's true that an understanding of developmental biology is one of the approaches to understanding evolution (but not the only approach**), but this quotation contains the widely quoted statement (emboldened). Essentially, he embarked upon a PhD, and a postdoc position with a clear preconceived goal, namely that 'Darwinism' was wrong, and that he would work to topple it. And this in the face of mountains of evidence sufficient to convince the vast majority of active research scientists of the reality of evolution. That is not science.

I see that Wells says he wrote that document for private consumption within the Unification Church, and that its wide publication was made without his wishes:

A senior Unification Church leader then asked me to write something for other church members explaining why I went for a second Ph.D. even after Reverend Moon had admonished me against doing so. I wrote an essay that I thought would be for in-house use only, but it was subsequently posted on the Internet without my knowledge or permission.

I first learned that my essay was available online in 2001, when Jerry Coyne made it the alpha and omega of his review in Nature of my book Icons of Evolution.

But why should he tell one version to the Unification Church while seeking to send a different message to the world? Could it be that confession of his motivation would significantly dent his work towards 'destroying Darwinism'?

* I don't often read Uncommon Descent because I find reading stupidity rather irritating. But I note Larry Moran (who has taken the time to plough through Dr Dr Wells book on junk DNA, and written a lengthy series of articles detailing his criticisms chapter by chapter) has engaged with a bunch of commenters who largely spout vast amounts of pure stupidity and ignorance. I envy Larry his patience.

** I have to observe that the vast published enterprise of biology contains a huge body of literature supportive of evolution. The distinction between the scientific approach to biology and that of the ID creationist is that where poorly understood cases are uncovered, the scientist seeks to find an explanation, whereas the ID creationist merely invokes a supernatural agency as a designer. More on this in a later blog post.

Cross-posted from Wonderful Life

Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

2011-11-12T09:49:00.001Z

C4ID in Glasgow might benefit from watching this.

Creationists in at number five in top ten of worst anti-science web sources

2011-11-08T19:02:00.000Z

From here.

Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites

My list of the worst offenders on the web in the promotion of scientific and factual misinformation.

5. Answers in Genesis

Evangelical Christian web sites are a fine thing for those who roll that way, and most such sites do good charitable and social works. But a few stray from that mission, and Answers in Genesis is the leading example. Their "Statement of Faith" is, in their own words:

Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation. The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.

There's no way around it: This is not doing any kind of a service mission, this is unabashed promotion of scientific misinformation. Even the world's largest Christian organization, the Catholic Church, rejects Answers in Genesis' alternate-reality version of geology, biology, and virtually every other natural science. Worse, AiG provides a wide array of highly polished, very professionally written educational materials including study guides, online courses, and lesson plans for teachers. So far the American court system has done a pretty good job of keeping this stuff out of public schools, but their penetration into private schools and homeschools is only growing.

"In the beginning: The Creationist Controversy"

2011-11-08T07:30:00.003Z

Pastafarianism to be taught in Creationist Faith Schools

2011-11-05T08:10:00.000Z

In a landmark ruling the fabricated religion Pastafarianism, the religion of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is to be taught in Physics in US Creationist Faith Schools.

A close up of reality according to Pastafarianism

"We are quite upset," said leading Creationist, Michael Behe. "For years we have campaigned for Intelligent Design to be taught alongside evolution in school biology classes only to be knocked back time and time again. The first time Rasta Pasta, the head of Pastafarianism, asks for Pastafarianism to be taught along side physics in our faith schools, the governors capitulate."

From here.

Contrary Evidence To Evolution And Global Warming?

2011-10-31T18:38:00.001Z

By Keith Gilmour, October 2011

Following last month's Glasgow Skeptics talk, "Evolution and Global Warming Denial: How the Public is Misled", by NCSE (National Centre for Science Education) Executive Director Dr Eugenie Scott, ID proponent Dr Alastair Noble has used his website, The Centre For Intelligent Design (never to be confused with The Centre For Unintelligent Design!), to take issue with Dr Scott's contention that "there is no contrary evidence to evolution" (AN, essay link below) - and to criticise her decision to highlight "parallels between the denial of evolution and the denial of global warming." (ES, 2:46, video link below). On the first point, Dr Scott was, of course, just stating a fact. "There isn't scientific evidence against evolution. That all comes from the creationist literature and it's of the quality of those xenoliths that I mentioned and the lava flows." (ES, 42:09). It shouldn't have to be pointed out that good scientists are always on the lookout for "contrary evidence" and if Dr Noble has, or knows where to find, some evidence against evolution (anatomical, geological, bio-geographical, genetic – anything!), he should silence his foes and critics by producing it. Instead, though, he refers us to the joke of "irreducible complexity" as if this, in any way, constituted evidence. Dr Noble even has the nerve to lump this "evidence" in with the (at least respectable) 'fine-tuning' argument for the existence of God, gods or aliens - an addendum, by the way, to his favourite update on William Paley's 'watchmaker' argument of 1802 (which now has him quoting philanthropic atheist Bill Gates on the complexity of DNA), the objections to which are well-known.

On the second point, Dr Scott's comparison is a compliment evolution deniers do not deserve. Global warming/climate change deniers are certainly cranks (and many are clearly guilty of the sins highlighted in Dr Scott's lecture) but the same cannot be said of sceptics honestly querying the extent to which the climate is changing, the degree to which human activity has contributed towards changes in temperature, the role of CO2, the influence of solar activity, and so on. These sceptics do not face overwhelming evidence that has settled the matter and, unlike creationists and the ID crowd, are at least searching for natural explanations. In contradistinction to evolution, in other words, 'It's all our fault' is not "the only game in town." (ES, 32:46).

In the Q&A that followed her talk, Dr Scott defined "anthropogenic global warming" as "the planet is getting warmer and people have something to do with it" (ES, Q&A, 07:30) but in her preceding lecture she had used a 'Global Warming Denial' slide to divide sceptics/deniers into just three categories: "It's not getting warmer", "It's getting warmer, but humans aren't responsible" and "It's getting warmer, we're responsible, but there isn't anything we can do about it." (ES, 03:56). Unfortunately this omits those who only question the extent and predictability of the warming, the degree to which human beings are to blame and the most appropriate response. (My own view, incidentally, is that we should be aiming to clean up the planet irrespective of the AGW evidence and alarmism).

Alastair Noble objects to Dr Scott's comparison on the grounds that confusion may result and insists that evolution, global warming, etc must be treated "separately" and the evidence "judged on its own merits." (AN). As evolution and global warming 'are' treated separately and the evidence 'is' judged on its own merits 99.9% of the time, this is an extremely odd point to make but what reasons are we being offered to dismiss as illegitimate efforts to highlight similarities in approach, thinking, attitude, tactics, etc? If Dr Noble had paid attention to my question, he would know that I was not trying, for the sake of it, to "lump in 'Holocaust denial' as well." (AN). Instead, I made the straightforward point that evolution deniers have more in common with holocaust deniers than they do with climate change deniers. (See my essay/report Creationism, Holocaust Denial and The ID Crowd). Would Dr Noble object to a book entitled 'Conspiracy Theories' on the grounds that each must be treated separately and judged in isolation? "Academic scientists" (AN) do not waste their time debating with evolution deniers for the same reasons historians do not waste their time debating with holocaust deniers: to wit, both denialism groups reject overwhelming existing evidence, offer no real evidence to the contrary, dishonestly quote experts out of context, mischaracterise scholarly debate, and take comfort in paranoid conspiracy theories.

My question to Eugenie Scott (which she claimed not to have detected) was precisely as follows: "Don't evolution deniers have more in common with holocaust deniers?" (KG, Q&A, 22:48). To be honest, I was rather taken aback by Dr Scott's response. I first read about the similarities in Michael Shermer's excellent 1997 book Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (link below) and came across it again most recently in Richard Dawkins' equally excellent 2009 book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (link below). Like them, I do not think it particularly "offensive" to point out the obvious and nor would I consider 'reluctance to cause offence' a good reason for keeping quiet about parallels. Comparing a historical fact supported by overwhelming evidence (the Holocaust) with a scientific fact (evolution) supported by equally overwhelming evidence is not, after all, to just "bring up the
Nazis." (ES, Q&A, 25:04).

If Dr Scott had been determined to avoid causing offence, she would not have used the terms "denier" or "denial" at all (even if they were occasionally replaced with "anti-global-warming-ist"). Instead, she would have employed the word sceptic throughout - in all honesty, a more accurate description of people who aren't, after all, claiming that nothing has ever evolved anywhere/no-one was gassed/climate doesn’t change. If Dr Scott genuinely would, as she asserted in the Q&A, "rather persuade" people, why did she use these loaded words? And why use the term 'ID-Creationism' when it is virtually guaranteed to infuriate ID proponents such as Dr Noble? Why tell one questioner that, "This is really not a matter of discussion" and "We're just not gonna argue about that" (ES, Q&A, 19:20) - or another, after the Q&A, that it would be pointless to debate ID with him? I too would "rather persuade" my opponents but when someone shows absolutely no interest in
being persuaded and consistently goes around peddling tripe to anyone who will listen, I think we have a responsibility to expose that person, their allies, and their pseudoscientific agenda.

The question of offensiveness to one side, Dr Scott's reference to "Intelligent Design Creationism" probably wasn't "the old guilt by association trick" (AN) but instead just a reference to the common ancestry and close working relationship of creationists and ID proponents - and I would remind Dr Noble that it was his choice to compare creationists and ID proponents to "Sinn Fein-IRA" (though I'm still not sure which is supposed to be which)! In addition, his suggested reading list for Dr Scott does not constitute "a substantial body of contrary evidence" (AN) any more than the writings of Arthur Butz, Paul Rassinier or Robert Faurisson constitute "evidence" against the holocaust. In truth, neither group have 'anything' to compare with Martin Durkin's (flawed but fascinating) 2007 documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle or Nigel Lawson’s 2008 book An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global Warming. And there is a reason Channel 4 can justify 78
minutes of primetime for Mr Durkin's contentious and controversial film whilst poor Dr Noble has to settle for 108 seconds via 4thought.tv!

Finally, the word evolution is not, as Dr Noble contends (and would prefer), a "slippery" one. Common ancestry is simply the logical conclusion that comes from all that we have discovered - as well as from the absence of evidence to the contrary. Noble embarrasses himself by pushing the idea that, yes, this branch is obviously related to/descended from that branch but please don't go thinking they might both be from the same actual tree! Oh, and by the way, since we don't have every piece of the jigsaw (and never will), an interventionist must therefore come along, every now and again, with "new genetic information" and "body plans" (AN). Unfortunately for creationists and the ID crowd, educated and open-minded theists do not need the farce of "Intelligent Design" to challenge the proposition that "the origin and development of life is a blind and purposeless process" (AN). A god or gods (or aliens) may well have sparked the Big Bang, planted the seeds
of life, implanted souls into hominids, and so on, but I'm afraid this would still give us zero reason to be led astray, in our scientific and philosophical quests for answers, by the conspiracy theory denialism of attention-seeking kooks.

Dr Scott's lecture, Evolution and Global Warming Denial: How the Public is Misled, at the Glasgow Skeptics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvZA68DHFi8&feature=channel_video_title

Q&A following Dr Scott's lecture (includes Dr Noble's question and my own):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJZbH2nn85w&feature=relmfu

Dr Noble's essay/report, Eugenie Scott says there’s No Contrary Evidence about Evolution and Global Warming:

http://www.c4id.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=243:eugenie-scott-says-theres-no-contrary-evidence-about-evolution-and-global-warming&catid=1:latest&Itemid=28

Wikipedia entry on Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_People_Believe_Weird_Things:_Pseudoscience,_Superstition,_and_Other_Confusions_of_Our_Time

Richard Dawkins reading extracts from The Greatest Story Ever Told:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb2uB4_7CBY

Dr Noble's 108 seconds on 4thought.tv:

http://www.4thought.tv/themes/is-it-possible-to-believe-in-god-and-darwin/dr-alastair-noble

The Centre For Unintelligent Design:

http://centreforunintelligentdesign.yolasite.com/

Centre For Unintelligent Design update

2011-10-31T18:27:00.000Z

The Centre For Unintelligent Design has now been updated to include feedback, etc (and a 'very' revealing email from creationist and/or ID proponent Prof Steve Fuller).

Creationist Group claiming DfE "support" ?

2011-10-30T09:50:00.000Z

I just sent this to the DfE, you might consider doing something similar.

I am concerned that the creationist group Genesis Agendum are quoting correspondence with this department claiming that the department told them;
"I can see how your new educational resource could support schools."
and
"With this in mind you may wish to contact schools directly ..."

Please see these links so you can see for yourselves.
http://www.worldaroundus.org.uk/
http://www.worldaroundus.org.uk/Teacher_Note/

The department has taken pains to state that creationism should not be presented as science in UK schools and yet that is precisely what this site does.

Please see here for an analysis in case you don't have anyone on hand that can spot the non-science on the site;

http://bcseweb.blogspot.com/2011/01/latest-uk-creationist-ploy-world-around.html
http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/TheWorldAroundUs

Please can you consider clarifying the position with the WAU folks and making it clear that their material is not suitable for use in schools as it presents nonsense creationist claims as science.
Thanks,

You can send a message to the DfE here.

Dr Noble Strikes yet again-More on the Attenborough letter

2011-10-26T20:05:00.001+01:00

I’m beginning to wonder if the good Dr Noble of C4ID is attempting to set some kind of record for coming out with the greatest number of inanely stupid statements about ID in the shortest space of time.

On the BCSE blog for this month alone we have record of his spat with Whitmore and then there was my earlier dissection of his attempts at a press release in response to the Dawkins/Attenborough letter.

This was quickly followed by the brilliant Grumpy Bobs Wonderful Life blog on Nobles academic freedom topic.

However, not satisfied with mere stupidity, Noble strives for greater inanity with his new
‘additional article’ -“Why Legislating for Evolution is Deeply Unscientific” (full text here ) to accompany his press release. As Noble brings in some lovely new paranoid arguments to join the usual old guff-including some Nazism ones-I just couldn’t help but respond.

Parts of this ‘additional article’ are simply a rehash of his earlier press release which has already been dealt with, so plenty of rhetoric along the lines of

“Why is there such a flap about the teaching of evolution? My hunch is that it has nothing to do with science at all, but with the promotion
of a materialistic and secular worldview"

For which I can only repeat what has been said in earlier blogs-it isn’t-and wonder at his continued use of the word secular. After all doesn’t secular mean religiously neutral? Isn’t science (and indeed much of education, for example algebra or English literature), religiously neutral? Hence if ID were science rather than religion wouldn’t it be just as secular as evolution? Or is the good Dr intending to use it to prove the existence of his God?

So Dr Noble, to repeat yet again, evolution is religiously neutral. There is a flap about teaching it because despite the fact it is strongly supported evidence based science, it contradicts a literal reading of
the first few pages of the Bible. And because that upsets a very vocal few whose faith is so tenuous that it hinges solely on those few pages being literal, they are demanding we pretend there are problems with evolution. The flap is to ensure that they are not allowed to distort the truth and deny children
their right to an education just to ensure their eccentric beliefs remain unchallenged. That is the first step on a very slippery slope indeed.

