Okay, We Give Up [Scientific American "Caves" on Evolution]

Scientific American ^ | 01 April 2005 (ponder that) | Editorial staff

[PatrickHenry]

Darwin Central's schedule of events for Thursday, 07 April 2005:

8:00 AM Early morning orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings).
10:00 AM Post-breakfast orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings).
12:00 Lunch break
2:00 PM Mid-afternoon orgy
4:00 PM Tea-time orgy
6:00 PM Dinner (nude)
8:00 PM Early evening orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings)
10:00PM Mid-evening orgy
12:00 midnight Satanic orgy

[longshadow]

Darwin Central's schedule of events for Thursday, 07 April 2005:

8:00 AM Early morning orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings).
10:00 AM Post-breakfast orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings).
12:00 Lunch break
2:00 PM Mid-afternoon orgy
4:00 PM Tea-time orgy
6:00 PM Dinner (nude)
8:00 PM Early evening orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings)
10:00PM Mid-evening orgy
12:00 midnight Satanic orgy

So much for the business meetings; what's on tap for "entertainment"?

[PatrickHenry]

So much for the business meetings; what's on tap for "entertainment"?

We'll be showing one of your favorite movies: Dr. Strangelove.

[RightWingNilla]

10:00 AM Post-breakfast orgy & prayer session (featuring Darwin's writings).

12:00 Lunch break

2:00 PM Mid-afternoon orgy

How many times do I have to tell you people at D.C. I can't go that long between satiating my lust! Don't you remember the last several times when I went on a mad killing spree?!?

Also what happened to the children's atheism indoctrination sessions?!

[PatrickHenry]

We include the children in all of the Center's activities. All of them.

[gobucks]

Uh-oh, General Gobucks is on to us! Time to implement plan POE. we must not allow creationist infiltration, creationist indoctrination, and the international creationist conspiracy to dilute the purity of our on-demand sexual license frameworks.

What? Are you making fun of me AGAIN? You do realize my self esteem is fragile ... you'll be driving me to buy the entire Kubrick classics set if you keep this up, b/c I'll be so unfit for any Freeper activity....; and then, of course, after watching E.W.Shut, I'll be scrunched into a fetal ball fretting about MK Ultra.

Please Jennyp ... I'm gentle. Sensitive. ..... I .... can't .... take .... much (*sounds of gasping*) .... more.....

[RightWingNilla]

We include the children in all of the Center's activities. All of them.

Excellent. Is Michael Jackson free next week?

[2ndreconmarine]

Do you have any evidence to back up these claims? The list I gave you has many profiles of their scientists. Let's take a look at exactly which ones earned doctorates from a mail order

Since you have made several points, I will respond with several replies. Fortunately, another FReeper provided me with a nice list: Ichneumon. From his reply:

Funny you should mention that...
Check this out: Some Questionable Creationist Credentials You'll find several names from LiteKeeper's "list" there. For example, LiteKeeper mentions "Dr Clifford Burdick, Geologist":

Clifford Burdick
(1894-1992)
Clifford Burdick, a researcher for the Creation Research Society and a member of the Creation-Science Research Center, is a "flood" geologist who has spent forty years trying to prove that giant humans once roamed the earth and even mingled with the dinosaurs. Burdick has displayed a copy of his Ph.D. from the University of Physical Sciences (Phoenix, Arizona) in Carl Baugh's Glen Rose Creation Evidence Museum. According to Ronald Numbers' The Creationists [2]: "[Creationist Walter Lammerts'] inquiries revealed the University of Physical Science to be nothing more than a registered trademark. As described in its memographed bulletin, 'The University is not an educational institution, but a society of individuals of common interest for the advancement of physical science. There are no campus, professors or tuition fee.'"

