Via Pharyngula, just in case Waco was afraid it was going to lose it's crown as the nuttiest town in Texas, fear not Waconians. Apparently on a recent visit there for a lecture series, Bill Nye the Science Guy had the audacity to actually talk about science, and when he let it tread on the Bible, he really set off the Waco Wackos:
"But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: 'God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.'
The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.
At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled 'We believe in God!' and left with three children..."
And we wonder why we score so low of the worldwide education tests. How many of these people that think the moon makes light do you suppose also believe it is made of cheese?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
New Research on Source of the Dinosaur-killing Asteroid
It is truly amazing sometimes what mankind is capable of figuring out. Scientists now have a working theory of the source of the dinosaur-killing asteroid:
"U.S. and Czech researchers used computer simulations to calculate that there was a 90 percent probability that the collision of two asteroids -- one about 105 miles wide and one about 40 miles wide -- was the event that precipitated the Earthly disaster.
The collision occurred in the asteroid belt, a collection of big and small rocks orbiting the sun about 100 million miles from Earth, the researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
The asteroid Baptistina and rubble associated with it are thought to be leftovers, the scientists said.
Some of the debris from the collision escaped the asteroid belt, tumbled toward the inner solar system and whacked Earth and our moon, along with probably Mars and Venus, said William Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, one of the researchers."
So in one sense we can think of the asteroid Baptistina as the birth of mankind. No impact, no explosion that changed the environment on earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, no rise of the mammals, no human beings. Talk about a close shave. I wonder how the intelligent design crew will interpret this. Will they say it was the hand of G.., er, the designer, that caused the collision in space 100 million miles from earth, and the subsequent one in Mexico?
"The dinosaur-destroying meteorite, thought to have measured 6 miles across, plunged into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and blasted out the Chicxulub (pronounced CHIK-shu-loob) crater measuring about 110 miles wide. The researchers looked at evidence on the composition of this meteorite and found it consistent with the stony Baptistina."
This heavenly event was also apparently responsible for another astronomical feature we've all seen at one time or another:
"The researchers estimated that there also was about a 70 percent probability that the prominent Tycho crater on the Moon, formed 108 million years ago and measuring about 55 miles across, also was carved out by a remnant of the earlier asteroid collision."
Now obviously, with this being groundbreaking stuff, the theory is going to undergo frequent revision, as new data and superior data gathering techniques appear. But this is a question about an absolutely crucial moment in earth's history. It dwarfs the importance of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by orders of magnitude. The fact that we now have a real start on the answer is quite exciting.
"U.S. and Czech researchers used computer simulations to calculate that there was a 90 percent probability that the collision of two asteroids -- one about 105 miles wide and one about 40 miles wide -- was the event that precipitated the Earthly disaster.
The collision occurred in the asteroid belt, a collection of big and small rocks orbiting the sun about 100 million miles from Earth, the researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
The asteroid Baptistina and rubble associated with it are thought to be leftovers, the scientists said.
Some of the debris from the collision escaped the asteroid belt, tumbled toward the inner solar system and whacked Earth and our moon, along with probably Mars and Venus, said William Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, one of the researchers."
So in one sense we can think of the asteroid Baptistina as the birth of mankind. No impact, no explosion that changed the environment on earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, no rise of the mammals, no human beings. Talk about a close shave. I wonder how the intelligent design crew will interpret this. Will they say it was the hand of G.., er, the designer, that caused the collision in space 100 million miles from earth, and the subsequent one in Mexico?
"The dinosaur-destroying meteorite, thought to have measured 6 miles across, plunged into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and blasted out the Chicxulub (pronounced CHIK-shu-loob) crater measuring about 110 miles wide. The researchers looked at evidence on the composition of this meteorite and found it consistent with the stony Baptistina."
This heavenly event was also apparently responsible for another astronomical feature we've all seen at one time or another:
"The researchers estimated that there also was about a 70 percent probability that the prominent Tycho crater on the Moon, formed 108 million years ago and measuring about 55 miles across, also was carved out by a remnant of the earlier asteroid collision."
Now obviously, with this being groundbreaking stuff, the theory is going to undergo frequent revision, as new data and superior data gathering techniques appear. But this is a question about an absolutely crucial moment in earth's history. It dwarfs the importance of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by orders of magnitude. The fact that we now have a real start on the answer is quite exciting.
Arctic Ice Melting at Record Pace
There are several articles out there on the record melting of the polar ice cap. You can see a revealing map here, and a nice summary here, an older article here, and another summary here. The parts that stood out to me, and which should get the attention of even the most die hard skeptic, were this:
"The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.
This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050."
Generally with trendy, alarmist bullshit, as some claim anthropocentric global warming is, the predictions tend to get further away, or stay distant. Con artists have to do this to prevent themselves from being disproven. The scientists' behavior is the polar opposite of what we'd expect if it were just a bunch of treehugging BS. Then there is the Ward Hunt ice shelf:
"...the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces."
3,000 years. That thing has been frozen for 3,000 years, virtually all of recorded human history, and now it's melting away. That has got to get your attention.
"The Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than expected and is now about 30 years ahead of predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.S. ice expert said on Tuesday.
This means the ocean at the top of the world could be free or nearly free of summer ice by 2020, three decades sooner than the global panel's gloomiest forecast of 2050."
Generally with trendy, alarmist bullshit, as some claim anthropocentric global warming is, the predictions tend to get further away, or stay distant. Con artists have to do this to prevent themselves from being disproven. The scientists' behavior is the polar opposite of what we'd expect if it were just a bunch of treehugging BS. Then there is the Ward Hunt ice shelf:
"...the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces."
