Creationism: Creationists visit temple of evolution

Steve Hendrix notes in the Washington Post (March 11, 2009) that "Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution: The Smithsonian":

A 2006 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 42 percent of Americans believe humans have always existed in their present form. At universities such as Liberty, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, those views inform the entire science curriculum.

Like the Liberty students, avowed creationists across the country are making a practice of challenging the conventional wisdom at zoos (questioning the evolutionary explanation of giraffe necks), the Grand Canyon (dating the rock layers in thousands, not millions, of years), and cave parks (describing the formations as evidence of rapid drainage after the Great Flood).

Wow. I am certainly not a young earth creationist, but I suspect that many tax-supported establishment figures think that they should all be put in jail for questioning anything at all.

The conventional wisdom at a lot of temples of science (= museums and zoos) - apart from the curators or zookeepers' lore about how to actually prepare bones or keep an exotic animal alive - is often rubbish and deserves to be questioned:

Creationists have been popping up in enough mainstream institutions that one museum has produced a creation-vs.-evolution primer to help volunteer docents handle their sometimes-pointed questions. When the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y., published its guide, more than 50 museums called looking for a copy, according to director Warren Allmon.

Well, that'll give them all something to do. It may reduce the number of utterly stupid insults to intelligence that are commonly inflicted on museum-goers in the name of "evolution."

Creationism and popular culture: Turkish creationist in jail?

Nathan Schneider draws my attention to his article on Turkish creationist Harun Yahya (a pen name for Adnan Oktar). He asked for my comments, and here is more or less what I said:

I know little about Yahya myself – and find it useful to know more.

I gathered that he was in some kind of trouble with the Turkish government recently. Is he really in jail?

My chief worry with Islamic apologetics (which I take to be his primary purpose) is anti-Semitism – a major problem right now in Canada. Yahya says he is totally opposed to anti-Semitism.

(I don't mind any religion using science facts to bolster its belief system. Such uses can lead to much greater interest in sciences and also to voluntary financial support for research projects. But such projects should never be aimed against another group, only toward bolstering the claims of one's own group.)

A kind person in the Middle East sent me a number of Yahya's books, though not the huge Atlas of which you speak. The books are lavishly prepared - and the style is distinctly Eastern rather than Western.

I admit, I have not read them, but your article motivates me to begin one over the Christmas season, when I have a bit more private time. [I have started this already. - d.]

I was puzzled by your somewhat fatalistic closing: “Simply by writing about Oktar, I reinforce his vision. Anything critical I've written here will be overlooked as the decrepit volleys of Darwinism in retreat.” Or did I misunderstand, and fail to see the irony you intended?

I think Darwinism is necessarily in retreat – as I have said elsewhere, I don’t think that Darwin would be a Darwinist today – he would more likely be the 17th Altenberger – looking for a non-theistic, non-teleological version of evolution that actually fits the evidence.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:


Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

On teaching creationism in the schools ...

Climb down from the drapes, you idiot! The pattern looks better without you in the middle of it.

In the combox here, in response to this post at Uncommon Descent, "scottrobinson" wanted me to be more clear as to where I stand on teaching creationism in science class.

I see now that my comments may require some unpacking if the reader is not familiar with the point of view that underlies them. So here goes:

1. I do not think that creationism should generally be taught in science classes because creationism is by nature an apologetics project: It harmonizes scripture or tradition with current findings of science. Hugh Ross (Christian), Gerald Schroeder (Jewish), Harun Yahya (Muslim), and Vine DeLoria, Jr. (Native American) have all written in this area. I understand that there is a work in progress from Hare Krishna as well.

What should be obvious from my list is that a demonstrated harmony between current science and a scripture or tradition is of interest only to those for whom a given work or way of life is scripture or tradition. Otherwise, it will sound like an attempt to introduce the religion itself in a more favourable light than other religions.

And how shall we address the Dalai Lama's obvious disappointment with Big Bang theory in his book The Universe in a Single Atom? (Buddhists are happier with an eternal universe, or perhaps a Big Bounce universe, as recently proposed by Roger Penrose.)

I live in a multicultural society, and I will not attempt to prescribe for a monocultural society. But I would say that the obvious solution for a multicultural society is just not to have any such material on the curriculum.

2. That said, I am intrigued by the neo-fascists who want their government to hound creationist teachers. I worry that these people themselves would be perfectly happy teaching vast reams of Darwinian or Dawkinsian nonsense. Here are some examples of stuff they don't like and have to teach around:

The history of life has not been the long, slow “survival of the fittest” transition that classical evolution theory requires. Life got started on Earth soon after the planet cooled. All the basic divisions of animal life took shape rather suddenly in the Cambrian seas, about 550 million years ago. Later, there was, for example, the "Big Bang" of flowers and the Big Bang of birds, where many life forms appear quite suddenly.

Modern human consciousness is one of these leaps, judging from the superb cave paintings from recent millenniums.

... the peacock’s tail did not evolve to please hen birds; hens don’t notice them much. The allegedly yummy Viceroy butterfly did not evolve to look like the bad-tasting Monarch (both insects taste bad). The eye spots on butterflies’ wings did not evolve to scare birds by resembling the eyes of their predators. Birds avoid brightly patterned insects, period. They don't care whether the patterns resemble eyes. Similarly, the famous “peppered moth” of textbook fame has devolved into a peppered myth, featuring book-length charges and countercharges.

