1. Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

Comment #225830 by Glen Davidson on August 7, 2008 at 12:18 pm

Well I would rather that Dawkins would more often mention that science is what leaves no real scope for a detectable God.

After all, evolution could indicate absolutely no involvement of God in biology, and yet the universe might be fine-tuned for life (I don't believe it, I'm just pointing out that they're two different subjects).

Evolution is difficult for religion to swallow because it closed the last large gap in which magic might still be invoked. It's not like heliocentrism and physics hadn't already pushed God out of many areas. Biology was special simply because physics didn't explain it until Darwin and others came up with meaningful mechanisms of evolution.

I don't think that emphasizing evolution's role in pushing magic out of the picture assists in getting people to treat it like any other science. And that's what we need to get across to people (esp. in the US), the fact that evolution is simply the application of scientific principles to biology.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

2. Rep. Davis: The Worst Person in the World

Comment #157240 by Glen Davidson on April 8, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Oh yeah, I saw that on TV.

It might be more meaningful for her to be "worst person in the world" if Bill O'Reilly wasn't given that title seemingly every other night. Sure, he's an annoying blowhard, but "worst person in the world" sort of loses its sting when he's getting it all of the time.

Davis deserves more than that, in fact, considering how little that title has come to mean. But it's still something. The godless may not have it so bad, really, yet the sense that religious bigotry against them is sanctioned by society and even the state is far from an acceptable position for the people's representative to hold.

I hope that Olbermann will go ahead and hound her for that apology she owes all freedom-loving Americans. It's not over until she does apologize, and I reserve judgment on whether it's truly over then--it depends upon what she says.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

3. Expelled Overview

Comment #149796 by Glen Davidson on March 26, 2008 at 8:27 am

Thanks for the thorough run-down of this movie.

By the way, do your best to get these descriptions out there, on the internet, in the media at large. The fact that this is a bad movie (which might not convince a number of sympathetic people, when it's coming straight from Dawkins and other atheists) needs to be told to the public by people they trust.

The mystery about what they've been going to expose needs to be dispelled, since I think the "mystery" is what they've been targeting to the fence-sitters. Let them know that it's a piece of poor cinematography and hackneyed, obvious, and derivative attempts simply to put-down what they can't honestly address.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

4. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148903 by Glen Davidson on March 24, 2008 at 2:22 pm

I wrote the following yesterday @ #41, but they're disappearing (expelling) the past at their webpages, so I'll add a record of the past at the end:

41. Comment #148711 by Glen Davidson on March 23, 2008 at 4:20 pm

The truth is that you could not sign up for the "private screenings" at the regular Expelled or Getexpelled websites. The site you got to at the latter was:

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/movies/expelled

But that only had events up into January.

The "private screenings" website is this one:

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/special/expelled

It used to have the remaining screenings. It is most likely the one that PZ Myers used, and it was not easy to find (I found it and put it onto Pharyngula, AtBC, Atheistnetwork, FCS, PT, and Talkorigins). But in any case, it was out on the web and the search engines, only not so easy to find as to merely go to the Expelled website.

There's either nothing or practically nothing left at the "special" site that had the sign-up for the "private screenings" that I listed above--and that PZ would have used to sign up. Here is what was there on March 12:

AZ Tempe Harkins Arizona Mills April 3 7:00 PM RSVP
CA Dublin Regal Hacienda Crossings 21 March 26 7:00 PM RSVP
CA Santa Clara AMC Mercado 20 March 27 8:00 PM RSVP
CO Broomfield (Denver) AMC Flatiron Crossing April 2 7:00 PM RSVP
FL Lake Buena Vista (Orlando) AMC Pleasure Island 24 March 18 7:00 PM
RSVP
GA Decatur (Atlanta) AMC North Dekalb Mall 16 March 25 7:00 PM RSVP
IL Deerfield Trinity International University March 18 1:00 PM RSVP
IL Schaumburg (Chicago) AMC Loews Streets of Woodfield 20 March 18
7:00 PM RSVP
KY Louisville National Amusements Showcase Cinemas Stoneybrook March
31 7:00 PM RSVP
MA Cambridge AMC Loews Harvard Square 5 March 19 7:00 PM RSVP
MD Owings Mills (Baltimore) AMC Owings Mills 17 April 1 7:00 PM
RSVP
MI Grand Rapids Grand Rapids First March 4 3:30 PM Done
MI Livonia (Detroit) AMC Livonia 20 March 26 7:00 PM RSVP
MN Bloomington AMC Mall of America 14 March 20 7:00 PM RSVP
MO Creve Coeur (St. Louis) AMC Creve Coeur 12 March 12 7:00 PM Done
MO Kansas City Ward Parkway Theater March 4 7:00 PM Done
NC Charlotte AMC Carolina Pavilion 22 March 10 7:00 PM Done
NM Albuquerque Century Rio 24 March 6 2:00 PM Done
OH Brooklyn (Cleveland) AMC Ridge Park Square 8 March 19 7:00 PM
RSVP
OR Portland PENDING - CLICK BUTTON TO BE ADDED TO OUR WAITLIST March
25 TBD Waitlist
PA Plymouth Meeting (Philly) AMC Plymouth Meeting March 27 7:00 PM
RSVP
TN Franklin Carmike Thoroughbred 20 March 10 7:00 PM Done
TX Houston River Oaks Theatre March 13 7:00 PM RSVP
TX San Antonio Santikos Palladium IMAX March 12 7:00 PM Done
WA Seattle PENDING - CLICK BUTTON TO BE ADDED TO OUR WAITLIST March 24
TBD Waitlist
WI Milwaukee AMC Mayfair Mall 18 April 8 7:00 PM RSVP