3,000 years. That thing has been frozen for 3,000 years, virtually all of recorded human history, and now it's melting away. That has got to get your attention.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Frank Pastore: Another Creationist for Science...NOT!
There is a disturbing trend lately in the press to report every new scientific finding as something revolutionary that is going to overturn long held views, especially in the biological sciences. I suppose it is to be expected, since controversy sells. However, too many in the press go so far sometimes that what they write goes way beyond economically convenient exuberance, to outright misrepresentation of the issue. This is particularly true of evolution, where those sympathetic to creationism jump on anything that looks to be the slightest crack in modern evolutionary theory to trumpet that now finally, evolution is going to come crashing down like people have been saying for over 100 years. Frank Pastore’s latest article is a perfect example of this.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time debunking the many, many, scientific errors Pastore makes. They are mostly moldy oldies that have been debunked thoroughly numerous times in the past by scientists far more qualified to do so than I am. I will simply link to the refutations. My focus is on the sociological and philosophical aspects of what is happening.
Pastore has been launched into action on the subject because of two recent paleontological findings: a 10 million year old jaw and teeth of what looks to be a gorilla, and the discovery that two precursors to modern man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to have coexisted.
Right away Pastore attacks the issue, not as a scientist would, with evidence, but with appeals to cherry-picked authorities. In this case, an actor, Ben Stein:
”But, the bigger problem is—unless you’re a scientist—you’ve likely never have heard about it outside of this column or at least until you’d see the trailer for Ben Stein’s movie ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ coming out in February 2008.
As Stein exposes, there’s been a virtual Inquisition by Darwinian fundamentalists against anyone who dares challenge The Book—Darwin’s infamous 1859 ‘Origin of the Species.’ No longer about following the bread crumbs of inquiry in pursuit of truth, Big Science is now all about enforcing doctrinaire dogmatism.”
A simple google news search shows how absurd Pastore’s first claim is. News of these two discoveries has been all over the news, trumpeted as being far more extraordinary than they really are. Pastore’s article is another example. How, one wonders, if there is some evil Darwinist Conspiracy out there ready to crush all opposition, did these stories got out there? Did Pastore write his article from a super secret location? Did Stein and his movie crew get threats from the Darwinists? Just who exactly is being repressed by this conspiracy, and just why would anyone participate in such a thing, and how exactly are they repressing anyone? Pastore, as have all his predecessors on this issue, leaves the evidence for theory as an exercise for his readers. The reason is simple. There is no conspiracy. This is crankery, pure and simple. Lose the intellectual battle, claim the game is rigged. Evidence? Pshaw!
Just what is “Big Science” anyway? We all know about Big Oil, or Big Pharma, but those groups have massive economic incentives to behave in ways that might not square with what the rest of society has in mind. What possible motivation could a bunch of scientists, or research labs, have to repress evidence that evolution is incorrect? No one touting these conspiracies ever gives any reasons. The obvious counter is that any scientist that could disprove evolution would be hailed as the next Darwin, or better. He would be the father of a biological revolution, destined for a Nobel prize, and personal fortune and fame. Against this Pastore would put…what? His imagination, I guess.
Pastore is clearly grossly ignorant of the science surrounding this issue, as he demonstrates by rattling off all those moldy oldy creationist canards that scientists have been refuting for decades:
”Ask for explanations about the still missing ‘missing links,’
Debunked here.
” the absence of transitional forms,”
Debunked: here.
the sudden Cambrian Explosion,
Debunked here.
or the gaping gaps in the fossil record,
Debunked here.
”…and be branded an unbeliever—one who must repent of their sins, recant and do penance or be damned to academic hell for all time.”
Come on Frank, surely you’re more imaginative than that. What about being burned at the stake, and having red hot pokers shoved up your…opinions? I mean, you’re obviously just making shit up, so why be so dull about it? I want fire and brimstone!
As I learned long ago, if you can believe the first sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” you won’t have much trouble with the rest of the 66 books.
I at least give Pastore credit for honesty here. The Intelligent Design crew is so tiresome with their evidence-free claims that their theory has nothing to do with religion. Pastore spells it out as it is: he isn’t interested in science. He is interested in making sure that his childhood beliefs about the big bearded magic man in the sky making this world just for us, and creating us especially, remains intact.
Indeed, if one can swallow the malarkey that the supreme creator of the universe made it just for us, on this little insignificant blue-green ball orbiting a very bland yellow star in a quiet corner of an otherwise ordinary galaxy among billions just like it, then buying that rabbits are ruminants, or that men once lived to be 900 years old, or that burning bushes and donkeys talk, and virgins give birth to men who rise from the dead, and all the other nonsense in that tome becomes pretty easy to swallow. But then, why buy the first part in the first place? Why take what is clearly meant as metaphor and interpret it literally? No answer from Pastore, we are just supposed to accept that as a given. Sorry, that is not how science works, and someone so intent on criticizing science ought to know better.
”Make no mistake. Fundamentalists are those who censure skeptics and prohibit inquiry. Today’s fundamentalists are not the Christians who, like me, are eager to examine the scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution, but those who deny that opportunity from ever happening.
The real fundamentalists are those who chair the various science departments at our major universities—those unwilling to allow dissent.”
