Why Dont You Blog?

Well, from the department of the ineducable idiocy, I have found a blog which I don’t for one second think is a legit creationist / theist blog. I refuse to accept that anyone can be as stupid as this person, yet still be able to breathe unaided. Seriously. Still, it has given me a chance to rant about a few topics which have been annoying me lately.

The blog in question is called “Atheist Stooges” and, from that name alone, you just know it is going to be full of juicy idiocy. In this instance, the idiocy is so bizare I can only assume (hope?) that this is a wind up. Can people honestly hold to ideas like this and still function in society?

The blog has an article called “Enter the excavation” which really does hit a new nadir of nonsense. The basic crux of what is a long, wordy and badly written, post is that because you can not pin down a point in time which some human invented Atheism it must be sent by demons. What wonderful logic. There are so many fallacies in the post it would take months to unravel them all. This tends to happen when you take a false premise and try to make conclusions based on it though.

The opening paragraph sets the tone:

Do you know that if you make an endeavor to find out when and by whom atheism was authored you will not be able to find such information from any source? Not even the most “educated” atheists – particularly those associated with the most elite universities throughout the world can truthfully inform you when and by whom atheism originated. They can enlighten you as to who were its main perpetuators in different cultures; but they cannot identify its founder and when it actually originated.

The things I do for you….

Intrigued by the concept of Gog in the last post, I had to google gog. I found a truly scary websmite. Contender Ministries’ “the Coming War of Gog and Magog” basically sees the world in terms of two camps – Israel and the West vs the Muslim world.

(And guess which side He is supposed to be on? No prizes, sorry. Though someone offered the Contender websmite a million dollars if they could actually prove that the Sodom and Gomorrah bit in the Bible meant homosexuality. They scathed the email writer.)

Spurred by a post here that mentioned that some Pat Robertson followers have the date of the Rapture pinned down to a very specific 13 Sept 2007, I thought it best to do a bit of emergency last minute research on the Internet.

Rapture? Some of you will immediately think of a 70s or 80s (?) record by Blondie or the name of a current band. Get with the programme. It means Armageddon, the Apocalypse, and lots of other really Bad Things..

OK, I’ve already confused you haven’t I – human extinction and rapture? Not easy to see an upside, is it? Don’t fret, there are loads of websites that can only see the end of humanity on earth as a Very Good Thing.

I’m following Google here, which is a broad measure of the top ranking sites on a given topic. Number One with a bullet is Rapture ready.com (I just can’t bring myself to post a link)

The British Centre for Science Education: Revealed blog is crying out for a good metaphorical kicking.

It exists solely to attack the British Centre for Science Education (whatever that is) on the grounds that it’s basically an atheist plot.

The purpose of this blog is to examine the new group calling itself the “British Centre for Science Education”. We aim to shed light on the available facts concerning its membership, published statements and discussions. In doing so, we expect that you will come to the same conclusion as we have – that anybody taking it seriously needs to take another look.

The blogista’s personal statement says:

I am a graduate in both science (Masters) and theology (Bachelors), and a minister of Grace Church Belper, an evangelical Christian church in Derbyshire, United Kingdom

Well, I am surprised. An evangelical church? Who’d have expected this blog to have an evangelical agenda? That is almost as surprising as there being atheists in an organisation called the British Centre for Science Education. This world is truly full of new and surprising wonders every day. You would almost think there must be an all-knowing designer behind it all.

It’s hard to pick out any specific posts for your entertainment as the whole site oozes rage. This is mainly directed at the arch-atheists seen as in charge of the the BCSE, as the other members are assumed to be too naive to understand what they have signed up to.

I suspect that some of BCSE members are simply philosophically naive – they really do imagine that a hard materialist approach to science is “neutral” or “value free”.

(I really would be surprised if anyone with any epistemological understanding thought science – or any human endeavour – was “value free”. At the same time, it’s quite difficult to think of much in the realm of science where a “hard materialist approach” wouldn’t be the only option.)

I can only assume that the BCSE must be some organsiation that is seeking to support the teaching of evolution, otherwise how could it have stirred up this blog’s ire to the extent of devoting a whole blog to opposing it.

You wouldn’t think that standing up for rationalism in British science education would even be necessary, would you? It would be like having to set up an organisation to support the value of integrating exercise into PE lessons. Sadly, this blog suggests otherwise.

