That’s easy! It’s Anti-Science!

We’re surrounded by it. It’s everywhere! Just look. Here’s a bunch right here!

It obviously makes up the majority of the matter in the United States alone; therefore (and I’m extrapolating here), it must make up the majority of the matter in the rest of the universe.

Mystery solved.

For my next miracle, I will explain why so many women and minorities vote Republican.

OK, on second thought, maybe I can’t explain that one.

On the anti-science front, there was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday about the quandary the Republican presidential hopefuls are in when they come out here to Silicon Valley:

But the Republican candidates’ views on climate change are being met with the most raised eyebrows in Silicon Valley, the mecca of political fundraising, tech innovation and venture capital dollars.
…
“In a valley of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, the science behind climate change is overwhelmingly accepted,” said Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents more than 325 of the region’s top companies.

That will hurt them a bit financially, but I suspect there is more than enough stupid money in the rest of the country to make up for it.

Fortunately, their irrational beliefs will also make it harder for almost any of these Republican to carry the state in 2012.

There is little doubt about climate change among likely California voters, 61 percent of whom believe that the effects of global warming have already begun, according to a July survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

It also might work against them, to some extent, in the rest of the country.

Nationally, 55 percent of Americans believe that global warming is a “serious personal threat,” according to a Gallup survey in August.

Here’s where it gets good:

The bad news for Republican presidential candidates: The Public Policy Institute survey found that 62 percent of independent voters, who are the swing voters in the state, believe that, too.

Of course, they always have the idiot core:

Thirty-two percent of California Republicans believe that the effects of global warming “will never happen,” the poll also found.

That’s just not enough to carry the state. If things were settled purely rationally (the way they ought to be!), the election would already be over in California. Just hand over those 55 electoral votes to Barack Obama!

In reality, since Obama is a thoroughly incompetent president, he’ll probably manage to hand over those 55 electoral votes to the Republicans.

An example of this is best illustrated by this tweet from God regarding the recent earthquake on the East Coast:

There was just a 5.8 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 5.8, so he compromised.

But let’s get back to the Chronicle article:

Only one major Republican candidate has dared to challenge his party on these views. Last month, Jon Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China and Utah governor, tweeted: “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

He is crazy. By Republican standards.

He has other problems, so I could never support Huntsman, but I still wish he’d be the Republican’s pick. Actually, I really wish they’d pick Michelle Bachmann. She’s so crazy that she probably couldn’t win the general election.

Since the Republicans will probably nominate someone else, My hope is for Huntsman. If they pick a “moderate” (by Republican standards), whoever that is will probably win. I’d rather we have a pro-science Republican in the White House than an anti-science Republican. All of the other GOP candidates are anti-science.

In addition to climate-change denial, all of the other candidates also deny evolution. The Chronicle article briefly touches on those views too.

Rick Perry has described himself as “a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect…”

OK, I can understand it being a matter of faith. But intellect?

…and has called evolution “a theory” with “some gaps in it.”

I think it’s his brain that has some gaps in it.

Mitt Romney appears to be taking a nuanced position. “I believe God is intelligent, and I believe he designed the creation,” he said.

He’s not taking a nuanced approach. That’s exactly what the Intelligent Design creationists are saying.

“And I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body.”

This actually shows that not only does Romney not understand evolution, he doesn’t understand Intelligent Design creationism! According to Michael Behe and the other pushers of this drug, evolution alone isn’t capable of creating us. God had to step in at critical points during our evolution and poof us to the next stage.

Michele Bachmann…

Who let the crazy woman in here? How did she get out of bed this morning? Didn’t anybody check her straps?

…has claimed that “hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes,” believe in intelligent design, as she does.

If by “hundreds and hundreds” she means “one or two” and by “many of them holding Nobel Prizes” she means “none of them”, then she’s absolutely correct!

But she said government shouldn’t take sides in scientific debates “when there is reasonable doubt on both sides.”

She’s right. Some scientists look at her brain scans and claim to see activity. Other scientists only see a wet gray sponge. The government shouldn’t take sides in that debate until we can cut her open and check. Evidence! We need more evidence, people!

Ron Paul said he does not accept the theory of evolution. “The creator that I know created us, each and every one of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner,” Paul has said, although he has also said there is no “absolute proof on either side.”

Science doesn’t work on absolute proof. It works on data. In the case of evolution, “absolute” refers to the absolute mountain of data we have supporting it. Where is any data supporting his claim?

Newt Gingrich…

Newt Gingrich!? Is that guy still around?

…has said, “I believe that creation as an act of faith is true, and I believe that science as a mechanical process is true.… Both can be true.”

What does that even mean? The universe had two origins? A created origin and a mechanical origin? When we finally look, the act of observing will make the entire universe collapse!

He says both should be taught in schools, evolution as a science and intelligent design “as a philosophy.”

ID creationism isn’t philosophy. It isn’t the intellectual equivalent of Plato or Kant. Just try to justify teaching creationism in the schools, Newt! You’ll discover you Kant.

