Creation Wiki and “Anticreation”
As if Conservapedia weren’t bad enough, there’s also something called Creation Wiki. Why do they need two? Were the creationism articles in Conservapedia not ignorant enough, so they had to create a separate site to make even stupider claims?
I visited Creation Wiki today in search of something to make fun of, and there it was on the home page! Their article of the day is called “Anticreation”.
Introduction
The article starts with:
A recent Newsweek poll found that about 91% of the population in the United States believes in God…
OK, that number is a bit higher than I’d like, but what’s really important is the type of belief. As long as most of them aren’t fundies, we’re OK.
…and 48% believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Most of them are fundies!
Remember, that’s 48% of Americans, not 48% of the theists. If you want to know what percentage of theists are young-Earth creationists (YEC), you divide 48 by 91 to get ~53%. That means the majority of theists in this country are YEC fundies! That doesn’t even include the other branches of fundie-dom that also reject science and reality, such as the old-Earth creationists.
I’ve suddenly become even more demoralized than I was before. But let’s slog on:
Despite these high numbers, we find the views of creationists are mocked by the media…
That’s because they’re mock-worthy, you retard! Just because roughly half the population believes in something that contradicts virtually every known fact, it doesn’t make that belief any less stupid.
…and actively discriminated against in public schools.
It isn’t discrimination. Schools are in the business of teaching facts. Go get yourself a fact, and the schools will consider teaching it.
A number of organizations and even the National Academy of Sciences (a US national government agency) actively oppose creationism and lobby to keep these views from being taught in public schools.
Yes. I just explained why. Weren’t you listening?
Most, if not all, such groups are motivated by a philosophical opposition to biblical creationism…
No. They’re opposed to fantasy. It doesn’t matter what type or where it comes from.
…and counter with arguments derived from naturalistic scientific research.
That’s because the only way of finding out how the Universe works is by naturalistic scientific research. What do you want them to use? Tarot cards? Why not? They’re as credible as your Bible.
The rest of the article is mostly summaries of other articles, so instead of reading the short versions, let’s jump straight to one of those articles.
Anticreation in Public Schools
This article begins with:
Perhaps no place is anticreation sentiment more apparent than in the US public school system.
That’s as it should be. We’re trying to avoid slipping into a second Dark Ages here!
Today Christian teachers are afraid of letting their faith be known and pray only in secret.
What??!!!! “Oh, help me! I’m a Christian! I’m the persecuted majority!”
I think what the author really means is that teachers are afraid of discussing their religious beliefs in the classroom, and they pray only in private (instead of leading class prayers).
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union…
These articles are always very quick to include their ultimate bogeyman at every opportunity: The ACLU!!
…quickly move to sue any school district if it’s reported that a teacher is introducing intelligent design concepts.
Because that’s creationism, and creationism is religion. Haven’t we been over this already?
Numerous examples have also been documented where educators were discriminated against simply because of their views about God, which never made it into the classroom.
There’s no immediate citation for this statement, but there are a few (not “numerous”) examples later in the article, which I assume is what this refers to.
This anticreation movement has been furthered by government agencies, such as the National Academy of Sciences…
That’s phrased as if it’s a bad thing. It’s bad that a government agency is doing its job?
…which has gone so far as to published [sic] booklets discouraging the teaching of creationism.
That better not be true. They’d better be doing more than just “discouraging” the teaching of creationism. They should be flat-out demanding that the schools not teach it.
Government policy is also in place to prevent those who believe in God from receiving teaching certificates.
There is no citation for this statement either. There is a link to a Washington state web site, but it says nothing about preventing theists from receiving teaching certificates. I guess all the author has to do to look credible is to provide a link. He must hope that people don’t actually click it, but its mere presence makes the statement look credible.
The next section is called “Discrimination of Educators”. It gives a bunch of flimsy examples. Let’s look at just a few:
University of Idaho president Timothy White, issued an edict recently proclaiming that it is now “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses.
How is that discrimination? Evolution is the fundamental principle of biology. It has to be taught.
