“Now folks will say that’s not true, but I’ve got facts on my side and you’ve got Glenn Beck on your side.”

Too good….

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

Finally….

Lord (may I call you Yahweh?)-

Look, I know we don’t talk very often, what with me not believing in you and all. If you’ll check your records, I’m sure they will show that I don’t ask for your help when my loved ones are sick or when my favorite team needs a victory the way so many selfish human beings do. I save my pleas for help for the really important things, and I assure you that this is one of them.

I don’t care if you never do anything for me ever again, but I implore you…if you truly love me as it says in scripture, please, please, please call Michele Bachmann to run for president. I can’t imagine anything that would cause as much joy and amusement in my life than watching that batshit insane gorgon humiliate herself on a national stage on a daily basis for months on end.

And all it takes is one call from you. I’ll pay the long distance charges if you’re short of cash. Whatever it takes. You already “called” Pat Robertson to do the same thing and look at the joy that gave me? If you really love me, you can make this happen.

In Gordon Klingenschmitt’s name,

Amen.

San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester, whose $125,000 donation to support California’s Prop 8 sparked a boycott against his Manchester Hyatt and San Diego Marriot hotels and Grand Del Mar and White Tail Club Resorts, is divorcing his wife of 43 years.

Manchester said he made his Prop 8 donation to “preserve marriage” because of “my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church” — the very same church that condemns divorce. His Catholic faith doesn’t restrain him from thumbing his nose at the Church in ending his own marriage, but it does serve as a convenient excuse for denying others the right to marry.  There’s a word for that, isn’t there?

If religious faith is apparently so fleeting, then what use is it? Hat tip to Andrew Sulliven.

Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic – to move beyond sound bites. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. Finally, as with The Clergy Letter itself, which has now been signed by more than 11,000 members of the Christian clergy in the United States, Evolution Weekend makes it clear that those claiming that people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy.

Every year the project gets larger as more and more people come to understand that they do not have to give up their faith in order to accept the scientific fact of evolution. As expected, no congregations in Lassen County are participating, but I understand that it would be difficult for them to consider a serious discussion of science and faith without sacrificing the illusion portrayed to the community that they have all the answers. I see, however, that the Clergy Letter Project lists a local consultant, Dr. Christopher O’Brien, to help any congregation sufficiently courageous to engage in reasoned conversations about evolution and religion. Doubt any of them will take him up on it. There are churches in Redding and Reno, however that will be participating in the effort to educate their congregations on this subject as opposed to simply offering the usual false portrayal of evolution as a theory in crisis, the basis of Nazism and Communism, and inherently atheistic.

The SICB leadership could not support New Orleans as our meeting venue because of the official position of the state in weakening science education and specifically attacking evolution in science curricula.

Scientists should not be supporting ANY state with anti-science legislation on the books by holding annual conventions in their cities. Just to make sure, I checked the Society for American Archaeology website to see if they had any upcoming conventions in Louisiana (New Orleans was often a favorite of the society) – fortunately, no, they are not scheduled to be in Louisiana for the near future.

You can read more at the Louisiana Coalition for Science website.

I don’t want my children or my students being exposed to the Protestant idea that the Bible has to be interpreted literally. I want my children and my students exposed to Catholic interpretation of the Bible, namely that the Bible needs to be interpreted in its own historical context and hence the words used then don’t mean the same things they mean now in the 20th century…

Frankly, I don’t want my children or students exposed to the Protestant version of creationism. Intelligent design is nothing by the Protestant version of creationism. All the talk of irreducible complexity is just their way of arguing that species had to be created by God as they are because they could not have evolved from other species the way evolution tells us they did. And that metaphysical argument is precisely against my beliefs as a Catholic about how God created the species.

Wilson raises interesting connections between an essentially Protestant creationism involving a literal reading of the Bible, efforts by the state to encourage these ideas as an alternative to evolutionary science and the Discovery Institute’s role in supporting such legislation. However, in doing so Wilson raises the ire of Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman by daring to link the institute’s programs with fundamentalist views of creation. In a response to Wilson’s comments, Chapman writes:

Holly Wilson (“It’s Not a Catholic Theory”) misrepresents Discovery Institute, intelligent design AND the Catholic Church in her ill-informed and ill-tempered column. As President of Discovery Institute I resent any attempt to place a sectarian tag on our think tank, whether “Protestant” or anything else….The Wilson attack is a monumental misrepresentation of Vatican policy and intelligent design alike. It does not promote accurate dialog and understanding on any level.