Jon Huntsman is the only candidate in the GOP ranks who has taken a strong position in support of evolution, recently tweeting, “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

Rick Santorum, who calls himself a fierce believer in creationism, jabbed back at Huntsman, saying, “I believe in Genesis 1:1 – God created the heavens and the earth. I don’t know exactly how God did it or exactly how long it took him, but I do know that he did it.”

And I do know that the Republicans are hell-bent on destroying science and science education. Lose your house in the Republican-caused Great Recession? Don’t worry! Just vote Republican a few more times, and we’ll all be living in nice warm caves again! Then we’ll be arguing over “teaching the controversy” and the “strengths and weaknesses” of the theory of fire.

[Here is the next installment of my experience at the Darwin Was Wrong lie-fest put on by Logos Research Associates. You can start from the beginning of this story in Part 1, or you can jump to the first speaker in Part 4. You can also watch the videos of this conference at the Logos website (not recommended for the sane).]

The first talk of the morning was given by Marcus Ross, and it was titled “Darwin Was Wrong about the Fossil Record”. Here is how Logos describes this talk:

In Origin, Darwin admitted that the fossil evidence contradicted his theory, but he hoped future discoveries would come to his rescue. Now, 150 years later, the problem of missing intermediates is even more glaring.

Who is this guy? It turns out we’ve met him before. This is the guy who made headlines in 2007 for lying in order to get a PhD (See brief BoF article here. See longer, better Larry Moran article here.).

Ross is a young-Earth creationist. He believes the Earth is 6000 to 10,000 years old, yet he wrote his PhD thesis as if he actually understood the true age of the Earth (4.5 billion years).

He does not understand geology at all. If he did, he would know the true age of the Earth. Therefore, he has failed geology and did not deserve the degree. University of Rhode Island was too cowardly to stand up for academic integrity and gave him the degree so he’d go away quietly and not make trouble. They have devalued their graduate program, and they have disrespected everybody who has ever earned a degree there.

University of Rhode Island is an academic whore.

Marcus Ross is an academic fraud. And a john. He paid URI money for the empty pleasure of a cheap degree, and he infected URI with the venereal disease of creationism.

Now that we know who we’re dealing with, let’s look at what he had to say.

He told us that he would cover three main topics:

1. The use of fossils in geology
2. Looking back: Darwin’s views on the fossil record
3. Our present understanding

The Use Of Fossils In Geology

He said fossils are used for four purposes:

• Organismal reconstruction
• Environmental reconstruction
• Correlation/Biostratigraphy
• Reconstruction of evolutionary lineages

Prior to Origin of Species, fossils had only been used for the first three functions. Once Origin appeared, all the God-hating atheists out there realized they could put together a fake natural history based on the fossils, thereby “proving” that God doesn’t exist.

He didn’t phrase it the way I’ve described it, but it’s clear that this is what he means. He told us how all of the strata containing all of these fossils were laid down during Noah’s Flood. All these freakish-looking prehistoric critters were just wandering around the world minding their own business, and the next thing you know — FLUSH! — a giant flood wipes them all out. Apparently velociraptors, triceratops, and tyrannosaurs were not on Noah’s list of “clean animals” or on his list of “everything else”.

According to Ross and some of the other speakers at this event, atheistic evilutionists just draw lines connecting similar-looking fossils and claim that X must have evolved into Y, because they look similar, and X was in a lower strata than Y. Yet according to Ross and friends, all of these critters existed in that brief 2000-year pre-flood period.

Maybe he explained it and I missed it, but I don’t understand how Ross rationalizes these two issues:

1. Why are certain critters only associated with certain strata? This is true no matter where in the world they are found. Ross freely admitted these associations.
2. Why are the simpler critters (what we would call less evolved or an earlier species in a given evolutionary line) always in strata below the more complex critters (what we would call a later species in the same evolutionary line)?

Steve Austin presented diagrams purporting to show how dozens of layers (totaling hundreds of feet) of the Grand Canyon were deposited in a few hours. If everybody is intermingling and walking around at the same time, how do they sort out so nicely when the Flood comes?

He did show a diagram showing some of the geological eras:

• Cenozoic
• Mesozoic
• Paleozoic
• Proterozoic

He claims those middle two (Mesozoic and Paleozoic) happened during the Flood. My questions above would apply to those eras. There aren’t many fossils from the Proterozoic, but what about the gobs of fossils from the Cenozoic? If all of that is post-Flood, where did they come from? According to Ross’ timeline, all of those fossils would have to be from the last 4000 years. So nobody noticed the giraffe camels or bone-crushing dogs or elephant-sized ground sloths wandering around? Nobody thought they were the slightest bit strange and bothered to write about them?

Looking Back: Darwin’s Views On The Fossil Record

The next main point of his talk was what Darwin said about fossils. Darwin was concerned about the fossil record, so he devoted two chapters in Origin to it.