Bullshit sir. If you were interested in science, you wouldn’t be trotting out oft-refuted bullshit as some sort of revolutionary idea. You’d know already what a bunch of claptrap it is. It is not dissent that is frowned upon, but the touting of religious views as science, sans evidence, that is the problem. Perhaps it passed your notice, no surprise since you obviously aren’t keeping up with the latest science, that there have been major developments in evolutionary science in the last few years. Evo-devo, neutral drift, and punctuated equilibrium, among many other ideas, have surfaced long after the mothballs on your objections have collected. All had major influences on modern evolutionary theory, and changed the way scientists look at the issue. The difference? They had the evidence to back them, whereas that creationist nonsense you are parroting doesn’t. It is as simple as that.
”We are no closer today proving [evolution] than we were in Darwin’s day, a century and a half ago. In fact, we’re actually farther away.”
Well Frank, that’s an understandable position for someone so woefully ignorant of the science, but alas, it is not even close to true. Science is not about proof, it is about falsifiable experimentation, and evolution has been challenged for almost 150 years and has not only withstood the challenges, but has given us great insights into the workings of modern life. No experimental result yet has been at odds with evolutionary theory, and these recent finds are no exception.
”First, as reported here on August 9, two alleged ancestors of man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to be living together about 1.5 million years ago (MYA). This is a big deal because Erectus was supposed to have evolved from Habilis before later evolving into Sapiens (us).
Think of it as finding out dad and grandpa were actually brothers, not father and son.”
Uh, no Frank, it’s like discovering that dad and grandpa lived at the same time, and concluding that dad must not have evolved from grandpa. Literally. This is just another version of “if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?”, and just as wrong.
Here’s a simple example of how this happens. Let’s say we have a species A spread all over the globe. Then suppose there is some sort of geographic event (a landslide, flood, or a rising mountain range) that cuts off a subset, call them A’, from the rest of A, into a new environment. Then suppose A’ evolves in the new environment into species B, and the geographic barriers drop so that the B’s and A’s can happily mix. Eons later, scientists will uncover these fossils of species A and B mixed, and ignoramuses like Pastore will claim this proves B couldn’t evolve from A. That’s all this discovery demonstrates. Habilis and Erectus coexisted. This may have an impact of the timeline of which ancestor lived when, but that’s it. That’s what people like Pastore don’t understand about science. It changes based on the evidence presented, and hones in on the reality bit by verified bit. Of course all the charts will be revised, that’s the whole point. If scientists thought they had the absolute truth, there would be no more excavations of new fossils. They’d be as inactive as, well, all the creationists Pastore so eagerly parrots, who are content to sit in the stands of the scientific game and hurl insults at every perceived imperfection of the players and their theories, all the while having the courage of their convictions to do nothing else but sit on their asses. They offer no competing hypotheses, no new data, only contrarian ignorant opinions aimed at reaching their predetermined unscientific goal.
”The second discovery, reported here, pushed the hypothetical human-ape split back another 10 million years, to now around 20 MYA. How so? The traditional theory is that man evolved from chimps about 6 MYA, chimps evolved from gorillas about 8 MYA, and gorillas evolved from orangutans about 14 MYA. But, with the discovery of a 10.5 million year old gorilla in Africa, this pushes the human-ape split back to at least 20 MYA."
Pastore reveals his ignorance of evolution by his phrasing. Humans did not evolve from chimps, nor chimps from gorillas, etc. Chimps, humans, gorillas and orangutans all evolved from common ancestors that were unlike any of them. This is not a mere academic mistake. Phrasing it the way he does implies that the system was designed with us in mind as the end product, and that the other lines were flawed or less evolved than us. Evolution has no goal. As it happens, chimpanzees have evolved more than we have since the split, so if anyone is more evolved, it is them.
But so what? Even if this turns out to be a real change in the timeline, how does a revision in a timeline of an event signal disproof of the event? This seems another example of a creationist tendency to pedantically attack any flaw they see in what scientists say, regardless of whether it has any relevance to the main point. It is as if you claimed there were no football teams with aquatic mascots, I responded that the Florida Dolphins have an aquatic mascot, and you retorting that the Dolphins are called the Miami dolphins rather than the Florida Dolphins and thinking you've won the debate.
"But between 15-20 MYA, there were dozens of primate species in Africa, and the hominid trail goes completely cold after 7 MYA. It looks like a dead end—or to the true believer, at least a serious detour over uncharted territory.
Bottom line, not only do we find that dad and grandpa were brothers, but now we find out that we were adopted—or created."
This is just Pastore making shit up again. No trail goes cold. Timelines may change, but that doesn't invalidate all the homologies, fossil or other evidence. We are 95+% chimp. We have the same broken vitamen C gene. We have two genes that are fused together from two seperate chimp genes. Just what exactly about this implies we were created?
Look at it this way. We have mountains of evidence that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor. We also have some pieces of evidence which are open to interpretations that, at least prior to falsifiable testing, contradict evolutionary theory. But here's the part people like Pastore can't answer: If 95% of the evidence says one thing, and 5% says the opposite, what is the rational of going with the minority viewpoint? There is none really, or at least none he would admit openly. He admitted it openly enough when he said:
"As I learned long ago, if you can believe the first sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” you won’t have much trouble with the rest of the 66 books.
Practically all IDers/creationists will make a comment like this if you get them talking. They can say all they want that they are interested in the science. Some of them might really believe it. But in the end, its always about the Bible. Always.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time debunking the many, many, scientific errors Pastore makes. They are mostly moldy oldies that have been debunked thoroughly numerous times in the past by scientists far more qualified to do so than I am. I will simply link to the refutations. My focus is on the sociological and philosophical aspects of what is happening.