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/special/expelled

I had pasted it in on March 12 here:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/e06a27ab30dfd67b/a066ca282e1f8374?lnk=raot

I realize that this isn't important to most people, but because they're dismantling the site that they put onto the web, and are now complaining that the "wrong people" used it (at least many of the IDiots are), I want both to make another record of it, and to make up for the fact that there's nothing there any more (that is, anyone who went to my link might think it was bogus, by now).

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

5. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148722 by Glen Davidson on March 23, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Cross-post from a post I made at Skatje's review:

That's one of the funniest things these bozos believe, that if someone can accept that aliens made of ordinary matter and using ordinary physics just could make life, why couldn't a magical elf, Thor, or Yahweh do the same thing?

You know how they're "thinking," purely religiously. If an non-omniscient alien can do it, surely God can. Whereas Dawkins is thinking, "aliens might very well have evolved by known means," so grant that aliens making life is possible. God, of course, is not known to be a possibility on any level.

It's sheer religious bias, something that Stein seems utterly incapable of recognizing.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

6. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148711 by Glen Davidson on March 23, 2008 at 4:20 pm

The truth is that you could not sign up for the "private screenings" at the regular Expelled or Getexpelled websites. The site you got to at the latter was:

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/movies/expelled

But that only had events up into January.

The "private screenings" website is this one:

http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/special/expelled

It used to have the remaining screenings. It is most likely the one that PZ Myers used, and it was not easy to find (I found it and put it onto Pharyngula, AtBC, Atheistnetwork, FCS, PT, and Talkorigins). But in any case, it was out on the web and the search engines, only not so easy to find as to merely go to the Expelled website.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

7. EXPELLED!

Comment #147906 by Glen Davidson on March 21, 2008 at 2:45 pm

But your conclusion seems faulty to me - let's try to ensure that their pernicious shite sees as much light of day as possible. Roll, then, on with the anti-rationalist experts to pound the little fuckers into the ground.

You'll like this, Styer. I conclude with the same sentiments as previously, but hey, it's not up to me, and it's going as you like. Regardless of variety of opinions, I'm enjoying this immensely:

The St. Paul Pioneer Press, a fairly substantial newspaper, reports on the Myers/Dawkins matter:

By Chris Hewitt
chewitt@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 03/21/2008 04:25:12 PM CDT


It's almost too perfect: P.Z. Myers tried to see the movie, "Expelled," at the Mall of America Thursday.

But he was expelled.

"Expelled," subtitled "No Intelligence Allowed," is the controversial film that argues schools should be teaching creationism as an alternative to evolution. Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Morris �quot; and, more to the point, a prominent atheist �quot; was interviewed for "Expelled" last April, although he says he was told the film was an evenhanded look at the intersection of science and religion and was to be called "Crossroads."

Myers was in the Twin Cities this week for the American Atheists Conference 2008 in Minneapolis and, coincidentally, he learned there was to be a free screening of "Expelled" at the Mall of America Thursday night. So he registered to attend with his wife, Mary, along with what Myers called "a whole parade of atheists," including internationally famous science writer, Richard Dawkins, whose books include "The God Delusion."

They all got in, but Myers did not.

The filmmakers had been advertising it. They'd been sending out e-mails to people who subscribed to their Web site and all you had to do to go was click on the site and tell how many guests you were going to bring," said Myers, who did just that. "I wanted to be completely above-board. I signed under my own name and I didn't think they would object because, after all, I am in the movie."

At about 7:15 p.m., 15 minutes before showtime, Myers was informed that "Expelled" was expelling him. Myers believes Mark Mathis, who interviewed him for the film "under false pretenses," and who was in attendance at the Mall of America, recognized his name and barred him from attending (attendees had to show identification before being admitted).

"It shows off the hypocrisy of these people, as well as their outright incompetence," said Myers, who reports that his blog �quot; scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ �quot; had an all-time high-traffic day Friday. "I could not imagine a better result for this. They've shown themselves to be completely dishonest and that they're trying to hide the truth about their movie, which is to my advantage. And they've shown themselves to be such flaming idiots."

Ironically, Mathis did not recognize Dawkins, who also is in the film and who says Mathis "tricked" him into an interview.

"What surprised me is it is a really lousy film, even if you happen to agree with it," said Dawkins, who took advantage of a question-and-answer session after the screening to ask why Myers wasn't allowed in. "P.Z. is in the film extensively. If anyone had a right to see the film, it was him. The incompetence, on a public relations level, is beyond belief."