Ross then did some Darwin quote-mining.

We need a Godwin’s Law for Darwin quote-mining. Godwin’s Law itself is:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

However, the corollary is more appropriate here. Wikipedia describes it:

[T]here is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically “lost” whatever debate was in progress.

Our new Creatard’s Law could be:

Any creationist quote-mining Darwin has automatically lost the argument.

Our Present Understanding

This was Ross’ final topic of his presentation. He gloated about gaps in the fossil record. Then he started talking about “baramins” and all of the different horse “kinds”. He said that all of the modern horse variants (zebra, donkey, quagga, zedonk, zorse, etc.) descended from that first created “kind” that Noah had on the Ark.

Here’s a question for all of the creationists out there. You people claim there are no transitional fossils. You people claim that any fossil that looks transitional is actually just a diseased specimen of a known species.

So how do you know that all of these different horse kinds descended from Noah’s horse? By your own definition, you have no transitional fossils to support your claim.

The only “horse kind” creationists can produce is the ass.

[And now, exactly one month since the last episode, here is the next installment of my experience at the Darwin Was Wrong lie-fest put on by Logos Research Associates. I’m writing this at 1:30 AM, so I’ll only cover the praying and singing that preceded the first talk of the day. Tonight, I hope to write up a description of the talk itself.

If you’ve come in late, you can start from the beginning of this story in Part 1, or you can jump to the first speaker in Part 4. You can also watch the videos of this conference at the Logos website (not recommended for the sane).]

I arrived at the church just five minutes late, but they’ve already started the program! Some guy was on stage saying something. Wait! Don’t start praying without me! I hurried to my seat. Made it! You can start praying now.

And they did.

After the prayer, the guy talked about how this was an historic event. Really? That you’ve got a church full of people praying and singing about Jesus and denying evolution?

Pathetic? Yes. Historic? No.

I looked around the church. It was sparsely attended this morning. Only about 25% of the seats were filled. Even the faithful don’t want to be at church at 8:30 on a Saturday morning.

The preacher guy left the stage. Hallelujah! The Jesus singers came out. Oh, crap! They started by singing “I’ll Fly Away”. That’s actually a good song, when it’s done right. They didn’t do it right.

Next, they asked everybody to stand for the performance of “Amazing Grace”. What is it with religious people and that song? I took this opportunity to run to the restroom. I got inside, and…

Oh, lord! They pipe the audio from the stage into the restroom! I can’t even get away from it in here! I discovered, however, that it acts as an excellent stimulant. Who needs Ex Lax?

By the time I got back to my seat, they were on to the next song. I scanned the auditorium and noticed some small kids sitting a few rows away. They were maybe 5 or 6 years old. Most of the lies that would be said that day would go over their heads. The lifetime of indoctrination won’t.

I looked at the video screens and noticed that they put the words to the song up there, so the congregation can sing along. Who needs hymn books? This is the 21st Century. We’ve got Jesus karaoke! The only thing missing is a bunch of drunk Japanese businessmen. Our congregation has them beat. We’re drunk on the Lord! (And not in a Catholic booze-and-crackers way.)

Did I just say “our congregation”? Oh no! The assimilation has begun! By the end of the day, I’ll be completely absorbed!

As I said above, “I’ll Fly Away” is a good song when it is done right. Behold the right doing:

However, the last two comments made me decide to run this as is. The article only addresses those comments peripherally, but it contemplates the broader issue arising from them.]

The 127th Skeptics’ Circle has arrived at Unibrow One Brow. Go check it out.

One of the articles there has dredged up one of the ongoing dilemmas of this blog. The article is “The Trouble With Skeptics” by James Cole over at Stuff and Nonsense. The article consists of his comments on the 10 “skeptic fails” twittered by Daniel Loxton of Junior Skeptic magazine.

I especially liked fails 8 and 9:

Skeptic Fail 8: Thinking your skepticism makes you immune to error; it should make you more aware of your own fallibility.

Skeptic Fail 9: Assuming that your fellow skeptic is (or ought to be) an atheist.

The one that bothers me the most is #5:

Skeptic Fail 5: Using ad hominems. Ad hominems are as ugly and offputting coming from us as from anyone else.

First of all, a lot of people don’t really know what an ad hominem is. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:

An ad hominem argument… is an argument which links the validity of a premise to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.

It takes the following form:

Person 1 makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Person 1
Therefore claim X is false

As you can see, that is a fallacious argument. It is also something I have never done.

However, I have been accused of making them. Just look at that last article, where I call Ray Comfort retarded. Wikipedia tells us about common misconceptions:

Gratuitous verbal abuse or “name-calling” itself is not an argumentum ad hominem or a logical fallacy. The fallacy only occurs if personal attacks are employed instead of an argument to devalue an argument by attacking the speaker….