I’ll resist the temptation to quote any posts from the blog as I would be spoilt for choice. Look at it yourself if you have an obscure sense of humour and a very high boredom threshhold.

It has been awhile since I have “braved” the well of stupidity, vitriol, hatred and confusion which is Uncommon Descent but today I had a look.

Wow.

The stupidity remains. An entertaining highlight was ““No thanks, I’ll take two fivers” — Dumping Darwin from British currency.” Now, this really is full of nonsense. I was planning to post some select highlights but there are too many to choose from!

Basically the post (by Dembski) is that we (the British) should drop Darwin from the £10 note. He starts off going on about how, with the new twenty, the Bank of England is changing the “famous person” on the note and continues:

This is a news-worthy cause for British Darwin-doubters, who should urge that Darwin be dumped from the 10-pound note whenever there is a new security-upgrade version, on grounds that he is the chief prophet of the materialist religion, and his presence on the 10-pound note is an inappropriate endorsement of that materialist religion and its related anti-religious ferment. Now, it’s true that Britain has no 1st Amendment, but still, Britain is trying to be multi-cultural. A part of the effort could include a long list of choice inflammatory quotes from the new anti-religion books currently out in the bookstores (and in Darwin’s own writings — see the previous post here at UD); the effort could point out that the government, by honoring Darwin, implicitly lends its prestige to their venom.

See what I mean? Gibberish at its best. Dumbski Dembski moves on to talking about Darwin being a racist (nonsense but the UDders seem to like it) and decides William Wilberforce would be a better contender (on the apparent advice of the Fabian Society but I can find no confirmation of that with the search engine there…). This leads to a fantastic line of woo:

Thus, this effort would also kick-off a comparison of what good has been brought to the world by these two people — Darwin vs. Wilberforce. Nazi Eugenics vs. the abolition of slavery. Is there really any contest?

Which brings up the reason I keep posting juicy bigotted and racist quotes by Darwin and his disciples here at UD. While the intellectual community may know them, the general public does not. Suppose the public decided that every time it accepted a “Darwin” (a 10-pound note) in payment or in change for a purchase, it was implicitly endorsing those terrible quotes? People would likely say, “No thanks, I’d rather have two fivers. I don’t take money that praises racists and bigots — and neither should you.”

In other words, promote a boycott of the Darwin 10-pound note because it promotes racism. It’s like putting Robert E. Lee on the ten-dollar bill because he was a great general, and ignoring the cause he served. This would work particularly well because the goal of the Fabians and other multiculturalists is to re-define Britain to be racially-inclusive. Thus there is a particular reason to highlight the racism of Darwin and get rid of him.

I really do think this is some one going off the deep end. Proponents of ID still have no science, evidence or data to support their ideas. The best they can aim for a rather pathetic attempt to paint a dead person in a bad light. They constantly fall foul of the fallacious idea that attacking a person (Darwin, Dawkins etc) is the same as attacking their ideas. In really, it wouldn’t matter if Darwin was racist (he wasn’t – at least not by the standards of his time), it wouldn’t even matter if what Darwin thought was the “Theory of Evolution” was wrong. Things have changed. Time has passed. Science has progressed and the theory of evolution has evolved.

Sadly, the IDers are trapped in a world which means not only are they incorrect but they are incapable of properly arguing their side, but can never give in.

You have to pity them, don’t you?

Although online time is limited here today, I took a look a the ever entertaining Pharyngula and found a post about CreationWiki. Now, not being one to pass up something which has farce written all over it in big creationist-style letters, I just had to have a look.

Wow.

The CreationWiki is almost beyond belief. Reading the posts there is almost vomit inducing and I honestly hope it was put together by school children at best. It strikes me that the contributors have had a brushing acquaintance with science, decided they didn’t like it and have run in the total opposite direction. I am far from the best scientist in the world (if I was, I wouldn’t be blogging here..) but it takes, on average, less than 60 seconds to find critical faults in almost every one of the “wiki” entries on this site. It really is that bad. You have to check it out.

It’s blurb on the front page speaks volumes about what you can hope to expect from such an august website:

The CreationWiki is a free encyclopedia of creation science being assembled by the international creationist community. We encourage all creationists to get involved with the development of this valuable resource.