Three days before graduate student Bryan Leonard’s dissertation defense was to take place Darwinist professors at Ohio State University accused Leonard of “unethical human-subject experimentation” because he taught students about scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory.
That sounds like an appropriate charge. It is unethical experimentation. You have no idea how messed up people become when they start believing myth as fact.
High school teacher Roger DeHart was driven from his public school simply because he wanted his students to learn about both sides of the scientific debate over Darwinian evolution.
He was clearly unqualified. There is no scientific debate over evolution.
Biology professor P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota, for example, recently wrote this about anyone supporting intelligent design or even just questioning modern evolutionary theory: “Our only problem is that we aren’t martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.”
Hey, they spelled his name right! (I’m only including this one in a shameless ploy to try to get a plug on Pharyngula.)
The next section is called “Anticreation Government Policy”. It seems to be related to the out-of-place footnote mentioned above. It has something to do with Washington state not wanting to pay for somebody’s divinity education. Seems like a reasonable church/state separation issue to me.
That’s the extent of these two Creation Wiki articles. As expected, they were short on facts and long on deception.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
If it’s a wiki, can’t anyone edit it? That could be quite fun.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
… and God then looks into his giant mirror… “what is this beautiful creature staring back at me? -wolf-whistle- Hey there, sexy….”
Why do fundies think God needs to constantly be reassured like a whimpering puppy that he exists, at the expense of real facts? Shouldn’t God be offended that so many medieval-minded cretins keep soiling his name by pushing this “creation” nonsense?
It’s ironic that the one thing people shouldn’t take the Bible as is, um, gospel.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Clearing the Air About Genesis
No one else, presently walking on this Earth, is an expert on Genesis. Do not even listen to anyone else trying to expound what Genesis is saying, or what “creationism” is, for they do not understand the text, and are speaking from ignorance. There is no “creation account” in Genesis. There is no such thing as a “creation/evolution” contest. It is “evolution” verses the “Observations of Moses “, given to Moses by God in 1598 BC, in biblical order, as revealed by the Living Word in the Gospels.
The world of theology (and creationism) has never understood Genesis, so of course they would not have told us the truth, since they never did their “homework”. Each day in Genesis, from Gen. 1:2 thru 2:3 was a 24-hr day , shown to Moses, taken from seven different weeks (1 day from Creation Week, 6 days from 6 restoration weeks), and each week was from a different geologic age. The seven days conveyed to Moses were not linear.
Genesis chapter two covers about a 200 yr period, starting in about 7200 BC, and has nothing to do with chapter one. There was no “evolution”. There was Creation, followed by extinction, then six periods of restorations, with five more extinction events in between, ending each era of mankind. With the third era of mankind (the second restoration), God “redesigned” mankind to be in His image, after His likeness, in about 64 Million BC.
If you have comments, issues, or questions, direct them to me or read the book “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”. Have I made myself clear?
Herman Cummings
October 18th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Herman:
You are no clearer than any other creationist. You have made some wild claims, but you have no evidence to support it.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Actually, he offers plenty of evidence… that he’s completely insane.
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:24 pm
A Scientific Prediction From Genesis
There are no “creation accounts” in Genesis. The opposing view of evolution is what I call “the Observations of Moses”, which were visions of six days the past, giving to Moses by God, on Mt. Sinai in 1598 BC. Each day was taken from a different day of the week, each week being the first week from a different geologic age of mankind.
Having said that, I am now making this declaration, so that mankind may know that the words and events written in Genesis is true, and the humanist theories of our origins are false. I predict that secular science shall soon find, if they have not already, solid evidence of prehistoric mankind, which is earlier than 30 million years in age. The book “Moses Didn’t Write About Creation!”, states from Genesis that mankind has been in his present likeness for over 60 million years. Moses wrote about extinction and restoration.
Herman Cummings
June 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Herman: I somehow doubt that.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Herman, what you’re giving is just a different interpretation of the Bible, different than the interpretation most people go by. There are two problems with it, the first one being that your interpretation is entirely to be presupposed. The strange thing is that it doesn’t say anywhere that Moses dreamed Genesis entirely up, although it does, according to you, refer to this by calling the eras days. Your interpretation seems to me entirely made up to fit the facts and to clear out the contradictions between for instance Genesis 1 and 2.