I called Ray Comfort retarded, because he thinks that evolutionists contend that a male animal evolves into a new species and then has to sit around and wait for a female animal to evolve into this same new species. No scientists contend this. It has been explained to him numerous times, yet his tiny brain is unable to comprehend it. Ergo, he is retarded.

OK. That leads to fail #10:

Skeptic Fail 10: Thinking that disrespect and mockery are ever effective outreach. At best, superiority entertains the base.

I know I’m not convincing anybody out there. I gave up on that belief long ago. Really, the only thing this blog does is “entertain the base”, if it even does that.

I wonder if I’m doing more harm than good.

I do this blog, because I would have stepped in front of a speeding train long ago if I had to keep all this frustration bottled up.

Look at “Climategate”. The fact of global warming hasn’t changed, but now we have a bunch of retards who have discovered that they were actually called “retards” by some scientists.

Somehow, in their retarded brains, they think this is proof that global warming isn’t real. I know, they’re “really” claiming it’s because they see words like “trick” in the emails. Actually, though, they’re just pissed off about the venomous rhetoric. It must be very painful to go through life not knowing that you’re the village idiot and that everybody is laughing at you, and then to one day gain that realization all at once. They’re reacting the only way they know how: By retreating into the comfortable beliefs that they know so well.

Likewise with the creationists who come across this site. I’m just making them stronger. OK, well those people were unreachable anyway. But what about the fence-sitters? I’m sure I’m turning 100% of them to the other side. Who wants to be on the team with the smug elitists who think they know everything?

We don’t know everything, of course. In fact, we know very little. But we do know a few things with virtual certainty: The age of the Earth, that life evolved and approximately how it did so, etc.

So should I cut the justified insults? Do they really accomplish anything?

I took a break from recounting the horrors of the Darwin Was Wrong conference, so I could fit in the Christmas-related posts. As soon as I get a reasonable amount of time (in a day or two), I will resume the tale.

It was worth the diversion. The Atomic Toy article got Stumbled-Upon, and I received my second-highest one-day traffic of all time! (About 8000 hits. The highest was about 14,000 hits way back in 2007 for the AIG Research Paper Winner.)

I know you’re going through creationism-conference withdrawal, so head on over to Robert Madewell’s blog. He also went to a creationism conference and lived to tell about it.

In his first article, he gives a brief recap. His second article is an open letter to the pastor of the sponsoring church. That goes into the most detail of what he heard there. Robert’s experience is fundamentally (ha!) different from mine.

I throw around the term “liar” and “lying” rather loosely in my descriptions of the conference I visited. Many of the statements that all of the speakers made were falsehoods. In most cases, the speakers were lying to themselves as much as they were lying to the audience.

The speakers at Darwin Was Wrong largely misunderstood the science they were presenting to the audience. They were mostly saying things such as:

Atheist scientists say that the Earth is billions of years old, but it isn’t, because their radiometric dating is incorrect.

Or:

Darwinists claim that humans evolved from apes, but there are no transitional fossils. Every fossil that they claim is transitional is just a diseased ape.

They are giving a quasi-accurate description of current scientific consensus, and then explaining why they disagree with it.

In Robert’s case, the speaker was (apparently) intentionally misrepresenting the current scientific consensus. He was building straw-man arguments, because they were so much easier to refute than the actual scientific beliefs.

Robert is a little more charitable than I am in this assessment. Robert says:

I am horrified that Dr. Harrub could so blatantly misrepresent science. I can’t say whether it was out of dishonesty or negligence. Doesn’t matter. A man with his credentials should research his claims about his opposition’s claims, before writing a presentation based on them. I think anyone is obligated to do that.

Here is just one example that Robert mentions:

In the lecture The Dinosaur Dilemma, Dr. Harrub claims that a fossil skeleton of a mammal was found that has parts of a dinosaur in its stomach. He then claims that this fossil contradicts the theory of evolution, because science claims that dinosaurs preceded mammals and that these two classes of animals did not co-exist.

Scientists do not claim that dinosaurs and mammals did not coexist. This is something that Dr. Harrub should have known if he had done the barest research beforehand.

Robert says he counted at least ten incidents like this. I say that a pattern of recklessly-false statements about the opponent’s position indicates intentional deception by the speaker.

In my encounters with creationists, I find that most of the ones who try a scholarly approach to refuting evolution use the approach of the speakers at Darwin Was Wrong. They present the scientific side as best they understand it, and then wave their arms around and pretend all of those facts don’t matter.

Only a minority take the approach of Dr. Harrub at the event Robert went to, whereby they make false statements about the scientific side, in order to more easily shoot it down.

Of this latter group, I think very few of them are actually like Dr. Harrub, who is educated enough to know better. This is the true liar of the anti-evolutionists.

The bulk of the people who mis-state the scientific side are simpletons like Ray Comfort. He is an uneducated rube with no intellectual capacity. He can be forgiven for being retarded.

[This is the latest installment of my experience at the Darwin Was Wrong lie-fest put on by Logos Research Associates. You can start from the beginning of this story in Part 1, or you can jump to the first speaker in Part 4. You can watch the videos of this conference at the Logos website (not recommended for the sane).]

