Are all neurosurgeons crazy?

Reposted from http://recursed.blogspot.com

I'm beginning to think so, what with Ben Carson claiming that the pyramids were used to store grain, not to bury rulers and that he had a violent past.

So it's not really a surprise to see that walking Dunning-Kruger effect-man, Michael Egnor, claiming that humans can't be apes because "Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking" and "Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not".

I'm really curious to know how Dr. Egnor knows with certainty that nonhuman animals cannot think abstractly. I guess he is just egnoring all the research that suggests just the opposite. It's not like this is hidden stuff; Egnor could read, for example, the books of Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal.
Maybe not all neurosurgeons are this batshit loony. After all, another thing that Carson and Egnor have in common is that they are both creationists. Maybe that's the real problem. Maybe you have to be immersed in jeebus-juice to believe, like Egnor does, that "Human rationality is different because it is immaterial." I guess our thinking powers are just magic; all that neurocircuitry is just there for show.

Footnotes:
1. Egypt’s pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain and were not, as archaeologists believe, tombs for pharaohs, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson, a neuroscientist, has said.
2. Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon and creationist. He writes articles for the Discovery Institute (also known as Dishonesty Institute).

John Lennox at Waterloo

John Lennox strikes again! This time at the University of Waterloo. I'm reblogging comments of Jeff Shallit who, having had the patience to attend his lectures, only found out that they are void of content. And I found out that Lennox keeps saying the same thing, month after month, year after year, supporting irrational beliefs and preaching to those who are impressed by the fact that he has a PhD and that he is a mathematician. (Wow!)

It's Pascal Lecture Time Again -- John Lennox at Waterloo 

John Lennox - Talk #1: "Do Science and God Mix?" 

John Lennox Hoist by His Own Petard

John Lennox Talk #2: Miracles 

When the world was created

I was looking for a picture of the following but couldn't find it on the Internet. Last week however, I was in Austin, Texas, and took one myself. It is a plaque sitting in front of the Texas State History Museum giving the date of inauguration of the museum:

You see, the date is given in two ways, the first one being the conventional date (2001), but the  second one being something strange: A.L. 6001. What is this? Well, there is a group of people who believe that the world was created at the year 4000 BCE. In this respect, they are similar to young earth creationists who believe that the world was created between 5700 and 10000 years ago. They are both making a huge error, and their belief is 5 orders of magnitude different from the actual date of the creation of the world (defined as the age of the universe) which is about 13,000,000,000 (13 billion) years ago. The guys who put the plaque in front of the museum are the so-called freemasons and "AL 6001" means "Anno Lucis 6001", i.e. 6001 years after the light was created.

Arbitrary nonsense, of course. But when that nonsense is used in a history museum one wonders about the accuracy of the contents and information inside the museum.

By the way, the museum is not a bad looking building, but someone had the strange idea to stick an immense star in front of it which covers the view almost entirely.

John Lennox, his aunt Matilda (and her pies), and Creationism

There are religious folk, like George Pell, who was my previous post's subject, who are decent enough to suggest (or appear to be doing so) that one cannot approach religion through science, that it is beyond it, something else, etc., although they fail to suggest what this something else is. Bill Hick, of Revelation TV is such a decent chap. He has all kinds of crazy beliefs, but he doesn't say that they are the result of a scientific process.

There are others, however, like John Lennox, Oxford Professor in Mathematics (Algebra), who are trying hard to justify religion through Science. In doing so, they use their scientific hat to appear that their arguments come straight from the centres of their prestigious scientific academic establishments. It is easy: most laymen have no idea what's going on in the Oxford Mathematics Department, neither do they know whether Lennox knows Quantum Mechanics or General Relativity. All that Lennox has to do is to pretend that his religious argument comes straight from his "academic works". People will buy that, even if he will never explicitly say so.

I have been in two talks by Lennox (one was a monologue, and the other a debate with Christopher Hitchens), both in Edinburgh. On both occasions he used the following argument, a version of the Pie Argument, as anadder calls it:

My aunt Matilda bakes a wonderful pie. I have two friends, a physicist and a chemist. I ask the chemist to analyse the pie and he tells me, very precisely, of the chemical composition of every part of it. I ask the physicist, who reveals to me all kinds of scientific facts about the pie. But then I ask both of them: "why did aunt Matilda bake the pie?" None of the two can answer the question. No matter how hard they try to analyse the pie, scientifically, they will never be able to answer the question.