And remember that row of vertebrate embryos in your textbook years ago? It was dubbed in the journal Science one of the "most famous fakes" in biology—because the embryos don’t really look very similar. And Darwin’s majestic Tree of Life? It's now a tangleweed, or maybe several of them.

I wouldn't be the least surprised to hear that they were teaching the Big Bazooms Theory of Human Evolution .... yawn ...

I would be more impressed with these teacher-hounds if there was a Darwinist theory so flamingly and obviously stupid that they actually didn't believe it. So stick a fork in their persecutions!

(Note: The only time anyone actually tried, they fell for the hoax.)

3. If students ask questions, teachers can either discuss them intelligently or lose respect. "Discuss intelligently" does not mean quacking some idiocy written by a consultant, Dover-style. Consultants are bigger idiots than teachers because they do not deal directly with students and therefore do not need to live in the real world.

I also think that teachers should briefly give their own opinion if asked, but then insist on moving on to the curriculum at hand. My teachers always did that, and students respected them the more for it*.

4. Here in Canada, thugs, snitches, and nannies are rapidly outwearing their never very generous welcome. I, in particular, am an unusually hard sell on the subject of firing anyone for their opinions. I'd prefer to fire the thug, the snitch, and the nanny, and vote that other guy a raise. It appears that 99% of the Canadian Conservative Party convention thinks somewhat like me ...

If that is an accident, it is an accident with consequences. Good thing the Eurocracy never tried taking over Canada. Bad timing, that would sure be.

Did humans and dinos live at the same time? Yes, fur sure, ... at the movies! Here's a great Jurassic Park trailer for your enjoyment:



(*I was very lucky because in my day, many intelligent people could not attend U for financial reasons and ended up in teacher's college. It was a Grade Seven teacher who first told us about Fred Hoyle's spontaneous creation of hydrogen atoms and a Grade Eight teacher who told us about tectonic plates while the theory was still being routinely trashed at Yankee U's.)

Canadian Earth Scientists "extremely concerned" about creationism/ID

I have been alerted by a reader to the fact that the Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences has recently (September 19, 2008) warned:

Canadian media report growing public pressure to introduce Creationism and its equivalent Intelligent Design (ID) in school curricula, hinting that Creationism/ID is a 'theory', thus suggesting that it shares common ground with science-based theories. Such reporting ignores the fundamental difference between faith and measurable facts. CFES-FCST is extremely concerned about this trend, and not only because of the demonstrated importance of science to Canadian society.

They don't say which Canadian media, where, or when.

This much I know is true: Last year, I was pestered by several TV crews filming hit documentaries intended to show that intelligent design was a big THREAT in Canada.

I don't even know if any of those docs ever got made. But I told most or all of them that, last I heard, it is still legal for Canadians buy and read books about why the universe shows evidence of intelligent design and/or books that offer evidence against Darwinism and/or a variety of other establishment science claims. That is all that is happening now in Canada.

And if it's a crime, I am certainly guilty, ossifer. I have on my shelves books that span the spectrum of support and dissent.

Speaking for myself, I have always been a strong advocate of teaching basic skills in education (4Rs = reading, writing, arithmetic and research skills) and of allowing students to ask questions - as long as the purpose is not to trap and indoctrinate the students .

My view: These "rock stars" want attention. And sadly, rocks can't love ya. Sure, they rock, but they can't love ya.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Intelligent design and popular culture: The BBC spin on British creationism

In an article at the BBC News online (September 15, 2008), "Who are the British creationists?", Julian Joyce beautifully demonstrates why legacy media, online or not, are media sources that are best taken with a big bag of sidewalk salt.

He starts with a creation museum in England:

At first glance the Genesis Expo museum, in the naval town of Portsmouth, looks like any other repository of natural history exhibits: fossils of dinosaurs and unusual rock formations.

But focus on the narrative of the information panels alongside them, and you start to realise this is a museum with a difference - one dedicated to the theory of creationism.

As I said when the much glitzier American creation museum opened in Kentucky, it is legal to have a private museum about anything one wishes to. That only shows that one lives in a liberal democracy or constitutional monarchy.

He then informs us,

The revelation that US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says creationism should be taught in schools, alongside that of evolutionary theory, has raised few eyebrows in the US. ...

Actually, that is a canard put out by anti-Palin commentators. But Joyce can count on his British readers not to know that.

We are also told that, "And while the Church of England this week issues a formal apology to Charles Darwin, ... " - in fact, there was no formal apology. A church bureaucrat had literally thunk the idea up on his own initiative.

And in a classic display of believing whatever confirms one's prejudices, we read that there is "growing support" for "literal six-day" creationism. The evidence? Get a load of this:

Growing support

Justin Thacker, head of theology for the Evangelical Alliance, says research in 1998 found one third of the Alliance church members were "literal six-day creationists." The other two thirds embraced evolutionary theory to a "greater or lesser degree" he says.

"Since that survey was done, I'd say fewer of our members are out-and-out creationists - it has become more acceptable to embrace some form of Darwinism," he says.

But Keith Porteous Wood of the Secular Society is unconvinced.

"There is no question that creationism is growing," he says. "It is increasingly well funded, and well organised."

In short, creationism is not growing in Britain but both Wood and Joyce need to believe it is - Wood for his fundraising letters and Joyce for his scare story.