Intermission!

At this point, they gave us a ten-minute break. I felt something hitting my shoulder. I looked, and discovered that chunks of my brain were falling out.

The Jesus singers came back out to torture us some more. I was willing to confess to plotting 9/11 just to make them stop.

I headed out to the lobby. Maybe the sulfurous stench of a public restroom would cauterize my neurons and make the agony stop.

I discovered a long line for the restroom. Big church. Small restroom. Not a very intelligent design.

Eventually, I made my way back to my seat. Intermission was over, so they were calling everyone back.

And then more Jesus music! Oh no. They want everyone to stand for the chorus! I looked around. Everybody stood up. Hell no! I’m not going to stand up for a song. They can pray around me all they want, but they can’t make me participate in their ritual. I’m here to observe. I’m not here to praise their God.

I stayed in my seat as the rest of the congregation stood and sang. I think I’m blowing my cover.

Steve Austin: Darwin Was Wrong about Geology

Here’s how Logos describes this talk:

Darwin was profoundly wrong about the origin of the Santa Cruz River Valley and the geologic record in general. His speculations of slow and gradual biological change were based on the false idea of slow and gradual geologic change.

I wasn’t able to dig up any information about Steve Austin on Wikipedia or Conservapedia, but I did manage to find his bio over at Creation Wiki. He is abusing three legitimate degrees from three legitimate schools: University of Washington (BS), San Jose State University (MS), and Pennsylvania State University (PhD). You’d think that with all of that real education, a real fact or two would manage to sneak into his brain.

You’d be wrong.

Austin stepped onto the stage. By way of introduction, he bragged about how he has a video on YouTube with 32,000 hits! He seemed to think that was a lot. Sorry, Steve. Get back to me when you have a video people actually want to look at. For example, here’s a cat in a bathtub, and it has more than 4.6 million hits.

I don’t want to see Austin’s crappy 32K YouTube video. That’s right, I’m only interested in a moist pussy. (Oh, shut up! I had to say it!)

Austin told us these would be his main points:

1. Darwin was a geologist
2. Darwin saw world-class geologic features
3. Darwin rejected catastrophism
4. Catastrophism prevails in the 21st century in spite of Darwin

Darwin Was a Geologist

Darwin himself said he was a geologist. I guess Austin is trying to show that Darwin was qualified to make the correct interpretations of what he saw, yet he didn’t. This is something Austin knows well. Steve Austin has three degrees in geology, yet he can’t make one correct interpretation!

Darwin Saw World-Class Geologic Features

Austin then said something about boulders and the Santa Cruz River Valley in Argentina. Darwin thought the boulders were deposited there by ice. Austin thinks there was a glacier dam that broke and carried the boulders down the river and dropped them on the beach. This guy sure loves his floods.

Darwin Rejected Catastrophism

Whatever he said here was so dull I mercifully omitted it from my notes.

Catastrophism Prevails in the 21st Century in Spite of Darwin

This is the argumentum ad populum (appeal to the majority) fallacy. Just because there are millions of ignorant fools out there who still believe in the flood myth doesn’t make it any less false.

Austin tried to tell us that Mount St. Helens “proves” that you can get lots of strata in just a few hours. He also tried to claim that the Grand Canyon was farted out of God’s anus after eating an especially large bean burrito. (Actually, all my notes say on this topic is “100 feet of strata in the Grand Canyon can be explained by one catastrophic event.” I’m guessing that he’s referring to the Divine Hershey Squirts in this case. It’s documented somewhere in one of the Gnostic Gospels. You can look it up!)

Austin then burned off the rest of his time by showing his wildly-(un)popular YouTube video. Hey, Steve! Show us something else! Can you get PornoTube on that thing?

That pretty much wrapped it up for Stone Cold Wrong Steve Austin. I did find it amusing that by claiming Mount St. Helens “proves” catastrophism, Austin did the very thing that the prior speaker, Thomas McMullen, warned against: Looking at a current event and extrapolating it back into the past. This is typical of creationists. They grasp at so many straws to prop up their fantasies that they end up contradicting themselves every time they open their mouths.

But Wait! We Can’t Leave Without Thanking God!

Steve Austin left the stage, and that was the end of the scheduled program for this evening. I was eager to run out of there before any more of my brain ended up on the floor. But then the MC came out and led the congregation in a prayer!

I don’t remember what he said. It was either mercifully short, or the language lobe of my brain was already rolling down the sloped floor toward the front of the room.

Somehow I managed to stagger out of there, call a cab, and get back to the hotel. Somehow I would need to find the strength to get up early the next morning and come back here for the next day’s session. And it wasn’t going to be a merciful half-day like today. It was going to last all day. But could I?

[Next: I have to get up early? To go to church?! What the hell was I thinking?!]