Although he hasn't seen the movie, Myers said his wife confirmed what he has heard about it: "She said they would have a biologist talking about evolution and they would intercut that with lots of shots of the Nazi Holocaust, so it's a blatant appeal to emotions. It's propaganda, and it's trying to associate us with acts that, obviously, neither Richard Dawkins nor I would call good or would associate with science."

Representatives of Motive Marketing, a specialist in marketing such faith-based films as "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," did not return phone calls about Myer's claims and about his barring from the film (they had previously attempted to bar Orlando film critic Roger Moore from a screening, but he got in, anyway). In any case, Myers will probably have to wait to see himself on-screen until the movie opens April 18, nationwide.

In the meantime, Myers is entertained by this irony: "Expelled's" closing credits include a thank-you to him. So he knows the filmmakers are grateful for the couple of hours he gave them last year. Just not grateful enough to let him see their movie.

www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_8653837

Pretty good stuff, if you ask me.

I don't know if I really like "Expelled" getting this publicity just now, however. But at least it's bad publicity, and even if it helps the movie sell, it'll look like the intellectual debacle that it actually is.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

8. EXPELLED!

Comment #147819 by Glen Davidson on March 21, 2008 at 10:59 am

Do they look worse for trying to suppress access and to expel questioners, or for being so incompetent as to throw PZ out and let Dawkins in?

The fact is that they're looking more and more incompetent all of the time, especially every time Stein opens his mouth and reveals his utter lack of knowledge of what evolutionary theory even covers (and tells us that we should allow questions about gravity and the like, since these were not even covered by Darwin--as if there's any censorship of any of these questions, including evolution). This is all quite a minor episode, of course, but once again they look the fools that they are.

We just had better be careful that we don't let people think their crashing bore of a film is interesting because of incidents like these.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

9. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138438 by Glen Davidson on March 4, 2008 at 10:14 am

That's awfully thin gruel, even for an untestable (but supposedly explanatory) hypothesis. Still trying to make your drug trips into a revelatory experience, Shanon?

When was the Exodus account written, anyway? Do we need to explain every "supernatural" story written by the ancients? How should we account for God's spirit moving over the face of the waters in Genesis, or Noah's flood? Were they tripping all of the time, that they believed all of this nonsense?

Look, more to the point, El was originally a storm God. All you really have to have for a "religious experience" of El on Mount Sinai, is, unsurprisinglly, a damn thunderstorm. It might start a fire, producing smoke. "Hearing the voice" of El might simply be hearing the thunder, the "voice of God," which Moses goes up to investigate and see if he can understand it.

I don't know if the most relevant texts mention El or Yahweh, but I don't think that conflation of El with Yahweh would be unexpected even if "Yahweh" is mentioned in the texts regarding God on Sinai. The two names were quite interchangeable.

These were superstitious people who didn't need drugs to "see God" in natural phenomena that they couldn't explain.

Plus, we don't have much reason to believe that the exodus as such occurred, although the tale of the exodus probably relates to at least one or more trip of groups of people out of Egypt. If the stories about Sinai happened at all, is it any wonder that superstitious people not knowing where they were going "listened to God" as he stormed on Mount Sinai, in the hope of guidance?

Most of all, the whole thing was almost certainly written about so long after the fact that all of those accounts should be taken with a great deal of skepticism. Yes, I don't doubt that the plagues in Egypt were modeled on some experiences at some time, but we don't have to believe that they all occurred in any short period of time, or all in Egypt, or that they all occurred anywhere (especially the deaths of the first born). Even the Gospel accounts differ significantly from each other, and they date back to the time when memories of these events were supposed still to exist.

What is it about these "holy books," that people continue to try to explain how the things written in them "really happened"? The most important fact about the Exodus is that we don't know that any of it happened in the way written, and even if some quite different "exodus" or exoduses" occurred, we have no idea how.

We only know from the Bible how later Israelites understood how they got to be in Canaan. That is interesting in itself, but there is no evidence that their understanding correlates with any of the events mentioned in Exodus.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

10. The Search for Truth, God and Braver Scientists in 'Expelled'

Comment #128181 by Glen Davidson on February 16, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Yes, they also censor their blog. I'm linking below to an instance I documented, where someone called "javascript" had maligned what I had written with out-of-context quotemines and malicious libel, and I was not allowed to demonstrate how javascript was dishonest:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/carnivalia_and_an_open_thread_85.php#comment-625774

It might be hard to understand just what's going on there, but the important issue is that I was not allowed to respond to comment #33 of Ben Stein's blog post of Oct. 31, 2007, which has the title of "Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology."

At that point I quit commenting on their blog (yesterday I finally put a link in the comments, since I'd lose little if they didn't post it, which they did), because if javascript is allowed to malign dishonestly quotemine while I'm not allowed merely to show how dishonest he is, there can be no honest discussion (which the Expelled people hypocritically claims to desire).

