Darwin’s Deadly Legacy and the Creationist Disinformation Machine
Stumbled across this gem online just tonight and will keep my comments brief, because it’s the same goddamn argument every single time.
Yes, there are nuts out there that don’t believe evolution is true, despite mountains and mountains of mutually supportive evidence from just about every branch of science. It is because of this evidence that creationists and intelligent design proponents are stooping to levels such as the “Hitler argument”. Since Hitler is almost universally recognized as one of the most terrible people to ever have lived, you can get cheap support for your particular cause by relating your opposition to Hitler. If that argument seems a little flawed, don’t worry. They back it up by blaming evolution for the Columbine massacre. Okay, the fucking idiots responsible for Columbine believed in evolution, but they also tortured small animals. Is it really fair to portray them as typical students? As representative of what our current science curriculum teaches? Do I really need to ask stupid rhetorical questions with such blatantly obvious answers? Kent Hovind covers this exact same argument near the end of his creation seminar, which is at least seven years old. Haven’t the extremist creationists come up with any new material since then? It’s sort of sad, really, until you remember that Ann Coulter is on their side. Apparently Ann is suddenly an expert on evolution because she read a book, and now we get a TV special exposing its evils (evolution — not TV…or Ann — though those would be much more entertaining, and probably truthful, documentaries). Desperation is a stinky cologne.
So there’s something like five biologists that don’t believe in evolution, Michael Behe (the god-fearing biochemist) being the most annoying, and his weak irreducible complexity argument is presented on what I’m assuming is national TV as if there is a real debate among the scientific community. This extremely small minority of dissenters does not constitute the “shaky scientific ground” on which they claim evolution rests. Normally I would laugh at something like this (such as Hovind’s seminars, which had a relatively small audience), but when this dangerously false propaganda is broadcast on this sort of scale, I can’t help but worry.
Is it just me or is this sort of thing really starting to pick up “mainstream” steam? With projects like the Creation Museum, books like this one (which Amazon recently recommended to me and I’m definitely curious to read) and television specials, it seems like the fundamentalists are stepping up their attack. Is it in response to what they’re calling the “neo-atheist movement”, with the prominence of people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris with best-selling books? I think over the next several years, the lines being drawn on this issue are going to be a lot more divisive.
August 27th, 2007 at 3:22 am
that drawing looks like a british 80s rock star
August 27th, 2007 at 3:40 am
Or a member of Rhapsody.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
yeah thats it
August 27th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
It’s going to be extremely interesting if we start drawing clear lines between atheists and creationists. It’ll be like liberals and conservatives, with the conservatives wondering why they are always on the opposite side of people who are described as “intellectuals”. The day I stopped reading the paper, I remember Ann Coulter herself wondering how liberals were “notoriously good test-takers”. That’s like one step away from writing “Duh, why-come people arguing with Ann also much more smart-talking than Ann? Ann hate smart-talkers! Ann will SMASH!!!! Patriot act patriotic because Ann sees word ‘patriot’ in it! If not patriotic, how come act be called such? Ann SMASH!!!”
All this will be available in the new graphic novel I’m writing called “The Incredible Ann”. This new work of “faction” (my new word) will be used as an alternative to teaching evolution in schools.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Not “faction” as in dividing into groups, faction as fact + fiction.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Dick, I mean it’s gettin real now. Real real.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:34 am
And once again Ann illustrates her ignorance in buying into this muck about Hitler and Darwin. The only “connection” was in other idiots misconstruing Darwin’s theory and applying it to society. Social Darwinism spawned all kinds of weird theories around the notion of survival of the fittest. And just because some people use a theory incorrectly doesn’t make the theory itself bad. People take all kinds of good things and use them to their own ends, like, um, geez, Christ comes to mind. Seems to me some pretty bad things have been done in that guy’s name too. But I do believe I’m just singing to the choir here.
August 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Yeah, the fact that a randomly mutated gene that increases your odds of survival has a better chance to be passed onto offspring is about a simple a concept as you can imagine. It’s basically common sense; parents that get eaten don’t have babies.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but the evolution of echolocation in bats and THE HOLOCAUST are two different things in my mind. But maybe that’s just me.
August 28th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
and don’t you love the “d. james kennedy, ph.d” so the easily misled think, wow, he’s edgeekated too!
Here’s what wiki says is the extent of his “education”
According to his official biography he earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tampa, a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary, a Master of Theology from Chicago Graduate School of Theology (an unaccredited institution[8]), and a Ph.D. from New York University.[9] His Ph.D. was in religious education, with a dissertation on the history of an evangelism program he founded.[10]
August 28th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Yeah, creationists with letters after their names almost invariably have questionable credentials. Just an observation.
Michael Behe is an actual college professor at a respectable university, but his department distances itself from his personal beliefs.