Creationism = Intelligent Design = Not Science

I’ve done a lot of reading recently about Evolution and Intelligent Design (Creationism) and really, the arguments for Intelligent Design, whether they’re being put forth by unqualified supporters in Texas or by biologists like Michael Behe, are all non-starters. ID supporters have yet to come up with any evidence to support their theory. Their arguments …

A Dubious Win in Texas

The Texas Board of Education managed to squeak a vote through that shot down the addition of anti-evolution language into their education standards which would have specified the standard nonsense about evaluating the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. However, in a series of equally nonsensical ammendments, the anti-science creationists and IDers added all kinds of …

Clueless in Texas

With the Texas Board of Education narrowly voting yesterday to keep the creationists from adding bogus language to their education standards, the religious conservative frenzy is at a peak. Not only were outrageous (and blatantly untrue) statements made during the school board’s meeting, but creationism-supporting commentators were out in force… and they just keep coming, …

Creationism in School… the PZ Myers Way

Over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers posted about how creationism should be taught in the classroom. I assumed that he didn’t mean it in the same way that creationists mean it, but his version was even better than I anticipated (Sorry, PZ. I won’t make that mistake again!). Here’s my favorite paragraph from his article. A …

Ray “The Banana Man” Comfort -VS- …The Vatican?

There is an article on The Living Waters website about “The Banana Man’s” (hereafter referred to as BM) disagreement with the Vatican’s “endorsement” of evolution.  Yes, in February the Vatican officially endorsed the notion that Darwinian evolution is compatible with the Bible’s account of Genesis. BM decided to take the gloves off and evoke the written …

Dawkins vs. Comfort? I hope not.

It seems that the logic-challenged evangelist, Ray Comfort, has challenged Richard Dawkins to a debate about the existence of God and why evolution is scientific. Comfort is also “sweetening the offer” by offering $10,000 (win, lose, or draw) to Dawkins, either to him or to the charity of his choosing. From the article: “Sadly, I …

Hitting the Nail on the Head

Nicholas Gotelli, a professor of Biology at the University of Vermont, evidently received an invitation to debate someone from the Discovery Institute on evolutionary science and intelligent design. PZ Myers posted about it on Pharyngula, including the original invitation and the response from Professor Gotelli. It’s one of the best responses I’ve seen to the …

I Am A Monkey’s Uncle… And So Are You!

Well it’s a big day! Happy birthday Charles Darwin! Since this is a birthday, I decided to keep the mood of this article on the lighter side. As I see it there is nothing lighter than a good old fashioned Chick Tract publication. If you’ve never heard of Chick Tracts, allow me to introduce you. …

‘Praise Darwin’: Creationism proponents have not ‘moved on’

My aforementioned letter to the editor of my local paper was way over the word limit for letters, so someone from the paper called me to tell me that they were goint to run it as a guest Op-Ed piece instead. I was delighted! It’s in the paper today (and in the online version, obviously). …

Obnoxious and Rude? Definitely.

This month, the Freedom From Religion Foundation erected two new billboards in honor of Charles Darwin, one of them in Dover, Pennsylvania which is about 15 minutes away from where I live and where I grew up. Today, in our local paper, there was an opinion editorial by Larry Hicks, a regular contributor to the …