There are also lots of repetitions of the usual tired old claims that ID is science without actually mentioning how or why it is science; the regular impenetrable DNA and information waffling, yet more irreducible complexity claims and the usual references to some hard sums done by a preacher man who
used to do maths. These have already been debunked by Grumpy Bob here on 17th October blog. Or for more scientists explaining why ID isn’t science, but this time in a courtroom try here.

And whilst in the interests of balance I should provide a link to something supporting Noble’s ‘ID is science’ stance I can’t. Despite searching the plethora of ID sites like the good Dr Nobles own C4ID or Uncommon Descent I can find nothing beyond scientific articles filched from genuine scientists followed by a ‘wow that looks complicated’. No evidence FOR design, no testing FOR design, no explanations of how one would test FOR design nothing beyond incredulity. And like Behe at Dover, they all completely ignore any science that illustrates the evolution of many of these complex things.

However it’s when Noble really goes into high dudgeon mode that things get amusing. For example:

“If a scientific theory cannot be sustained on the basis of the available evidence, what message does
it send to students when the force of law is required? Presumably then, if in a biology class, a pupil asks a question about ID, the teacher would have to say that it is illegal to proceed with the question. And at what point does the teacher call the police to deal with any persistent enquirers? Some science
that!”

No Dr Noble! ID is not science; the aim of the campaign is to prevent folk like Dr Noble pushing it as science rather than religion to further their religious aims. So Dr Noble, if in a biology class a pupil asks a question about ID, the teacher does not have to hush them up, call the police or put the fear of a designer into them. All the teacher has to do is to do is point them to the RE department, point out that ID does not satisfy the requirements of science, that it is purely a religious notion and therefore part of the remit of the RE teacher. If however a teacher decides to abuse their position for the purposes of proselytising and claims ID is scientific something can be done about it. No more, no less.

It also ensures that RE teachers, who do not have scientific backgrounds, are cognisant of the fact that ID is not science which should help them teach it more effectively and prevent them from inadvertently misleading children.

“If evolution requires the weight of the law, what about atomic theory? Does it need legal protection
against, say, quantum theory undermining the particulate nature of matter? Or the Big Bang?"

Not really Dr Noble, for the simple reason that you don’t have any religious objections to those parts of science, therefore don’t want to single them out for the special disparagement you reserve for evolution. So they do not need protection from religious interference.

“Do we need laws to ensure that the steady state theory does not make a comeback? And global
warming? Do we need the law to ensure that climate sceptics don’t produce any embarrassing evidence?"

If the evidence swings back to steady state it will come back and nobody will be able to prevent it. However it disappeared because the evidence for it was outweighed by the evidence for Big Bang. In the unlikely event that Dr Noble is reading this, the pertinent point is evidence. ID has none. And another point he may wish to consider is that Big Bang was also considered by many to have theological and philosophical implications. That has not stopped it being taught.

And it is very interesting that Dr Noble has mentioned global warming as, along with creationism, the other cause celebre of the fundamentalist fringe of religion seems to be climate change denial. I
sincerely wonder how so called good Christians like Dr Noble reconcile this denial with the fact it will be the poorest on this Earth that will be hit hardest and soonest if their denials prevent timely action. And may I just add that if the climate sceptics could produce embarrassing evidence to prove the growing consensus wrong, nobody would be more thrilled than that consensus.

Does Noble actually think they’ve chosen to be the harbingers of doom solely to thwart the devout oil producers of the Bible belt?

“The whole proposition of legal enforcement is based on a failure to recognise that all scientific theories are ultimately tentative and may be updated or amended in the light of fresh evidence. The very recent doubts of the CERN scientists about the limiting position of the speed of light is a case in point”

This is an interesting point, given Nobles repeated assertions about allowing ID into the classroom because ultimately the scientific consensus can be overturned. And yes, those faster than light
neutrinos, if genuine rather than error, have possibly illustrated the tentative nature of science. Now speedy neutrinos may not yet have found their way onto the A level physics syllabus-education tends to deal with the well established or well established disagreements and there is a time lag, but there can be no doubt that excitable physics teachers and a lot of A level students have discussed it, without fear of the law or petitions by mean atheists. Such discussion is not frowned upon but encouraged as the cutting edge is always interesting. And if the finding is genuine, I suspect it will warrant inclusion
in subsequent curriculum rewrites. So why not ID?

Well Dr Noble seems to have missed several very important points. The first being the neutrino discovery was made by cutting edge scientists from the relevant discipline-physics. Moreover these leading scientists were working at CERN, one of the best research centres in the world
in that area of science. ID on the other hand boasts Behe, Dembski and a few others who are not only very much NOT at the cutting edges of their disciplines, but in many cases are either in disciplines totally unrelated to the claims made for ID or are no longer working in science (Noble is a chemist who has worked in education for years). In addition, whilst Behe is employed by a university in the relevant science, it has publicly distanced itself from his ID stance, suggesting he is not using their laboratory facilities for his ID research. Nor has he published anything that POSITIVELY supports his notion of a designer.

As for the places where ID is discussed? In the UK it would appear to be the Elim Pentecostal Conference Centre in Malvern. Now the Vatican may boast some world class observatories and scientists, but the Elim Pentecostal Conference Centre does not. The Elim Pentacostals are a
fundamentalist Christian Sect. They are largely creationist. Their Conference Centre is an unlikely venue for world class scientists to gather to discuss cutting edge science on the brink of overturning the consensus.

Secondly, though the speeding neutrinos made it into popular media, the people to whom the findings were initially presented were the scientific peers of those who originally found them. The people who will dissect and examine their work will be their equals in expertise and education. They did not rush straight to the Dept of Education and demand Einstein be debated and their findings reviewed by 14 year olds who had made a few circuits and slid a few toy cars past a light gate or two! The results of that expert debate may eventually be presented to schoolchildren, but that will be because it has been done by scientists for scientists and judged on its scientific merits first! ID ‘scientists’ on the other hand seem far keener on their work being judged by pre GCSE students than by the scientific community. They are not operating to the protocols required by science, ID is not science!

“I cannot believe that British science is so unsure of itself that it has come to this.”

Neither can I Dr Noble. I cannot believe that in the 21st century we’d have to protect the cumulated knowledge from thousands of years of scientific endeavour from an ancient, scientifically illiterate piece of writing!

Of course it wouldn’t be an ID article without recourse to abiogenesis.

“Prof Richard Dawkins himself insists that living systems “give the appearance of having been
designed for a purpose”. But he also admits that he does not know how life originated. How can he possibly know, therefore, that the apparent design in nature is not real?”

Yes we do not know YET how life originated. However it is an area of intense and fruitful research encompassing many scientific disciplines bar one-ID. Oops that isn’t a scientific discipline.

If the good Dr Noble wishes to examine whether the apparent design in nature is real the answer is
simple. Get ID ‘scientists’ to engage in some research. Yes that’s right. If you want to be taken seriously in science-do some serious science. Come up with some serious hypotheses; come up with some serious evidence. Go show how the apparent design in nature can be tested and proved. Because at the moment there is NO ID science, there is NO ID research and one day the origin of life gap in
our knowledge will be filled just like the other gaps such as the evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum.

The onus is on ID to prove design not on real science to just stop searching because they say it’s so.
But it is Nobles concluding paragraph that really nails the ID argument.

The Nazism card.

“I have often wondered how a sophisticated country like 20th-century Germany fell prey to Nazi
domination of its national life. I think I can see that once you start legislating for the promotion of one particular theory over another, you suppress debate and start purveying propaganda. Surely not in 21st century Britain which so values free speech and open enquiry? I sincerely hope not.”

I believe there is theory called Godwin’s law that says you bring up the Nazis when you've lost the argument? So I’m not sure how to respond to this. However seeing as it is Noble who has rather unwisely brought it up where shall I start!

Could Germany have fallen prey to Nazi domination because there was a proliferation of unsubstantiated propaganda infiltrating all areas of public life-including and especially schools? Was it because they allowed unsubstantiated, simplistic, irrational and emotional arguments to be targeted at those who hadn't the expertise to see through them before they’d been reviewed and validated by those that did? Propaganda that allowed ridiculous ideas for which there was neither evidence nor credibility to be debated as equals alongside valid, evidence based ones?

The call to prevent ID being taught as science is not stifling any debate-merely pointing out that it is grossly unfair to present something as valid science to schoolchildren when it is anything but. Dr Noble and his ID pals are free to come up with some science to prove, support or even test for design. They are free to present it to their scientific peers for approval. And if it ever reaches the level of science then
education will have no choice but to include it on the science curriculum. How often does it have to be said, science education is for the teaching of science! ID has yet to prove itself scientific.

Compare Dr Noble’s emotional appeals about the persecution of ID and his incorrect accusations
that it is all an atheist plot with your average text on evolution with its scientific language and inconvenient heaps of real evidence and draw your own conclusions about who is purveying propaganda.

I would never dream of likening Noble or the proponents of ID to the Nazis, but seeing as Noble himself has brought them up perhaps he could ignore for a moment the political evil of their propaganda and just consider the fact that its purveyors shared a narrow political agenda, an arrogant assumption they were right whatever the costs to humanity and a deep need to indoctrinate others.

Perhaps he could then take on board two very simple facts that he refuses to acknowledge. Those who accept evolution and oppose ID come from every area of religious and political belief and opinion because their objections are based on the fact it is not what it claims to be-science. Those who support ID/creationism and reject evolution are drawn almost exclusively from the narrowest, most bigoted and intolerant fringes of Christianity. All of whom share an unshakeable belief in a literal reading of
the book of Genesis, who are arrogant enough to think they alone are right whatever the subsequent cost to humanity of teaching folk to reject science and who need to indoctrinate others as that is what their narrow sub sect of Christianity dictates. Then I would ask him to consider who is purveying propaganda. And I would remind him, lest he use it as an argument against me, that I am not likening him to the Nazis, nor saying his propaganda is like Nazi propaganda-merely that he is the one with the agenda pushing an ideology with no supporting evidence to schoolchildren and church congregations rather than to scientists and real scientific journals.

Then there is the simple fact that he is mixing up theory, which Evolution is and ID isn't, with ideology, which Nazism is. There is no attempt to suppress ID as a theory, because it isn’t a theory it is an ideology and a religious position. The last item in my litany of criticisms of Nobles hypocrisy in playing the Nazi card is hidden deep within the roots of ID. Nazism was an attempt to impose a new world order. It wished to overthrow society and replace it with its own politics and beliefs. There would be no room for dissent and no freedom of thought and no real tolerance of difference and no real rights for certain groups.

The roots of intelligent design, it would appear, lie within in the murky depths of an organisation called the Discovery Institute and its ‘wedge strategy’. And the Discovery Institute it would appear is also quite keen on new world orders and imposing their particular narrow brand of morality and beliefs upon society. Using ID theory as the wedge to first crack the notion of science as it is and "replace it with science consonant with Christian and theistic conviction"..

It is difficult to read the wedge strategy document as anything other than an attempt to impose upon society the conservative Christian values of the fundamentalist religious right. And for anyone who doesn’t know what conservative Christian fundamentalist values are, think religious control of education and religious control of laws such as those on sexuality, abortion or divorce. Think discrimination against women, gays, atheists and non Christian religions. In short think intolerance, bigotry and removal of hard won rights and freedoms-things that really only exist when the state is free from religious control. It isn’t Nazism; unlike Dr Noble I’m not likening it to Nazism. But it would appear to be using ID propaganda as a means to a new world order.

Consider some of the aspirations this wedge strategy has for the ‘ID is just science-nothing else, it definitely isn’t religion’ theory: “Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies”, “..we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Chnstians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars. We intend these to encourage and equip believers with new scientific evidence's that support the faith, as well as to "popularize" our ideas in the broader culture”.
Consider its long term goals:

"Long Term Goals
To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.
Spiritual & cultural renewal:
Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation & repudiate(s)

Positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God"

I live in a secular state. That is not, as creationist and ID proponents so often like to suggest, an atheist state. It is one where the individual is free to believe or not believe whatever they wish-privately. It is a state that does NOT promote one persons beliefs over another and everyone has the equal protection of the law. It is not perfect, nothing is, but it is a hell of a lot better than living under any political or religious dictatorship.

ID is not science, it is a religious position. As such state education should not favour it with inclusion in science lessons unless it is also going to give equal time to other religiously or supernaturally motivated pseudoscientific claims. My children can make free and informed choices about what to believe, because the state will not indoctrinate them. Though I would hope atheism, if they choose any moderate version of religion I will be perfectly happy. And if they do choose to embrace ID/creationism at least I will know it is an informed decision to reject science. I will know that at least they had the opportunity to learn objective science free from the confusion of religious interference. What Dr Noble proposes removes that opportunity.

The role of education is to enable children to grow up with the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions and form informed opinions. Allowing a narrowly focused group with a specific agenda to interfere with that process would be my definition of propaganda. And ID proponents are drawn from a very narrow focus with a very specific agenda!

I would not have raised the Wedge Strategy’s use of ID as a means to a possible theocratic end had Noble not played the Nazi card. I would have felt it unfair to tar C4ID and other ID proponents with such a distasteful brush. However if Noble is going to play the Nazi card then he cannot complain when it invites very unfavourable comparisons indeed! And for most thinking people the horrors of Discovery Institute’s theocratic ambition is very unfavourable.

News - Down but not out - Creationist Church says they will apply to run a Free School again

2011-10-22T08:16:00.000+01:00

From the NSS;

Creationist church remains resolute in pursuit of free school
An evangelical church with creationist beliefs in Newark (Notts) which had its free school application turned down has pledged to continue making every effort possible to see a new school set up.
As previously reported, the Everyday Champions Church in Newark had its plans to open a 625-pupil secondary school turned down last week. We now know that the Department of Education rejected their application over concerns about creationism.

The ECC statement can be seen here.

No matter what C4ID says, Intelligent Design creationism isn't sciencedoesn't get science

2011-10-17T08:42:00.001+01:00

From Wonderful Life...in connection with the proposal that Intelligent Design creationism should be legally excluded from inclusion in UK science lessons, a blog article by James Williams, and a weak riposte by Alastair Noble...why C4ID's claims that Intelligent Design creationism is science are wide of the mark.

Dr Alastair Noble has penned a rather defensive article at the C4ID website, in response to James Williams’ recent blog concerning some radio discussions he had had with Noble (Intelligent Design Creationism is not Science). Unlike Williams’ blog (and this one), the C4ID website does not brook any comment, preferring to push their line of reasoning unchallenged.
I have a number of comments and observations relating to the latest Noble epistle and in particular in relation to Intelligent Design creationism as an alternative to an evolutionary explanation of life’s diversity For my rebuttal of many of C4ID’s claims about ID as an alternative to evolutionary biology, see my article “C4ID’s Introduction to Intelligent Design: A critique”.