(Ergo, god exists; but Lennox, being smart enough, leaves this conclusion to the audience.)

Bravo Lennox! What a wonderful argument. Even a child can come up with a better one.

Again, however, what Lennox's fallacy is, is that he is trying to attach a purpose to the baking of the pie, a purpose which is contained within the pie itself! For better analysis of this stupidity, read anadder.

Let me add that Lennox has declared himself not a creationist, not an intelligent designer. He does not, he appears to be saying, sympathize with these fundamentalists. And yet, this year, Lennox accepted the Phillip Johnson award. Philip Johnson is one of the most despicable creationists. His achievements include: he rejects evolution; he thinks that god can be explained scientifically; he is an AIDS denialist; he fires people who don't agree with him; he suffers from islamophobia; he is, in fact, one of the founders of the intelligent design movement--a creationist spin-off; he is advisor and co-founder of the discovery institute (also known as dishonesty institute); he supports teaching of creationism in public schools. More on Phillip Johnson, here.

Now, how can one reconcile (i) accepting an award that bears the name of one of the most vicious creationists and (ii) claim that you do not support creationism? I'd be really ashamed.

Equinox, or how to define things properly

Google reminded me of Equinox today.

Equinox is defined as a point on the trajectory (and hence a point in time) of the Earth around the Sun at which the line L joining the Sun and the Earth and the axis A around which the Earth revolves are perpendicular to one another. Since A remains, approximately, fixed in space, it turns out that there are exactly two equinoxes (a simple consequence of the intermediate value theorem for continuous functions).

Compare this simple definition with the one given on Wikipedia:

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens. The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length.
At an equinox, the Sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator (i.e. declination 0) and ecliptic intersect. These points of intersection are called equinoctial points: classically, thevernal point and the autumnal point. By extension, the term equinox may denote an equinoctial point.
An equinox happens each year at two specific moments in time (rather than two whole days), when there is a location (the subsolar point) on the Earth's equator, where the center of the Sun can be observed to be vertically overhead, occurring around March 20 and September 22 each year.

Such a simple concept, but such a convoluted definition. No wonder that many people have little understanding of trivial facts, such as the equinox.

Of course, we should not forget that the definition above will not satisfy some creationists, for whom the Earth does not move, because--they claim--the Vatican believes the same thing, and because their religious texts say so (blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; Matthew 5:3).

P.S. The Earth's rotational axis, denote by A above, is not really fixed but moves very very slowly. So slowly that it takes 26 thousand years to complete a cycle. Today, A points towards the star Polaris (the commonly known Northern Star), but 10 thousand years ago it did not. This phenomenon is known as precession of the equinoxes because, as a result of it, the equinoxes change very very slowly too. It was described by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, about 2000 years ago, who attributed it to Hipparchus who was born 200 years before Prolemy.

What's happening to the creationist "Dr" Sungenis?

I'm wondering what's going on these days with those creationists who believe that the universe turns around them. They are called geocentrists and it seems that one of their chieftains is "Dr" Robert Sungenis. I have no idea what his motives are (other than sheer idiocy) to claim that the Earth is still. I became aware of this species last year, when I said "damn! I missed the conference" and then posted about them here, here and here.I was fortunate enough to attract the attention of "Dr" Sungenis who kindly wrote to me:

Takis, Robert Sungenis here. Here's a good way to prove your point: since you are a "professor of science," give us just one proof of heliocentrism, and we'll go away. Promise. Make sure the proof is one that can hold up under scrutiny, because we are going to run it through scientific rigor to make sure you're right and then post it on your blog. By the way, the earth is round. Perhaps you can start your proof from there. Looking forward to hearing from you.