And yes this wiki does show how thin on the ground Creation Science is. They cite the crank Vox Day as if he is a credible source of knowledge. They jump at every chance to insult or denigrate Darwin – for some reason it is common for creationists to think the theory of evolution is in the exact same form as it was when Darwin first thought of it, that it may have evolved itself is beyond their ability to comprehend.

For some reason I am not fully sure of yet, while this site mangles Physics, Cosmology, Biology, Palaeontology (etc.), it seems to leave Chemistry largely unscathed. That is either because my chemistry is a lot worse than any other subject or maybe Creationists are just chemists in disguise….

Although it only attracted minimal response here (one troll who never came back), the news about Cranky McKeith being told to stop calling herself a Doctor resulted in mountains of posts (281 last time I looked) on Ben Goldacres’ BadScience blog.

Now this is understandable as it was one of Ben’s regular readers who shopped McKeith to the ASA and resulted in bringing her Woo to the news. (Not to mention it is supported by a column in a national newspaper…)

That said, there are some striking similarities between the woo posted by the pro-McKeith (and her ilk) lobby on Badscience, the troll who stopped by here for a few seconds and the rest of the nonsense which pollutes the internet.

Take this, from badscience.net, as an example:

Ben, I think you will turn out to be just as arrogant as all the doctors that go before you. Gillian Mckeith, if nothing else, has encouraged people to realise that nutrition has a direct link to their quality of life and health. I would rather trust in good nutrition to prevent me from getting ill than an ever increasing supply of pharmeceutical drugs that cover up symptoms until they get worse. How many people do die each year from side effects of drug intervention? and what exactly was your Hippocratic oath? With all the incentives doctors get from pharmeceutical companies and the huge power those companies wield one could imagine that it was not really in a doctors best interests for a patient to get better. Humans are not machines, we are self-healing organisms and should be encouraged to remember this. Doctors are trained in body mechanics but not in healing or health and most of them are too arrogant to accept that there are other journeys to health.

I mean, that is good…. I am fairly sure it hits pretty much every logical fallacy I can think of.

The big claim goes along the lines of “if nothing else…” and this is used by apologetics of all flavour – ranging from the religious who say “if nothing else religion has made people happier” (or whatever) to the cranks who think the cruel and inhuman treatment of fat people doled out by McKeith is a GOODTHING™®. While it is (remotely) possible that McKeith has made people aware that nutrition is related to health (and if they needed McKeith to become aware of this, then I suspect letting them die would have been the kinder thing to do), this does not for one second excuse the nonsense, crackpottery and sheer, unadulterated bad science she wrapped her nonsense up in.

Creating weird rituals, falsifing science and tricking the public is not an “acceptable” means to an end.

The “how many people die each year” is fantastic. The appeal to fear there is brilliant because at its core, the sentence carries some truth. People do die of drug side effects. Side effects are called side effects for a reason. No one in their right mind thinks anything which works to treat an illness is 100% safe. The only possible reason McKeith’s recommendations were safe is because they do not do anything. This argument always pops up from the homeopathic woo-ers and it is tired and repetative at best.

This poor poster puts the nail in the coffin with “Doctors are trained in body mechanics but not in healing or health and most of them are too arrogant to accept that there are other journeys to health.” Well done.

Sometimes I despair that we allow people like this to have recourse to the NHS when they get sick and suddenly realise that crystals (or whatever nonsense they are in to) will not mend them.

In a previous post, I mention that a comment on Uncommon Design was suggesting the book The Privelged Planet was a good one for IDers and creationists to read and use to rebut evolutionary theories.

In that post I didnt really go into the book, as I felt it deserved one of its own. It really is bad science at it’s best so no wonder the ID / Creationism lobby jump all over it. I expect Steve Fuller will be writing about how we need to re-define science to accomodate this books nonsense before too long (although the book appears to be fairly old).

Now I do have to point out, I have not read this book. I doubt I will ever be able to bring myself to spend any money on this book as the thought of giving the authors a penny in royalties makes me want to choke on my own vomit. The book does have a website though, and this serves ample evidence of the crackpottery involved. For example the FAQ provides the following:

Q #1: Is the fact that we can see “perfect” solar eclipses related to our existence?