Just like Whipple, I'm rather amazed at how they want to claim suppression, when they're busy censoring out whatever they don't like.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

11. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128167 by Glen Davidson on February 16, 2008 at 11:54 am

However, in the sane world Ben Stein receives the respect that a piece of garbage like Expelled, and the blog for Expelled, deserves:


You laughed at his affectless droning high school economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ; you may have enjoyed his repartee with Jimmy Kimmel or his command of trivial knowledge on “Win Ben Stein’s Money�; you may even have run out and bought some eyedrops on his recommendation. But don’t ask him about evolution, Charles Darwin, science, or any related topic, for on those Ben Stein is an ignoramus. Since he is demonstrably intelligent, it must be concluded that he is a willful ignoramus.

Robert McHenry, who was for five years the editor-in-chief of Britannica, continues here:

http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2008/02/how-low-can-ben-stein-go/

While they've proven that they can be noticed if they shove enough propaganda at us, anybody who knows anything is going to react to their dishonest bilge like McHenry does (though of course this will "prove" a persecuting conspiracy to hacks like Ben Stein).

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

12. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115514 by Glen Davidson on January 24, 2008 at 9:20 am

By the way, the quote I gave in #202 is in chapter 6 of Descent of Man (it occurred to me as well that he may have been thinking in terms of evolution by the inheritance of aquired characteristics in the quote, since he discusses "man in a more civilized state").

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-06.html

What I really wanted to comment about was this mutt-head of a statement, by Campolo:

Regardless of how we got here, we should recognize that there is an infinite qualitative difference between the most highly developed ape and each and every human being. Darwin never recognized this disjuncture.

That's because there is no such observable disjuncture. Indeed, one has every bit as much reason to say that there is a qualitative difference between the Japanese and the Australian aborigenes as to say that there is a qualitative difference between apes and humans, that is, none at all. If you're just going to make things up and suggest that it is science, the racist has every bit as much evidence for his prejudices as Campolo has for his own.

Now, I'm not suggesting that one is not allowed to consider ourselves as "humans" and apes as "animals," whatever that might mean. What is offensive is that Campolo refuses to see the "human in the ape" or the "ape in the human," for roughly the same "qualities" that exist in humans exist in apes, and vice versa. We are quantitatively quite different from the apes, and due to cultural issues, this quantitative difference might be seen by us as almost a "qualitative difference".

But to suppose that 'Darwin was wrong' not to see a "disjuncture" in what is an evolutionary continuity is to sow the seeds of racism that Darwin helped to destroy, whatever his intentions were (as I've said in other venues, evolution "deconstructs" the notions that underlie racism, such as ideas of "higher" and "lower").

Campolo even writes the prejudices that evolution discredits, when he writes of "the most highly developed ape". What's next, Campolo, the "most highly developed human"? OK, you probably won't do so, but what possible argument could you have against somebody else doing so, since you subscribe to non-scientific and non-evolutionary prejudices about what is "higher" and what is "lower"?

The truth is that Campolo hasn't broken free from the more widespread prejudices of Bible and of culture which give rise to racism and to other prejudices. The total breaks of one population from another one, seen in both the Bible and in ancient philosophies like Aristotle's, are part and parcel of Campolo's prejudices, and it is a short leap from his prejudices to racial and nationalistic prejudices which could be very dangerous indeed.

It is science which denies the "disjunctures" that the religionists want to put into place, as well as the beliefs in "higher" and "lower" that have been with us for too long.

Indeed, for anyone to deny that apes and humans aren't part of an evolutionary continuum, despite our sharing 95% or so of our genes material with chimps, has no real reason to believe that humans are all part of one family, for we share "only" 99% of DNA with the each other. Of course 99% indicates a close relatedness, in fact, but if you can deny our relationship with chimps over 5% of DNA, surely 1% isn't really a problem.

I asked Paul Nelson once on Panda's Thumb how he could know that humans are related to each other, when essentially the same kind of data indicates that we're related to the apes, with only a quantitative difference between the respective figures. Of course he didn't answer my question, just as IDists and other creationists always ignore the crucial questions (underlying my question, of course, was how we could even know that the "races" are related, given that he rejects the obvious meaning coming from comparisons of human and chimp DNA. He, and Campolo, cannot answer this question).

Racism existed before Darwin, during Darwin's time, and has existed ever since then. However, the only meaningful arguments against racism are the scientific evolutionary ones, which really began with Darwin. Whatever Darwin believed or did not believe, and whatever he wrote, the important issue is that he started up a science which would ultimately "disprove" the claims of racists about "pure races", about "disjunctures" between humans and humans as well as between humans and animals, as well as their claims about what is "most highly developed".

Campolo continues to write using the mythic prejudices which underlie racism. It's too bad that he doesn't learn some science, which would clear up so much of the nonsense that he spouts.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

13. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115469 by Glen Davidson on January 24, 2008 at 8:16 am

I've read most of the Origin of Species, but have not read anything else by Darwin. However, one can find apparent racist quotes from Darwin on the web quite readily:

"At some future period (Darwin writes), not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 2nd ed (New York: A. L. Burt Co., I 874), p. 178).