 When I pointed out to him that his label "Dr", well, is not quite what it says,

I took a look at your credentials here and here. You tried to study in accredited institutions but you were rejected. You then found a non-accredited institution, Calamus Extension College, which offers degrees (by correspondence) on such crackpottery subjects as Holistic Studies, Homeopathy, Contemporary Spirituality, Regression and Reincarnation Studies (!!!), Parapsychology, Metaphysics, Hypnotherapy, Healing Studies, Transpersonal Psychology (including reincarnation, psychosynthesis and spirit release), Esoteric Studies, and Consciousness Studies, among others. Every possible bogus subject is mentioned. I have never seen a place offering so much junk altogether. You got your PhD from this institution in 2006 on geocentrism. Your credentials are not just zero, but negative: anyone who comes in contact with subjects such as the ones mentioned above is probably brain-damaged. Despite the very likely fact that you do not know elementary algebra, you have the guts to speak about Relativity in relation to your theological claims. How can anyone understand, not relativity, but even elementary Euclidean geometry, with a degree from Calamus Extension College? Impossible!

he stopped talking to him. Imagine, a degree from Calamus Extension College who is used as evidence of one's ability to support elementary Newtonian mechanics concepts. As I said, impossible. Show me one person from Calamus Extenstion College who can solve a first order linear differential equation in one dimension, and I'd be really surprised.

Yesterday, I watched a little video from youtube, where Sungenis and another religious guy attack one another because they are both Christian, but each claims that the other person is not the right kind of Christian. At some point, the other guy tells Sungenis "you believe whatever the Catholic church tells you". "Yeah", replies Sungenis, "because that is the authority". From the whole dialog, it appears that Sungenis just bows to whatever the Catholic church tells him, because, in his words, it is an established authority for 2000 years. He says that he"has the "right pedigree" [sic] (by being a member of an authority organization), whereas the other Christian does not (because he only reads the bible).

Finally, I'd like to point out the interesting review of a talk that Sungenis gave. The review is by Flora, but I first saw on Gem Newman's Winnipeg Skeptics page,

A creationist professor from Warwick University

I discovered this video, by Prof. Steve Fuller, Sociology, Warwick University. The video is full of nonsense. E.g.,

1:50: "Very few practicing biologists claim to believe in intelligent design"

Why would a practicing biologist, or any scientist for that matter, believe in something, especially if this something is silly, like creationism? Actually, I can add to the above profound statement: Very few practicing biologists believe in unicorns.



But the worst point of the video, starts at 2:00 and has to do with Fuller trying to justify why creationism (intelligent design) should be taught at schools: He claims that it has to do with motivating students who nowadays won't try to learn something unless it has a practical or technical value. He implies that creationism (intelligent design) provides a motivation and this is why it should be embedded in biology classes (and not only--I suppose).

Can you find other stoopid things in this video?

P.S. Steve Fuller is American. Therefore he may have different reasons for promoting creationism. He was also educated by the Jesuits. (Religion, once under your skin, is hard to get rid of.)

What's so wrong with Kentucky?

1. The Creation Museum: In 2007, a museum promoting pseudo-science was established. It cost them 27 million USD. It promotes fake concepts, such as that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, that the christian bible contains scientific information, that creationism/intelligent design is a science, among others. The museum has 250 thousand visitors a year. The motto of the museum is: Welcome and Prepare to Believe. What else could be more at odds with the scientific method? There is no science which instructs you, dogmatically, to believe. Rather, science asks you to question everything. But this is hard, very hard to do. And this is why (one of the reasons that) there are still many people who "read" science in the bible or visit the creation museum: they have no ability to do science. It's much easier to pay a few dollars for a ticket to the museum, enjoy a diet coke with marshmallows, spend a couple of hours listening to the priests walking around in the museum (yes, the museum also employs professional christians) and then go home having convinced yourself that you are equipped with more scientific knowledge than those "losers" who go to university and study hard and work day and night trying to question, explore, and discover.
2. The Ark Encounter: Since the bible mentions that once upon a time, there was a man called Noah who made a boat and saved many animals from a flood, this is taken a historical fact by the folk above who, having had great success with the Creation Museum, are now building an even more costly gadget, a recreation of Noah's Arc (150 million USD).

The organization behind both projects is called Answers in Genesis.They promote creationism and intelligent design and try hard to instill false information to people's minds. It is a complete fraud. Yet, since it makes many morons feel happy, it receives a lot of support and many people are prepared to give their money to them.

Long live the idiocy in this world.