Unless ... Joyce really means that Muslim creationism is growing. That is a safe bet because, given that the Muslim population of Britain is growing, any point of view accepted by Muslims might well be growing in consequence. But Joyce does not say that.

He handles this topic by implying that Christian and Muslim creationists are somehow "uniting":

This shared belief in the origins of man - and the universe - is uniting unlikely bedfellows in the anti-evolution cause.

The Rev Greg Haslam, who preaches the creationist Christian creed to his 400-strong congregation at Westminster Chapel in London, welcomes the determination of Muslims to impart a religious-based view of the world.

But that is hardly an example of "uniting", and does not imply that the two groups work together. So far as I have been able to determine, they generally do not.

Anyway, file this one under "Why the legacy mainstream media are losing ground." Basically, it's reached the point that, on some topics, they just can't put out a story any more without a big fat thumb print sticking in it.

See also: Will Brit “faith and science” heavyweights speak up after education director’s firing?"

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Was the bison’s peculiar chest a design feature ... to help Native North Americans survive?

Some of my friends are creationist biologists, and one, Norbert Smith (now retired), writes to say,

One of the neatest evidences I see of God in Creation is the bison...with an incompletely divided mediastinum. As far as I know, it is the ONLY mammal like this and enabled native Americans to feed their families with one arrow anyplace in the chest...collapsing BOTH lungs. This obviously has NO selective advantage and should have been eliminated by natural selection. God created them special to feed a people. See here.

Norbert was not one of the “official” Expelled, but he was in fact expelled from his university, despite an excellent publication record. For many, the idea that there is no design in nature is a dogma, enforced despite, not because of, evidence.

As I noted in By Design or by Chance?, there is a tradition of Native American creationism (not to be confused with Western monotheistic creationism). It accepts as a commonplace the idea that Native Americans were specially helped to survive for tens of thousands of years, isolated from other human communities.

By the way, there are other reasons why the bison does not fit comfortably with classical Darwinian biology: See, for example, "The Tree of Life and speciation: The odd case of the beefalo" (January 19, 2008) from The Design of Life blog.

(Note: The bison is usually called a “buffalo” in North America, but it is not the “buffalo” of Asia. That’s this animal, courtesy Freefotos.com. The image of the bison is from Parks Canada.)

Teacher accused of burning cross on student's arm and of teaching creationism

This story is making the rounds:

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio (AP) - A public school teacher preached his Christian beliefs despite complaints by other teachers and administrators and used a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms, according to a report by independent investigators.
Mount Vernon Middle School teacher John Freshwater also taught creationism in his science class and was insubordinate in failing to remove a Bible and other religious materials from his classroom, the report said.

[ ... ]

But Lynda Weston, the district's director of teaching and learning, told investigators that she has dealt with complaints about Freshwater for much of her 11-year term at the district, the report said.

Some say the image, burned using a high-frequency generator, is an X, not a cross. See what you think.

Three things I don't get:

1. Why isn't Freshwater facing criminal charges over the alleged cross burn?

2. Second, did it really take a student's parents' lawsuit to draw attention to a problem like this?

3. And third, they're telling me he was still teaching there after eleven years of complaints?

Never mind Freshwater (the courts can deal with him). A few other heads should be rolling and bouncing along the corridors at this point.

But just watch them try to deflect the major issue (allegedly barbecuing his students) by highlighting the comparatively minor hot-button issue (creationism in the classroom).

Note: If the owner of the sauce image objects to my using it, I will remove it. This sauce strongly recommended by yours truly, but not for use on students. Use this one on students, as they are very tender.


Find out WHY there is an intelligent design controversy ...

What I told the most recent batch of filmmakers shooting up the town....

Remember when the intelligent design controversy was dead, back in 2000, 2002, ... 2005, and all years in between? Well, as if Judgment Day and Expelled aren’t enough, yet another batch of filmmakers is doing a documentary in the intelligent design controversy. I somehow don’t think they are laying a ghost ...

No indeed, on Saturday I had to hoof downtown to an otherwise largely deserted building on the U of T campus where a TV crew wanted me to answer some questions for the camera. (Possibly it was one of those preliminary jobbies where they try to figure out if you would make good TV.)

I decided to put my thoughts on the following questions in writing beforehand, so I don’t do the Dawkins “long moment of silence thing” (= just freeze in front of the camera).

Anyway, here are the questions they wanted me to answer, and I have placed my answers below each:

1. What is the difference between ID (intelligent design) vs. YEC (young earth creation) theory?

[From Denyse: Well, (young earth) creationism means assuming that the stories in the Bible are not only true but literally true - like, God created the Earth in 144 hours.

Intelligent design isn't really about the age of the Earth; it's about the high level of information found in all life forms that could not possibly have got there the way Darwin believed it did.

For one thing, Darwin had no idea how high that level of information is, and always has been.

If Charles Darwin were alive today, I can assure you he would not be a Darwinist.

Today's Darwinism is the creation story of materialist atheism and, in some cases, of liberal religion. Tons of people feel righteous because they believe it and promote it and attack anyone who doubts it.

But there is actually no substance to it. It is wrong. It scuffs the evidence of the history of life, which shows that life started off very complex and very varied and slowly became somewhat more complex and less varied - just the opposite of what Darwin's theory predicted.