[This is the latest installment of my experience at the Darwin Was Wrong lie-fest put on by Logos Research Associates. You can start from the beginning of this story in Part 1, or you can jump to the first speaker in Part 4. You can watch the videos of this conference at the Logos website (not recommended for the sane).]

E. Thomas McMullen: Darwin Was Wrong about Science

Here’s how Logos describes this talk:

Darwin used creative speculation and unbounded extrapolation in place of scientific method. Darwin’s approach was the antithesis of good science.

This statement brought to you by the young-Earth creationists. The experts on good science!

Who is this McMullen guy? It’s hard to say, really. He’s so inconsequential that he doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry. He doesn’t even have a Conservapedia entry.

We do find something about him at ChristianAnswers.net. It tells us he has legitimate degrees from Washington State University, United States Air Force Air War College, Southern Methodist University, and Indiana University.

I couldn’t find much else. His name appears on a few creationist websites, but I didn’t see anything noteworthy one way or another. Let’s take a look at what he said that night at the conference.

McMullen started by telling us that there were four problems with Darwin’s science:

1. He was ideologically driven
2. He used heroic extrapolation
3. He used unbridled speculation
4. Science is limited in explaining past events

This guy was a dull and incompetent public speaker. He read from his pre-written script throughout his presentation. He hadn’t even practiced it much, because he frequently stumbled over common words. I’m guessing he hacked out his entire talk in one evening a couple of months ago and hadn’t looked at it since. If his talk managed to convert anybody, it wasn’t through his eloquence.

Skipping his lack of dynamism, let’s turn our attention just to what he had to say.

Darwin was Ideologically Driven

There are two sides to doing science, he told us: Theoretical (formulating testable ideas) and Descriptive (observing and studying nature).

McMullen made very sure to tell us that Darwin was not a scientist. He had a university degree, but not in any of the sciences. He was lucky to get the gig on the Beagle, since he was only an amateur naturalist. McMullen seemed to want us to really understand this point. Not a scientist. Just an amateur.

While on the Beagle, Darwin made tons of observations. This is that Descriptive science McMullen was telling us about. McMullen didn’t seem to have much of a problem with this part of Darwin’s work (except him being an “amateur”, of course).

McMullen made a big deal of Darwin believing in Charles Lyell’s Uniformitarianism.

Geology is outside my area of expertise. The last time I came near it was a geology class I took in high school. We took a great field trip along the Hayward Fault, looking at the damage that the constant slippage was doing to buildings and overpasses and other stuff. It was cool. I also got to watch one of my classmates eat raw meat! That was very cool.

So if you ask me today what I know of geology, I’ll tell you these things:

• There are three types of rock: Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.
• You can hide earthquake damage long enough to sell your house, if you let ivy grow over the cracks.
• Watching a kid eat a raw hamburger is really cool!

I’ll have to let you read the Wikipedia article on Uniformitarianism and figure it out on your own. This seems to be the take-home message:

Thus the current scientific consensus is that Earth’s history is a slow, gradual process punctuated by occasional natural catastrophic events that have affected Earth and its inhabitants.

I get the impression that in Darwin and Lyell’s day, Uniformitarianism didn’t include the occasional catastrophic events; it was all about the slowness. You can see how this would be a problem for McMullen. Slow doesn’t work if you’re a young-Earth creationist. YECs require catastrophism, specifically one catastrophe 4000 years ago: Noah’s flood.

Therefore, the sub-topic we’re discussing here, “ideologically driven”, is indeed an accurate description of this talk, just not in the way that McMullen intended.

BTW, folks… I really shouldn’t say this next thing, because it will look like an ad hominem argument. I’m not using it that way. It has nothing to do with the validity of what McMullen is saying. My notes are incomplete in a couple of places, so I just watched the video to refresh my memory. Anyway, here it is: Remember when you were learning how to read in grade school and there was that slow kid in the class? You remember him.

He…

read…

out…

loud…

like…

this.

Listening to McMullen read his presentation is like listening to the slow kid in second grade read Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure. Go watch the video and tell me I’m wrong. The slow kid had an excuse. McMullen doesn’t. He’s smart and has several advanced degrees. He just needs to work on his presentation a bit, so people can focus on his message and not his delivery.

Getting back to McMullen’s message, which is what we’re interested in, one of the things that he said during this part of the talk was that Darwin had a hidden agenda. The Origin of Species “is a slow and materialistic side-attack on Christianity and the Bible”.

McMullen reminded us of the two sides of science: Theoretical and Descriptive. He told us that the theory you come up with has to be tested, and…

…that is where Darwinism falls short.… The best test of a theory is a test capable of proving it wrong.… A good theory is one capable of being falsified.

Throughout his talk, I had noticed that the woman sitting directly in front of me had been nodding her head after each of McMullen’s points. As he was saying this latest bit, I saw her head bouncing so much I thought she was a Christian bobble-head doll.