Intelligent designers: move to Texas!

Texas on the news again: They are considering a bill to protect creationists from discrimination. I heard about it last Friday from a postdoctoral student of our department and checked it out. There is an article about it in Mother Jones. Using the language and rationale of political correctness, the author of the bill, Republican state representative Bill Zedler proposes:

HB 2454, Section A51.979.A:
A PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.

Texas is the state where the major proponent of creationism/intelligent design, William Dembski, teaches: He is professor at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, he conducts research in theology by means of creationism/intelligent design, and desperately tries to use pseudo-mathematics in support of his theological claims. Dembski did a PhD in mathematics but he immediately switched to theology. He is not alone in Texas. There are many creationist pseudoscientists there who can find lots of money by religious fundamentalists; the latter will happily fund the former in order that they use pseudo-science and pseudo-mathematics to "prove" theological claims, ranging from denial of evolution to belief that the Earth is a few thousand years old.

Now the state of Texas is trying to pass the aforementioned bill. In my opinion, this will have at least two effects:

1.  If a faculty member in a Texas university cannot do serious mathematics or science then he or she can turn to creationism and publish papers in pseudo-scientific creationistic journals.  He or she then will ask to be tenured and, based on the above law, he or she should not be discriminated against.
2.  Funding for creationism will have to be considered as academic funding. The law justifies creationism as an academic field of study.
3. Academics with creationistic tendencies will seek jobs in Texas universities.

I have served in Texas as a faculty member and know the mentality. Although there are many academics who will be angry at such a bill, there are several others, academics or not, religious fundamentalists, who will espouse this bill and use it for theological purposes.

Silence from creationists

In this older post, and its followup, I received several insteresting responses from creationists like Robert Sungenis and his supporters. The particular brand of creationists told me that they do not believe that the Earth is flat, but they believe it doesn't move and that it is the center of the Universe. They are called geocentrists.

I mentioned here that their beliefs are based on biblical passages.
For a complete (?) list of biblical passages upon which these fellows base their beiefs see here.

Talk origins has posted a very comprehensive list of all creationistic claims. It is huge, but it is interesting to take a look to see what kind of absurd things people will come up with if they can't think independently. Here are some notable claims. See the above link for more:

Bible says the sun goes around the earth.
Relativity shows geocentrism is true.
The universe is 6,000-10,000 years old.
The earth is 6,000-10,000 years old.
Noah's ark has been found.
Intelligent design theory is scientific.
Mankind has existed essentially unchanged for billions of years.
Design requires a designer.
Complex organs couldn't have evolved.
Evolution does not explain language ability.
Humans have stopped evolving.
The second law of thermodynamics prohibits evolution.

The Earth is still, and other creationistic crackpottery

Creationism comes in many forms. These people take a book, called תּוֹרָה, written long time ago by various tribes in the Middle East, containing collections of random stories, and want to use it as proof (or at least as evidence) of scientific facts. For instance, in one of the chapters of that book, we read [Psalm 19:5-7]:

⁵ It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
   like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
   and makes its circuit to the other;
   nothing is deprived of its warmth.  

⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect,
   refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
   making wise the simple.

This thing was written some 3 thousand years ago and is supposed to provide evidence of geocentrism, i.e. that the Earth is the center of the universe and that it doesn't move or rotate.

An organization, called Catholic Apologetics International, consists of people who believe in these things and claim that good Catholics should understand that the Earth is still. (Bad Catholics can ignore this.)

Via Pharyngula, I was made aware of the Fixed Earth page. They go a little bit further claiming that not only the Earth does not rotate, but that it is only a few thousand years old, and that homo sapiens appeared right from the start, without any biological evolution. Oh, by the way, (their particular version of) god (but not the gods of other religious folk) exists.

As I said, creationism comes in many flavours, ranging from sheer nonsense as the above to more sophisticated-looking versions of it, such as intelligent design. The latter kind of creationists are using pseudo-mathematics to prove that god exists.

Galileo was wrong. Vive la Bible! [Part II]

Several months ago, I posted something cynical about a conference organised by geocentrist creationists. It is unbelievable that such idiots can exist. Religion and irrational thought produces all kinds of vegetables. Unfortunately.