Pastore has been launched into action on the subject because of two recent paleontological findings: a 10 million year old jaw and teeth of what looks to be a gorilla, and the discovery that two precursors to modern man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to have coexisted.
Right away Pastore attacks the issue, not as a scientist would, with evidence, but with appeals to cherry-picked authorities. In this case, an actor, Ben Stein:
”But, the bigger problem is—unless you’re a scientist—you’ve likely never have heard about it outside of this column or at least until you’d see the trailer for Ben Stein’s movie ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ coming out in February 2008.
As Stein exposes, there’s been a virtual Inquisition by Darwinian fundamentalists against anyone who dares challenge The Book—Darwin’s infamous 1859 ‘Origin of the Species.’ No longer about following the bread crumbs of inquiry in pursuit of truth, Big Science is now all about enforcing doctrinaire dogmatism.”
A simple google news search shows how absurd Pastore’s first claim is. News of these two discoveries has been all over the news, trumpeted as being far more extraordinary than they really are. Pastore’s article is another example. How, one wonders, if there is some evil Darwinist Conspiracy out there ready to crush all opposition, did these stories got out there? Did Pastore write his article from a super secret location? Did Stein and his movie crew get threats from the Darwinists? Just who exactly is being repressed by this conspiracy, and just why would anyone participate in such a thing, and how exactly are they repressing anyone? Pastore, as have all his predecessors on this issue, leaves the evidence for theory as an exercise for his readers. The reason is simple. There is no conspiracy. This is crankery, pure and simple. Lose the intellectual battle, claim the game is rigged. Evidence? Pshaw!
Just what is “Big Science” anyway? We all know about Big Oil, or Big Pharma, but those groups have massive economic incentives to behave in ways that might not square with what the rest of society has in mind. What possible motivation could a bunch of scientists, or research labs, have to repress evidence that evolution is incorrect? No one touting these conspiracies ever gives any reasons. The obvious counter is that any scientist that could disprove evolution would be hailed as the next Darwin, or better. He would be the father of a biological revolution, destined for a Nobel prize, and personal fortune and fame. Against this Pastore would put…what? His imagination, I guess.
Pastore is clearly grossly ignorant of the science surrounding this issue, as he demonstrates by rattling off all those moldy oldy creationist canards that scientists have been refuting for decades:
”Ask for explanations about the still missing ‘missing links,’
Debunked here.
” the absence of transitional forms,”
Debunked: here.
the sudden Cambrian Explosion,
Debunked here.
or the gaping gaps in the fossil record,
Debunked here.
”…and be branded an unbeliever—one who must repent of their sins, recant and do penance or be damned to academic hell for all time.”
Come on Frank, surely you’re more imaginative than that. What about being burned at the stake, and having red hot pokers shoved up your…opinions? I mean, you’re obviously just making shit up, so why be so dull about it? I want fire and brimstone!
As I learned long ago, if you can believe the first sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” you won’t have much trouble with the rest of the 66 books.
I at least give Pastore credit for honesty here. The Intelligent Design crew is so tiresome with their evidence-free claims that their theory has nothing to do with religion. Pastore spells it out as it is: he isn’t interested in science. He is interested in making sure that his childhood beliefs about the big bearded magic man in the sky making this world just for us, and creating us especially, remains intact.
Indeed, if one can swallow the malarkey that the supreme creator of the universe made it just for us, on this little insignificant blue-green ball orbiting a very bland yellow star in a quiet corner of an otherwise ordinary galaxy among billions just like it, then buying that rabbits are ruminants, or that men once lived to be 900 years old, or that burning bushes and donkeys talk, and virgins give birth to men who rise from the dead, and all the other nonsense in that tome becomes pretty easy to swallow. But then, why buy the first part in the first place? Why take what is clearly meant as metaphor and interpret it literally? No answer from Pastore, we are just supposed to accept that as a given. Sorry, that is not how science works, and someone so intent on criticizing science ought to know better.
”Make no mistake. Fundamentalists are those who censure skeptics and prohibit inquiry. Today’s fundamentalists are not the Christians who, like me, are eager to examine the scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution, but those who deny that opportunity from ever happening.
The real fundamentalists are those who chair the various science departments at our major universities—those unwilling to allow dissent.”
Bullshit sir. If you were interested in science, you wouldn’t be trotting out oft-refuted bullshit as some sort of revolutionary idea. You’d know already what a bunch of claptrap it is. It is not dissent that is frowned upon, but the touting of religious views as science, sans evidence, that is the problem. Perhaps it passed your notice, no surprise since you obviously aren’t keeping up with the latest science, that there have been major developments in evolutionary science in the last few years. Evo-devo, neutral drift, and punctuated equilibrium, among many other ideas, have surfaced long after the mothballs on your objections have collected. All had major influences on modern evolutionary theory, and changed the way scientists look at the issue. The difference? They had the evidence to back them, whereas that creationist nonsense you are parroting doesn’t. It is as simple as that.
”We are no closer today proving [evolution] than we were in Darwin’s day, a century and a half ago. In fact, we’re actually farther away.”
Well Frank, that’s an understandable position for someone so woefully ignorant of the science, but alas, it is not even close to true. Science is not about proof, it is about falsifiable experimentation, and evolution has been challenged for almost 150 years and has not only withstood the challenges, but has given us great insights into the workings of modern life. No experimental result yet has been at odds with evolutionary theory, and these recent finds are no exception.
”First, as reported here on August 9, two alleged ancestors of man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to be living together about 1.5 million years ago (MYA). This is a big deal because Erectus was supposed to have evolved from Habilis before later evolving into Sapiens (us).