Anyway, McMullen seems to think that the theory of evolution is not falsifiable. That is simply not true. Evolution makes many predictions. Every time we sequence another species’ DNA or discover a new fossil or classify a new species, evolution is tested. The new data always fits (with minor adjustments, but that’s what science is all about). Evolution is tested every day in science, and it always passes.

Anyway, the guy droned on a bit longer about Darwin being ideologically driven. Throughout his talk, he frequently quote-mined Darwin. That’s how you know you’re dealing with a genuine creationist. Look for the quote-mining seal of approval! Accept no substitutes!

Darwin Used Heroic Extrapolation

McMullen finally came to his second point. By “heroic extrapolation”, he means that Darwin extrapolated into the past, beyond where he had data. McMullen used “living fossils” to “prove” this. His argument went like this:

• Some species didn’t change much over long periods of time (e.g., the horseshoe crab).
• Therefore, large change does not happen over long periods of time.
• Ipso facto, Darwin sucks, evolution is disproven, Christianity forever! WOOHOO!

Except, of course, McMullen is incapable of that much excitement.

There is more quote mining, though! Bobble-head lady is bouncing some more.

Darwin Used Unbridled Speculation (i.e., “story-telling”)

McMullen now told us that descent from a common ancestor is one example of this story telling. He claimed there was no proof. At this point, he quote mined Stephen Jay Gould. Britton’s Law! WOOT!! I called it! Eat my shorts, creationist! You’re so freakin’ predictable!

When he finished quote mining Gould, he went back to quote mining Darwin about the eye! Yes, the eye! That one has been debunked a million times before. That doesn’t matter, though. Mrs. Bobble-Head in front of me was bouncing so hard by this point her spring was about to snap.

Science is Limited in Explaining Past Events

McMullen told us that science can’t do history well. He then completely made up a straw man about how scientists would study a Civl War battlefield. He tried telling us that because scientists are unable to tell us the narrative of a battle (i.e., the exact sequence of events), that somehow proves that scientists can’t prove the theory of evolution.

He kept telling us that “scientists don’t do history well” and “They would need a time machine”, which “they don’t have”.

Ahh, but “WE” (meaning him and his YEC cronies) “have the history documented in the Bible.… This is our time machine.”

Well, thank dog for that. I was afraid you’d actually have to do some research and collect data and formulate a hypothesis and test it and collect more data and refine your hypothesis or falsify it and develop and test a new hypothesis.

Instead, you can just sit on your thumbs and sanctimoniously act like you know everything.

[Next: Six Million Dollar Lies]

[This is the latest installment of my experience at the Darwin Was Wrong lie-fest put on by Logos Research Associates and held at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (which is actually in Santa Ana—they can’t even get their own location right!). You can start from the beginning of this story in Part 1, or you can jump to the first speaker in Part 4. If you’re filled with self-loathing, you can punish yourself by watching the videos of this conference at the Logos website.

Yes, this whole story will be relayed over many installments. The reason I went was to study these people in their native habitat. My findings need to be documented in depth.]

I see that Logos just updated their website today. They added a two-sentence synopsis of each person’s talk. Here’s how they describe Baumgardner’s:

Arguably, Charles Darwin advanced the cause of atheism more than anyone in history. Ironically, even as the world celebrates the “Year of Darwin”, science is debunking every aspect of Darwin’s hypothesis.

If you’re going to lie, lie big! “[S]cience is debunking every aspect of Darwin’s hypothesis[!]”

That’s what’s great about living in a fantasy world. You can wave your hands and all of your problems go away. Evolution: *Poof!* It’s gone. Atheists: *Poof!* They’re gone. The Establishment Clause: *Poof!* It’s gone.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, evolution is stronger than ever, there are more atheists than ever, and the Separation Clause… Umm… It’s actually looking a little faint. Damn!! Their magic really does work! Quick! Somebody nominate some Supreme Court justices!

Biggles! Put Her in the Comfy Chair!

As Baumgarder was finishing his talk, I glanced around the church. I have to say that this place is actually pretty nice. It has a spacious, wide-open feel to it. It’s a nice wide building with nice wide aisles and nice wide seats for all the nice wide people (They were no fatter than typical Americans, but no thinner either.). The plush theater-style seats and the carpeting on the floor absorb sound, so there isn’t any of that echoey sound you get in old-style churches. I wish we had seats like this in my old church. My recollection was that we had hard, wooden pews. If we’d had cush seats like this back when I was going to church… well I still would have hated going to church, but it would have at least been a little less uncomfortable.

In fact, these seats they have here are so plush that it would be very easy to get too comfortable. And then, the next thing you know…

Wait! That’s not me! I turned around. The guy sitting two rows behind was slouched back in his seat, head tilted back, and snoring softly.

I guess I won’t have to ask him for his opinion when this is all over.

Short Break Between Speakers

Baumgardner finished his indoctrination of the crowd, then left the stage. I’ve already survived a third of tonight’s program! Woohoo! I might be able to get through the whole ordeal. Just as long as I don’t have to hear those God-awful* singers ag—

Oh, Jesus Freakin’ Christ! The singers are back!