Creationist Questions about Evolution (not)

2011-10-16T11:01:00.000+01:00

In the Guardian Andrew Brown answers some questions from a creationist.

As I say, the interesting thing about all these objections is that hardly any of them bear directly on the theory of descent with modification. They are all variations of "Why are we here?" with different kinds of "Why" for an answer. Two of them do bear directly on Darwin's theory of evolution and have been conclusively answered by it: "How can you have design without a designer?" and "How to create intelligence from non-intelligence?"
Question seven is completely bogus.
The other four seem to operate in the disputed marshlands between science and philosophy. But his crucial argument seems to be 'The atheist sees design but refuses to accept that there can be a designer'. If I wanted to refute that, I wouldn't send him to Richard Dawkins, but the American Carl Zimmer, whose book Parasite Rex is a glorious, terrifying, and intermittently disgusting romp through the roots, the intestines, and even the eyeballs of almost all living things to discover what else lives inside them. These parasites are unquestionably designed for their purpose, and designed with extraordinary ingenuity. They kill millions of children every year. I really cannot imagine that anyone, knowing the facts of their existence, could believe they were designed by a loving creator for a moral purpose. Evolution is not God's enemy but his greatest alibi.

C4IDs Dr Noble responds to Attenborough-in the style of a creationist.

2011-10-14T22:48:00.000+01:00

It’s been little under a year since the brand new Centre for Intelligent Design C4ID opened in the UK to

“Promote public understanding of ID and its implications”.

“To promote professional investigations and public debate around ID”

And to prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that

“ID is definitely not creationism.”

Amidst the fanfare of publicity surrounding its launch, director Alastair Noble was keen to demonstrate ID as a scientific theory and to distance it from any religious connotations. In fact the slick website even included a FAQ section where questions such as

“Isn’t ID just a religious, philosophical argument rather than a scientific one?”

Were answered with a resounding

“No. Theists believe the entire universe is best explained by an intelligent cause, but that is not something that can be scientifically verified. Intelligent Design theory is not philosophical or religious-it is limited to what can be demonstrated scientifically.”

Given the religious affiliations and creationist past histories of those involved in C4ID, the obvious question was could they respond to challenges in the measured, rational way required to maintain that positive ‘secular’ spin? Or would their years immersed in the ranting and foaming at the mouth world of creationism prove to be their undoing? Well now that question has been answered, and it would appear that at the first sign of trouble they resort to form and reveal beyond all shadow of doubt that ID is just creationism’s pretend secular sibling.

The challenge came in the form of the moderately worded so called Attenborough letter, signed by 30 scientists and supported by Ekklesia and ASE, asking that ID/Creationism should not be taught as science. Any half decent PR guru would have responded in equally moderate secular tones. Any half decent PR guru would have remembered their remit-to present ID as not religion-and avoided references to the beliefs of either their critics or themselves. It would appear that C4ID is bereft of half decent PR gurus! Check out Alastair Noble's startling, ranting and raving press release in response - a document rich in the words and tones of traditional creationist rhetoric. http://www.c4id.org.uk/press/PR110927.doc

Its unpromising start states:

“Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough want the government to ban creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) theory from the classroom. Such a move shows a disturbing lack of understanding of both the nature of scientific theory and of science education, responds the Centre for Intelligent Design.”

But surely ID and creationism are different things. Why the ID website itself contains the following:

“ID theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the appearance of design in nature-which is acknowledged by virtually all biologists-is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause)......Creationism is based on finding scientific evidence to defend the entire creation account in the Bible (or for Muslims the Koran).”

So why is Noble not pointing out that they are different in his all important press release? In fact why is he not in agreement with the ban on creationism in the science classroom, since he himself has pointed out it is based on finding evidence for a religious position?

Much later on Noble states:

“The Centre for Intelligent Design notes that it is no coincidence that both Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough are prominent atheists. The Centre believes that the introduction of religious or philosophical ideas into the debate is contrary to the spirit of science which should not be exploited in pursuit of a secular or atheistic agenda."

And how is the fact that Dawkins and Attenborough are prominent atheists relevant to the science of a theory like ID which merely attempts to detect whether the appearance of design is genuine? If ID is NOT based on “finding scientific evidence to defend the creation account in the Bible”, and C4ID state it isn’t, then why is Dawkins non belief relevant?

In addition neither Dawkins nor Attenborough have called for any religious or philosophical ideas to be introduced into science education! They have merely stated that two ideas, creationism and ID, which have yet to prove themselves in the scientific arena, should not be taught as valid science until they do. As the so called ‘scientists’ involved in ID have yet to convince their scientific peers that they are valid scientific positions, surely Attenborough and Dawkins are right. In fact surely the paucity of any of the standards of science in ID (its lack of predictions, methodology, genuine peer review and evidence to name but a fraction) means that Dawkins and Attenborough are in fact attempting to prevent the introduction of purely philosophical and religious ideas into science!!

ID needs a lot of work, well actually it needs a miracle, before it becomes remotely close to approaching even the rigours required to be called bad science. Until it does it remains a philosophical, religious, God of the Gaps discussion alongside Paley in A level RE.

If Noble is suggesting that it is Dawkins and Attenborough’s atheism that presents the religious or philosophical ideas that concern him, it should be noted they are not calling for atheism or anything else to be introduced into the debate or the science classroom either. It is simply not relevant. Noble knows that ID has been thoroughly rejected as science on purely scientific grounds. He should be particularly aware of that fact because its wholesale rejection has, in no small part, been due to the efforts of devoutly theist scientists such as Francis Collins and Ken Miller. If that fact ever changes then and only then will his paranoid persecution complex be justified. There is NO secular or atheist agenda.

And Noble also states:

“All attempts by Richard Dawkins to indoctrinate children with an ‘evolution only’ education spring from a secularising agenda. As he himself admits, Darwin made it possible for him to be an intellectually-fulfilled atheist. Professor Dawkins thus has a vested interest in promoting evolution, and therefore cannot be taken seriously as an objective voice on this matter.”

A bizarre argument given that, as Noble later acknowledges, the campaign has the support of Ekklesia a Christian think tank. Then there is the fact that two of the biggest critics of ID, Miller and Collins are avowed Christians.

Popes, priests, vicars, bishops and many Christians from many different denominations happily accept evolution as the only current rational explanation for the data and evidence. That acceptance makes not one iota of difference to their faith. What is pertinent to the atheism of Dawkins is irrelevant to someone else’s lack of faith. We all have our own reasons for belief or lack of it.

Then there is the fact that C4ID claim again and again that ID is the scientific search for intelligent causation, not to prove the existence of the Christian God. If that is really the case then why should it be any different to evolution? If it ever attained scientific credibility and convinced me of intelligent causation, it would not Nobles Christian God that I’d assume was responsible.

So Dr Noble, evolution is taught because it is a well supported scientific theory that is of supreme importance to the understanding of biology NOT as an attempt to deny the existence of God or Gods. Both theists and atheists are happily engaged in researching, teaching and learning about it. Dr Noble’s ID on the other hand, only commands the support of people at the fundamentalist end of the religious spectrum. It is Noble that wishes to introduce a religious idea, it is Noble that has the agenda, it is Noble that has a vested religious interest in promoting ID and it is Noble that therefore cannot be taken seriously as an objective voice in this matter.

“Dawkins argues that ID should not be taken seriously because its main protagonists are theists. But we don’t hear him arguing that by the same token evolution should not be taken seriously because its main protagonists are atheists.”

This strange statement would suggest that Dawkins rejects ID merely because its protagonists are theists. Two points need mentioning here. The first is why are the main proponents of a so called empirical scientific position only theists? Both atheists and theists accept the evidence for evolution or indeed atoms, gravity, quantum mechanics and so on. If it is only theists, and indeed only a minority of theists from the more fundamentalist and extreme fringes of faith, that take ID seriously then the onus is on Dr Noble to examine why this is the case and not simply bandy accusations. After all ID is quick to point out that the intelligent cause does not have to be the Christian God, so atheism alone should present no barrier to it.

The second is that Dawkins quite happily accepts the science of theists when it qualifies as good science, the science of evolutionary protagonist and devout theist Francis Collins for example. Dawkins does not refuse to take the parts of the genome that Collins had a hand in sequencing seriously because Collins is a theist.

Then there is that other famous evolutionary protagonist and devout theist, Ken Miller. Miller, who not only scientifically showed that Behe’s claims for an irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum were nonsense, but who also made mincemeat of IDs claim to be science in the courts at Dover. Not only does Dawkins take Miller’s science very seriously indeed, he has made a big thing in at least two of his books (The God Delusion and The Ancestors Tale) of Millers faith. Dawkins may not like or respect the religious beliefs of scientists, but where their science is sound, he both accepts and respects it! And when they have a major hand in shredding the nonsense of ID/creationism he positively revels in the irony of it.

ID is rejected because it is NOT science!! It is rejected because it is NOT credible!!

Noble goes on with much in the same vein, adding spurious facts like:

“The British Humanist Association (BHA) is one of the five organisations behind the campaign, along with Ekklesia – a liberal theological pressure group that has a long history of opposing criticism of evolution. And the list of signatories reveals that many of the supporters are indeed atheists. The BHA aims to remove God from the curriculum, and is therefore afraid of any theory like ID that has theological implications."

Ignoring the fact that Ekklesia is a Christian think tank, composed of Christians, the BHA does not aim to remove God from the curriculum. God is not part of the science curriculum anyway so cannot be removed from there. Nor is He part of the history, english, maths or DT curriculum. God is discussed in RE, the discussion of God in RE is not a part of this campaign-this campaign only aims to prevent children being taught the lie that creationism and ID are scientifically valid positions.

Not only does this campaign not refer to removing God from the curriculum at all, but Dawkins has recently come out in support of the continued teaching of RE. I think Noble may only wish his version of God to remain on the curriculum but that is just tough.

But what exactly are Nobles suggestions for science education. Well here is a selection from his many paragraphs ranting on a similar theme:

“If this was about the integrity of science education", says Dr Alastair Noble[1], director of the Centre, "then they would be campaigning for students to have access to all the scientific evidence about evolution and origins – including the positive evidence for design in nature and the evidence both for and against evolution. Scientific theories are only credible if they take account of all the evidence."

This is incomprehensible as students already have access to all the scientific evidence that we have. I suspect what Noble really means is the inclusion of ID religious indoctrination and propaganda from those with a religious agenda.

If evidence for ID is to be presented, Noble first needs to provide some. But ask for positive evidence for design and he will give you the ‘it looks complicated so couldn’t have evolved’ line, or perhaps introduce you to some maths that completely ignore the rather important contribution of natural selection to evolution. I’ve searched the C4ID website; there is NO positive evidence for design to present to students at all. Not only that but there are no predictions, there are no hypotheses, no ways of testing for design-all you will find there are articles about things that look complicated hence evolution must be wrong. Oh and I forgot to add, there is no logic there either.

There is NO real evidence against evolution to present to students. They are told what we do and don’t know about origins. What Noble wants is a fraudulent pretence to suit his religious beliefs. That is neither fair nor honest.

“The 30 scientists who have signed up to the ‘Evolution not Creationism’ statement are attempting to prevent students from hearing the rational, well-evidenced arguments that cast doubt on neo-Darwinism.”

If such arguments exist the place to air them is before experts in evolution. The place for such arguments is via the peer review system. Schoolchildren have neither the skills nor expertise to see through them. They are not the arbiters of science. However, thus far, neither creationism nor ID has come up with any rational arguments to cast doubt on Darwinism, neo or otherwise. They have said absolutely nothing that any half decent scientist hasn’t been able to rip to pieces. I can only assume that is the rationale behind their strange notion to present their ideas to pre-GCSE students instead. Get them before they know enough to criticise and confuse them so they’ll never learn enough to do so.

“Students also need to understand the provisional nature of the scientific consensus. Science is not done by consensus. Indeed, students should be aware that some crucial scientific discoveries were made by individuals who challenged the consensus. The reality of science is that one individual scientist with sound evidence can trump the consensus."

The key words in that sentence boys and girls? Sound and evidence, ID has yet to produce sound evidence. In fact ID has yet to produce any of the other things required by science, like predictions, a testable hypothesis or method of looking for design. All it is thus far is a God of gaps religious stance. That is the reason for the Attenborough letter.

"Prof Dawkins oft-repeated claim that full-scale evolution is “as solidly demonstrated as any fact in science” is largely a rhetorical position, which well outruns the evidence. Intelligent Design theory may not yet be the mainstream view of science, but it has a solid scientific evidenced base of which students have a right to be aware. A truly rigorous scientific approach to education would be to inform students of all the views, evidence and arguments surrounding the origin and development of life. Censorship is inherently anti-scientific."

Evolution is currently the only theory which explains all the data and evidence we have. And there is rather a lot of evidence. It is far from a rhetorical position. Until something comes along to falsify it is our only explanation. And should that happen, ID and creationism do not automatically become the default positions.

ID has been exposed in the courts as religion rather than science-it has been shown to have no solid science at all behind it. A truly rigorous scientific approach to education does inform students of all the valid views, evidence and arguments. What Noble doesn’t seem to realise is that until ID proves itself in the scientific world its views and arguments are not valid. If the unsubstantiated, faith based claims of ID were to be included in education then why not all the other equally invalid claims of astrology, clairvoyance or magic? There is no difference. Teach none or teach them all. Noble has to accept that.

Until ID comes up with some evidence there is nothing to present to students. Censorship is not the issue, protecting children from nonsense and propaganda is. We do not allow holocaust deniers into history classes. They deny the very real evidence to suit their political agendas. The evidence denied by IDers may be scientific rather than political, and their agenda may be religious, but in every other respect they are no different to holocaust deniers.

The inanity of this next statement left me speechless:

“No scientific theory needs or should have the compulsion of law. And no programme of science education can afford to rule some illegal, The proposition that a scientific curriculum should be the subject of legal or quasi-legal enforcement is based on a failure to recognise that all scientific theories are ultimately tentative questions.”

What utter nonsense. The curriculum is presented to children, of course it needs to be regulated and subject to some legal constraints. Children have a right, at least within schools, to protection from crackpot notions and propaganda, be it religious, political or commercial.

As for the notion that scientific theories are ultimately tentative - children are taught that, alongside the fact that the ones they are taught are pretty well supported by evidence. What Noble really means by that statement is schools do not single out evolution for special treatment merely because of his religious objection to it. If all scientific theories were to be subjected to the level of scrutiny that Noble wants for evolution there would cease to be any science left.

Lastly:

“If creationism and ID are unscientific, pupils should be allowed to explore the evidence if they wish to see why."

But there is no evidence. There is no science. There is nothing for them to explore. Education does not exist to give credibility to nonsense! As for ID, all Noble needed in that press release was a paradigm and a worldview and he’d have scored a full house in creationist word bingo. Though he may not realise it, with this press release Noble has proved beyond all doubt that ID and creationism are one and the same, and ID protagonists merely creationists.