Think of it as finding out dad and grandpa were actually brothers, not father and son.”
Uh, no Frank, it’s like discovering that dad and grandpa lived at the same time, and concluding that dad must not have evolved from grandpa. Literally. This is just another version of “if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?”, and just as wrong.
Here’s a simple example of how this happens. Let’s say we have a species A spread all over the globe. Then suppose there is some sort of geographic event (a landslide, flood, or a rising mountain range) that cuts off a subset, call them A’, from the rest of A, into a new environment. Then suppose A’ evolves in the new environment into species B, and the geographic barriers drop so that the B’s and A’s can happily mix. Eons later, scientists will uncover these fossils of species A and B mixed, and ignoramuses like Pastore will claim this proves B couldn’t evolve from A. That’s all this discovery demonstrates. Habilis and Erectus coexisted. This may have an impact of the timeline of which ancestor lived when, but that’s it. That’s what people like Pastore don’t understand about science. It changes based on the evidence presented, and hones in on the reality bit by verified bit. Of course all the charts will be revised, that’s the whole point. If scientists thought they had the absolute truth, there would be no more excavations of new fossils. They’d be as inactive as, well, all the creationists Pastore so eagerly parrots, who are content to sit in the stands of the scientific game and hurl insults at every perceived imperfection of the players and their theories, all the while having the courage of their convictions to do nothing else but sit on their asses. They offer no competing hypotheses, no new data, only contrarian ignorant opinions aimed at reaching their predetermined unscientific goal.
”The second discovery, reported here, pushed the hypothetical human-ape split back another 10 million years, to now around 20 MYA. How so? The traditional theory is that man evolved from chimps about 6 MYA, chimps evolved from gorillas about 8 MYA, and gorillas evolved from orangutans about 14 MYA. But, with the discovery of a 10.5 million year old gorilla in Africa, this pushes the human-ape split back to at least 20 MYA."
Pastore reveals his ignorance of evolution by his phrasing. Humans did not evolve from chimps, nor chimps from gorillas, etc. Chimps, humans, gorillas and orangutans all evolved from common ancestors that were unlike any of them. This is not a mere academic mistake. Phrasing it the way he does implies that the system was designed with us in mind as the end product, and that the other lines were flawed or less evolved than us. Evolution has no goal. As it happens, chimpanzees have evolved more than we have since the split, so if anyone is more evolved, it is them.
But so what? Even if this turns out to be a real change in the timeline, how does a revision in a timeline of an event signal disproof of the event? This seems another example of a creationist tendency to pedantically attack any flaw they see in what scientists say, regardless of whether it has any relevance to the main point. It is as if you claimed there were no football teams with aquatic mascots, I responded that the Florida Dolphins have an aquatic mascot, and you retorting that the Dolphins are called the Miami dolphins rather than the Florida Dolphins and thinking you've won the debate.
"But between 15-20 MYA, there were dozens of primate species in Africa, and the hominid trail goes completely cold after 7 MYA. It looks like a dead end—or to the true believer, at least a serious detour over uncharted territory.
Bottom line, not only do we find that dad and grandpa were brothers, but now we find out that we were adopted—or created."
This is just Pastore making shit up again. No trail goes cold. Timelines may change, but that doesn't invalidate all the homologies, fossil or other evidence. We are 95+% chimp. We have the same broken vitamen C gene. We have two genes that are fused together from two seperate chimp genes. Just what exactly about this implies we were created?
Look at it this way. We have mountains of evidence that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor. We also have some pieces of evidence which are open to interpretations that, at least prior to falsifiable testing, contradict evolutionary theory. But here's the part people like Pastore can't answer: If 95% of the evidence says one thing, and 5% says the opposite, what is the rational of going with the minority viewpoint? There is none really, or at least none he would admit openly. He admitted it openly enough when he said:
"As I learned long ago, if you can believe the first sentence of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth,” you won’t have much trouble with the rest of the 66 books.
Practically all IDers/creationists will make a comment like this if you get them talking. They can say all they want that they are interested in the science. Some of them might really believe it. But in the end, its always about the Bible. Always.
All Children Left Behind
When the concept of no child left behind was introduced, I was enthusiastic about the idea. It was about time there was an objective measure of education, to make sure no one sailed through via social promotion, and to motivate schools whose standards were not up to par.
Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the reality of no child left behind, as with so many noble ideas, came to be quite different from the abstract ideal. Instead of having a flourishing rich education with an objective measure of their academic accomplishment, students and teachers are increasingly inhabiting a place where all that matters is knowing how to color in the right answer on a test, even if it is your second or third try.
Here is a inside look at the situation from a teacher in Maryland. He notes how the school has narrowed the focus of the curriculum at the areas that are tested, while leaving other areas to just get by:
” Since only reading and math have counted for Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB, the state has stopped testing the other content areas, and as the testing has narrowed and schools and districts have begun panicking about the scores, the instruction has similarly narrowed. “
One of the basic problems with the way NCLB has been implemented is in giving specific knowledge of the contents of the exams to those giving them, and thus allowing “teach to the test”, a method that may produce test results, but little in knowledge. It’s a fundamental problem of measuring people with a proxy. For example, say you owned a multi-fruited orchard, hired people to pick the fruit, and wanted to make sure they were picking as much as you expected. Now you could go to the trouble of counting all the pears, apples, oranges, and grapefruits that they picked. Or, assuming the distribution of the various types was fairly uniform, you could just count the apples, and assume if the pickers apple count was satisfactory, so was his count of each of the other fruits. You might even give raises based on the number of apples, award special privileges to those scoring highest, and promote the various foremen of the pickers groups that did best.