A: The Earth’s surface provides the best view of solar eclipses in the Solar System. The Earth’s surface is also the most habitable place in the Solar System. Is this coincidence just that? In The Privileged Planet, we argue that it isn’t. The conditions that make a planet habitable also make its inhabitants more likely to see solar eclipses.

That alone is enough for me to realise the book is going to be nonsense.

Well after a long rant against Religious crackpots, it is nice to see Uncommon Descent can still produce a few laughs from their fundamental idiocy.

Part of me feels they fully appreciate the irony of the nonsense they spout and that posts titled “When Arrogance and Stupidity Collide” are actually intended to be the sideways kicks at creationism they seem to be. Sadly, given how clueless some of the commentators are, this may be overly charitable on my behalf.

This post (by William Dembski) in particular begins:

Rubbish like this should steel us to work doubly hard to put these people out of business.

Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism & Intelligent Design
Cambridge House Press, Inc. (release date 02.28.07)
By Barrett Brown, Jon P. Alston

Book Description

What is creationism? Is it science, theology, both, neither? Who’s behind it? What does it mean for Western Civilization? And why should you give a damn in the first place? National Lampoon veteran Barrett Brown and Professor of Sociology Jon P. Alston, Ph.D, answer these questions — and perhaps one or two others — in a superbly unorthodox, serenely offensive and splendidly hilarious look at the forces behind the most talked-about pseudo-theory in modern history.

Now, you really cant help but chuckle at this book and the mountains of Righteous Indignation it seems to have stirred up in the ID/Creationism camps. The comments are priceless.

Amadan writes : “I wouldn’t worry about whoopee-cushion type propaganda like that. Thought Always Rebuts Darwinism.”

Sadly, history appears to show the opposite.

Dodgingcars writes : (emphasis mine) “I think some of you have made good points. At first, it was their policy to ignore ID. Now, because they can’t properly dispute it, they mock it and attack those who accept it. It does appear the tide is turning. We already know that something like 70-80% of Americans believe in ID (though they don’t know that’s what they believe) in some form. Once they’re more educated as to what ID is, the theory of evolution will lose validity in the eyes of most people in America — this is what scares the Darwinists.”

Here we go again. Sadly, ID supporters seem to regularly argue that ID should be a science because so many people believe in it. The mind truly boggles at this nonsense. In reality, if evolution loses validity in the eyes of most people in America, the only losers will be Americans who will produce generations of students who are unable to study how diseases evolve and how species can develop over time. Creationism is a dead end. Sadly, the Christian nutters actually want that. Oh yeah, ID is not a religious idea is it, it isn’t tied to any one religion is it?

Columbo write : (again, my emphasis) “I hope that, beyond lambasting and complaining about this kind of c-rap, defenders of science and general truth-seeking will become real activists in their own neighborhoods. E.g. 1) buy extra copies of “Privileged Planet” and “Mystery of Life” and loan them to co-workers and neighbors; 2) Volunteer to teach a series on this subject to high school and college groups at your church; 3) write book reviews / letters to the editor in your local paper; 4) meet with your representatives and give them succinct outlines and talking points to work from.”

Now, I know that this is not really proof ID and Religion (Christianity) are massively interlinked (yet they are), but I certainly find it ironic that the assumption appears to be all the ID supporters are active members of their church. I suspect they are. (More on the book next time)

As I said before, Christianity is a hard target to avoid when it comes the black humour provided by intolerant, bigoted religious crackpots. This time I may have been able to hit two religions with one post though. (The pictures are nothing to do with the text they are just here to make the blog look pretty )

Part of the problem seems to stem from Religions, being inherently “faith” based (surely by definition) superstition cults, trying to bring themselves into the modern, post-Renaissance era of logic and reasoned thought.

OK, most ID blogs are beyond parody but this is quite a stunning archive of tosh uncommondescent.com.

One post that took my fancy says:

Question: What do you call a person who hypothesizes an unseen intelligent being and searches outer space for confirming material evidence?
Answer: A scientist.
Question: What do you call a person who hypothesizes an unseen intelligent being and searches inner space for confirming material evidence?
Answer: A religious nut.