*snicker*
One more for the road; LiteKeeper's "Dr Harold Slusher, Geophysicist":

Harold Slusher
(b. 1934)
Harold S. Slusher, formerly of the Institute for Creation Research, is best known for his critiques of radiometric dating techniques. He is also known for the rather bizarre suggestion that the universe is much smaller than it appears, because its geometry is Riemannian as opposed to Euclidean. Slusher claims to hold an honorary D.Sc. from Indiana Christian University and a Ph.D. in geophysics from Columbia Pacific University. Robert Schadewald discovered that Indiana Christian University is a Bible College with only a 1/2 man graduate science department. As for Columbia Pacific, it "exhibits several qualities of a degree mill" [3]. Ronald Numbers describes CPU as an unaccredited correspondence school that recruited students with the lure of a degree "in less than a year." Slusher's dissertation consisted of a manila folder containing copies of five memographed ICR "technical monographs" and a copy of the ICR graduate school catalog, all held together with a rubber band. The supervising professor was his creationist colleague from El Paso and the ICR, [Thomas] Barnes, who himself possessed only an honorary doctorate. [2] According to Bears' Guide [1], Columbia Pacific was denied its application for state license renewal in early 1996 for undisclosed reasons. The university appealed the decision in late 1996, but the appeal had not been acted upon by the time Bears' Guide went to press.

[RightWingNilla]

you'll be driving me to buy the entire Kubrick classics set if you keep this up

Don't watch The Shining before bedtime.

[2ndreconmarine]

And please DO visit...it would be so TROLLISH to dismiss these fellows out of hand merely because they are more educated than you and disagree.

But are we really going to turn this into a "my side has more scientists than yours, ha!" kind of deals?

OK, well, I don't want to be TROLLISH!!!!

Actually, none of them are "more educated than I am", but some are equally educated.

The point about who has the "most scientists" is an interesting one. If it were not important to the IDers and creationists, then why do they have to make up credentials??? (See Ichneumon's complete list.) But I appreciate that you do not want to argue that issue because you will lose it. Simply put, there are a few rogue scientists who will support creationism. I don't know any that would support ID. (At least creationism has a biblical / faith basis; ID has nothing). However, you can essentially find anyone with any credentials if you look long and hard enough: it is the result of the principal of large numbers.

[RightWingNilla]

Kent Hovind's "Dissertation"

[2ndreconmarine]

Let's recall modern science's sterling record of issues like gravity, flat earth, wind patterns, etc. The point is who is right

Actually, science (modern and otherwise) will continue to have a "sterling" record precisely because it is science. That is what science is all about: learning more and modifying our understanding of our universe.

And the point is NOT who is right, because such a question is meaningless in all contexts except faith. It certainly is meaningless in the context of the definition of science or in the decision of what should be taught in schools, say. What is the point is what meets the definition of science and what does not. Creationism and ID do not meet the definition of science.

[longshadow]

We'll be showing one of your favorite movies: Dr. Strangelove.

Most excellent; will the bar be serving rain-water-and grain-alcohol cocktails? I wouldn't want to jeopardize the purity of my precious bodily fluids what with the demands of all those "business sessions" in the schedule.

[PatrickHenry]

I wouldn't want to jeopardize the purity of my precious bodily fluids

Certainly. And you may confidently assume that the drinking water is fluoride-free.

[js1138]

placemarker

[stremba]

So, if God created a cell, and that cell underwent mutations that led to more complex organisms, eventually leading to man, wouldn't God still have created man?

[stremba]

Also, please give me even one example where scientists got something wrong and theologians or religious leaders provided the correction. In all the examples that Dave listed, it was the scientists who eventually corrected themselves. Uncertainty is part and parcel of the nature of science. Obviously, if this renders science useless, then I can't be posting this, can I? Or are computers a divine gift? Science, while not always getting everything right on the first attempt has a pretty good track record. While uncertainty may be perceived as a weakness by some, that is actually the strength of science and the main reason it has worked so well. How can you get to truth by proclaiming something and holding to that proclamation regardless of any evidence to the contrary? Religion does this; science does not. Provide real, serious scientific evidence against evolution, and the theory will be modified or discarded. This is also the reason that creationism isn't science. There is no possible evidence against it; it is not falsifiable.

[RogueIsland]

I stopped reading Sci Am when it became Discover Magazine wrapped in a Scientific American cover (and when they started politicizing everything in their magazine and running a bunch of paid advertising that looked like articles). It used to be a great magazine about twenty years ago. A shame.

[stremba]

The theory of evolution is often presented publicly by those with an atheistic agenda. Evolution, like every other scientific theory, says nothing about God or design. Those questions are outside the scope of science. I would contend that there are very few people in the public who actually understand what evolution says, mainly because science education in this country is really shoddy.

[PatrickHenry]

200, another prime number!