The fact that offers such a vehement response suggests that Wilson touches a sore spot with the Discovery Institute. As usual, however, it is Chapman’s Discovery Institute that monumentally misrepresents the issue – as has been demonstrated time and again with any reasoned analysis of the Institute’s positions, their proponents and their history. Science blogs and websites such as Pharyngula, The Panda’s Thumb and the National Center for Science Education; researchers like Barbara Forrest, Kenneth Miller, Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne; and ultimately the results of the Dover Trial, repeatedly demonstrate the great efforts made by the Discovery Institute to misrepresent evolutionary theory and the authenticity of any “science” behind Intelligent Design. They also spend a great deal of time attempting to conceal their ultimate religious connections, particularly those directly tied at efforts to get literal biblical creationism into the classroom. Wilson is ultimately correct in her assessment of the Discovery Institute’s nefarious tactics and Bruce Chapman, as usual, is blowing smoke to cover his tracks.

• - 50% of all Americans no longer automatically accept that Christianity is the “religion of choice” for those in the United States;
• - 71% of all Americans are more likely to develop their own set of personal beliefs than accept those taught by a particular church;
• - Young people (under 25) are far more likely (82%) to abandon traditional church beliefs and adopt their own;
• - Almost half of Americans no longer believe in Satan;
• - 40% say they have no responsibility to evangelize or share their personal beliefs with others;
• - 25% dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all it says;
• - Americans have generally become comfortable discarding biblical teachings where those contradict evidence from their personal experiences and relationships;
• - Growing numbers of people feel comfortable serving as their own theologian-in-residence;
• - There is a growing number of unique personal worldviews derived from multiple religious and non-religious sources (including secularism);
• - Biblical study plays an increasingly smaller role in forming a person’s particular faith;

Of course, AIG, who are dependent upon people taking a literal biblical worldview for their funding sources, are upset by the results:

Sadly, these results shouldn’t surprise us as we see the steady “evolutionizing” of the culture and the march away from the authority of God’s Word-the only reliable, unchanging source of truth. While it is inspiring that the majority of people still view religion as the source of moral guidance, it seems “religion” is becoming just as subjective as morality.

Religion should be subjective. AIG continues to cling to a primitive interpretation of 4000 year old manuscripts written by simple agriculturalists with an infantile knowledge of the world. That people continue to cling to these beliefs says more about their psychological inadequacies (regarding both religious and secular ideas) than the veracity of their belief system.

Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar is a classic example of why this holds true. Josh Rosenau from Thoughts From Kansas has been reporting on the recent review of state science standards by the Texas State Board of Education. Dunbar, who is outspokenly anti-science in her views of what students should be taught, used the usual creationist tactic of citing a scientist’s viewpoint on the “weaknesses” of evolution. As Thoughts From Kansas reports:

A concerned teacher observed that:

[During the 2003 textbook hearings in Texas] Much of the testimony given in support of 3A, the strengths and weaknesses, was given by the Discovery Institute, who were here, giving presentations on that. In that case, they were using this as a strategy for keeping open the idea of “teaching the controversy,” which doesn’t seem to be as prevalent within the scientific community as it does within our community at large.

Dunbar replied:

D: OK, but the last testimony heard was that science is not something that’s determined by majority vote, there is a scientific method.

I would like to have someone of the magnitude of Dr. Werner Abner [sic] here. I don’t know if you know who he is. Are you familiar with him?

A: Not right off the top of my head, no.

Dunbar: He is a Nobel laureate. He spent his life doing studies in evolution and genetics. I don’t think we could get him here, I think he’s in Switzerland. But his, his years and years and years and years of research in genetics and evolution are very, very credible, and his end result recently, I think it was in September, was that the genetic code, and genetic mutations are actually built in to a limitation that they can only go so far, which is contrary to the ultimate result of natural selection and all of that. But that would not be someone outside of the scientific community…

Later, in a separate discussion, Dunbar again refers to Dr. Abner and cites his professional research in support of Dunbar’s personal idea that evolutionary science has significant weaknesses:

D: And there’s lots of data. Do you know who Werner Arber is? He’s a PhD and a Nobel laureate….

D: Go Google him. Because he spent his life on evolution and genetics. So there is data out there [on the weaknesses of evolution], we don’t want that squelched. We want to be able to discuss it. And as a political science major, I would hope that you of all people would want there to be open discussion these types of issues within the classroom.