Now imagine what would happen if you told the pickers that you were only counting apples. Further, imagine what would happen if you let the foremen count the apples. Naturally, the pickers would focus only on picking apples, and the foremen would be motivated to inflate the apple count, or give apple credits for a picker who picked other fruits as well and didn’t reach the apple expectation. This is, in essence, what is happening to our schools because of the way NCLB has been implemented. The program should have been one of a high level exam comprising a secret subset of all the requirements of the curriculum, and administered by people with no vested interest in the outcome. Instead, It has become students, teachers, and administrators rewarded for test results, and little else, coming to focus on little else, and sometimes with the best of intentions. What we get is students who know little but how to pass a multiple choice test, for which they were essentially given the answers:
” The problem with multiple choice questions is that you do not really have to KNOW the material, you merely need to be able to recognize bad answers and eliminate them to make a decent guess. “
Indeed, kids are learning that the most important thing isn’t knowledge, but rather knowing which bubble to fill in. They see their subjects as guessing games and tricks, similar to video game cheats, which allow a player to bypass game restrictions and go directly to the desired level with our without the skill to handle it. I experienced this first hand tutoring students in math at a community college. They had no desire to learn the material, and simply waited for me to complete my explanations before asking something like “If I see this, I do that?”. As an illustration of the attitudes we are fostering in our kids, here is an actual comment left by a student on a simple traditional fill-in-the-blank exam in an introductory algebra class:
"Just to let you know, I don't know many people who can perform well on a test like this in algebra. Multiple choice tests are much better, because you can check your answer and if your [sic] like me, your brain works backwards. Given the solution, I can plug it into the question. I know I don't come to class often and more than likely that's why I failed this test. However, I have been in many classes before and this is the first time I have ever had no idea on a test."
That pretty much sums up the attitude. Anything other than what gave them the answer quickly and directly was seen as quaint academic BS. Their performance showed it too, because math is one of the few subjects where a college student is expected to remember what he learned in 4th grade. However, having gone through years of testing, and thinking only in terms of guessing, the students have no math skills. Thus we get algebra students who can’t add fractions, or can easily multiply (X + Y) (X – Y), but (A + B)( A – B) was a mystery to them. They don’t know, nor do they care why they are fundamentally the same problem, nor do they even care if they fail. Failure just means getting to try again. Here is how that problem manifested itself for the teacher in Maryland when she gave the kids a simple quiz:
” I even reminded them that leaving an answer blank was a mistake, that there was no further penalty for filling in a wrong answer. Yet about 1/3 of the students made no real attempt. I discovered that some of them were used to not even trying because they were used to getting to retake tests in which they did badly, so why bother?
Here's a key point - this is a quiz. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes. Before they take it I go over about 3/4 of the material with them - in other words, they have just heard again enough to be able to pass. And yet there is no effort. This is unlike anything I have ever seen.
I talked with other teachers in the building, and my experience is not unusual. School for many of these students has been reduced to how they do on tests used to measure the school, and why care about anything else? As soon as those tests are done they shut down mentally. Besides, what happens during the preparation for those tests is mindless, mind-numbing.”
Different state, but this is consistent with my experience as well. If this is the best implementation of the NCLB idea, then it needs to be scrapped. As much as I like the idea of requiring children to demonstrate competence in their subjects before graduating, this manner of doing it is worse than the old system. The tests are supposed to be the means, and they have become the end. I think the Maryland teacher put it well:
” We should be teaching our students how to learn, not merely how to pass tests. There should be joy and excitement in learning knew things, in having one's mind expanded. Instead there is dullness and drudgery.”
Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the reality of no child left behind, as with so many noble ideas, came to be quite different from the abstract ideal. Instead of having a flourishing rich education with an objective measure of their academic accomplishment, students and teachers are increasingly inhabiting a place where all that matters is knowing how to color in the right answer on a test, even if it is your second or third try.
Here is a inside look at the situation from a teacher in Maryland. He notes how the school has narrowed the focus of the curriculum at the areas that are tested, while leaving other areas to just get by:
” Since only reading and math have counted for Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB, the state has stopped testing the other content areas, and as the testing has narrowed and schools and districts have begun panicking about the scores, the instruction has similarly narrowed. “
One of the basic problems with the way NCLB has been implemented is in giving specific knowledge of the contents of the exams to those giving them, and thus allowing “teach to the test”, a method that may produce test results, but little in knowledge. It’s a fundamental problem of measuring people with a proxy. For example, say you owned a multi-fruited orchard, hired people to pick the fruit, and wanted to make sure they were picking as much as you expected. Now you could go to the trouble of counting all the pears, apples, oranges, and grapefruits that they picked. Or, assuming the distribution of the various types was fairly uniform, you could just count the apples, and assume if the pickers apple count was satisfactory, so was his count of each of the other fruits. You might even give raises based on the number of apples, award special privileges to those scoring highest, and promote the various foremen of the pickers groups that did best.