The particular movement is headed by a certain Robert Sungenis, who believes that

physics and the Bible prove that the sun and all the planets orbit the Earth and that the Earth does not rotate. In support of his beliefs, Sungenis published the book Galileo Was Wrong in the hope that people will "give Scripture its due place and show that science is not all it's cracked up to be."

This guy lives in the US where he can find lots of similarly-minded deluded morons who "believe" that the earth is still and the centre of the Universe. There are other idiots who believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. Others, believe that the earth is flat. Others believe that the people who wrote the Quran were engaged in embryology. The amount of stupidity in this world is unbounded.

I was reminded of this nonsense this morning, thanks to James B. Phillips who posted the following in my blog:

James said...

Childish name calling is the typical caliber of those who offer their non-substantive denigrations of geocentrism. Often they mock religion in general and Christianity in particular -- the very same people who make a god of and place their materialistic blind faith in science which has a history of making countless errors.

Most moderns who reject geocentrism do so out of an ignornance of the true science involved and or because they are philosophically pre-disposed to refuse to accept the possibility of a God who not only has placed our earth at the center of the universe, but who actually has the entire matererial universe go around that heavaenly body which Jesus Christ lived on in the flesh some 2000 years ago.

See www.galileowaswrong.com and galileowaswrong.blogspot.com.

James B. Phillips 

The reason that the world is full of problems is because there are uneducated, deluded, irrational individuals like the aforementioned individuals. They pose a threat to civilisation itself because they can easily attract supporters who are ready to believe anything irrational as a substitute for possible real problems. People use irrational behaviour as a drug. And these people are as dangerous as drug dealers. Perhaps more so.

Creationist mathematics

I wrote a couple of days ago about creationists and the like. Today I want to give an example of their scientific stupidity by pointing out one of their latest articles on infinity. I first read it in Recursivity.

Creationists have a presence on the Internet via the site "Uncommon Descent". People like Dembski often write stupid articles trying to prove that gods (they call them intelligent designers) exist. In this article, Robert Sheldon writes:

For example, take the number line from 1 to ∞. It’s infinite of course. But now divide every number by the largest number on the line, and we have mapped the entire number line into the fractions between 0 and 1. 

What the hell does he mean by "divide by the largest number"? He may have heard that the transformation x → 1/x maps (0,1] onto [1, ∞) but he hasn't quite understood this high school concept.

So the rational numbers contain the entire integer number line between 0 and 1, and the rational numbers go up to infinity too. 

Excuse me? The rational numbers contain what? The... integer (?) line? And how does this follow from the above?

Then the rational numbers are at least ∞² bigger. (Yup, I’m being sloppy, because Cantor also showed how to map x²–>x, so instead of calling it ∞², he called it ℵ₀ cardinality where integers and rational numbers have the same size infinity.)

Here he is, again, completely off. So much so that it smells from quite far.

[The cardinality of the irrrationals] really is bigger [than the cardinality of the rationals], and Cantor called it ℵ₁ cardinality.

Mr Sheldon, go do your homework before you write anything on infinities.

Now if you are like Cantor's left wing critics, then arbitrary things must be random. It is a peculiar property of atheists that they all worship the god of Chance. It would seem possible that they might worship Lady Luck instead, but no, Xaos, Random Chance, must remain the king of the modernist pantheon. So this contingency drives them bonkers.

This is so funny! Left wing critics of Cantor? Atheists worshipping the god of Chance? What about communists? Homosexuals? Liberals? Punks? People with tattoos? (I think the latter folk don't like Cantor either.)

This is the kind of "mathematics" typically used by creationists. The religious folk will, at the same time, applaud them because, in their eyes, they are oh so sophisticated!

For another example of creationist maths look here.

Creationists and similarly-minded religious imbeciles should leave mathematics for mathematicians and scientists. Instead, they should just go to their church to light a candle or whatever their particular religion tells them to do.