2. How the two camps view one another?

[From Denyse: Well, it's kind of a spectrum. Lots of people know Darwin's theory is wrong but they focus on different things and have different commitments. It's kind of like knowing that communism is wrong. Everyone who opposes it isn't the same as everyone else and doesn't have the same reasons or commitments.

Mike Behe, the author of Edge of Evolution, doesn't fight with the young earth creationists because there's no point. The creationists bug him when they attack the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe, which is well attested, or deny that humans and apes share a common ancestor another thing for which there is good evidence. But they aren't trying to wreck his career, and the defenders of Darwin are. So he picks his fights. Why not?]

3. Why does the public tend to conflate ID with Creationism?

[From Denyse: A couple of reasons: Defenders of Darwin's theory have every reason to classify everyone who knows it can't possibly work as a kook, and they've been pretty good at that. Most media people haven't read much in the area and don't know what the problems are, so they go along with the kook theory, in general.

Otherwise, they'd have to do homework.

Also, it's pretty scary when you discover how much you have been told on good authority from science professionals is actually poorly founded and ideologically motivated. Many people probably think it wiser not to know. I only stumbled on the story myself, you know, and I've been running ever since.

Here's an example of what I mean: The vast majority of important evolutionary biologists are pure (no God) naturalists.

Am I supposed to believe that that doesn't colour their interpretation of evidence? I know bloody well that it does. But media focus on the fact that most of the ID guys are theists or pantheists and conveniently ignore the ideological commitments of the other side. ]

3. The role of religion in science - is there a place for it?

[From Denyse: No. Certainly not. Intelligent design theory is based on actual physical evidence. The history of life as we now know it does NOT support Darwin's theory and is better understood in information theory terms.

Here is what has happened: We are told that science studies only natural causes. IF that merely meant that science does not study miracles, which are segregated from nature by definition, I would have no problem with it.

But the expression does not typically mean that. It typically means that science is compelled to assume that high levels of information can be created through random movements of molecules. That is the fundamental article of the materialist creed, and it has never been demonstrated.

Because it has never been - and probably cannot be - demonstrated, the materialist demands that we assert it as an article of faith.

I don't want religion of any sort to be a part of science. If there is no good evidence for Darwinism (and there isn't), then it fails as a theory even if progressive people believe in it. ]

4. The politics of ID theory and education - is it a "liberal vs. conservative" battleground, or is it more complex than that?

[From Denyse: Well, yes and no. What the term "liberal" implies has changed an awful lot in my own lifetime. When I was a teen, a liberal opposed segregation and the Vietnam war. Today, increasingly, a liberal is someone who honestly believes that Bush knew about 9-11 beforehand - a point of view that I would consider presumptive evidence of being a crackpot. (Bush was never great and he retired on the job early during his second term - but he did NOT know about 9-11.)

Re education: Again, in my lifetime, the education system has moved from being the Protestant school system to being a secular materialist one. At least some of the battle is secular materialists attempting to preserve their gains - after all, everyone pays taxes to support a system that advances their view exclusively.

All that said, I don't think ID should be taught in schools because most students are challenged just to graduate with enough literacy and numeracy to satisfy an employer. BUT - on the other hand - no teacher should be prevented from civilly expressing an honest opinion that differs from that of the Darwinist establishment. Learning how to express dissent in a civil way is a part of education.]

Of course the interview didn’t go exactly scripted like this, but what ever does?

At the end, the interviewer asked me to add something, and I said that, so far as I can see, intelligent design of the universe would not be bad news for anyone except materialist atheists. Every other tradition will just claim that they invented the idea or that their prophets predicted or revealed it. That, of course, is the precise reason why so many of the anti-ID guys are materialist atheists.

I wonder how many of them went into it to disprove ID?

Session Three: Creationism: What, Who, and Why?

Well, this is my night to teach, and also my first attempt to make a PowerPoint presentation work, without a lot of help.

As you will recall, the last session was Session Two: Why is origin of life such a difficult problem, where biosimilars expert Don Wallar dealt expertly with the various conundrums.

Tonight, we deal with creationism - the view that specific acts of creation (from outside our universe) are necessary to get life started and guide it on its way.

Among other things, we will look at the following:

1. Most cultures have creation stories, and creation stories usually tell you more about the culture than they tell you about anything else.

2. The Western monotheist creation story was a key driver for science.

What difference did the doctrine of creation make to science?

Oxford mathematician John Lennox notes in his excellent book God's Undertaker:

" ... the rise of science would have been seriously retarded if one particular doctrine of theology, the doctrine of creation had not been present." (P.22)

Why? The first verse of the Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Note what this implies:

1. Creation was an event. (Not an eternity)

2. It took place at a specific moment in time. (0 seconds)

3. Humans can understand it. (Otherwise, why are you being given this information?)

None of these three assumptions is self-evident. Many cultures have not shared them.

If you thought that the universe has always been supported on the backs of an infinite series of turtles swimming in an endless sea, you would not be tempted to investigate much further. Such a creation is not an event, and it takes place at no specific moment in time. It is not suitable for study because it invokes infinite resources.

(Incidentally, this is true whether you consider the Turtles account plausible or not. One might construct a plausible creation account that similarly discouraged science by presenting a series of assumptions that do not invite study because they are always invoking infinite resources.)

3. Until the advent of modern geology, beginning in the late seventeenth century, there was no information from science about the origin of Earth or its life forms. In the Western world, genealogy was conventionally used to date the Earth, using the generations in the Bible.