Now imagine what would happen if you told the pickers that you were only counting apples. Further, imagine what would happen if you let the foremen count the apples. Naturally, the pickers would focus only on picking apples, and the foremen would be motivated to inflate the apple count, or give apple credits for a picker who picked other fruits as well and didn’t reach the apple expectation. This is, in essence, what is happening to our schools because of the way NCLB has been implemented. The program should have been one of a high level exam comprising a secret subset of all the requirements of the curriculum, and administered by people with no vested interest in the outcome. Instead, It has become students, teachers, and administrators rewarded for test results, and little else, coming to focus on little else, and sometimes with the best of intentions. What we get is students who know little but how to pass a multiple choice test, for which they were essentially given the answers:
” The problem with multiple choice questions is that you do not really have to KNOW the material, you merely need to be able to recognize bad answers and eliminate them to make a decent guess. “
Indeed, kids are learning that the most important thing isn’t knowledge, but rather knowing which bubble to fill in. They see their subjects as guessing games and tricks, similar to video game cheats, which allow a player to bypass game restrictions and go directly to the desired level with our without the skill to handle it. I experienced this first hand tutoring students in math at a community college. They had no desire to learn the material, and simply waited for me to complete my explanations before asking something like “If I see this, I do that?”. As an illustration of the attitudes we are fostering in our kids, here is an actual comment left by a student on a simple traditional fill-in-the-blank exam in an introductory algebra class:
"Just to let you know, I don't know many people who can perform well on a test like this in algebra. Multiple choice tests are much better, because you can check your answer and if your [sic] like me, your brain works backwards. Given the solution, I can plug it into the question. I know I don't come to class often and more than likely that's why I failed this test. However, I have been in many classes before and this is the first time I have ever had no idea on a test."
That pretty much sums up the attitude. Anything other than what gave them the answer quickly and directly was seen as quaint academic BS. Their performance showed it too, because math is one of the few subjects where a college student is expected to remember what he learned in 4th grade. However, having gone through years of testing, and thinking only in terms of guessing, the students have no math skills. Thus we get algebra students who can’t add fractions, or can easily multiply (X + Y) (X – Y), but (A + B)( A – B) was a mystery to them. They don’t know, nor do they care why they are fundamentally the same problem, nor do they even care if they fail. Failure just means getting to try again. Here is how that problem manifested itself for the teacher in Maryland when she gave the kids a simple quiz:
” I even reminded them that leaving an answer blank was a mistake, that there was no further penalty for filling in a wrong answer. Yet about 1/3 of the students made no real attempt. I discovered that some of them were used to not even trying because they were used to getting to retake tests in which they did badly, so why bother?
Here's a key point - this is a quiz. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes. Before they take it I go over about 3/4 of the material with them - in other words, they have just heard again enough to be able to pass. And yet there is no effort. This is unlike anything I have ever seen.
I talked with other teachers in the building, and my experience is not unusual. School for many of these students has been reduced to how they do on tests used to measure the school, and why care about anything else? As soon as those tests are done they shut down mentally. Besides, what happens during the preparation for those tests is mindless, mind-numbing.”
Different state, but this is consistent with my experience as well. If this is the best implementation of the NCLB idea, then it needs to be scrapped. As much as I like the idea of requiring children to demonstrate competence in their subjects before graduating, this manner of doing it is worse than the old system. The tests are supposed to be the means, and they have become the end. I think the Maryland teacher put it well:
” We should be teaching our students how to learn, not merely how to pass tests. There should be joy and excitement in learning knew things, in having one's mind expanded. Instead there is dullness and drudgery.”
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Final Thoughts (I hope) on Larry Craig, and the Republican Party
Pay Buchanan has an interesting take on the Larry Craig affair, and raises an issue I’ve always wondered about. On the one hand, no one likes a hypocrite. On the other, who better than an addict to understand the problems of addiction and lead the charge to prevent the creation of more? Sure Larry Craig was anti-gay, but perhaps his fervor was born of honest concern, for himself as much as others:
” Is there no possibility a man can believe in traditional morality, yet find himself tempted to behavior that morally disgusts him? Is it impossible Craig is driven by impulses, the biblical ‘thorn in the flesh,’ of which Paul wrote, to behavior he almost cannot control? “
Interesting perspective, and I agree for the most part. But the problem with people like Larry Craig is that they do not present themselves as someone with vices with which they battle. They present themselves as sanctimonious saints, superior to those with the habits/lifestyles/opinions they consider sinful. Craig didn’t say “I’m gay, and I’ve been dishonest, and I apologize.” Had he, we could have run with Buchanan’s understanding. However, as long as Craig continues to demonize homosexuals, he deserves the scorn he gets, whether he is homosexual or not. For all the lip service many Christians give to loving the sinner and hating the sin, and admitting they are all sinners, too many are like anyone else: hating the sinner, and missing the beam in their own eye.
” The silence of most Democrats is understandable. If you belong to a party that declares homosexuality a moral lifestyle, that perhaps should be elevated to the level of matrimony, then what would Craig be guilty of, other than being horribly indiscreet? “
Well, you knew Buchanan couldn’t stay on the straight and narrow too long. Craig is guilty of hypocrisy, not indiscretion. The Democrats, on this issue anyway, don’t have hypocrisy to worry about. They accept the realities of homosexuals in our society. I suspect many of the Republicans, at least privately, do as well. They simply must feed at the homophobic trough to keep getting the Christian Right vote.
For a very thorough and persuasive look at that theory, read this article:
”So to keep religious conservatives happy the party has done two things. First, it has steadfastly resisted efforts to ease anti-gay discrimination in public policy, even when Republican politicians know better...