His argument is that SETI fall into the first category and his fellow religious nuts into the second. On the offchance that this isn’t blindingly obvious to you, SETI aren’t searching for “an” intelligent superbeing, who planned everything in the universe. They are searching for mortal beings with enough similar technological knowledge to ours to match our broadcasts. Maybe the name, SETI, confused him. I think I can speak for SETI, having once had its program installed on my computer, when I say that no one would be more surised that the SETI people if they get a response from an Egyptian god living in the distant reaches of the galaxy.

The grasp on reality shown in the second half of that comparison is even slimmer. I thought that meditating on one’s inner god-nature was a Buddhist thing. Certainly, anyone who examines their inner nature in search of some sense of transcendence is experimenting with their consciousness. I can’t really see what that has to do with Intelligent Design. I mistakenly thought that ID involved teaching kids that the theory of evolution was irreligious nonsense.

It appears to be a search for “unseen intelligent being” that lives inside you. Well, I must respect Dave Scot’s and Roddy Bullock’s (the perpretrators of this tosh) attempt to find one, but I think that, on the evidence of the blog, the search is doomed to failure.

It’s probably gilding the lily here, but

(a) the comments show that other ID supporters have failed to locate intelligence inside themselves either. One GilDodgeon says

“This is one of the best essays on the topic I have ever read. It should be framed, and should be required reading in every junior high and high school science class.”

2 paragraphs make an essay? One of the best defences of ID? (Speaks volumes about the rest) Required reading in every school? Argh! Argh! Argh!

(b) There is a line in the article

Darwin would be disappointed to find his eponymous ism has driven such a venomous schism..”

that just screams “Ned Flanders” to me.

It seems barely a day can pass without coming across more examples of religious hatred, intolerance and the mockery that the “faithful” make of their own gospels.

Now, I have been asked a few times recently why Christianity bears the brunt of my attacks here, rather than the other two crackpot, abrahamic religions. This is especially relevant as most of my vitrol towards religion is based on its refusal to accept science and its abhorrent intollerance. On the face of it, Christianity is “more” tolerant than Islam or Judaism, so why do I attack Christianity the most?

Some days I am embarrassed to be British. Fortunately this is rare, but it does happen, the Big Brother farce was one occasion and today I found another. (Steve Fuller’s Strange Arguments)

During the US Intelligent Design trial in Dover, there was a UK based [sometimes referred to as "British" but I am fairly sure he is an American who lives over here] “Philosopher of Science” who was brought out for the defence (i.e. he was there to convince the Judge that ID should be taught as a science) called Steve Fuller. Apparently he is a professor in the Sociology Department at Warwick University and was an “expert witness” as the result of specialising in the history and sociology of science. Now, I am going to refrain from commenting on the crackpottery which took place in the trial (of which Prof. Fuller was a prime example, sorry, I tried) but highlight some newer points he has raised. More worryingly he appears on a blog called ID in the United Kingdom which is what really shames me as a Brit but more later.

A shorter one now, and probably less links…

I have noticed, reading through the blogs by scientists that there seems to be a strange trend when Evolution (or anything with “anti-religious”, yet scientific, sentiment) is discussed. Now, we all know that creationists / ID proponents / fundamentalists are more than willing to resort to technology to meet their subversive aims. The sheer weight of “I love God” blogs on MySpace means they are probably not all 15 year olds like they claim.

However, there is a trend for IDer participation on blogs (sadly not on this one…). They start off with an innocuous post, claiming to be an enthusiastic amateur. This post will normally put some odd spin on the topic but ask why the legitimate question / debate is not being entered into. This obviously ignores the fact science is not resolved by democracy. Some example terminology is: “This seems (on the face of it, to me, an amateur) like a legitimate question, but if it’s not, why not?” (I am not saying the person who made this particular comment is an IDer or anything, it is an example!)

Generally people will respond, trying to explain the scientific method or the like and then things go haywire with the creationist often demanding to know why evolution is a “theory” not a “law” if it is so well supported by evidence. At least at this point the crackpot nature become obvious.

The thing which still eludes me, is why go through the farce at the early stages? It happens on USENET all the time: a crank posts something asking an apparently innocent question, then when people innocently reply, the crank goes postal on them.

Is it valid (morally, scientifically?) to assume all creationists are somewhat insane to begin with?

Thanks to Pharyngula for bringing this to my attention: You can get the creationist Truth In Science DVD through Bittorrent.