So I don't think that there's any question that Darwin wrote things that we'd certainly consider to be racist, assuming that the above quote is accurate.

Which changes nothing about Campolo being a buffoon who's suggesting that the issue is "that Darwin should be taught in public schools," which isn't even close to what we're saying. Nor does it change anything about his buffoonish misinterpretation of what "races" meant in the subtitle of Origin, which I reiterate meant essentially "varieties" in today's parlance.

We want schools to teach things like Miller's and Levine's textbook. The fact is that I have not once seen a science class that taught the Origin, let alone any that taught The Descent of Man. I have seen Origin taught in a college class in the history of science and portions in classes on the history of Western thought. As far as I know, those sorts of classes are the only places where "Darwin is taught," and these are typically higher level courses in which the context in which Darwin wrote was presented and discussed.

The one thing that should not be claimed is that Darwin didn't write "racist things," at least by today's standards (unless someone can show that the quote above is a fraud). It simply has no bearing on the debates about teaching evolution, since nobody in his right mind would think of using Darwin's writings as a primary text in science classes, or even as a supplemental text in the lower level science classes.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

14. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115226 by Glen Davidson on January 23, 2008 at 7:01 pm

So, why can't I as a (jesusfuck it hurts to say this) Christian demand the same from "Darwinists?" If you are going to take the theory from the person who developed it, why should I not force you take take all his ideas? Why are you allowed to cherry-pick and I am not?

We're not cherry-picking, diphead (I say this to the persona you're taking on), we're measuring against the evidence. And Origin of Species isn't a Bible, either.

Xianity is absolutely nothing without the authority of various writings, most notably the Bible. Evolution does not depend upon any particular writings at all, rather it could be developed by Wallace or by anybody else, had not Darwin been the first to come up with a true scientific theory (though others thought of natural selection before he did).

That is the huge difference between science and religion. Science does not depend upon writings and authority, and we really don't have to take any of Darwin's ideas at all. The ideas belong to all of science, to all cultures, to all of humanity. Xianity is culture and text-dependent, which is why cherry-picking is questionable (I do not tell Xians they can't cherry-pick, however, since there is no "objective" basis to say what religion is or should be).

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

15. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115181 by Glen Davidson on January 23, 2008 at 6:02 pm

The man is such a bozo. Take this part:

Those who argue at school board meetings that Darwin should be taught in public schools seldom have taken the time to read him.

Who has ever said that Darwin should be taught in public schools? It's like this idiot simply read the dishonest propaganda of the Discovery Institute, and decided that we who accept science indeed have a holy writ called "Origin," and we wish it to be taught.

Have a clue, ridiculous man, we don't want to "teach Darwin," we want to teach science, which has moved far past Darwin.

If they knew the full title of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, they might have gained some inkling of the racism propagated by this controversial theorist.

And this is a particularly vapid and ignorant twisting of what the title actually related (btw, it is said to have not been Darwin's original title, rather one suggested by the publisher). It is well-known by those who are qualified to opine in this matter, that "races" there referred to "varieties," and the "Origin" did not discuss human "races". Campolo is taking an especially bad interpretation by the creationists (by the way, the Expelled trailer highlights the subtitle as well, undoubtedly trying to dishonestly make use of the changing meaning of "race" from that time to this time), and trying to make a case against Darwin based on that tendentious and incorrect interpretation.

I am not unaware that Darwin had racist notions, which showed up in some of his work. I do doubt most of Campolo's specific charges, however, primarily because of how dishonestly (I don't care that he probably ignorantly believes what he writes, he is obliged to know better when he writes in a major publication) he deals with the title as well as his wholly incorrect sense of what this controversy is about. We're not in the least trying to teach the writings of Darwin, or even "Darwinism" (in America we typically don't call MET "Darwinism", though it is more common in the UK to do so), we're wishing to teach an evolved theory which has left behind most of Darwin's Victorian prejudices, along with the fairly embryonic state of evolutionary theory in Darwin's time.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

16. Ben Stein Bribing Schools to See His Anti-Evolution Movie 'Expelled'

Comment #112560 by Glen Davidson on January 17, 2008 at 1:11 pm

I suppose I ought to point out that the title is wrong. The children are not being bribed, the schools are being bribed to make the kids go (sure, they might not absolutely have to go, but the "good students" would).

I wish it were as simple as them giving out free tickets, or pay to fill the seats. That would be gaming the system, all right, but at least it wouldn't be such a devious tactic. As it is, the schools get the money, and the kids are screwed twice, once by having to buy the ticket, and a second time by having to listen to such dreck.