A blog's purpose OR creationism: a recurring theme

I couldn't decide which of the two titles I wanted to have on this posting today. I wanted to express my belief that a blog can help see another point of view and, indeed, show that some things that would never see the light of Earth can surface and be discussed. I am talking about an idiotic movement, mainly in the US, but with branches in the UK and elsewhere, called creationism. It is also called intelligent design. It is nothing new. People, from ages ago, wanted to have their holy texts the only ones that they would read (out of laziness, for instance). They said that you don't need science, just the bible is enough. Some are more radical than others claiming that the Earth is flat or that the Earth is the center of the Universe, some get pimples when they hear the word (Darwinian) evolution, and some do accept science, but get irritated when someone tells them that gods are not a necessary ingredient in any mathematical or physical theory. The latter type of creationists have call themselves intelligent designers and try to "prove" that some intelligence (a.k.a. god) is needed.

Mention these things to an average person in Sweden, a country I live in, and we'll have a laugh and then a beer (if we can afford it--it's too expensive here). But mention these things to an average US-person and you're in for a big surprise. More to the point, it is almost impossibe for a European who has not lived in the US to understand why those people over there are so fanatic about religion and creationism. Vice versa, your average US creationist or religious person has hard time understanding a secular, plain rational, point of view. (Be careful: I said "average", in the common sense of the term. There are people on the other side of the Atlantic who are much more sophisticated than those one meets on this side of the Ocean on a daily basis.)

Some blogs' purposes is to speak openly about these things. The average creationist can (although I doubt it it will happen any tie soon) realize that his/her beliefs are idiotic and that all this intelligent design hoopla has purposes and roots that have nothing to do with science.

It is interesting to take a look at Jeff Shallit's blog. He often writes about creationism. And he gives very good answers to many intelligent design desperate attempts to (ab)use science/mathematics in their arguments. A very good example of the abuse of mathematics in creationism is William Dembski, the leading member (founder?) of a certain theological institute called Discovery Institute whose purpose is to prove that a certain god (called intelligent design) is necessary in Physics. Dembski was a PhD student of Patrick Billingsley with a PhD in Probability Theory. But he didn't do much with mathematics. Having failed in his field he turned to theology.

In Shallit's blog you will also find a recurring theme, called Miranda. This person, apparently a creationist, tries to attack each and every posting of Jeff's that has to do with intelligent design. As an example, read the posting on Harun Yahya (a creationist of Muslim type--yes, they are not necessarily Christian) and read Miranda's replies here. Shallit wrote

Yahya isn't much different from the theocrats at the Discovery Institute, who want to link Darwin to both fascism and communism. 

Miranda, in her replies, wrote that

Richard Evans, historian at Cambridge University, has explained, "The real core of Nazi beliefs lay in the faith Hitler proclaimed in his speech of September 1938 in science--a Nazi view of science--as the basis for action. Science demanded the furtherance of the interests not of God but of the human race, and above all the German race and its future in a world ruled by ineluctable laws of Darwinian competition between races and between individuals."

I asked to explain what she meant. She replied:

My conclusion is that Jeff's charge: "the theocrats at the Discovery Institute, who want to link Darwin to both fascism and communism" is shared by reputable historians.

Miranda attempts here to obfuscate the dialog:

• Jeff mentions that the Discovery Institute theocrats link Darwin to fascism.
• Mirand replies that, in her understanding, Hitler also linked Darwin to his ideology.

So what? Even if the latter is true, what does this tell us about the Discovery Institute and its attempts to show that gods are needed in science?

Miranda, I'll tell you this: it's so nice to live in a country (Sweden) where almost nobody--as far as my limited experience has been--cares about creationism/intelligent_design/religious crap. It's so refreshing not to have the crowds around you who want to explain science through the bible and holy texts. I feel happy I can look at these idiocies from a distance and have a laugh at them. But I do care about people who live on the other side of the Atlantic and have to constantly put up with all this nonsense, sometimes on a daily basis. 

 Perhaps, with the help of blogs or otherwise, Miranda can see that her fellow creationists are a largely American phenomenon. A phenomenon which, in other civilized countries of this world, fortunately does not exists (in such a scale). If creationists could broaden their horizons, perhaps they could embrace a more rational standpoint. Instead, they shelter themselves from everybody else, they build fairy taile-like theme parks (creationist museums), and live with false beliefs. The apotheosis of all is the so-called Holy Land Experience, a Disney-like theme park in Orlando Florida (next to DisneyWorld), where, instead of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, the pious creationists, intelligent designers, religious folk, can experience the reenactment of Jesus' crucifixion, on a daily basis:

Now some creationists/inteligent designers may complain that Jesus has nothing to do with their efforts. True, for instance, Yahya's version of creationism is different. Nevertheless, they're all the same in spirit: in that they abuse science and mathematics and make claims that are completely irrational

Galileo was wrong. Vive la Bible!