This account was not preferred to some other account. There was no other account of any consequence. But geology showed that Earth was probably much older than human beings. Traditional creation stories were reexamined, to account for that.

4. Most Christians (and other Western monotheists) did not consider this a particularly difficult problem. The Bible does not say how old Earth is and different passages give different ideas, depending on who is writing, when, and what point they are trying to make.

However, a number of cultural factors intervened to create some pretty serious conflicts that reverberate to the present day ... more tonight.

Council of Europe resolution against teaching "creationism" sure to spike ID in Europe

Several European friends have asked me what I think about the Council of Europe's resolution against teaching ID and/or creationism. Alas, I won't be able to blog on this in any detail for a couple of days, but here are a couple of thoughts:

1. Have a look at Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: In North America, the ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

There is a very simple, obvious reason: Most folk are not interested in how the universe, life, or the mind arose UNTIL you tell them that they are not allowed to discuss intelligence or design. Resolutions like the one above are a gift to the ID guys. Already, the troops are rallying, and more conferences like this one are surely under way.

2. This move may have been aimed against Europe's residual Christians and surging Muslims, but it won't affect only them. Ulrich Mohrhoff, a New Ager, is just as upset.

3. I have ordered a copy of Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation, which (some say) has got the Council's shirts in a knot, and will tell you what I think after I have read it.

Well, the way things are going, I sure won't have to go back to the trade mag beat any time soon.

Also, new at THe Mindful Hack, Scientific American looks respectuflly at the work of my lead author on The Spiritual Brain Mario Beauregard

ID Godfather's thoughts on creationist students

Following up our discussion of the Creationist Museum here and here, Phillip Johnson wrote an interesting reflection on how an astronomy professor who accepts conventional dating for the age of the universe addresses the apparently substantial number of young earth creationists in his class:

Saperstein [the astronomy prof] concludes that, if very many students remain biblical literalists despite having had a scientific education, he fears for their future, the future of American science, and the future of an American society beset by problems amenable to scientific solutions. He does not explain why knowledge of how the world works now is not sufficient for a science that aspires to solve the problems that beset us. Perhaps our society is more in need of a sound spiritual grounding than of theories about the distant past that cannot be tested by observation or experiment.
I have observed that anti-Darwinist inclinations are fairly common among engineers, for example, who are the scientists most directly concerned with society’s practical problems. But creationists can also be found even among evolutionary biologists and paleontologists, whose theoretical work directly involves the more speculative historical subjects that arouse skepticism in Saperstein’s students.

Johnson also warns,

Alvin Saperstein is also a decent man who is trying to understand his students and reason with them rather than dictate to them. But he had better be careful, because persuasion can work in either direction. I know one senior professor, author of an influential book advocating a naturalistic, chemical evolutionary scenario for the origin of life, who was persuaded by his students that his theory was wrong and that life was intelligently designed. He got into a lot of trouble with zealous colleagues and administrators when he began expressing his doubts about his previous assumptions in his classes.

By the way, did you notice Johnson's "Leading Edge" column's masthead? Yes, that's it, all right - it's the infamous Wedge, and yes, Johnson is the indeed Godfather of the ID theorists.

In reality, of course, Johnson - a constitutional lawyer - was the guy who showed a bunch of isolated scientists how to make their case to a broader world, no matter how colleagues tried to stifle them. That was, as he himself said, a lawyer's contribution. His Darwin on Trial rocketed into the big time when it was denounced by rote in all the science journals.

DoT was probably the book that established the pattern: Publish a good case and use the negative energy of the denunciations by Darwinists/materialist atheists/religious fellow travellers to make up for the deficit in positive financial resources. The book remains a classic, and the strategy has not so far failed. That isn't surprising either - the screaming you hear from Darwinists is genuine frustration; they can't help but go along with it.

It was purely a stroke of luck for the ID theorists that conspirazoids later got hold of "the Wedge document" and sent half the Darwinists' forces down an irrelevant rabbit trail - obscuring the actual, highly effective strategy with rampant speculation about libertarian theocracies and such.

Surely Disco (the ID guys' think tank) did not offer it to the Darwinists as sucker bait? I refuse to allow my mind to go there. No! No! O, but the perfidy of the world ... Okay, okay, let's consider it. Possible? Yes. But likely? No.

No, the Wedge document just happened, and guaranteed Disco and the ID theorists still more exposure - at the cost of putting out a few more brushfires now and then. But so far as I can see, Disco was only ever in trouble with the materialists and their fellow travellers over that one, not with any significant number of people who think intelligent design is worth considering. That, of course, is why it never did the damage Disco's enemies were hoping for.

Creationism and popular culture: A friend visits Kentucky's Creation Museum

The Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, be it noted, has denounced the recently opened Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky:

Dr. Catherine Badgley, a professor at the University of Michigan and president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, remarked, “according to the Creation Museum, the history of life is short, sin-ridden, and laden with moralizing imperatives. In contrast, the real fossil record shows that this long history is brimming with discoveries of new kinds of animals, plants, and environments, inviting people to use their unusual minds to question, to reason, and to wonder at life’s remarkable variety.”

Unusual minds? Interesting choice of words. But what on earth has happened to the Society for Invertebrate Paleontology? Why aren't they chiming in? Maybe next month. Never mind. The Creation Museum has just recorded its 100, 000th visitor, so it won't need the additional puff for a while ...