Dr. Wes Elsberry tells it like it is, here:

http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2008/01/16/flunked-not-expelled-gaming-the-movie-ratings/

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

17. Ben Stein Bribing Schools to See His Anti-Evolution Movie 'Expelled'

Comment #112530 by Glen Davidson on January 17, 2008 at 12:33 pm

More Stein nonsense:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200801/NAT20080117a.html

I made some comments on other blogs, which I'll repeat here:

The most striking bit from Stein was this one:

[Stein says]
I think we say it can respond to changes in the world around them and that neo-Darwinians say it can only do that by random chance - it only happens by random chance. We say the cell may have the possibility of doing itself in an intelligent way that there may be some intelligence in the cell itself so that's probably a big difference between the two of us. We, on this side, think at least there's a possibility. We believe there's some possibility the cell could have an intelligence of its own.

[Emphases added]

Now compare this to his accusation against real scientists:

[Stein]
and the Darwinists have no theory whatsoever about the origin of life, none whatsoever, except the most hazy, the kind of preposterous, New Age hypothesis.

Yeah, sorry that we didn't think about pre-cells or chemicals having some kind of intelligence. That would be real science.

Not to mention that he has no clue about the speculations and experiments of the abiogenesis researchers.

Then there's this doltish claim:

[Stein]
Science should always be in the business of attempting to disprove itself.

After that he projects that we're trying to rationalize, when he can't begin to support ID or to come up with any meaningful criticisms of "Darwinism".

A bit of irony:

Well, I would say it's creationism by someone. For me, I've always believed that there was a God. I've always believed that God created the heavens and earth - so, for me it's not a huge leap from there to intelligent design

Why no, it's just not that big a leap after all. Sorry that I said it was (or did I?).

Here's the guy "questioning" Stein:

[Cybercast News Service:]
There is a segment in the film, where it's made clear that intelligent design can open up new areas of inquiry that could improve the human condition. One involves a neurosurgeon, Michael Egnor, and another scientist, Jon Wells, who indicate that given how the cells are put together, with eye toward intelligent design, and with the idea that animal cells have tiny turbines - or if viewed as tiny turbines - he was able to formulate a theory that said in the event these things malfunction and don't properly shut down and could break apart, this is the first step on the way to cancer.

There you are Egnor, who's as clueless as a mole watching a shuttle launch (at least in this subject), and Jon Wells with his tired turbine BS, which was neither really predicated upon ID, nor did it turn out to be correct. Apparently it's in the movie, though, at least so far. Stein's actually more sensible about this bit than the interviewer is:

[Stein]
And I was just overwhelmed by the fact, at least as I am told, that Darwinists have never observed natural species being originated ... There's not even a clear definition of what a species is

You could probably overwhelm this ignoramus with the fact that a 10 km. asteroid has never been seen to hit earth and cause the devastation that "new age" scientists say would occur, and that stars have never been seen forming.

And of course the prediction of MET that species would not be a clear and simple category, due to evolution, becomes in this creationist's mind an argument against scientists.

Seems, too, that we've progressed from being Nazis to being Marxists:

[Stein]
I think there is this kind of Marxist establishment in this country that has been overthrown in other countries, but not overthrown here. There is a very powerful Marxist establishment within the intelligentsia that does not allow questioning of its premises.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

18. Canadian fossil makes waves in Huckabee's presidential run

Comment #112077 by Glen Davidson on January 16, 2008 at 9:27 am

Tiktaalik is a beauty, a triumph of predictive paleontology which relied on evolutionary factors to pinpoint where a fish-to-amphibian transitional might be found. However, it was not just any old transitional they were looking for, they wanted evidence whcih would show how the shoulder girdle evolved. After all, they already had fish-to-amphibian transitionals, Elpistostege, Ichthyostega and Acanthostega. Some even consider Tiktaalik to be, in effect, a better-preserved version of Elpistostege.

I wish that the reporting in the media, and even in the NOVA program, were more clear about these matters. Sure, it's great that Tiktaalik (hardly the vision one would have of an intelligently designed machine, merely a fish adapting to quadrupedal locomotion) was found near the height of the circus that is ID, however there has not been any excuse for denying non-teleological evolution on the supposed lack of transitionals, for all vertebrate classes have had transitional forms known for decades.

Indeed, if more transitionals were considered to be a pressing need in science, I'm sure a whole lot more could be found. Tiktaalik was found simply because some biologists wanted yet another transitional form to know more about the fish to amphibian transition, particularly in regard to locomotion, so they went looking in the strata in which such a transition might be preserved.

I would like to add, as well, that only evolutionary theory (the real one, with mechanisms for it being actually known) is capable of telling us what a transitional even could be. ID doesn't know, since "the Designer" could make anything it pleases. Only the so-called "Darwinism" tells us that, due to constraints of history and because of the limits to change known via genetics and other studies, Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega have to exhibit an identifiable mix of fish and amphibian features, with no great leaps or novelties possible, let alone could there be any actual design features like rational planning or "purpose" to be found. Indeed, only "materialistic" evolutionary theory even predicts transitionals to exist, since any designer capable of making life could make whatever it wanted de novo.