[1]
.

The ID challenge

2011-10-08T22:33:00.001+01:00

Growing up in a Creationist world

2011-10-03T18:53:00.000+01:00

From the Guardian:

We learned that evolution had no scientific support from young-Earth creationists like Henry Morris and Ken Ham.

. . .

We learned that homosexuality is a choice made by people to live in sin, under Satan's influence.

. . .

Christian "historians" like Peter Marshall and David Barton helped us understand that America was a "Christian nation" and that recent travails, like the social upheaval of the 1960s that gave us drug abuse, promiscuity, and the homosexual agenda, were the result of abandoning America's religious roots.

. . .

There are, fortunately, many evangelical scholars – National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins and historian Mark Noll come to mind – who are quietly raising alarms about all this dangerous anti-intellectualism, warning us about populist gurus who are marketing a "Christianised" version of knowledge that, on closer examination, turns out to be neither Christian nor knowledge.

Insulting jokes

2011-10-01T07:24:00.000+01:00

UD continue the theme of revealing their true nature with an insulting joke about a scientist;

A bedtime story for non-DarwinistsOnce upon a time, a bush plane (Air Bear) was bravely buffeting the winds in the far north. Besides the pilot, there were three people: An important evolutionary psychologist, who was going up north to study the impact of the selfish gene on the human biota; the Prime Minister, who was attempting to settle a potentially violent dispute about hunting lodge rights, and a little girl, who was joining her physician parents at an outpost medical clinic.
The pilot had a heart attack at the controls. No one else knew how to fly a plane, or land it.
Inconveniently, there were only two parachutes.
The evolutionary biologist jumped up and started shrieking, “I am the most brilliant scientist of all time! My selfish genes must be passed on! You don’t count.” He grabbed one of the packages and jumped out of the plane.
The Prime Minister turned to the little girl and said, “My dear, listen. I have a very important job. But someone else could do it. I’m an old man. You have your whole life ahead of you. You must take the parachute, and I will help you out of the plane.”
The little girl said, “ Not to worry, Mr. Prime Minister. There is a parachute for each of us. The most brilliant scientist of all time has just grabbed my school backpack and jumped out of the plane.”

Three Cheers for the NCSE

2011-09-28T18:46:00.000+01:00

An informative piece from Donald Prothero here:

So this is the headquarters of the “Evil Empire,” the “Mordor” that creationists fear above all others? This tiny organization is allegedly brainwashing the entire scientific community, and is capable of suppression and censorship on a massive scale? This tiny office is the monster that the DI people in Ben Stein’s movie feared most? If so, then the NCSE is a David against a Goliath of creationist organizations. According to their tax forms, the budget of the DI in Seattle is nearly five times the budget of the NCSE. The DI is a huge organization which is one of the loudest and most powerful in the creationist community, along with Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis megachurch and “museum” in Kentucky—both are many times richer and more powerful than the threadbare NCSE. The budgets of most of the fundamentalist megachurches and schools like Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University or the Seventh-Day Adventist schools dwarf even these. Yet all these mighty, rich organizations, with their TV shows on cable, and gigantic base of followers, fear the NCSE? The NCSE must be doing something right!

Evolution and Global Warming Denialism: How the Public is Misled

2011-09-27T17:23:00.001+01:00

Williams versus Noble: Science and Education versus Fundamentalism and Queue Jumping

2011-09-26T18:25:00.000+01:00

An excellent post from James Williams on his blog here gives us a wide ranging summary of the issues around the C4ID, intelligent design and the UK education system.

A few choice extracts:

In debates you know that things are going wrong for one side when it descends to name-calling – which is what Dr Noble did, certainly in the final interview this morning.
. . .
As the interviews carried on from regional station to regional station you could hear in his voice the frustration and it ended with name calling. It seems that I am an ‘intellectual fascist’ who does not understand the ‘science’ and who fails to explain the ‘information’ contained in DNA and who does not know the history of the intelligent design movement.
All these charges are false. Dr Noble consistently and aggressively misrepresented the call for the ban signed by myself and the other 29 leading scientists and educators – he’s claiming that we wish to ban all mention of creationism or ID – he ridiculed the position saying that we would have to get the police in to stop mentions of these ideas in classes. Despite patiently explaining to him that the call is that neither creationism nor Intelligent design should be presented AS SCIENCE he continued with his ridiculous claims of intellectual fascism etc.
. . .
Dr Noble stated that he knows Philip Johnson and that my claims that this started as a religious movement and that the strategy is clear – get ID accepted then move on to the acceptance of the Christian God and the designer – is untrue.
Readers can judge for themselves who has the strongest argument here. Dr Noble and his denial or Philip Johnson and his recorded and reported admissions.
. . .
In one of the interviews – he stated quite openly that he didn’t want intelligent design taught in science – so I don’t quite understand what his position really is. Nobody is stopping the discovery institute from doing what they do. If they can convince the academic community of scientists that their ideas are borne from science then fine, debate it and once it attains the status of science it can be brought into science teaching. But ID does NOT have a mandate to jump the queue, get injected into mainstream science teaching with no body of evidence and peer review behind it and certainly not while the community of scientists disagree with it.
. . .
Many times Dr Noble kept banging on about randomness and blind chance – I pointed out that evolution is not about randomness and blind chance and that environmental conditions are the ‘directive force’ in evolution. He of course ignored this and kept on about randomness and blind chance – no doubt he will accuse me of ignoring his claims that ID did not come from religion and to all intents and purposes still is a religious position.

Please go and read the whole report here.

Debunking Corner - Irreducible Complexity

2011-09-26T08:00:00.000+01:00

Call for Evolution not Creationism Launched

2011-09-25T21:59:00.000+01:00

The last few days has seen widespread press coverage of a call for evolution to be taught in UK schools.

The call was headlined by some large organisations and some of the country's top names in science and science communication.

BCSE welcomes this campaign and, in particular, the call for guidelines to be issued to all state funded UK schools stating that creationism can not be presented as valid science in any lesson or activity. This call was first made earlier this year as part of the CrISIS campaign.

It is very gratifying that organisations and individuals far more influential than our own modest group are now calling for Mr Gove to do the right thing.

As we pointed out at the time CrISIS was launched, such a move would be a quick and simple one for Mr Gove, would cost him nothing, and would enable those of us at the grass roots level to defend our children's education against distortions, omissions and downright lies from those either attempting to proselytise their extreme beliefs or trying to undermine science education more generally so as to make future attempts to do so easier. Clear guidelines would also remove the wriggle room used by those trying to make life easy for the creationists without being too obvious about it, and it would also make it easier to show those unaware of this issue and so happy to pretend it does not exist, just what they are up against and what their responsibilities are.

We call on Mr Gove, once again, to do the right thing.

We would further point out that there are currently two main creationist disinformation campaigns active in the UK. The first is based on the "World Around Us" web site that hides any mention of creationism or intelligent design which we covered here. This is being presented as the "secular evidence for creation" by creationist churches around the country and is suggested as a resource for parents and pupils to use to challenge their teachers.

Secondly the Glasgow based C4ID is openly pushing Intelligent Design and, believe it or not, is actually trying to stick to the line that ID isn't creationism despite all the evidence. This group appears well funded and is now involved in promoting heavily subsidised summer schools, seminars and more recently dinners for politicians, academics and educationalists where US based creationism/ID "personalities" get to push their hugely distorted view of science away from the public gaze. Such tactics are well tried in the US where creationists have long given up attempting to even appear to be doing any science and instead concentrate on political lobbying to advance their agendas. Before we dismiss such lobbying as ineffectual we should pause for a moment to remember that the nation that landed on the moon now has almost half their population dismissing vast evidence that world is much older than 6,000 years old and now find themselves with only 28% of their biology teachers able or willing to cover evolution effectively.

Should Michael Gove decide to ignore the growing pressure for action on this issue, the public might begin to wonder about the extent and effect of such political lobbying in conservative party circles.

Centre for Unintelligent Design

2011-09-22T20:45:00.000+01:00

New website launches.

Creationism - Vaccine Denial - Accusations of Eugenics

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

We really can't make this stuff up.Creationist candidate for the Republican nomination for President thinks vaccines are bad for you.

She gets criticism for this from people who don't agree with her. Doctors for example.

Creationists rally round and reply by accusing Darwin of eugenics by quote mining a piece where he is actually explaining the noble nature of human beings and how we care for our weak and sick.

This is the level of "debate" that creationists engage in and another reason why they should not be allowed to promote their beliefs in publicly funded schools - in any lesson or activity.

Teaching evolution in a climate of science denial, Part 3 (last)

2011-09-12T19:12:00.001+01:00

Great Read At Birmingham

2011-09-09T17:25:00.003+01:00

From here:

This week, all the new undergraduates at the University of Birmingham (~6000 students) will receive a copy of the same book in their Welcome Packs and be asked to read it before arriving to encourage to engage with academic ideas and to create a shared experience for all new students. That book is The Rough Guide to Evolution!
The University believes that attending an institution like @uniBirmingham is about grappling with complex, multi-faceted, and even controversial ideas. As an academic community, the University welcomes and enjoys debate and hopes that this choice of book will stimulate discussion.

Teaching evolution in a climate of science denial, Part 2

2011-09-08T17:04:00.002+01:00

Teaching evolution in a climate of science denial, Part 1

2011-09-02T07:59:00.001+01:00

View From The Pulpit - Anglican - Michael Roberts - BCSE Member

2011-08-28T21:48:00.001+01:00

BCSE member, the Reverend Michael Roberts has just written this piece on Creationism, education and the Church of England. Click the PDF link for the full article. Well worth a read.

Everyday Champions – of what? (Should schools teach creationism?) The proposed Free School in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

Against the backdrop of the news that the creationist Everyday Champions Church in Newark are pursuing an application to found a free school – Everyday Champions School – Michael Roberts - M.A. (Oxon), Vicar in the Diocese of Blackburn – agreed to put a few words together for me.
You can find the essay on the below PDF link:
Everyday Champions – of what? (Should schools teach creationism?) The proposed Free School in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
I would encourage everyone to give a little time to read this, irrespective of your views on creationism.
Michael looks at the teaching of creationism within our schools and the dangers of “creeping creationism” within the education system. He covers the development of creationism, why it is wrong, and the challenge this presents to churches.
Michael’s writing has played no small part in my own development and understanding and it’s with this in my mind that I urge you to give this a read.

Creationist Posters on London Buses?

2011-08-27T09:44:00.001+01:00

As yet this is unconfirmed.

Uncommon Descent - another conspiracy theory

2011-08-27T09:37:00.000+01:00

Did you know how involved government now is in materialist neuroscience, to control citizens?

From here.

Sarcasm might be the lowest form of wit - but that doesn't stop it from being funny

2011-08-26T08:20:00.003+01:00

A recent exchange on the BCSE forum produced this advice for creationists;

. . .if you're going to object to a theory based on its problems, disputes and inability to fully clarify itself, then pick on gravity. Evolution is a solid, well tested theory, unlike gravity.

Well, sorry, 'micro'-gravity is well proven, lifting an object up and dropping it shows that gravity exists.

That's easily explained. Using the same theory on untestable 'macro' events like planetary orbits or black holes is absurd conjecture and extrapolation of a 'theory in crisis'. It's not about the evidence, it's based on theinterpretation of the evidence, which clearly shows gravity is wrong. The same is true of small events on the quantum scale, because gravity cannot explain that, it's obvious that the 'theory of gravity' is an atheistic ploy to destroy faith in gods.

Strange how quiet the YEC community is on gravity. Must be a conspiracy.

Debunking Corner - Intelligent is Nothing to do with Religion - But our god is bigger than yours

2011-08-26T07:53:00.001+01:00

Jack Scanlan recently talked about a lack of introspection within the ID movement.

The Uncommon Descent blog "Serving the ID community" has a post explaining why their god is bigger and better than the rest.

Try this for size.

Debunking Corner - Another ridiculous video from C4ID

2011-08-25T22:27:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well, another publicity email for C4ID’s conference falls into my mailbox, bearing with it another link to a brief video by one of their speakers.

This time it’s Dr Geoff Barnard on “survival of the fertile”. This seems to be brief excerpt from a longer presentation, but since this is what C4ID have pushed out for us to look at, this is what I’ll look at. Who is Geoff Barnard? The email from C4ID says:

Dr Geoff Barnard – a geneticist now based in Israel – is one of the conference speakers.

You can read Barnard’s web page at the University of Cambridge Veterinary School. The BCSE wiki has this on Barnard:

Geoff Barnard is one of the leading advocates of young earth creationism to have been active in the last two decades.
Dr Geoff Barnard was a senior researcher at the Cambridge Veterinary school but is believed to have retired and is now living in Israel. To our knowledge he’s been involved in at least four British creationist organisations as well as the Euro Leadership organisation alongside Andy McIntosh.
He was a leading speaker in Genesis Agendum where he was also a trustee. He was a founding participant and trustee in Biblical Creation Ministries, the evangelising arm of the Biblical Creation Society. He’s been involved in Truth in Science and, as at November 2010, was helping with the launch of the Centre for Intelligent Design
However, surprisingly, he was not a signatory to the 2002 Estelle Morrisletter. This was the letter which basically gave the game away that there was an interconnected freemasonary of young earth creationist activists in Britain.
There is a bio on him athttp://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/g_barnard.asp. [I note that the Creation Wiki entry on Geoff Barnard links to that AIG site, but has a photo that looks distinctly unlike the speaker in the C4ID video. How many Geoff Barnards are there...]

C4ID also summarise the video’s message as: “Everybody knows that Darwinism is about the survival of the fittest – but is that circular claim actually the crux of the matter? “ Interestingly, the origins of the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” do not lie with Darwin, but with Francis Galton. As Wikipedia (Survival of the fittest) has it:

“Survival of the fittest” is a phrase which is commonly used in contexts other than intended by its first two proponents: Britishpolymath philosopher Herbert Spencer (who coined the term) andCharles Darwin.
Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin’s biological ones, writing, “This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”
Darwin first used Spencer’s new phrase “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for natural selection in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869. Darwin meant it as a metaphor for “better adapted for immediate, local environment”, not the common inference of “in the best physical shape”. Hence, it is not a scientific description.
The phrase “survival of the fittest” is not generally used by modern biologists as the term does not accurately convey the meaning of natural selection, the term biologists use and prefer. Natural selection refers to differential reproduction as a function of traits that have a genetic basis. “Survival of the fittest” is inaccurate for two important reasons. First, survival is merely a normal prerequisite to reproduction. Second, fitness has specialized meaning in biology different from how the word is used in popular culture. In population genetics, fitness refers to differential reproduction. “Fitness” does not refer to whether an individual is “physically fit” – bigger, faster or stronger – or “better” in any subjective sense. It refers to a difference in reproductive rate from one generation to the next.