A: You keep talking about the scientific method. When these four weaknesses are applied to the scientific method and they fail- I don’t understand -

D: His documentation, if you go read it, I mean it’s very clear as to the geneticists and the documentation of the mutations and all that. I mean it’s not anything that fails, it’s testable, it’s observable, it’s right there. But those are the types of the things that we want the students to be able to discuss …

Of course, Rosenau is not convinced Dunbar really knows what she is talking about (nor should anyone else – if Dunbar says the sky is blue you’d be well advised to walk over and look out the window) and so he follows Dunbar’s advice – he Googles Abner and does some quick research. The first thing he finds is that Dunbar is basing her own understanding of Abner’s position on a creationist article written through the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and not on any reasoned research of her own:

Setting aside everything I will lay out from this point forward, it is important to note that, based on Dunbar’s comments and the ICR article, she clearly based her understanding of this scientific matter on a single article in a creationist magazine, and is ignoring the testimony and guidance not only of the AAAS, the NAS, and her own committee of experts, but Texan Nobel Prize-winners. Educational policy should never be made on the basis of creationist publications, especially when those publications make demonstrably false statements.

The upshot of all this is that both Dunbar and the ICR article deliberately misrepresented Nobel Laureate Dr. Abner’s research with regard to evolutionary theory:

Arber also co-organized a conference on evolution for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences last November, at which he firmly stated his support for evolution as science and his belief that it is compatible with religious faith.

His own research shows no signs of doubts about evolution, and indeed he has published work with such luminaries of evolutionary biology as Richard Lenski, and his own Nobel-winning work on restriction enzymes has been powerfully useful to evolutionary biology.

Certain that ICR had misrepresented Dr. Arber, I contacted some of his professional colleagues to see if they could make him aware of this apparent error in the ICR’s article, and in Dunbar’s mangled repetition of the same points. One colleague replied that “That certainly seems to me to be a misrepresentation of Prof. Arber’s views on the matter, and quite amazing.”

Dr. Abner also responded to Rosenau’s inquiry and unequivocally denied proposed “weaknesses” to evolutionary theory:

The truth is that I have contributed to advance scientific knowledge on biological evolution by studying molecular mechanisms of genetic variation. Genetic variation is clearly the driving force of biological evolution…In conclusion, I am neither a “Darwin skeptic” nor an “intelligent design supporter” as it is claimed in Bergman’s article. I stand fully behind the NeoDarwinian theory of biological evolution and I contributed to confirm and expand this theory at the molecular level so that it can now be called Molecular Darwinism.

If you are confronted by a creationist in the classroom or in public, remain calm. Even if you have never heard the argument before, there are several things you can automatically count on in every instance:

If their argument against evolution is based on a quote from a scientist, a little research (usually very little) will uncover one of the following to be true:

• - The scientist truly works within a field of evolutionary biology, but the quote is fabricated and simply part of creationist mythology;
• - The scientist truly works within a field of evolutionary biology, but the quote is taken out of context and was never meant by the author as a critique of evolutionary theory;
• - The quote is accurate but the scientist doesn’t work within any field of evolutionary biology;
• - The quote is accurate but the scientist has no accredited professional credentials whatsoever;
• - The quote is accurate, the scientist did work in evolutionary biology, but the work cited is more than 50 years out of date;

If the argument against evolution is based on some kind of data or observation, a little research (again, usually very little) will uncover one of the following to be true:

• - The data or observation is fabricated;
• - The data are correct, but they have nothing to do with evolutionary biology;
• - The data are not being presented fairly or accurately by the creationist;

Finally, I believe it is worthwhile to take a little time to consider a student’s creationist argument within the class and then point out the flaws and fallacies. If you are not sure of the origin of the argument, no fear: let them explain the details of the argument, write them for all the class to see and then let the class know you will discuss the argument in detail at the next class meeting. At that time, critique the argument in full form, politely but firmly, and make it clear that in your experience, every creationist argument can be handled in this manner. In my experience, one of two things will happen after that: the student will either drop the course, or will no longer raise objections to evolution for the remainder of the class – and neither will anyone else. The only thing more infuriating to a creationist than getting their argument logically stripped of all validity is to have that argument logically stripped of all validity in front of others, most of whom have not made their mind up on the issue either way.

California State University, Chico is sponsoring a series of events in honor of the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. Additional information on the festivities can be found here. Will anything be planned for Lassen College?