A thoughtful lawyer friend visited the Museum, following in the steps of a perceptive New York culture critic. He kindly sent me some thoughts:

I just visited the museum on Saturday. It was a zoo. We got there at 2:00 pm and were turned away for a lack of available parking. We finally got in around 2:30 and spent a good part of our time standing in long lines. The exhibits are very well done and have been designed for children and uneducated adults. The placards that describe the exhibits consist of very short sentences that make the points clearly and succinctly. The movies are first class with not only sound effects but vibration effects in seats and water sprinkling during the clip that explains the world wide flood.

My friend, who is well versed in issues around evolution and disagrees with most of the Museum's key interpretations of Earth's history, is particularly interested in issues of bias. He explains,

What I found interesting about the new Creation museum is that it very clearly explains the preconception used and makes no attempt to assert that its presentation is unbiased. It is an honest statement of an effort to reconcile biblical explanations with the observed data. You will never find this candor in the evolution museums. An observer knows up front that this interpretation is based specifically on a religious text. The museum also addresses the moral implications of a world guided by human reason rather than the moral and ethical principles and wisdom found in the Bible. This take home message is riveting.

He contrasts that with the assumption of materialism that underlies the taxpayer-funded museums - an assumption not shared by most museum-goers in the United States:

Glaring omissions render evolution museums that are popping up around the country extraordinarily misleading. Misinformation and deception is based primarily on omission rather than explicit misrepresentation. Most of what is said in the evolution museums is probably true. It is just misleading because of an extraordinary body of relevant information that is not included.

What I would like to see is an origins museum that simply presents a complete set of the material evidence relative to the issue of origins that is necessary for a reasonable member of the public to make an informed decision about the matter. So far, I am not aware of any museum that does this.

I am glad that my friend is a patient man. I expect he will wait a long time. So far, the publicly funded museums' response has been to give docents (guides) training in dealing with the objections of visitors and to develop new exhibits promoting their view, sometimes with a hard sell.

This should not be surprising, because as historian Michael Ruse (himself a Darwinist) notes,

Evolution after Darwin had set itself up to be something more than science. It was a popular science, the science of the marketplace and the museum, and it was a religion—whether this be purely secular or blended in with a form of liberal Christianity … When believers in other religions turned around and scratched, you may regret the action but you can understand it—and your sympathy for the victim is attenuated. (Michael Ruse, The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), p. 114.)

It's worth noting that the Creation Museum was built with private, not public, funds. We are in an interesting phase in popular cultural history, to be sure: American museum goers are compelled by law to fund the Darwinists' side of the story, however dodgy. Those who dissent respond by building - at their own expense - a museum to tell their side, do the public a service by making their religious agenda clear to all.

Museum not particularly friendly to intelligent design

Also from my friend's report, the Creation Museum:

... is not particularly friendly to ID. I saw no evidence of the bacterial flagellum or of the work of [key intelligent design theorists] Michael Behe or Bill Dembski. I had to go through the entire book store to find an ID video and finally stumbled on Unlocking the Mystery of Life.

Let's see, Unlocking was published in 2002, and was soon overshadowed by the controversy surrounding its stable mates, Privileged Planet and the clearly religion-directed Case for a Creator . Obviously, the Creation Museum isn't going to any trouble to stock ID materials if it missed the famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) Privileged Planet.

Thus, an interesting pattern is shaping up: The paleontologists greatly help the Creation Museum by denouncing it - making far more sympathizers aware of it than Answers in Genesis could afford to reach from its own resources. Then the creationists in turn help the ID theorists by making clear what creationism is and what it is not. Creationism is about the BIBLE, see? It's not about intelligent design theories like Behe's* Edge of Evolution or Dembski's design inference.

Anyway, here is a series of private photos taken by an unsympathetic source that give you some idea what's inside.

Would I go to the Museum, given the opportunity? Of course. In a heartbeat. Just as I would go to a Museum of the Medieval Worldview and a Museum of the Materialist Worldview. I love cultural history. ANd I think the Cration Museum is valuable for clearly distinguishing what creationism is and what culture sustains it, separating it from the broader question of intelligent design of the universe or life forms.

*Behe, for what it is worth, is not in any sense a creationist. For example, in Edge of Evolution, he argues for common descent of humans and chimpanzees. (But note his key point: Common descent does NOT necessarily mean that we can go from goo to zoo to you by the means that Darwin and his heirs put so much faith in - in fact, the evidence is actually against that. His is a very unpopular finding among Darwinists, to be sure, but it is not evidence for the creationism promoted by the Creation Museum my friend visited.

Intelligent design in Canada?: Canadians pretty evenly split

Recently, Decima polled Canadians on the origin of humans - God dunit? God neverdunit? Dunno?

I infer that the responses to the questions below give us some idea of Canadians' thoughts on intelligent design. With some key qualifications, God's involvement in human origins can be used to predict public opinion on intelligent design. That is, people who don't think that God had anything to do with human origins don't usually think that crayfish show evidence of intelligent design either.

Here are the Canadian responses to the 2007 question by percentage, along with the US figures to a similar series of questions in brackets:

 Less than one in three Canadians (29%) believe that God had no part in the
creation or development of human beings. (US: 13%)
 Fewer still (26%) believe “that God created human beings pretty much in their
present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so”. (US: 46%)
 A plurality, but still only 34%, say that “human beings have developed over millions
of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”. (US: 36%)

None of this surprises me particularly. Canada is more secular than the United States, so far more people would say God had nothing to do with it and far fewer would be creationists in the sense of choice 2.