So, from the start, there is the usual deliberate misrepresentation, probably to set a straw man argument. Additionally, the C4ID email goes on to say:

Geoff will carefully explain in his sessions at the conference on Saturday September 10th by reference to detailed biological considerations why he makes this claim. That evidenced claim has, as he says, ‘killer’ consequences for Darwinism.

Ah yes, the classic creationist usage of the word ‘Darwinism’, rather than the more appropriate ‘evolutionary biology’. But I suppose for those of a religious bent, such as Noble et al of C4ID, referring to a bearded patriarchal authority figure comes rather more naturally than any reference to a century and a half of biological research spanning a multitude of disciplines, all providing evidence of evolution as both a fact and theory. In the video Barnard says [my approximate transcript, so errors will be mine]:

It’s vital to maintain integrity of chromosomes. Something to ponder. Follow the argument.
Shows a slide entitled “Something to ponder”
- Meiosis cannot begin without synapsis and recombination
- Synapsis cannot happen without the maintenance of chromosomal integrity
- No meiosis – no sperm or egg
- No meiosis – no survival
Another slide:
Conclusion
- It is the survival of the fertile
- Maintenance of fertility requires maintenance of chromosomal integrity
- Maintenance of fertility and Darwinism are incompatible
He asks – Is it actually the survival of the fittest? Says “more accurately survival of the fertile”
Somewhat bizarrely, he then says “Doesn’t have a mechanism, folks. Of course there’s variation but there’s a limit to common descent that will be measurable in genomics in due course”.

Quite an astonishing farrago. I’ve no idea what came before this clip, but the video material is just so astonishingly bad, I am surprised C4ID circulated it. Unless they didn’t expect those with a biology background to watch it (you can only view it at YouTube if you have the link – here it is.) I can’t actually make much of this nonsense out.

Of course it’s vital to maintain chromosomal integrity (it’s what I research into). To say that meiosis cannot begin without synapsis and recombination is a little odd, as synapsis and recombination are part of meiosis rather than a preceding stage. Maybe he’s making an argument from incredulity here. It’s probably also true to say that meiosis can’t proceed without DNA replication, or adequate nutrition, or correct gonad development. (And by the way, male Drosophila melanogastermanage their meiosis very well in the absence of recombination, so I doubt that recombination is an absolute requirement!) So I imagine that the first slide shown here must relate to a prior statement on the importance of synapsis and recombination for the correct progression through meiosis. The rest of the bullet points in the first slide are fairly obvious.

In the second slide we get a reference to survival of the fertile. How odd. The reality behind survival of the fittest is really that those organisms best suited to their environment (which includes other organisms) are most likely to contribute to the next generation (see the Wikipedia article). This is the basis of natural selection (I’m ignoring chance effects such as genetic drift here). Organisms with reduced fertility may or may not make a lesser contribution to the next generation – it’s a bit more complicated that Barnard would have us believe in this video clip, and there are other factors beyond just fertility that come into play.

Barnard’s closing lines are also a bit peculiar. It’s not clear to me what he’s referring to as lacking a mechanism, nor what the basis is for his assertion there’s alimit to common descent. And if the profusion of genome sequencing projects has achieved anything, it has been direct evidence supporting common descent.

It all makes me wonder if there will be any published output from this exciting conference. On the other hand, the email’s closing sentence suggests they’re having a spot of bother recruiting attendees:

If you come yourself to the full weekend and bring one new person to the Conference for the same period, each will receive a free 2010 Oxford Conference DVD on arrival and signing up for our free e-bulletin

So maybe we’ll see video footage from the 2011 conference, though at a likely price tag of 20 quid a pop, I certainly won’t be rushing out to score one.

Cross-posted from Wonderful Life by Grumpy Bob.

Does the intelligent design movement need to be demolished and rebuilt?

2011-08-25T20:44:00.001+01:00

An excellent post summarising what is wrong with the ID movement from here:

The intelligent design (ID) movement has been around for over 20 years, and few (if any) of its stated and implied goals and plans have thus far come to fruition. While contributing factors to this lack of success are certainly the hard work of the scientific community and its friends, as well as the fact that ID has never been adequately formulated as a scientific idea, a significant proportion of the responsibility for the outcome should be laid upon ID movement itself. It has, in arguably many respects, acted in the exact opposite way that it should have acted if it wanted to be taken seriously – only one example of which is bringing up religion whilst simultaneously claiming that they weren’t and then chastising critics who pointed out what they were doing.
It’s hard to find an ID proponent who will admit this. Like many movements, the one constructed around ID is insular, mistrusting and lacks introspection, and it spends most of its time on attacking “the Darwinist enemy” in academia instead of really thinking about what it’s doing. This is understandable, considering it’s been relentlessly criticised by the scientific community ever since it poked its head up out of the carcass of creation science, rendering it in a somewhat-perpetual state of defensiveness. Those few proponents who can somehow forget the fact that nearly every biologist in the world would laugh about their ideas to their face given the chance still attack evolutionary biology with unparalleled confidence, which bolsters the morale of those in the Internet trenches: and thus the movement continues. Even with its “Darwinist conspiracy” mindset, it still thinks it’s winning. But it’s not. Not by a long shot.
On the How To Debate Evolution blog, the pro-intelligent design author, EvoGuide, has written what they think is a solution to many of these problems, in a post titled “Towards a Better Version of ID – A Manifesto”. While I think it still has its flaws, the bigger ID blogs, such as Evolution News & Views and Uncommon Descent, would do well to listen to this advice:

Go and read the rest here.

Creationists Deny Biology - Do They Deny Anything Else? How About History

2011-08-24T21:10:00.000+01:00

We have covered numerous examples of Creationists denying modern science in the form of Biology, Physics, Astronomy and Cosmology.

Here is an example of them denying history:

One of the most popular topics among young earth creationists and apologists is the relationship of the Bible with Ancient Egyptian chronology. Whether it concerns who the pharaoh of the Exodus was, the background of Joseph, or the identity of Shishak, many Christians (and non-Christians) have wondered how these two topics fit together. This paper deals with the question, “How does ancient Egyptian chronology correlate with the book of Genesis?” In answering this question it begins with an analysis of every Egyptian dynasty starting with the 12th Dynasty (this is where David Down places Moses) and goes back all the way to the so called “Dynasty 0.” After all the data is presented, this paper will look at the different possibilities that can be constructed concerning how long each of these dynasties lasted and how they relate to the biblical dates of the Great Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the Patriarchs.

Should people so far remote from the real world be given public money to "educate" children?

We don't think so.

American Creationist Attacks UK Pastor - Also thinks little of the UK

2011-08-22T20:30:00.002+01:00

Of course anyone who disagrees with Ken Ham just can't be right can they?

Here he has a go at the UK Church and society. All part of the standard creationist boilerplate.

Christianity magazine in the United Kingdom (UK) recently published an article by a Baptist pastor from Cambridge in England. I just groan when I read such articles. Just the first paragraph alone illustrates how compromised and ill informed many such pastors are about biblical topics. No wonder generations of young people have left the church. Look at the state of the church in the UK today—what a mess. Look at the state of the nation—generations of godless young people in the UK now acting in accord with their godless foundations for their worldview. And the church pumps out stuff like this compromised thinking below! What a mess!

Compromised. The Church is a mess.

Creationists like to paint the political controversy about their extreme fundamentalist take on the Bible as a conflict between christians and atheists.

This article shows you what it is really about: a battle for control of the church.

Everyday Champions creationist school gets go-ahead? Maybe not

2011-08-22T09:11:00.001+01:00

A school that will teach that God created the world has been given approval to open in Nottinghamshire.

The Christian Today website reports somewhat breathlessly that the creationist school proposed by the Everyday Champions Church in Newark has got the go-ahead from our somewhat underwhelming Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove (Evangelical school gets the go ahead in Nottingham | Christian News on Christian Today). This appears to be another of the hopefully over-optimistic articles from the christian lobbies. It begins

An application by the Everyday Champions Church, based in Newark, has been accepted by the Department for Education.

But then later in the article says:

Now it has emerged that a panel of civil servants interviewed Everyday Champions Church leaders last week after their initial application was approved. It is not known if they agreed to drop plans to teach creationism.

So what gives? If Michael Gove has approved an application from these nutters, where will it end? Why should the nation fund schools run by idiots who say

“Creationism will be embodied as a belief at the Everyday Champions Academy but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory.”

Doesn’t our foolish Secretary of State for Education realise this is creationist code? I do wonder whether they will teach some alternative to the Theory of Gravity – perhaps while the teachers are all bouncing off the ceiling. To hand education of our nation’s children to evangelical buffoons could be seen as sanctioning child abuse.

Update: Visiting the Everyday Champions Academy website, one can see the following text in big bold letters:

Contrary to press coverage ECA has NOT been given approval to open by the DfE and will not receive an update on its progress to pre-opening stage until late September/early October. If the proposal is successful the Academy will NOT be teaching ‘creationism’ or ‘intelligent design’ in any science lesson in line with national curriculum guidelines.

So there is hope yet…

By Grumpy Bob from here.

Petition about Creationism in the UK Education System

2011-08-22T08:53:00.000+01:00

Teach evolution, not creationism

Responsible department: Department for Education

Creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories, but they are portrayed as scientific theories by some religious fundamentalists who attempt to have their views promoted in publicly-funded schools. At the same time, an understanding of evolution is central to understanding all aspects of biology. Currently, the study of evolution does not feature explicitly in the National Curriculum until year 10 (ages 14-15). Free Schools and Academies are not obliged to teach the National Curriculum and so are under no obligation to teach about evolution at all. We petition the Government to make clear that creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories and to prevent them from being taught as such in publicly-funded schools, including in ‘faith’ schools, religious Academies and religious Free Schools. At the same time, we want the Government to make the teaching of evolution in mandatory in all publicly-funded schools, at both primary and secondary level.

Evolution & Global Warming Denial: How the Public is Misled - Eugenie Scott

2011-08-21T05:57:00.001+01:00

Evolution & Global Warming Denial: How the Public is Misled - Eugenie Scott

Eugenie Scott in Glasgow Sept 15th, 19:00 - 22:00,

From here:

Eugenie Scott is the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, and has been for almost 25 years. The author of Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, she is widely considered to be a leading expert on Creationism and Intelligent Design. She was an a consultant for the plaintiffs in the famous "Dover Trial", which ruled that intelligent design "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents" and the teaching of ID in public school biology classes is therefore unconstitutional.

Brought up a Christian Scientist, she has now describes herself as a nontheist. In 2002 she received the Public Service Award from the National Science Board for her "promotin of public understanding of the important of science, the scientific method, and science education and the role of evolution in science education". In 2009, Eugenie was the first person to receive the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, for devoting "her life to advancing public understanding of evolution".

MacLatchie and the blindspots

2011-08-20T07:19:00.004+01:00

Our very own Jonathon MacLatchie ( a student from Scotland ) has got it bad. He now regularly posts on the ID blog Uncommon Descent.

In his brief foray into the BCSE he demonstrated an ability to ignore the holes in his own very verbose monologs. He now seems to be further developing this talent on UD.

Just how many blindspots has he got? It seems that this depends on how many gaps in his own knowledge he has.

The common feature of JonathanM’s posts is above-average research for an IDist, but way below-par research in terms of actual scholarship. He knows just enough to seem informed, but doesn’t bother to look up any of the actual research on the questions he asks – he just assumes that whatever problem with evolution that he thinks up over breakfast is some crushing objection that none of the experts has ever thought about before.

Usually this boils down to not a God-of-the-Gaps-Human-Knowledge argument, but a God-of-the-Gaps-in-JonathanM’s-Knowledge argument, which is, I think, an even more devastating mistake than the usual God-of-the-Gaps argument.

Oh and by the way the above post points out that the Discovery Institute has thought up another jolly wheeze - censor any comments on Jonathan's posts that point out that there are major holes in his arguments - then claim that no one has any answer to his arguments.

Neat.

Alastair Noble's own conspiracy theory

2011-08-14T10:03:00.000+01:00

"Without doubt one of the most pervasive ideas of modern thought is the theory if evolution and its application to the origin of life. It is now not only taught at every level of our public education system as an indisputable scientific fact, but it is regularly invoked as the basis for sociological and political trends which lie far beyond the field of natural science. Evolution is regarded by some as the most fundamental principle of the universe. To challenge it, or even to consider an alternative view of origins, is to incur the immediate scorn of the educational and, sadly, of parts of the religious establishment."

From "Whatever happened to Darwin?"

Let's unpack that a piece at a time;

"the theory if evolution and its application to the origin of life" The theory of evolution is not a theory of the origin of life. They are different things.

"taught at every level of our public education system" No it isn't - the current curriculum review might introduce it into primary schools.

"as indisputable scientific fact" The fact of evolution having occurred was first put forward and accepted by people of religious faith in light of the evidence.

"it is regularly invoked as the basis for sociological and political trends which lie far beyond the field of natural science" Now this seems to be entirely made up. Not much more to add.

"Evolution is regarded by some as the most fundamental principle of the universe." Is it? Who is that then? In any event so what?

"To challenge it, or even to consider an alternative view of origins, is to incur the immediate scorn of the educational and, sadly, of parts of the religious establishment." Well making such arguments as we see here, free of any hint of evidence or logic, is probably the reason for the scorn. Of course the persecution complex is all part of the conspiracy theory way of thinking and is often used as a recruitment technique by creationists - perhaps in a C of E church near you.

Alastair Noble is the Director of the Centre for Intelligent Design in Glasgow. Much more on the C4ID and their silly arguments dressed up as science here.

Darwin caused the riots too!

2011-08-13T07:47:00.001+01:00

Creation Ministries International continue to flex their conspiracy theory muscles with these gems from beyond the edge of rationality;

The doctrine of original sin made clear that children were not born good; they needed to be taught right from wrong, and the discipline we received instilled a sense that wrong-doing had consequences.

In contrast to all this, much of today’s educational system places little if any value on such biblical ideas. This is not surprising; if even many church leaders claim Genesis is not real history, then original sin is but a myth. In fact, it is quite likely that the ‘progressive’ educationist will take a different view simply because they think that, if the Bible teaches something, it is probably wrong. The teachers know that they themselves lie, and the head teacher lies—so why should they expect their pupils not to lie? Indeed, a recent New Scientist article actually argued, from an evolutionary standpoint, that lying in our personal, professional and social lives is a strategy for survival!
. . .
The logical consequence of the 'evolutionisation' of society over the last century or more has been to undermine the truth and authority of the Bible in people's eyes. This is inevitably accompanied by the relentless undermining of all vestiges of the worldview based on Christianity. In many schools, it is frowned upon or even forbidden to teach morality as it is considered inappropriate for adults to impose their views on children. Moreover, disciplining them is said to be wrong because it infringes their ‘human rights’.

This is not a rant from a renegade creationist, this is the party line. In fact this is the recruitment pitch - I have seen it myself at a church in Leeds. It works too.

Let's look at the fundamentals of Creationism . . .