The upshot is that Tiktaalik is a great find, and it ought to be a contemporary embarrassment to any serious IDist, yet there was never any lack of important transitional fossils, unlike what IDists and creationists claimed (of course many large-scale transitions have no fossil evidence for them at all, but one cannot expect them for insects and other poorly fossilized animals). They've never had any excuse from the fossil record, and the genetic record indicates that all "gaps" are illusory, as relatively small genetic changes (small by ID or creationist standards, while biologists dispute how large the changes are by their own, better, standards) have characterized all of the evolution which can be elucidated from DNA.

IDists never had an explanation for Ichthyostega, and they certainly had no means to predict that other transitionals had ever existed, nor any means of identifying them if they did exist.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com2kxyc7

19. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #111680 by Glen Davidson on January 15, 2008 at 12:43 pm

The thing that annoys me about this mostly fascinating article is that it inadvertently sounds as if fish are perfectly adapted/evolved while we are not. So what now? Fish were the ones that were intelligently designed? Most organisms are ill-adapted/evolved in some fashion or another.

I wonder if fish had as many historical constraints as later vertebrates do, though. They may have been more fully adapted to general water living than most land vertebrates are to living on land, both because they evolved from less specialized organisms, and because fish evolution was relatively long, at least compared with human evolution of bipedalism.

Having written that, however, the whole mitochondria business affects fish as they do ourselves, one reason why I questioned the whole "fish" focus. And it may be argued that bony fishes (from which we evolved) are less well-adapted than, say, sharks, since the latter are virtually in osmotic balance with their ocean environment, yet bony fishes (Osteichthyes) in both the ocean and in fresh water have to fight osmotic imbalances constantly. So yes, at least our ancestors do not appear to be "perfectly designed" either, instead having adapted within obvious constraints.

One more thing. In the context of ID/evolution battles, it's worth noting (for lurkers and the rest) that transitional organisms had even "poorer design" than we generally observe in crown species. For instance, all birds have tell-tale "poor design," but Archaeopteryx is rather less well adapted to locomotion through the air than are modern crows. Thus it makes no sense for Behe to accept the evidence for evolutionary development, when those evidences indicate nothing but adaptation limited by historical constraints and contingency, and nothing like a superintelligent designer (which he sometimes admits is his "hypothesis) stepping in with a bright new conception for dinosaur's to get around (what thinking being would make wings out of forelegs anyway?).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

20. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #111502 by Glen Davidson on January 14, 2008 at 8:35 pm

I should just add to my comments at #38 that perhaps the worst harm to mitochondrial DNA being outside of the nucleus is that it thereby has few repair mechanisms to fix lesions to it.

Lack of recombination certainly doesn't help its evolution, either, but the actual deterioration of mitochondrial DNA is likely due mostly to the paucity of repair within mitochondria. Which just adds to the poor "design" exhibited by mitochondrial replication.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

21. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #111330 by Glen Davidson on January 14, 2008 at 11:37 am

The movement of mitochondrial genes from mitochondria into the nucleus, which in many cases can be documented by comparison of the genes, is by itself a very powerful argument for non-teleological evolution. On the "design" side, it appears that such transfers exist primarily because the (near-total, at least) lack of recombination among mitochondrial genes makes us and nearly all eukaryotes vulnerable to mutations among those genes (iow, poor "design"). Then too, sexual reproduction has little reason to exist except for its role in evolution.

To put it another way, nearly all aspects of biology not only have part of their explanation in evolution, they are tied together by evolution, as in the transfer of genetic material from the mitochondria to the nuclei.

The whole mitochondria and sexual reproduction matter indicates that it's certainly not all about fish, and anyway, there have been several solutions to the problems mentioned. There is nothing obvious about spermatozoa needing lower temperatures to develop properly, since in birds they develop inside bodies warmer than our own. It's in mammals where high-temperature sperm development seems to be evolutionarily disallowed, so that while lower-temperature bodies retain the testicles in the abdomen (elephant), higher temperature bodies which retain testes in the abdomen must occur in conjunction with another manner of cooling those gonads (dolphin).

I actually heard a creationist trying to explain how testes-cooling in dolphins proves that evolution didn't happen, because apparently the cooling system would have to exist prior to their developing aquatic habits. It appears by his thinking that any organism with a scrotum cannot swim.

Of course the whole descent of the testes is a quite interesting development in evolution, since the testes still develop in a roughly ancestral position (evidently not as close to the heart as in "earlier" organisms, but clearly reflecting a much earlier time), while they cannot remain there. It's an insane way to develop according to "design principles" (hernias are hardly the only problem, with undescended testes a not infrequent error in males, plus it's obvious that they're much vulnerable to harm in their present position than in the abdomen) but it is just another of the many vestiges of the past expected and found in evolved organisms.

It's amazing that the creos and IDists can never quite see the importance of adopting a theory which explains precisely what design has never and can never explain, unless, of course, we find their god who thinks only in genetic algorithms.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

22. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #108757 by Glen Davidson on January 7, 2008 at 2:23 pm

I doubt that saying we're "doomed" if the US votes in a creationist is any help to the political debate. I don't know who said it, either, since it doesn't appear in any of the quotes, but we have a system of checks and balances for a reason (like ignorant presidents) and we are not necessarily doomed if a troglodyte gets in.