Choice 3, you will notice, is chosen by about the same numbers of Canadians as Americans. Notably, more Canadians than Americans seem not to have chosen any of the options (11% vs. 5%).

Indeed, all this confirms the view I took last year when Montreal-based Darwin lobbyist Brian Alters was turned down by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a grant to "study" the dangers that intelligent design theory represents to Canada (as a precursor, of course, to wringing further funds from the taxpayer to "combat" the menace he has discovered).

At the time, I identified key reasons why the ID controversy never flares up much in Canada. Among other reasons, we have neither a functional Christian Right nor groups that are the equivalent of American Civil Liberties Union. So, apart from Brian himself and his friends, there are not many people who can hope to get either private donations or government grants from sponsoring a big public fight on the subject. I concluded,

Look, Canada is the kind of place where gays can marry each other and Catholics can start each day with the Hail Mary in tax supported schools if they want to. That's just how things are here. Everyone here finds something to hate. Not everyone expects to be paid for it.

What did surprise me is that Decima, the polling firm, did not ask for the religious affiliation of the respondents. Here's why I think that was an oversight: In a trend that also departs very much from the American scene, the people who intend to vote Liberal were much more likely than those who intended to vote either Conservative or NDP (leftist) to choose a "theistic" option - God either created humans or guided the process. Only 22% of Liberals thought God had nothing to do with it, but 31% of Conservatives thought that, as did 31% of leftist voters.

This is quite different from the United States, where most Republicans "doubt evolution" but most Democrats do not. I believe that data on religious affiliation would shed some light on reasons for the cultural difference that this illustrates.

The social breakdowns they do provide are interesting, however. In Quebec, 40% think God played no role, significantly higher than anywhere else. Men are about 50% more likely to think that than women, and people with higher incomes are 50% more likely to think God played no role than people with lower incomes.

I am quoted here on the poll.

Who believes what about origins?:

Here's a .pdf of an article article by Marcus Ross in the Journal of Geosciences Education, attempting to sort out who believes what about origins. Ross writres to say,

The goal of the paper is to show how the different teleological (purpose/design) positions relate to one another, and why painting IDers as creationists (and vice versa) just doesn’t work.

Yes, yes, it's that Marcus Ross, who got a PhD even though the New York Times disapproves of his religious beliefs, who also offered some interesting insights into the Kent Hovind scandal.
(Note: It's a .pdf, so if you open it, you might not get back here using the back browser button. )

Thinkquote of the day: Mike S. Adams

Mike S. Adams, a prof who boldly attacks the stifling sanctimony that overwhelms our culture, writes,

In the famous 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial, Clarence Darrow stated: "For God’s sake, let the children have their minds kept open – close no doors to their knowledge; shut no door from them. Make a distinction between theology and science. Let them have both. Let them be taught. Let them both live." Have you ever met a 21st Century liberal who believes that both evolution and creation should be taught in schools? Or do they say "Let them have only one"?

Of course they say, let them have only one - only ours. The people who call themselves liberals these days are not, in any sense, liberals. They are materialists, naturalists, Darwinists, or whatever, but they are not - and probably never have been - liberals.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

What did Hitler believe about evolution?: From the Comments box

I'm not sure how many people read the - often very interesting - comments in the comments boxes, so I want to draw your attention to a pair of them:

In response to the post on the Coral Ridge TV special on social Darwinism, blogger Steven Carr commented that Hitler was a creationist:

Hitler, of course, believed that mankind was specially created.

Hitler explicitly rejected Darwinism and the evolution of man.

From Hitler's Tischgespraeche for the night of the 25th to 26th 1942 'Woher nehmen wir das Recht zu glauben, der Mensch sei nicht von Uranfaengen das gewesen , was er heute ist? Der Blick in die Natur zeigt uns, dass im Bereich der Pflanzen und Tiere Veraenderungen und Weiterbildungen vorkommen. Aber nirgends zeigt sich innherhalb einer Gattung eine Entwicklung von der Weite des Sprungs, den der Mensch gemacht haben muesste, sollte er sich aus einem affenartigen Zustand zu dem, was er ist, fortgebildet haben.'

I shall translate Hitler's words, as recorded by the stenographer.

'From where do we get the right to believe that man was not from the very beginning what he is today.
A glance in Nature shows us , that changes and developments happen in the realm of plants and animals. But nowhere do we see inside a kind, a development of the size of the leap that Man must have made, if he supposedly has advanced from an ape-like condition to what he is' (now)

And in the entry for 27 February 1942 , Hitler says 'Das, was der Mensch von dem Tier voraushat, der veilleicht wunderbarste Beweis fuer die Ueberlegenheit des Menschen ist, dass er begriffen hat, dass es eine Schoepferkraft geben muss.'