2011-08-12T17:03:00.000+01:00

From here:

In 1909, a distinguished group of Protestant academics converged to articulate what they considered to be the core non-negotiables (fundamentals) of Christianity. Among the participants were such notables as C. I. Scofield of the well-known "Scofield Reference Bible," Benjamin Warfield of the Princeton Theological Seminary and George Frederick Wright of Oberlin College in Ohio. They produced a four-volume series of essays (published between 1910-15) called "The Fundamentals" -- and with it the original Fundamentalist movement was born.
. . .
The most impassioned Christian voice wailing about the evils of evolution was Ellen White, the prophetess of the then quite marginal Seventh-day Adventists. One of her visions revealed that Noah's flood was a world-wide cataclysm which had entirely reshaped the earth's surface. In 1923, a self-trained Adventist geologist named George McCready Price took White's vision and turned it into a 700-page magnum opus called "The New Geology," where he set the standard for all the muddle-headed creationist pseudo-science that was to follow. Though Price's arguments and "evidence" fell easily to professional refutation, his ability to feign authority and breezy common-sense logic were convincing to many of the unwashed. Price enjoyed some initial success (helped in part by William Jennings Bryan's antievolution crusade during the 1920s), but his outsider status ensured that his impact on mainstream Protestantism would be limited.
. . .
It's been a half-century since Morris and Whitcomb recast fundamentalism as creationism -- a good time to assess its legacy. In place of science or insightful theology, creationism's primary achievement is a waist-deep rubbish pile of misrepresentation and deceit. In his decision in the infamous Kitzmiller vs. Dover intelligent design case, Judge John E. Jones openly chastised the creationist side for its "repetitious untruthful testimony" (p. 131), "flagrant and insulting falsehoods" (p. 132) and noted how the people of Dover were ill-served by creationist school board members who "staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public" only to "time and again lie to cover their tracks..." (p. 137). All this because they fear science.
. . .
What a far cry from Christianity's intellectual heritage! Augustine and Aquinas never stooped to churlish antics when faced with scholarly challenges. Theirs was an expansive, muscular Christianity that eyed pagan knowledge head-on. How pathetically puny creationists are in their shadow. However noble the creationists may perceive their ends to be, their shameful means remain unjustified.

Yet more from Creationists on why Darwin lead to the Norway killings

2011-07-29T19:19:00.000+01:00

This kind of conspiracy theory mixed up with quite a large dollop of persecution complex and of course served with hideously mangled claims about reality, is all part of the standard diet of the creationist worldview.

Creationist Conspiracy Theories

2011-07-26T23:37:00.002+01:00

It was Darwin what done it!

Perhaps you didn't know but Darwin is to blame for, amongst other things, rock music, inflation, pornography and now the Norway killings.

Here is an example of how it is presented:

Or this:

This kind of argument, the way it attempts to frame the issue as one of good against evil and not simply a matter of the evidence, is used extensively both as a method of recruiting new followers and for keeping them in line.

Look out folks the evolutionary bogie man is out to get you.

This is another reason why creationism does not belong in publicly funded education.

More Creationist Comment on Norway Attacks

2011-07-26T22:26:00.001+01:00

"Offering his take on the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway, Buchanan joined the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post in arguing that the far-right extremist perpetrator Anders Breivik may have had a valid point. Arguing that Breivik was bringing attention to his cause, “a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the ‘cultural Marxists’ and Muslims,” Buchanan declares that, on the “climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world…Breivik may be right“:

But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.
That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.
Europe faces today an authentic and historic crisis."

From here.

Creationist comment on Norway attacks

2011-07-26T06:29:00.005+01:00

Glenn Beck, the rightwing US broadcaster and Tea Party favourite, has compared those who were massacred on the Norwegian island of Utøya to the Nazi party's youth wing.
"There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth, or, whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics. Disturbing," said Beck on his syndicated radio show.
The comments were condemned by Torbjørn Eriksen, a former press secretary to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister.
Eriksen described the comment as "a new low" for Beck, telling the Daily Telegraph: "Young political activists have gathered at Utøya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about. Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful."
. . .
However, his latest comments about the "disturbing" nature of political youth camps may come as a surprise to Beck's followers in the Tea Party movement.
The anti-tax, anti-immigration movement has been holding summer camps in states including Florida and Missouri where children have been taught a curriculum based on God, the US constitution and "the defence of economic liberty".

From the Guardian.

A question for IDCreationists

2011-07-26T06:25:00.002+01:00

The question to ask proponents of intelligent design is this: At what point the police should stop investigating an unsolved murder and close the case, declaring that God must have simply wanted the victim dead? It is the same point at which it is appropriate to tell scientists to stop looking for explanations and simply conclude “God did it”.
Intelligent design isn’t just bad news for science. As an overarching approach to evidence and investigative reasoning, it can have a detrimental affect even on the safety of your neighborhood.

From here.

Noah's Ark

2011-07-24T22:07:00.001+01:00

BCSE's Paul Braterman at the Edinburgh Festival

2011-07-24T07:21:00.000+01:00

SotF: At the Fringe of Reason 2011

8:30 Tuesday 9th August 2011 – Professor Paul Braterman: The Illusions of Intelligent Design

As every seasquirt shows us, Intelligent Design Theory is the very opposite of science, but we can learn a lot scientifically by dismantling its claims.

The Role of Behaviour in Evolution ‐ “organisms can be proud to have been their own designers”

2011-07-23T08:02:00.001+01:00

A Linnean Society of London meeting sponsored by The Royal Entomological Society, the
British Ecological Society and the Natural History Museum

The Role of Behaviour in Evolution ‐ “organisms can be proud to have been their own designers”

8th September 2011

For more information about the conference, details of accommodation and directions to the Linnean Society, please contact:

Events, The Linnean Society of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BF Tel.: +44 (0)20 7434 4479 Fax: +44 (0)20 7287 9364 Email: events@linnean.org

Westboro Baptist Church - Young Earth Creationism in action

2011-07-11T08:00:00.000+01:00

Debunking Corner: Prothero Review Reviewed

2011-07-10T20:02:00.000+01:00

One of our forums has been having fun over the past few weeks taking apart a piece written by Marc Surtees of the Edinburgh Creation Group.

Marc did respond to some of the points made, but to be perfectly honest none of the responses really seemed of any substance. By all means read the full thread if you want to.

Well done Dannyno.

Marcsurtees vs Prothero

On Haeckel
I've been reading the review of Prothero by Marc Surtees which has been posted here.

The third paragraph of Surtees' review says:

Surprisingly we find a copy of Haeckel’s drawings of embryos (p.110) and the statement that although Haeckel may have been over‐enthusiastic with his diagrams he was essentially right.

Prothero completely overlooks work published by Richardson et al (1997) which demonstrates that the embryological differences are much more significant. Then, as if to clinch the argument and close down any remaining opposition, Prothero provides us with a picture of a human embryo at five weeks (p.111) and states that, “You still had many fish‐like structures, such as a well‐developed tail and the embryological precursors of gill slits,” which is simply not true.

To take the points in order, Prothero reproduces George Romanes' drawings (the citation is clear), "after Haeckel" (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24800/24800-h/24800-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV), rather than copies of Haeckel's original drawings, as Surtees states.

What Prothero says about Haeckel is rather more nuanced than Surtees admits. He actually goes back to von Baer's earlier work on the commonalities of embryonic development. As for Haeckels's notion that "embryonic development... repeats... evolutionary history" (p.108), Prothero says:

To the limited extent that von Baer had shown 40 years earlier, this is true. But embryos also have many unique features... that have nothing to do with the evolutionary past and are adaptations to their developmental environment. Thus it is dangerous to overextend the evolutionary implications of the stages in an embryo, but they are useful guides nonetheless.

Richardson et al (1997) is an interesting piece of work. Their conclusion is this:

Haeckel’s drawings... have been used to substantiate two quite distinct claims. First, that differences between species typically become more apparent at late stages. Second, that vertebrate embryos are virtually identical at earlier stages. This first claim is clearly true. Our survey, however, does not support the second claim, and instead reveals considerable variability – and evolutionary lability – of the tailbud stage, the purported phylotypic stage of vertebrates. We suggest that not all developmental mechanisms are highly constrained by conserved developmental mechanisms such as the zootype. Embryonic stages may be key targets for macroevolutionary change.

Prothero is in explicit agreement with this point, as ought to be clear from his reference to "adaptations to their developmental environment".

Notice that Richardson et al (available online here: http://www.mk-richardson.com/pdf/Anat%20Embryol.pdf) do clearly state that species differentiation becomes "more apparent at late stages". Richardson et al are actually addressing a very specific point. They do not deny that pharyngeal pouches are seen in embryos, they only question whether there is such a thing as a common pharyngeal stage (p.92):

The phylotypic stage in vertebrates has been defined as the pharyngula stage, after the series of pharyngeal pouches seen in embryos (Ballard 1981). However it is not clear precisely which stage of development this represents, since pharyngeal pouches appear over an extended period of development.

Thus, Richardson does not support Surtees at all.

- - -

On fish and gills

Surtees claims that Prothero says: "You still had many fish‐like structures, such as a well‐developed tail and the embryological precursors of gill slits” at five weeks. Surtees says this is "simply not true".

Well, what is "simply not true"?

Surtees quotes the text around the image, but not the explanatory text in the main part of the book, where Prothero is much clearer:

If you had any doubts that you once had ancestors with fish-like gills and a tail, Figure 4.11 shows what you looked like five weeks after fertilisation. Why did you have pharyngeal pouches (predecessors of gills) and a tail if you had not descended from ancestors with those features?

(pp.110-111).

What's "not true" about that? Is that not what we look like at five weeks, or does the picture not show what Prothero says it shows, or are pharyngeal pounches not the predecessors of gills?

Surtees is not specific.

- - -

On the fossil record
In paragraph 4 of his review, Surtees comments on Prothero's section about "systematics and evolution":

Prothero then goes on to remind his readers that this is not a problem for an evolutionist because they know the ancestors existed, and it is dishonest for a creationist to claim that the ancestors are missing. He also insists that we have to understand that “evolution is a bush not a ladder” (p.125) as if that resolves all the problems with the fossil record. It does not explain why we only ever see the twigs and tips and almost never the hypothetical common ancestor. This is a litany that he repeats quite often (see pp.221, 263, 280), as if that will somehow prove that evolution is true, whereas creationist biologists are perfectly aware of the bushiness of the fossil record and find this supports a biblical view of biology.

The section referred to here is not doing what Surtees claims it is doing. It is clarifying what the debate about ancestry, is really about, contra creationist claims.

The point is not that "it is dishonest... to claim that the ancestors are missing", but that it is dishonest to present the debate about systematics to be about whether evolution happened or not. Rejecting the concept of ancestry is not a rejection of the concept that living things must have had ancestors. Prothero also makes the point that the incomplete fossil record makes it "highly unlikely that any particular fossil in our collections is the remains of the actual ancestor of another taxon." (p.134).

On p.125 Prothero does not say that "evolution is a bush not a ladder" as if that "resolves all the problems with the fossil record"! He repeats the phrase in order to drive home the point that the search for "missing links" is misconceived. It's not any kind of attempt to "prove that evolution is true" in isolation.

- - -

On Life's Origins

Says Surtees:

Prothero states that Miller was able to produce “molecules of biological relevance and complexity”, which is strictly speaking true, as he was able to produce amino acids. He goes on to state that, “Even though amino acids are much more complex than the chemicals he started with, Miller showed they were remarkably easy to produce.” This ignores the fact that the next steps to functional proteins do not occur spontaneously and are much more difficult, yet Prothero states repeatedly that it is very easy to get biologically complex molecules.

The quotes above are both on p.148 of Prothero.

However, only the second is actually Prothero's words. The line about "molecules of biological relevance and complexity" is actually a quote by Prothero from Andrew Knoll's "Life on a Young Planet: the first three billion years of evolution on Earth" (2004). Odd for Surtees not to notice that, but I guess par for the course so far.

Surtees goes on to claim that

He leaves the reader with the impression that life gets started because the simple building blocks “link up” and form functionally useful polymers, which is not true.

This is a bit vague: what's not true?

That the "simple building blocks" do not "link up" into "functionally useful polymers", or that the linking up isn't how life gets started? It's important to be clear what the objection is before trying to address it.

Anyway, Prothero actually says things like this (p.152):

For origin of life research, the biggest challenge is how to assemble longer and more complex polymers, especially the long proteins that are so important for life. Most of the primordial soup chemical experiments have produced only shorter proteins.

and, after reviewing some approaches (p.153):

Naturally, these highly speculative ideas are very controversial...

So I think the reader does come away understanding that the work in this area is highly experimental, but also promising.

Surtees' review has a specific complaint about a particular reference by Prothero:

Prothero claims that, “In the 1950s Sidney Fox showed that splashing amino acids on hot dry volcanic rocks produced most of the proteins found in life instantly.” Unfortunately, no references are given so it is difficult to check this.

It's true that Prothero doesn't cite Fox's work directly (and that it would have been more helpful if he had), but it is not true that "no references are given", and it's not true that it is difficult to check.

The “Further Reading” on pp.158-159 includes several titles which discuss the work of Fox (and not uncritically, either, for Fox seems to have been a self-publicist who made increasingly wild claims about his findings), including Fry (2000), Hazen (2005), Shapiro (1986) and Wills (2000).

To quote Hazen (p.199):

He imagined a hot primordial Earth where amino acids from the soup dried and baked on cooling volcanic rocks. He mimicked these conditions in his lab, drying amino acids on a hot surface at 170 deg C, and found that his chemicals quickly polymerized into a lumpy substance he called “proteinoid” This discovery, announced in 1958, would shape his checkered three-decade career in origins research.

Fox later became scientifically isolated, but the original work still seems to stand up, according to the above literature.

Surtees:

However, a literature search yields a couple of papers by Sidney Fox and co‐workers.

Only a couple? Using Scopus, I found quite a few, from the 1950s onwards.

The original paper appears to be: Fox, S. W., and Harada, K., 1958, Thermal copolymerization of amino acids to a product resembling protein: Science, v. 128, p. 1214-..

Surtees:

A few pages later we have another outrageous claim that, “All it would take is a few zeolites in a primordial soup, and the amino acids could be lined up into much more complex proteins.”

I don’t know about “outrageous”, but this sentence appears in the section, pp.152-153, in which Prothero clearly states that

These highly speculative ideas are very controversial but not impossible...

Surtees:

Here we do not even get a name to help us try to find the original research that shows this. We have to take Prothero at his word.

Again, although Prothero doesn’t cite anyone in the text (after all, this is admittedly speculation), there is the further reading at the end of the chapter. And we find that zeolites are discussed in Hazen (2005 – Hazen discusses and cites the ideas of Joseph Smith, p.160), which is cited there.

And so it goes on, the whole chapter on the origin of life is full of similar assertions, until we arrive at the end, where we read that, “In most cases, each step can either be simulated in the lab or seen in examples of the process” (p.158). This statement is seriously misleading.