Of course I'm glad that scientists are speaking out against such colossal anti-intellectualism. I just don't think the president's effect should be exaggerated, since we've weathered both Bush's and Reagan's support for creationism (to be sure, neither made much more than political speech which would play well to the evangelicals, and little enough of that).

For myself, though, I think I'd never vote for any of these IDiots who oppose science--so long as only the alternative wasn't a Nazi or something on that order, naturally. It cannot be anything but harmful to a nation to have some anti-science cretin up there saying that magic is as worthy of considering as is the hard work and solid results of honest scientists.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

23. New journal to target education in evolution

Comment #103977 by Glen Davidson on December 27, 2007 at 12:16 pm

"I, um, I think it's a theory, theory of evolution, and I don't accept it, you know, as a theory…. I just don't think we're at a point where anybody has absolute proof, on either side."

Aside from the issue of "absolute proof," which is a matter for religion and not science, what is this "other side" supposed to be? ID? Plato's theory of forms? Ovid's Metamorphoses?

If there actually were another potential theory I think that would be exciting, since it is true that many questions about evolution remain unanswered. That's why the dog ID is even worse than useless, it's insulting for claiming to have answers when it can't even provide potential explanations where it criticizes "Darwinian explanations".

Paul's greatest potential is for providing a contrary voice for ideas that are worthy of consideration. That role will be seriously compromised if he's going to play the anti-science know-nothing, rather than the intelligent critic.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

24. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #94493 by Glen Davidson on December 5, 2007 at 7:37 pm

To be liberal in the classical sense is to accept intellectual variety--and the social complexity that goes with it--as the ineradicable condition of a free society.

Yes, that's right, and it's time to become tolerant of the people who, in the tradition of Paine, Nietzsche, Voltaire, and Hume, attack religion with no holds barred.

And of course that's really the issue, the criticism of religion, which Linker confuses by instead bringing up "atheism". Socrates, Hume, Nietzsche, and Voltaire, didn't need to be "atheists" (though of course Nietzsche was an atheist) as such to attack religion. Neither, presumably, would today's critics of religion have to be atheist, it simply appears that only the atheists will take up the old liberal critique of religion itself.

The way I see it, Dawkins is being a gadfly much as Socrates was. But he'd not be much of a gadfly were he to adopt Socrates' religious views, for in that case he'd be more of a New Ager or mystic. That's fine for Socrates attacking the religion of his day, but now it's a rather sad position to be in.

Linker makes any number of errors, including his depiction of Nietzsche (sure, he was no liberal, classical or otherwise, but how can he be pigeon-holed as a rightwinger?), yet it is this twisting of the issue into one of "atheism" that is the worst. Liberals have often attacked religion much as Dawkins does today--and by most American views of liberalism, anyhow, Dawkins simply continues in that tradition. What's the matter, that he's atheist, rather than some sort of deist or soppy New Ager?

Linker appears to be the real liberal hypocrite, then, since the issue is not actually about attacking religion and its ill effects, which many liberals have done (Hume (usually placed in the liberal tradition), Mill, Voltaire (more or less liberal, though hard to categorize exactly), Jefferson along with most of the other American Founders, and particularly Paine), only usually not as avowed atheists. No, the real problem (other than perhaps some excessive rhetoric at times) is that Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris are atheists who attack religion, not purported believers in a deity.

We need the gadflies to prod against religion as such. It is probably true that secularism as a whole will do better not to adopt the positions of Hitchens and Dawkins, but it is time that religion no longer be treated with kid gloves by all of the "freethinkers." That is to say, it is about time fir "freethinkers" not to be reined in by the concern trolls of liberalism, so that the old liberal criticisms of religion can be heard once more.

I say that liberalism ought and must be open to the criticisms of religion that other belief systems are supposed to receive. If those critics are largely atheist, that is no fault in the present critics, rather it is more a fault of liberals who are too comfortable with the present order, and who thus are not willing to criticize it vigorously.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

25. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #72128 by Glen Davidson on September 20, 2007 at 11:54 am

So, the DI and IDists claim that Darwin is responsible for Hitler, and Mary Midgely blames Dawkins for confusing people regarding science and morality. Gee, Mary, do you think that maybe the gross lies of certain of the religionists might have had something to do with any of the confusion out there?

Of course D. James Kennedy wouldn't create a faulty picture of Dawkins, now would he? The DI is always very careful in its publicity (that's irony, for the irony-challenged) to get the facts straight, and of course your various creationists and IDists know about Dawkins by reading his books, not from dishonest secondary sources. Good grief, when Mary Midgely herself is using only secondary sources, and apparently quite faulty ones at that, she's being a bit naive (I'm being charitable here) in thinking that Dawkins is responsible for the view of evolution among American creationists and IDists.

If Mary knew anything about this, she'd be attacking the propaganda of Ben Stein, the DI, and the concern trolls of the secular community. Nothing that Dawkins has written comes even close to the out-and-out bigotry and falsehood being churned out by the DI and its allies.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7