However, Cal State prof Richard Weikart, who specializes in Hitler and the Nazis' view of Darwinism, responded to Carr, saying:

Stephen Carr has perceptively located a passage from Hitler's table talks (which were off-the-cuff conversations he held with his colleagues), which seems to deny that humans evolved from apes. If this were all we knew about Hitler's views on the subject, Mr. Carr would have a strong case; we could conclude that Hitler did not even believe in human evolution (though this same passage implies that he does believe in the evolution of animals and plants).
However, Mr. Carr ignores a multitude of passages in Hitler's writings (which should carry more weight than off-the-cuff comments) and speeches. In _Mein Kampf_, especially in the chapter, "Nation and Race," Hitler expostulates on his evolutionary views and their application to humanity. Hitler's _Second Book_, especially the first two chapters, spend even more time discussing human evolution and the human struggle for existence. And, Mr. Carr also overlooked some passages in the table talks (see Oct. 24, 1941, for example), where Hitler explicitly rejected creationism in favor of evolution.

I should also note that I don't know of any reputable historians who claim that Hitler was a creationist, but almost all historians admit he was a social Darwinist.

My own view is that the reason for the controversy around films like the Coral Ridge special is precisely the fact that Darwinists have never really dealt with the implications of social Darwinism, so it keeps coming back to them like a bad penny.

While we are on this subject, here are some other recent posts on Hitler/ Hitler fans and Darwinism, to add to the mix:

Prof Richard Weikart, again, as horrified by student views on the moral neutrality of Hitler:

A number of years ago two intelligent students surprised me in a class discussion by defending the proposition that Hitler was neither good nor evil. Though I kept my composure, I was horrified. One of the worst mass murderers in history wasn't evil? How could they believe this? How could they justify such a view?

They did it by appealing to Darwinism.

H.L. Mencken as Hitler fan:

H.L. Mencken, who popularized the view that only the booboisie would oppose Darwinism, supported eugenics. While I am here, I have noticed a tendency in American literati to refuse to face up to the fact the Mencken was a Hitler fan and an anti-democrat, as Terry Teachout shows. I am always hearing excuses, excuses, excuses for Mencken from the lar-di-dah quarters. Why?

Steve Gould on Darwinism as promoting racism by orders of magnitude:

"Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850 but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory."

Philosopher Fr. Edwin Oakes on Darwinism as unmitigated disaster:

But leaving aside whether natural selection actually does any explanatory work, the importation of that concept into human relations has been nothing but an unmitigated disaster for the 20th century: Karl Marx, John D. Rockefeller and Adolf Hitler were all enthusiastic Darwinians.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Insufferability award?: Here's a strong entry

Author of Intellectual Morons, Dan Flynn argues that Darwinists should stick to science and ID types to faith (November 14, 2005):

Of the Darwinists, he says,

So insecure are the Darwinists that the Kansas State Board of Education's rather sensible decision to introduce materials into the curriculum critical of the theory of evolution, which, in the board's own words, "do not include Intelligent Design," became a target of attack. "We're becoming a laughingstock," board member Janet Waugh lamented, "not only of the nation but of the world." The Washington Post, the Seattle Times, and other news outlets incorrectly reported that the Kansas board mandated the teaching of Intelligent Design, which it clearly and explicitly does not. "Regarding the scientific theory of biological evolution," the board states, "the curriculum standards call for students to learn about the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory, but also to learn about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory." In other words, the board mandates teaching evolution but does not mandate teaching Intelligent Design. Any number of news reports lead readers to believe the opposite.

As for the ID guys, he says,

The universe may have been designed by a Supreme Intelligence, but there is no scientific evidence saying this is so. Forget the damage done to science in Intelligent Design's name. By holding matters of faith to scientific standards, Intelligent Design stands to erode belief.

He ends with

Supporters of Intelligent Design demote faith to science. Darwinists elevate science to faith. Both camps would be best served by staying within their own realm.

Flynn makes quite clear that he thinks that science is about facts and intelligent design is about high-minded but unsupported nonsense. But - in the polite way that befits a man who avoids giving offense to the dear little pious tea grannies - he wants us to know that faith would merely be demoted if it enjoyed any support from facts at all.

Such insufferable smugness about the very nature of the universe and its knowability! - and, worse luck, all in defense of a merely silly idea like neo-Darwinism

ID and opponents (on all sides ) on Larry King Live

If you want to sample a range of quotable opinion on the ID controversy, check out CNN: Larry King Live: "Intelligent Design in America's classrooms?"

I kind of like this program lineup because it brings together a number of different (= opposing), quotable voices in the debate today. According to CNN, the program transcript features

- young earth creationist John MacArthur, pastor, teacher at the Grace Community Church; author of The Battle for the Beginning: Creation, Evolution and the Bible host of "Grace to You" and president of the Master's College and founder of the Master's Seminary.

- Barbara Forrest, Ph.D. Barbara is the author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design She is professor of philosophy, Southeastern Louisiana University, National Advisory Council of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

- Deepak Chopra, the best selling author of How to Know God, and founder of the Chopra Center. His blog site, www.intentblog.com, now has a discussion on the topic of creation versus evolution, including lengthy comments by Deepak.

- Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who supports the president's position on teaching intelligent design as well as evolution, favors teaching both.

- Congressman Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, who disagrees with the president on the teaching of intelligent design.

- Dr. Jay Richards, vice president of the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank at the forefront in promoting the intelligent design theory.

Interestingly, in this setting, ID seems middle of the road to me. It's not New Age, YEC, or authoritarian materialist.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments that are in reality just unpaid advertising, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say "O’Leary is a crummy journalist"; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, "O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983," well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. My apologies to anyone who is offended by an unsuitable comment that I have not had a chance to borf. Bloggers are volunteers. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.