Again, this chapter is full of statements – which I’ve quoted - emphasising that we are at a very experimental stage. On pp.157-158, Prothero says, clearly:

Not every problem has been solved or every answer revealed, but the research on the origins of life is a relatively young, healthy field of science with much more to learn and much more to do.

Prothero’s line about “each step” has been ripped out of context (so yeah, it is misleading!). At that point in the text, Prothero is directly concerned with the creationist challenge. He points out that it is possible to construct a plausible (not proven) series of steps “that show us how to gradually build life” (p.158). He’s just done it, indeed, in this book! To put the sentence taken out of context back into context:

None of the steps require extraordinary conditions, and none are outside the realm of plausibility. In most cases, each step can either be simulated in the lab or seen in examples of the process (such as endosymbiosis) still working in nature today.

One might get the impression from Surtees that the chapter ends with the sentence about “each step”. But it doesn’t. The final paragraph of the chapter begins:

If the reader still feels uncomfortable with the speculative nature of the research into the origins of life, we can put the whole issue aside for now.

In other words, no fair minded reader (which Surtees is not) would come away from the chapter thinking that Prothero was trying to say that the origin of life was a solved problem.

- - -

On the Cambrian Explosion

Surtees (from his review):

Prothero tries to prove that there was no Cambrian explosion (his term is “slow fuse”). His case stands or falls on whether or not he can show that there are earlier fossils that could have given rise to the Cambrian creatures.

Well, not really. Recall that Darwin said that the apparent non-existence of pre-Cambrian fossils was a possible objection to his theory. So the first important question is: are there fossils before the Cambrian?

There is no theoretical reason to expect that the earlier fossils must necessarily include samples of creatures which are the direct ancestors of the Cambrian creatures. Perhaps none of the direct ancestors were preserved as fossils. No, the most important thing to establish is the existence of fossils earlier than the Cambrian. Are there fossils before the Cambrian? Yes, there are.

Another point is that “Cambrian explosion” is taken to imply that all of a sudden vertebrates appear in the fossil record, unprecedented and at once. This is false. As noted, they are not unprecedented. Also, the Cambrian fossils appear over a 80 million year timespan, not all at once.

Therefore the picture is not of an “explosion”, but of, as Prothero says (p.161), a “long slow build up to the first appearance of typical Cambrian shelled invertebrates.”

Says Prothero (p.165):

advanced multicellular life... was on Earth 600 million years ago (more than 50 million years before the Cambrian), and possibly as early as 900 million years ago.

Surtees:

Prothero tries to suggest that the Ediacaran fauna are possible ancestors, but the only problem with this argument is that they are completely different and none of the experts on the Ediacarans believe these creatures to be the ancestors of Cambrian creatures.

“Completely different”? What’s that supposed to mean?

What Prothero actually says is this (p.163):

some palaeontologists have suggested that the Ediacara fauna was made by organisms unlike any that are alive today. They... argue that they are an early failed experiment in multicellularity.

So Prothero does not suggest that the Ediacara are “possible ancestors” (or if he does, and I’ve missed it, perhaps Surtees can tell us where?) of Cambrian life. He actually spends some time recording the controversy over whether Ediacara are related to Cambrian or existing life. He concludes (p.165):

Whatever the biological affinities of the Ediacara fauna, it is very clear that they are multicellular organisms, whether animals, plants, fungi, or some early experiemental kingdom not in any living group.

Surtees misleads in trying to suggest that he, Surtees, is overturning Prothero by referring to “the experts”. Prothero discusses the issue clearly himself.

Surtees:

But by making light of the differences and stating that they are intermediates between single‐celled organisms and the more complex and varied Cambrian creatures, Prothero tries to persuade us that the Cambrian explosion is a creationist illusion.

Prothero makes no such statement, so far as I can see (reference?).

He says only that multicellular life existed at least 50 million years before the supposed “Cambrian explosion”. And that does mean that the “explosion” is an illusion.

Surtees:

Here he uses terms likely to confuse by suggesting a link between the “small shelly” organisms and “large shelly” organisms like the trilobite.

Prothero introduces the “little shellies” (p.165) as the third stage of the Cambrian “slow fuse”.

The “little shellies”, says Prothero, appear during the Nemakit-Daldynian and Tommotian stages of the Cambrian, from 520 to 545 million years ago.

I’m not sure what Surtees thinks is confusing, exactly, or what the “link” is that he is objecting to. I can make no further sense of this.

The problem with this is that trilobites were not shelly creatures, they had exoskeletons like those of arthropods.

The problem with what? It’s not clear.

Surtees:

The book continues the review of the evidence of evolution by looking at the invertebrate fossils before bringing in the vertebrate fossils from fish to human. Here we find some examples of nice transitions in shell morphology, which are not going to convince anyone either way.

Surtees neglects to supply an actual argument here, apart from his own incredulity.

Surtees:

This is followed by discussion of the various transitional forms that supposedly link worms to “shell‐less” worm‐like molluscs, segmented molluscs and unsegmented molluscs. These forms (some of which are living today) are regarded as transitional because they have a mixture of features or a mosaic of characters. The best example is perhaps the velvet worm, with its segmented worm‐like body and, according to Prothero, “jointed” limbs like an insect.

Here we are on p.192-193 if you’re following at home.

Prothero compares the velvet worm to “arthropods” generally, not just to insects specifically, it should be noted.

Surtees:

But again the details of how exactly these creatures demonstrate the evolution of worms to insects is unclear

I think Surtees needs to read the book again and then come back and tell us exactly what is unclear.

and the story starts to fall apart when examined closely because we find that velvet worms do not have jointed limbs and the “segmented” mollusc Neopilina is not considered to be truly segmented.

For some reason, Surtees earlier strict line on referencing doesn’t apply to his own assertions. I’ve had to go and check these claims about velvet worms and Neopilina without any assistance.

As it happens, a quick literature search on this question is inconclusive, because some sources say velvet worms do have jointed appendages. Others say they don’t. This probably boils down to a question of definition. Same goes for Neopilina and segmentation.

If Surtees could share his sources on this, we could do some more chasing down of references and double check the state of opinion. As it stands, it looks to me like Prothero is within his rights.

- - -

On Jaws

Surtees:

In the chapter on fish we are simply told that jaws “appeared”.

What Prothero actually says is this (p.210):

One of the great evolutionary breakthroughs in vertebrate history was the origin of jaws. Before jaws appeared, vertebrates were severely limited in what they could eat...

The evolutionary issues are then discussed.

Surtees:

The fossil evidence is conspicuous by its absence.

Incorrect. Prothero cites the fossils of sharks as evidence (p.211-212).

This lack of evidence illustrates one of the major gaps in the evidence for evolution: there is no evolutionary explanation for the appearance of jawed creatures in the fossil record.

I don’t understand how Surtees can say this. Clearly any structure which enabled vertebrates to do more than just filter feed would convey an advantage and be preserved.

- - -

On Land

Surtees:

Prothero moves quickly on to the transition to land.

This is the subject of a whole different chapter, in fact.

There are claims that the fins of amphibious fish like mud skippers are “jury‐rigged” and “suboptimal” without any evidence to show that this is the case.

Prothero’s point about mud-skippers is not just about their fins, but about their entire adaptive approach to living on the edges of water. If you were designing them from scratch for their niche, would they look like that?

Prothero goes on to talk about aquatic (as distinct from amphibious) creatures with “fin fingers” (p.224):

these “fin fingers” are not robust or muscular or as flexible as tetrapod fingers, so they cannot manipulate objects with them. They are jury-rigged features built out of another structure (ray fins) and suboptimally modified to be “semifingers”

Surtees:

The claim that the pelvic (hind) fin of Panderichthys is foot‐like is demonstrably false, while the case could be made that the pectoral (front) fin is more fin‐like than foot‐like.

If it’s demonstrably false, where and how has it been demonstrated false?

Surtees:

The evolution of life adapted to land is presented as having occurred but the evidence is again not readily apparent. (In fact the evolutionary scenario involving Pandericthys and Tiktaalik, has now been shown to be wrong by the recent find reported by G Niedźwiedzki et al. Nature 463, 43‐48 (2010).

Notice that Surtees neglects to tell us what Niedźwiedzki et al actually says, or what implications that has for the “evolutionary scenario” in question. I imagine this is because what Niedźwiedzki et al actually say doesn’t help Surtees at all. Assuming Surtees actually read the article.

What the authors discovered were tetrapod tracks which are about 18 million years older than the earliest known tetrapod fossils, and 10 million years older than the earliest known examples of creatures like Pandericthys and Tiktaalik. Presumably Surtees accepts the accuracy of this dating, if he is making claims based on the research?

Here is what Niedźwiedzki et all say about the implications of the find:

Until now, the replacement of elpistostegids by tetrapods in the body-fossil record during the mid–late Frasnian has appeared to reflect an evolutionary event, with the elpistostegids as a short-lived ‘transitional grade’ between fish and tetrapod morphotypes. In fact, tetrapods and elpistostegids coexisted for at least 10 million years. This implies that the elpistostegid morphology was not a brief transitional stage, but a stable adaptive position in its own right.

The environment of the area is not, we are old, conducive to fossilisation, but nevertheless the fossils that have been found still make it look as though elpisostegids preceeded tetrapods. Why that is, is one of the things that Niedźwiedzki et all try to address.

It’s certainly an interesting paper, and it could lead to the current hypothesis (that reported by Prothero) being overthrown. But as other commentators note, other interpretations are possible and more research is needed. Because of Niedźwiedzki et al, paleontologiests are looking in different places to where they were looking before, and in time this will advance our knowledge further and either support or discomfirm Niedźwiedzki et al’s hypothesis.

Surtees:

However, the lack of evidence does not stop Prothero making unsubstantiated claims like, “Internal fertilization evolved more than once of course” (p.234).

Well, if you have both spiders and sharks internally fertilising, that’s a reasonable conclusion.

Surtees:

The evolution of life on land is supposed to be another good example of evolutionary transition, yet when we examine the examples provided (pp.235‐234),

We have to read this backwards?

Surtees:

we have only a confusion of “primitive” and “advanced” features that appear to come and go at random.

I think Surtees must be referring to pp.235-236. There are references here to “a mosaic” of primitive and advanced characteristics, but Surtees doesn’t explain what the problem with this is, exactly.

Surtees:

Then there is the amazing transition of land reptiles to marine reptiles. The fossils presented as evidence for this transition are again not convincing, but rather show a variety of marine creatures with reptilian features (p.240).

“Not convincing” is not an argument I can do much with. Surtees is here referring to a diagram showing the evolutionary transformations of ichthyosaurs. Surtees describes them as merely “a variety of marine creatures”, but palaeontologists have identified them as ichthyosaurs.

Surtees:

This is just one of five examples of the supposed evolution of land creatures to sea creatures. Even though Prothero admits that it is amazing to believe that five different types of creature made the transition from land to sea, this just shows us the power of natural selection.

This is not what Prothero says (not “admits”). What he says is (p.238):

The most amazing thing about all three groups is that they were clearly reptiles, so they were descended from terrestrial creatures that developed a land egg, yet theses all three independently returned to the ocean... This seems amazing in itself, yet the fact that it has happened many times shows how powerful the selection forces for this lifestyle must be.

- - -

On Gaps

Surtees:

In the chapter on dinosaurs, Prothero goes to great lengths to discredit Gish by bringing forward evidence that is supposed to fill in all the gaps in dinosaur evolution.

We're now up to chapter 12. In Chapter 12, he does discredit Gish but not in the way you suggest. He's not trying to fill in "all the gaps" at all. He's addressing some of Gish's specific claims.

Surtees:

Yet in doing so he fails to address some key problems associated with dinosaur origins. The earliest dinosaur was the bipedal Eoraptor, but we are not told how such an evolutionarily advanced biped arose.

Prothero mentions "the earliest known dinosaur Eoraptor on p.251, and elsewhere. It is described by him as "the earliest and most primitive" known dinosaur (colour plate 4, note), not as "evolutionarily advanced". I'm not sure what you can possibly mean by "we are not told how" it evolved. By natural selection!

Surtees:

Later we are told that it is wrong to reject the evolutionary account of the horned dinosaurs, as there are many examples of similar dinosaurs that lack the frills and horns typical of well known creatures like Triceratops. A more likely interpretation is that these “transitional” forms merely show different varieties of ceratopsian dinosaurs (the created group that Triceratops belongs to). (This view has also received recent support form work published by Scannella and Horner (2010).

Prothero mentions Gish's use of Triceratops on p.254. The "varieties" referred to by Surtees occur millions of years apart, which is why they are regarded as transitional. You don't see Protoceratops fossils with the same dating as Triceratops fossils. In that kind of context, what could "created" mean?

I don't have access to Scannella and Horner (2010), but the abstract from Informaworld merely suggests that they have reclassified Torosaurus as a different growth stage of Triceratops, i.e. the same "variety", not a different "variety". As figure 12.5, p.256 of Prothero shows ,Torosaurus and Triceratops occur in the same timezone.

Surtees:

Then we are told that the controversy over the evolution of birds from dinosaurs was quickly resolved, yet it appears from the main protagonists that it is still ongoing.

This hugely misleading comment baffled me somewhat, since the "main protagonists" include TH Huxley, who proposed that birds were descended from dinosaurs in 1863 and has been dead since 1895; Harry Govier Seeley, who challenged the theory, and who died in 1909; and Gerhard Heilmann, who died in 1946.

The breakthrough by John Ostrom (who died in 2005) took place in the 1970s (in other words, the debate was already over a century old - hardly "quickly resolved"!), after which Prothero says:

Since Ostrom's initial papers, the controversy over the "birds are dinosaurs" hypothesis raged for several years but quickly resolved because the evidence soon became overwhelming. Hundreds of specialized shared-derived characters support the hypothesis, and there are no competing hypotheses with even a fraction of that support. All but a tiny minority (less than one percent) of paleontologists are convinced by the data...

Prothero proceeds to explain why the minority position doesn't stand up. Surtees seems to be implying that Prothero doesn't discuss any of this at all. In fact, Prothero even makes the deadliest accusation of all against the minority - he says they "resemble the creationists."! (p,259). Ouch!

- - -

On Mammals

Surtees:

Next Prothero treats us to a tour of the fossils that are said to demonstrate the evolution of mammals. For instance, the dog, cat, elephant, horse, rhino and camel fossils that creationist biologists would interpret as evidence of post‐Flood diversification.

Surtees skips the rest of chapter 12 and so here we are at chapter 13 which is all about the "mammalian explosion".

Why would any of this be interpreted as "evidence of post-Flood diversification"?

Surtees:

There is no convincing evidence that these creatures descended from a common ancestor, although Prothero attempts to persuade us that they all descended from a synapsid ancestor.

There's that argument from personal incredulity again. The evidence, of course, is the "almost continuous series of well-preserved fossils" (p.271) referred to by Prothero, which is what you would expect to find according to evolutionary theory.

Surtees:

We are shown representative fossils that are supposed to demonstrate the gradual evolution from pelycosaurs to therapsids to cynodonts to mammals.