Damn! I missed the conference. It took place on 6 November 2010. Just a couple of weeks before my visit to the U.S. Otherwise I would have gone to learn the truth: the Earth is at the center of the Universe, as proven by scientific experiments (e.g., reading the Bible carefully in ancient Hebrew).

http://galileowaswrong.com/galileowaswrong/

According to Dr. Robert Sungenis,

Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.

The consequences are amazing. One of them is, surely, that aliens will reach us soon, since we are the center of the Universe and they surely are looking for it too.

Russian Creationism Sounds Frighteningly Familiar

Another reposting from http://www.huffingtonpost.com, regarding promoting of creationism in Russia by religious fundamentalists there, using the same tactics as their American counterparts.

According to a news story released by Reuters, Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of the Russian Orthodox Church recently called for Russian schools to begin teaching "religious explanations of creation ... alongside evolution." The Archbishop wants to end what he called "the monopoly of Darwinism."
Archbishop Hilarion went even further, noting that "Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Why would Russians, apparently coming out of a godless state (apparently, I repeat), would embrace creationist nonsense, is also discussed in a recent New Scientist article. No answers are given, but the following is mentioned:

Orthodox Christianity is, however, Russia's dominant religion, and services are attended by the country's leaders, prime minister Vladimir Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev.
With pressure from evangelicals for the US to abandon the division between church and state insisted upon by Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers, and the growing influence of the Orthodox church within Russia, we could see an unlikely alliance forged between former enemies. Jefferson and Lenin would be spinning in their tombs.

Why, indeed why, would a former KGB agent become a pious follower of the Orthodox Patriarch? (Hint: were they not both doing the same job?) Is there much difference between Orthodox indoctrination and Soviet-style communism? (Yes, there is, but are there not similarities too?) How far is creationism from the dominant religion in Russia?

We don't know. But we can only observe that Orthodoxy can rapidly replace "Communism" in the minds and practices of many Russians (and they feel no contradiction at all!). And the step to Creationism is just a small one after that.

The Edinburgh Creationist Group, part II

For part I, see here.

The Edinburgh Creation Group is a group of "pseudo-scientists": see, e.g., the naive, silly, uninformed, statements by Prof. Andy C. McIntosh and Dr. Marc Surtees on Thermodynamics and Feedback Control, respectively.

They seek to inject religious fundamentalist ideas to people. But they do so by abusing science!

At the surface, they may appear to be associated with "charities", such as the Edinburgh City Mission. I was informed that these charities have nothing to do with helping people in need.

Creationism appears with other names also, such as "intelligent design".  Whatever their name may be, two things certain: 

(1) they have nothing to do with science.

(2) they have nothing to do with humanitarianism or benevolence.

Intelligent designers deny the need for a designer

Recursivity: The Fruitlessness of ID "Research"

A heated discussion in Shallit's blog, where, for the first time I realized that there are supporters of the Intelligent Design movement, a spin-off of creationism, claiming that Intelligent Design does not require a designer or the supernatural (god, etc.)

This is in sharp contrast to the main writings of ID. Indeed, ID is defined as

the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer. The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science. Intelligent design's leading proponents – all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank, believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.