The second, and biggest, problem with it, and indeed with every religious explanation, is that it is based on tenets. Just because this can explain everything doesn’t mean it’s right, neither does it mean it’s remotely probable. Ages ago someone brought these tenets to his people and told them they were true and they reasoned “Why not? I’d better believe because if I don’t and it does seem to be true in the end, I get to burn for an eternity.” Because religion threatens ‘infidels’ and promises happiness to believers, people keep on believing, blinding themselves from evidence (or reasonable interpretations of evidence) because they see the risk of becoming convinced by it.
By the way, Herman, know that even in the improbable possibility that mankind is indeed more than thirty millions old, the odds of your theory to be true are still incredibly slim. A -> B does not make B -> A.
Ron, I agree with you on almost everything. The only thing I’d like to note is that, while you say there is no scientific debate over evolution, I think there *is* one. As long as there are people who argue with evidence that something is true it is a scientific debate, no matter how invalid their reasoning is. What Creationists overlook though is that there aren’t “two sides of the controversy”, there are millions of sides, but there are only two that get that much publicity in America. Muslims actively argue for their view to be true too, and every other religion will put up an argument when challenged. All of these are sides of the debate, but most of them are more passive and less present in the scientific community.
By the way, I don’t think that Roger Dehart really wanted his students to learn “both sides”, but more like only one side which they’d have accept no matter what it takes else they’d have to copy Genesis threehundred times. That’s namely the essence of religion, blackmailing you into believing and worshipping and serving those who tell you to serve them.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Why are people so stupid? Why do the Fundies not see the truth? When will the creationist brainwashing end? When will we no longer see brainwashed children? When will America be sane?
February 9th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
You atheists like to joke about how we christians cover our eyes and ears when presented evidence of evolution. Just what evidence is there exactly?
February 9th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
The popular media often portrays the creation vs. evolution debate as science vs. religion, with creation being religious and evolution being scientific. Unfortunately, if you don’t agree with this label, you too are labeled. Regardless of whether you’re a creationist or an evolutionist, if you disagree with the stereotype, you’re condemned and “exposed” as a religious fanatic who is secretly trying to pass religion off as science or, even worse, trying to disprove science in order to redeem a ridiculous, unscientific, religious worldview. The fact is neither model of origins has been established beyond a reasonable doubt (otherwise, the theory of evolution wouldn’t be called the “theory” of evolution). Whether we like to admit it or not, those of us who subscribe to the theory of evolution do so by faith. And while the recognition of design in biology may have theological implications, it is not based upon religious premise – it’s based upon empirical observation and logic.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
BURN!!!
February 10th, 2011 at 12:02 am
DFGH:
Thank you for proving your first sentence with your second!
It is both a fact and a theory. The fact is that evolution occurred. All of the data backs that up. The theory of evolution is the model that scientists have developed that best explains the data. The theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution.
Faith is not needed. We have facts. We have data. We have observations. Reality is on our side.
Of course it is. That premise is the a priori requirement of intelligent design creationism. It’s religion by definition. It’s also not how you do science. You don’t come to a conclusion first and then figure out how you’re going to make the data fit.
No it’s not. At least not yet. ID creationists have yet to publish anything in peer-reviewed journals that support a designer as a credible explanation.
KAOPECTATE!!!
Boy, that was fun! I can spout off non-sequiturs too!
If you find that’s an ongoing problem, you may actually be suffering from Tourette’s syndrome. Please seek treatment.
February 10th, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Sigh. I know this is pointless, but I feel like listening to myself type tonight, so…
dfgh, you ask what evidence there is exactly for evolution. Is there some biological evidence that we have that points to evolution? No. Is it a lot of biological evidence that we have that points to evolution? No. Is it most of the evidence that we have that points to evolution? No.
In fact, every single bit of evidence that we have about biology points to evolution. Every. Single. Bit. Not most — all.