There are three diagrams which do this: 13.3, p.274 (skulls); 13.4, p.275 (skeletons); and 13.5, p.277 (jaw bones).

Surtees:

However, there is a significant discontinuity between these groups, which is not so obvious when only the skulls are shown.

Which implies that only the skulls are shown. Not so, see above.

But of course there is "discontinuity", this is how fossils work. This really seems to be a big mental block for Surtees.

Surtees:

There is a lot of discussion of the jaws and ears as this is an important change from the synapsid middle ear with only one bone (the stapes) to the mammalian middle ear with three bones (the incus, mallus and stapes). There is a lot of detail that rather obscures the fact that the obvious gradual transition would be from one to two to three middle ear bones.

Prothero discusses jaw/ear bones from p.277.

Surtees comment about the "obvious" transition being 1-2-3 is silly, overlooking the physiological starting points and the evolutionary pressures. You might as well argue that the obvious transition is from 2 legs to 3 legs to 4 legs (or vice versa) and so where are the three legged fossils? Prothero talks about all of this, and Surtees just ignores it.

Surtees:

There are no creatures with two middle ear bones which the evolutionist ought to expect.

Prothero notes that the articular bone hinged against the quadrate bone, both abutting the stirrup bone. The stirrup is the stapes, and the quadrate turned into the incus/anvil while the articular turned into the malleus/hammer. Surtees seems to be imagining that we ought to expect fossils where the quadrate is still a quadrate but the articular is a malleus!

Surtees:

The evidence that we are presented with consists of a reduction in size of the bones that make up the synapsid jaw joint, a claim that the bones are in contact with the stapes and that sound is transmitted through the jaw bone. Here, Prothero's argument becomes a little confusing, because his supporting evidence is the fact that snakes hear through their jaws which often rest on the ground (p.279).

Granted Surtees is confused, but not because Prothero is confusing.

However, snakes are not synapsids and, furthermore, the synasipds walked around on four legs so their jaws would only be on the ground when resting. Thus, it is very unlikely that synapsids had a similar sound transmission system.

Surtees has forgotten that snakes evolved from lizards, which gradually lost their legs. He's also apparently never watched snakes move. Because if he had he would know that snakes do not go around dragging their face through the dirt the whole time. Their jaws only touch the ground when they are resting, too. And of course, since skin, muscles etc vibrate, jaws can pick up vibrations felt by the rest of the body. So Surtees' argument here fails.

The clinching piece of evidence (p.279) is said to be that, when we were embryos, our ear bones were cartilages in the lower jaw and skull; but this is pure fiction.

On what grounds (no citation this time?) do you say it is "pure fiction"?

Surtees:

He then goes on to claim that the recently discovered fossil of Yanoconodon shows the ear bones attached to the jaw (p.279), even referring us to a colour plate of the fossil. However, he does not reproduce the photos of the jaw and supposed ear bones which show that they are separate from the jaw; they are only connected in the diagrammatic reconstruction of the jaw and ear (Nature 446, 288‐293 (15 March 2007), supplementary information).

The supplementary information cited is available here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7133/extref/nature05627-s1.pdf

It contains extra photographs and very detailed anatomical description. I've been through all of it and I can't see what Surtees is getting at. See p.6 of the supplementary information for relevant photographs, plus descriptive notes.

Surtees:

Then we are presented with the evolution of the whale (p.318), with a diagram (p.319) of highly stylised transitional forms that is misleading.

"Then" as in 30 pages later, he means

Alright, so now we're looking a whales. Prothero provides a diagram showing evolution of whales from land creatures (figure 14.15, p.319)

Surtees:

In this diagram we are shown a hippo as the closest sister group. However, in the text we are told that Pakicetus is intermediate between mesonychids (carnivorous hoofed creatures) and fossil whales, and also that Pakicetus is related to the artiodactyla (a group which includes hippos and pigs but is completely unlike the mesonychids).

I find it hard to make sense of the above paragraph.

What Prothero actually says is this:

most scientists would agree that whales are a group that evolved from the hippo-pig lineage within artiodactyls and that mesonychids are the distant relatives of both whales and artiodactyls. (p.320)

and

Pakicetus... with teeth intermediate between those of mesonychids and archaeocetes... The skeleton of Pakicetus is still quite wolf-like, with long slender limbs and a tail, so it still resembes a mesonychid in most features. (p.320)

Not sure what the problem with this is supposed to be?

Surtees:

Furthermore, Basilosaurus does not belong in the series as it is not transitional (even by the definition provided in this book). At best Dorudon might possibly be an ancestor of toothed whales, but we are not told how these creatures evolved the highly sophisticated adaptations such as the sonar system and the ability to suckle their young underwater.

Surtees does not explain why Bailosaurus should not be considered transitional.

Hippos can suckle underwater.

No, Prothero does not explain the evolution of all these adaptations. So what?

Surtees:

The origin of the baleen whales is also unexplained.

So? One reason why Prothero doesn't talk about them much might be because baleen fossilises only exceptionally, so they wouldn't be an obvious choice in a book about fossils. He does include mysticetes in his diagram 14.16.

Surtees:

Instead Prothero states that the final clinching proof is that modern whales have vestigial leg bones embedded in their abdominal muscles. Unfortunately he fails to point out that the musculature and connecting nerves, and the fact that these bones are part of the reproductive system, disqualifies them from being vestigial leg bones.

How does their use in reproduction disqualify them from being vestigial, exactly? And don't mammals use their legs in reproduction too?

Surtees:

The final statement of this section about all the fossil and molecular evidence also glosses over the fact that these pieces of evidence do not give a consistent picture.

I'm not sure what Surtees is referring to here. What section is he talking about, and what are the inconsistencies?

- - -

On Human Evolution

Surtees:

In the chapter on human evolution Prothero uses the argument that evolution is bushy (p.336), in this case “very bushy”, therefore we are unable to trace ancestor‐descendant relationships. However, we are told that is not important because the “amazing quality of the hominid fossil record is an objective fact”. That “fact” notwithstanding, there is no convincing story of how we are supposed to have evolved.

Prothero "uses" no such "argument". What he actually says on p.336 is this:

dozens of human species and genera are now known, forming a very bushy family tree that spans almost 7 million years of human evolution, mostly in Africa. The exact details of how all these fossils should be named or how they are interrelated is always controversial because many of the specimens are incomplete, and anthropologists are famous for being argumentative and contentious. But no matter how the arguments swing from year to year, the amazing quality of the hominid fossil record is an objective fact, not someone's interpretation or guesswork.

Surtees:

Supporting evidence is marshalled from DNA studies and observations of human “tails”. The most astonishing thing is the fact that Prothero cites the evidence from DNA hybridisation studies published in 1984 and claims that the temperature of separation is directly proportional to the number of genes in common. This is not the case, yet we are told that the chimp and human DNA has been proven to be 97.6 % identical. For some reason Prothero ignores all the DNA sequence data that was available when he wrote his book. He also assumes that the 97.6 % of the DNA that is the same are the “structural genes” which is inconsistent with the fact that the genes only make up a small percentage of mammalian DNA.

It's very frustrating when Surtees makes statements that something is "not the case", while neglecting to tell us how he knows this, so we can go and check. Help us out a bit, eh?

You do have to be careful about statements about identical DNA, and it's a complex subject I cannot get my head around at this time of night in order to address adequately.So far as I can tell more recent research has revised the estimate downwards, but not by very much. Suffice it to say that Surtees objections above sound like special pleading. Is it not extraordinary, if evolution is not true, that such huge similarities exist at all?

We've covered the point about "junk DNA" previously. Surtees appears not to have understood it, because he confuses structural genes with regulatory genes. On this point, Prothero says (p.344):

Although there are many different ideas suggesting what is going on here, the basic idea is that the 1-2% of the genome that differentiates us from chimps must be the regulatory genes that turn on and turn off the structural genes (which make up the 97.6% that is the same). We have the genes for most parts of the ape body, and the monkey body too, and every once in a while there is a genetic mistake or atavism, and humans express the long-repressed genes that we still carry to make a tail.

Surtees:

Prothero also tries to use the existence of pseudotails as proof that humans have the genes for tails. However, he does not call them pseudotails. He presents three pictures as if they all come from the same paper (p.345) and suggests that this proves that we have the genes for tails. Reference to the original paper (Bar‐Maor et al, 1980) shows that Prothero has put a gloss on the findings to support his claims. The paper reports an observation of a deformed unfused coccyx, which is not a tail, and furthermore the article does not include the two pictures of what are soft boneless tissue protuberances in two subjects both with a normal coccyx.

We've covered this in detail previously in this post.

- - -

In Conclusion

Surtees:

The last chapter of the book (‘Why does it matter?’) is arguably the worst. For example, we are told that there “are a significant number of extreme creationists (including an entire Flat Earth Society) who believe that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat and that all those NASA photos of the earth from space are hoaxes.”

This is an example of why it's "arguably the worst" chapter? How so?

He mentions Flat Earthers just to make the point (p.352) that they would be entitled to equal time too, if that was adopted as a general principle.

Surtees:

Much of this chapter deals with the peculiarities of the situation in the USA and the various attempts to get equal time for creationism in the classroom, which are not so relevant to Europe. Prothero also seems to blame creationism for most of the problems of American scientific under‐achievement!

Well, he is an American author.

He sees creationism as part of a wider scientific illiteracy, so his point is perfectly arguable.

Surtees:

There is even an attack on ex‐president Bush and the “oil industry flunkies”, and the outlandish assertion that creationism is bad for your health (p.356) because it stops medical advances

This is what Prothero says (p.357):

the Bush Administration has been well documented... as interfering with legitimate scientists... Already the stem-cell research program in the United States has been set back compared to that in other countries, as our best scientists go to countries with less political oppression. Likewise the foot-dragging and denials of global warming by the Bush Administration and the flunkies of the oil industry in Congress...

Is he wrong?

Surtees conclusion:

In conclusion, this would have been a much better book if Prothero had spent less time preaching and more on careful analysis of the evidence and what that evidence actually shows. On the positive side there is much useful evidence for the potential of great diversification within the created kinds.

There are many interesting examples where the evidence for evolution is weak, especially when looking at the origin of life and the origin of new body plans. It also highlights a few cases where we as creationists have gone wrong and need to handle the evidence more carefully. All creationist biologists should read this book because it gives a great overview of the evidence and will prepare the reader for continuing the debate.

Surtees' review would have been much better had he not ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented most of the evidence in Prothero's book.

The End. Phew.

Look forward to Surtees' retractions.

Eugenie Scott on Skeptics Guide to the Universe

2011-07-08T23:08:00.000+01:00

An interview with Genie Scott of the US based NCSE who is kind enough to mention the BCSE.

Interview starts around the 47 minute mark of episode #311

Scientist uses the methods of creation science to prove evolution

2011-07-07T19:34:00.000+01:00

Creationists have always had a bit of a problem with the unfortunate tendency of scientists to keep finding evidence for evolution littered all over the place. Attempts to circumnavigate this problem have led them to develop (invent) their own branches of "creation science" to prove the veracity of the book of genesis. Now according to this blog by Matt Walker

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wondermonkey/2011/07/faith-versus-science-does-crea.shtml

a mainstream scientist has been a very naughty boy and used this creation science to prove the veracity of-well-evolution.

Philip Senter of Fayette State University has used methods from a branch of creation 'science' known as baraminology. For those of you that haven't heard a baramin equates to the 'kinds' God created in the Bible. Roughly speaking a sort of ancestral creature from whom subsequent species/branches of a particular group of animals could develop, for example a sort of ancestral feline 'kind' from whence sprang lions and tigers and cats oh my. Believe me the notion of baramins really comes into its own when you're pushed for space on your boat and theres a global flood on the way.

Senter's first paper in 2010 centred on a way of classifying baramins called Classic Multidimensional Scaling (CMDS). This mathematically maps morphological differences between fossils and is used to point to significant differences that creationists claim can only mean they were created independently and could not have evolved. Using CMDS and only CMDS Senter showed that many different 'kinds' of dinosaur were in fact transitional (the morphological gaps weren't big enough) and are in fact related. A blow either to the notion of lots of different dinosaur kinds that creationists don't wish to acknowledge could be related and hence share common ancestry or a blow to the technique for proving evolution couldn't have happened?

Senter's latest paper published in the journal of evolution utilises another of the techniques of those whacky baraminologists called Taxon Correlation. Using this method he manages to reduce the dinosaur baramin numbers down to just eight 'kinds' rather than the more generous 50 or so suggested by creationists. Whilst this does leave rather more room on the ark it does mean that those baramin then have to give rise to a ridiculously large number of subsequent distinctly different species to account for the large numbers seen in the fossil record. And whilst that degree of speciation isn't a problem when you have millions of years to play with and accept the theory of evolution, baraminology only has a few thousand years to play with between leaving the ark 4000 years ago and extinction. Senter does point to at least 13 obvious transitions between dinosaur types since 1990.

Nice try creation 'science' but not good enough. Better luck next time.

Philip Bell versus reality - reality takes a two nil lead

2011-07-03T19:35:00.000+01:00

Philip Bell of Creation Ministries International doesn't like the BCSE. It might be because we draw attention to his views on dinosaurs roaming medieval England, his previous fibbing to academics to trick them into appearing in a creationist film or his claims to school children in Exeter that his view that the world is only 6,000 years old is a respectable scientific position.

Now he has written to CMI supporters and told them about the CrISIS letter to Mr Gove.

Of course he can't bring himself to tell his supporters the actual truth and has instead decided to misrepresent the letter by the simple expedient of missing out key words.

He writes:

"In May new guidelines from the Department for Education were issued that outlaw any teaching of evolution-contradicting viewpoints in school science lessons. However, groups like CrISIS, in a press release, want much more: "to specifically prevent creationism being taught ...in any lesson or activity to children in state funded schools." If their wishes were ever granted, not only would it prevent outside Creation speakers from being invited into RE lessons and assemblies, but no teacher (regardless of the subject) could teach about these issues!"

Did you spot the tell tale ". . .".

This is what he missed out:

"Creationism is known, and officially acknowledged, to be contrary to scientific fact. We therefore demand that creationism should not be presented as a valid scientific position, nor creationist websites and resources be promoted, in publicly funded schools or in any youth activities run on publicly funded school premises."(my emphasis)

Thanks once again Phil for showing your true colours.

Creationist school appears out of nowhere

2011-06-29T23:41:00.000+01:00

Scientists are said to be ‘baffled’ after a school teaching Creationism suddenly appeared overnight in a Hampshire field complete with a full retinue of teachers and pupils.

From NewsBiscuit

Debunking Corner - Potholer54

2011-06-29T23:02:00.000+01:00

Debunking corner - PZ is now jumping up and down on all the bits - will MacLatchie take any notice?

2011-06-26T08:03:00.000+01:00

From here:

Jonathan MacLatchie really is completely ineducable

So now MacLatchie revisits the debate, and what does he do? He just reiterates his flawed premises!