It's the article written on Wikipedia by, obviously, Intelligent Designers themselves. One of the main proponents of ID, W. Dembski, is a theologian/philosopher at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and all his writings, talks and work incorporate and propagate christianity very heavily. (He is also trying to use mathematics to support the ID religion but his papers are laughable.) However, someone, writing under the name Joe G and posting in Shallit's blog, insists that (oh yes, he's a bit repetitive):

ID doesn't require the supernatural.
Does ID require a belief in "God"? No.
ID does not require a belief in "God".
ID does not require the supernatural.
All IDists are not religious.
I am an IDists and don't care about religion.
ID does not say anything about worship- nothiung about who, what, where, when nor how.
ID does not say anything about giving service.
ID is not based on any religious doctrine.
ID does not say anything about the supernatural.
ID does not require a belief in "God".
So the bottom line is ID is religious if and only if we change the definition of religion.
The designer could be "God" and that would not mean ID is religious.
ID does NOT argue for the existence of "God".
What IDists do does not have any impact on ID.
IDists have not written that ID is an argument for the existence of "God".
ID is about the DESIGN not the designer(s).
The Wikipedia entry on Intelligent Design can be refuted to any ID FAQ posted on pro-ID websites.
They should be sued for posting such nonsense and then perhaps they would think BEFORE they publish.

I asked him to modify the Wikipedia article (and also tell Dembski and the others about his non-beliefs in gods and religion). But he shies away from doing so. Wikipedia is a public document which can be changed if the information provided is not correct. However, Joe G will not do that. And even if he attempts to do so, leading IDists will not allow him. The reason is simple: ID is a religion, not a science. Scientific entries of Wikipedia welcome modifications (and they become better and better) and corrections of mistakes. But ID is of theological nature and, as such, it relies on faith and dogma.

Recursivity: The Fruitlessness of ID "Research"

Recursivity: The Fruitlessness of ID "Research"
A wonderful posting debunking claims about the "science" of a branch of Creationists performing Intelligent Design "Research". Shallit explains how a paper by intelligent-designist Stephen Meyer which, unfortunately, was published (but without peer review!) in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, is NOT a research paper, that it has been repudiated by the editors of the journal, and that most of papers referring to it are not research papers. Good posting!

An angry creationist

As we all now well know, a Mr Ray Comfort, a religious parasite (also known as the banana man because he explains creationism by peeling bananas), has created a new version of Darwin's Origin of Species with his own introduction, and his protégés are now handing them out at college campuses in the US. There has been a huge uproar about this act of barbarism, including lots of comments in the Amazon site which screwed up with a mixup of the original Darwin's book and Comfort's idiocy. I found the following comment, by an angry creationist/intelligent-designist, very amusing [emphasis is mine]:

In response to Mr. Rimmel: Would you seriously take the time and read the Bible, let's say, the NASB or New King James translation, for yourself and not rely on what others say before you make statements that undermine honesty and integrity? You will find that God is the author of Science and He upholds true science. You will be astounded at all the scientific information to be found in the Bible. And a good site to investigate yourself would be Answers In Genesis as well as www.icr.org, with many scientists putting their work out there for you and I to intelligently sift and seperate, coming to conclusions that are well grounded. You will do yourself justice if you give the time to check these out. And if you don't believe that Ray Comfort is credible, then why are you so concerned with what he wrote only in the introduction? If it is not credible to you, it will not be credible to other thinkers, so relax and let it die down on its own. You have nothing to lose by Mr. Comfort speaking his mind on the works of Darwin, do you? If Darwin's work is unbeatable, then it should stand up to Ray Comfort in the least, don't you agree? I hope you do go digging for yourself. Sharpen that shovel and go, Mr. Rummel!!

This made me laugh, hysterically. This person claims (let's read again) that there is a lot of scientific information in the Bible. Like what? Quantum Mechanics? Biology? Mathematics? Physics? Last time I read the bible (and I do review it from time to time), not only I could see no science, but I saw hatred, psychological and physical terror, inaccuracies, contradictions (the list is endless). Check it out for yourself in a simplified version. Or, if you want more in-depth analysis of Bible monstrosities, look here, for example. It's funny, but Muslims, also believe that the Quran is full of science. But think about it, even for a minute. Have you seen *any*, no matter how simple, mathematical or scientific argument in the Bible (say the Pythagorean theorem), with proof? Not really. The Bible has no science, no mathematics, no logic, no rationality. It is a collection of stories (some very gruesome indeed), such as the Odyssey. The difference is that the Oddyssey is a piece of literature, which the Bible isn't (as far as I can tell by reading the parts of the Bible written in Greek; I don't know ancient Hebrew).

And if you want to read the Genesis, as the reader above suggests and you have no time, I suggest reading Crumb's version. Science you will not learn, but, at least, you will be entertained.