Second, to keep the talent it needs and simply to be as humane and decent as politically possible toward particular individuals, the party has come up with its own unwritten common-law code: you can be gay and work here, we don’t care, but don’t talk about it openly and don’t do anything to make it known publicly in the sense that either the media or the party’s religious base might learn of it. It's the GOP's own internal version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It's worth a read, and spells out what many of us have suspected and hated for a long time. The theocrats have taken over the Republican party, with their anachronistic moralizing and their imperviousness to science, or any kind of evidence, that goes against their faith, be it faith in a 6,000 year old earth, or in the ability of one nation to singlehandedly reverse thousand-year-old social trends through force and will. John Warner's retirement is symbolic of the fading of the kind of Republicans many of us grew up respecting. Who will fill the void?
” Is there no possibility a man can believe in traditional morality, yet find himself tempted to behavior that morally disgusts him? Is it impossible Craig is driven by impulses, the biblical ‘thorn in the flesh,’ of which Paul wrote, to behavior he almost cannot control? “
Interesting perspective, and I agree for the most part. But the problem with people like Larry Craig is that they do not present themselves as someone with vices with which they battle. They present themselves as sanctimonious saints, superior to those with the habits/lifestyles/opinions they consider sinful. Craig didn’t say “I’m gay, and I’ve been dishonest, and I apologize.” Had he, we could have run with Buchanan’s understanding. However, as long as Craig continues to demonize homosexuals, he deserves the scorn he gets, whether he is homosexual or not. For all the lip service many Christians give to loving the sinner and hating the sin, and admitting they are all sinners, too many are like anyone else: hating the sinner, and missing the beam in their own eye.
” The silence of most Democrats is understandable. If you belong to a party that declares homosexuality a moral lifestyle, that perhaps should be elevated to the level of matrimony, then what would Craig be guilty of, other than being horribly indiscreet? “
Well, you knew Buchanan couldn’t stay on the straight and narrow too long. Craig is guilty of hypocrisy, not indiscretion. The Democrats, on this issue anyway, don’t have hypocrisy to worry about. They accept the realities of homosexuals in our society. I suspect many of the Republicans, at least privately, do as well. They simply must feed at the homophobic trough to keep getting the Christian Right vote.
For a very thorough and persuasive look at that theory, read this article:
”So to keep religious conservatives happy the party has done two things. First, it has steadfastly resisted efforts to ease anti-gay discrimination in public policy, even when Republican politicians know better...
Second, to keep the talent it needs and simply to be as humane and decent as politically possible toward particular individuals, the party has come up with its own unwritten common-law code: you can be gay and work here, we don’t care, but don’t talk about it openly and don’t do anything to make it known publicly in the sense that either the media or the party’s religious base might learn of it. It's the GOP's own internal version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It's worth a read, and spells out what many of us have suspected and hated for a long time. The theocrats have taken over the Republican party, with their anachronistic moralizing and their imperviousness to science, or any kind of evidence, that goes against their faith, be it faith in a 6,000 year old earth, or in the ability of one nation to singlehandedly reverse thousand-year-old social trends through force and will. John Warner's retirement is symbolic of the fading of the kind of Republicans many of us grew up respecting. Who will fill the void?
Cho's Problems, and It Wasn't the Guns
There is quite an interesting follow up on the story of Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman:
"The gunman responsible for the April massacre at Virginia Tech was a sickly child — shy, frail and leery of physical contact by the time he was 3. His teachers said he began showing suicidal and homicidal tendencies by the eighth grade."
Apparently his parents and teachers made many accommodations for him, such as allowing him to avoid oral presentations, which kept him fairly stable through high school. However, he clearly had problems:
" At the urging of teachers, he went to counseling and art therapy before starting seventh grade and was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. He rebuffed his parents' suggestions that he take part in more extracurricular activities, remaining withdrawn.
In March 1999, the eighth-grader began drawing tunnels and caves that a therapist said could signify depression, or worse. A month later, after the murders at Columbine High School in Colorado, he wrote a paper saying he wanted to repeat the attacks — an exercise he would repeat in the spring of 2006 with a fictional tale that hinted at what was to come."
His family and counselors tried to get him to attend a small college close to home, but Cho insisted on going to Virginia Tech.
There was nary a mention of weapons in the article, and for good reason. Cho was a bomb waiting to go off, and all it took as separation from all those loving forces that had held him together all those years to do it. Guns, knives, explosives, the means mattered little. This was clearly not a problem with gun laws. It was a problem with how we handle mentally ill people in our society, and we have a lot of work to do.
"The gunman responsible for the April massacre at Virginia Tech was a sickly child — shy, frail and leery of physical contact by the time he was 3. His teachers said he began showing suicidal and homicidal tendencies by the eighth grade."
Apparently his parents and teachers made many accommodations for him, such as allowing him to avoid oral presentations, which kept him fairly stable through high school. However, he clearly had problems:
" At the urging of teachers, he went to counseling and art therapy before starting seventh grade and was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. He rebuffed his parents' suggestions that he take part in more extracurricular activities, remaining withdrawn.
In March 1999, the eighth-grader began drawing tunnels and caves that a therapist said could signify depression, or worse. A month later, after the murders at Columbine High School in Colorado, he wrote a paper saying he wanted to repeat the attacks — an exercise he would repeat in the spring of 2006 with a fictional tale that hinted at what was to come."
His family and counselors tried to get him to attend a small college close to home, but Cho insisted on going to Virginia Tech.
There was nary a mention of weapons in the article, and for good reason. Cho was a bomb waiting to go off, and all it took as separation from all those loving forces that had held him together all those years to do it. Guns, knives, explosives, the means mattered little. This was clearly not a problem with gun laws. It was a problem with how we handle mentally ill people in our society, and we have a lot of work to do.
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