Do you know how many pieces of evidence it would take to disprove evolution? Evidence. Not questions, not doubts, not conjecture or guesses, not claims easily debunked, not gaps of knowledge, but evidence. Evidence that disproves evolution. A million pieces? Ten million, 100 million? No. Just one. One. Find one piece of evidence that disproves evolution and you will throw the whole of biology – of all of science, in fact — into disarray. Just one little bit.
And yet no one has been able to do so. Because evolution is real.
February 11th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Uh-oh! Looks like someone forgot to take their medicine. Just lay down dfgh, while I call security…
February 12th, 2011 at 7:57 am
Methinks the creationists are sore losermen. They have nothing, and they are whining and crying about it. They have built their entire belief system around one book, and either they are A) in total denial that the very foundation of their faith isn’t true or B) they can’t make the facts fit neatly with their conclusions. So instead of saying even “ok, maybe the Bible was off a bit (or a lot) in this area” they scream and cry like a three year old who didn’t get a toy in the check out line of the grocery store.
Otherwise, teh fundies have been PWND and they know it.
February 14th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
The Theory of Evolution is as easily defended as the Theory of Internet Trolling is exhibited.
March 12th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Hi,
This creationist stuff makes me embarrassed to be human. I am considering de- volving.
I know we need to counter creationism, but isn’t there a danger in engaging in debate with these people that we give them a credibility that they don’t deserve?
Would it be unreasonable to end the debate and encourage science to stand up more boldly and denounce this idiocy for what it is?
I’m sure I don’t know what’s best to do.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
Nigel:
Yes, scientists should be bolder and denounce creationism more vigorously.
As far as the debate goes, I assume you are referring the the incident above with DFGH. The “debate”, such as it was, is not for his benefit. There are actually a lot of people out there who are either questioning the creationist line they’ve been fed, or they’re inclined to believe the science, but they’ve been confused by all of the creationist lies. Debunking the claims of creationist trolls who drop by here is to show those who are confused that there is no substance to the creationist claims.
March 14th, 2011 at 5:46 am
I think there are quite a few who do. But most just don’t have a platform by which to make any appreciable amount of noise. And they’re too busy doing actual science.
But it doesn’t matter because the harmonious middle road loving media fawns the most over those that find a way to explain the soul with quantum physics (or whatever) no matter how much it doesn’t make sense.
There was once a time when the media loved Carl Sagan, who was unabashedly atheist/agnostic, yet still warm and fuzzy. He was one in a million…
March 14th, 2011 at 6:41 am
There were a few guys in the mid-to-late seventies, at the tail end of the counter-culture, who began to propose an interface between contemporary physics and Asian metaphysics – Gary Zukav, Fritjof Capra, Itzhak Bentov. Yes, they’ve been criticized for drawing unwarranted conclusions, but they were just beginning to explore and it was all very preliminary. I think they might have been on to something, but, unfortunately, people like Deepak Chopra came along soon afterward and made the whole thing seem ridiculous. They just dragged it all down and incorporated it into the lunacy that is the New Age subculture. No one in that arena has had any credibility since.
March 15th, 2011 at 5:46 am
I wikipedia’d those guys and I’m finding it very difficult to see any difference between them and Chopra.
The thought that any ancient philosophy has some deep insights into the nature of the universe is appealing to think about, but how is it any different from a resurrected leader of sheep herders being the savior of the universe from invisible evil?
March 15th, 2011 at 10:10 am
The difference is that they were genuinely trying to understand reality using a new/old paradigm whereas Chopra is just trying to make a buck (although I’m sure he believes his own bullshit by now).
Bentov, in particular, was an interesting guy. He lived here in the Boston area, in Wayland, next to Framingham, where I grew up, although I never met him. He was actually one of the seminal figures in the physics/Asian philosophy/matter and consciousness genre, but he died very early on, in a big air crash at O’Hare in the late seventies. The interesting thing about him was that whereas Capra and Zukav drew upon Chinese philosophy, Bentov’s model was Indian metaphysics. If he had lived, I think the genre might have taken a different turn and might be more respectable today.