Apparently I can look forward to hearing them between each of the featured speakers. I might not be able to make it after all.

*(And just how awful is something that can be described as “God-awful”? Well, just read the Old Testament!)

I tried to tune out the singers as best I could, and I continued to look around the church. Demographically, I saw a somewhat diverse group. There were lots of white folks, of course, but I also saw a bunch of hispanics. My recollection is that I saw some Asians, too, but I don’t remember how many. I couldn’t see any black people, though.

Maybe 10% of the crowd was kids, which was a relief. I was afraid there would be a lot more of them. The kids here on Friday night tended to be younger, perhaps 12 and under. On Saturday, maybe 15–20% of the crowd was kids, and many of them were teenagers. I suspect most of those were from the attached Christian high school.

Looking at the adults in the room, they spanned the whole range of ages. If I had to peg the age distribution, I’d say that the group skewed a little old. Maybe I’m being optimistic, but this could explain what I was about to hear.

After the first song, some guy from Logos came onto the stage and told everybody that lies don’t come cheap. This was a very expensive conference to put on. (My notes don’t record him actually using the word “lie”. I’m sure that’s an oversight on my part. He must have told people these were lies, because if he didn’t, he’d be lying!)

Let’s stop a moment and contemplate just what these creationists are trying to accomplish here. The entire conference is devoted to bashing Darwin. They’re doing a major assault on every front: Geology, fossils, complexity of life, inheritance, natural selection, tree of life, origin of man, etc. Just about everything Darwin wrote is being shredded by fundie tooth and claw. To anybody in the audience without much scientific background (and that’s probably most), Darwin is left completely and thoroughly discredited. Everything he promoted is in tatters.

For what purpose? How does refuting evolution advance their cause? Let’s say you watched this train wreck on the internet and came away “doubting Darwin”. Does that automatically turn you into a faithful, church-going God-bot? For most of my readers, the answer is no. God does not win by default.

So why do they bother to do this?

It’s because you aren’t the intended audience! Yes, they’ll stick their junkyard-into-747 or 2nd-law-of-thermodynamics pamphlet under your windshield wiper, but if you convert, that’s just collateral damage. You weren’t who they were after.

The Big Revelation

The guy who was standing on stage and asking for money said this:

70% – 80% of Christian youth who go to college leave the faith.

Reread that quote. Stare at it. Absorb it. Enjoy it!

They’re hemorrhaging followers! And not just any followers; they’re losing them young! These are the people they need to keep the racket going in perpetuity. They see them slip away, and they’re feeling helpless.

That is who they’re targeting, not just with this conference, but with much of the other anti-evolution propaganda that all creationists produce in abundance.

That’s because if you can convince somebody who already believes in God that evolution is bunk, then that person automatically returns to the faith.

God really does win by default.

Logos-guy tells us to please give generously. With your $50 contribution, you’ll get this lovely Logos Research Associates tote bag. (OK, OK! I made up that last sentence. I just had a flashback to too much PBS. I wonder if Logos ever did try giving out “thank you” gifts? It probably wouldn’t work. I think only liberals are attracted to tote bags.)

He tells us that they want to send “missionaries” to the U.S. colleges to keep the Christian kids from escaping. No, he didn’t use that word (but it’s in my notes!), but that’s what he meant. Notice that he didn’t say he wanted the missionaries to get new followers? That’s the usual goal of a missionary. Instead, he wants to use these missionaries to stop the bleeding! The patient has lost a lot of blood already and is about to go into shock.

Scanning the crowd, I see that most people are whipping out their checkbooks.

[Next: Grab your pick and shovel. We’re going quote mining!]

[In Part 1 and Part 2, I told you how I discovered that a fundamentalist fringe group called Logos Research Associates was going to put on a “seminar” called Darwin Was Wrong.

In Part 3, I told you how the first evening of the seminar began. When I arrived at the church, I saw the tables of anti-evolution propaganda out front. Inside, the proceedings had already begun. Two musicians on stage were singing the glories of Jesus. I stepped through the door, and into…]

…a church. That’s all. Geez, some of you were acting like I was about to be torn limb from limb.

The main hall of the church sprawled out before me. “Sprawl” does seem to be the operative word. This isn’t a mega-church, but it is large. It’s hard for me to estimate the size. I’m guessing somewhere around 800 seats. Of those, about 2/3 were occupied. (By the end of the evening, this number had climbed to about 80%. That puts the evening’s toll at about 640 people right there who were lost from science.)

I managed to snag a seat near the front of the left section, just a few rows from the front. As it turns out, it was an excellent location. Large video screens were mounted on the wall on either side of the main stage. One was right in front of me. There were a lot of Power Point slides that evening, and I had prime viewing.

The Jesus singers were still at it. The first 20-minutes of the program were described as “Welcome and Introductions”. Is this their idea of a welcome? Who are they introducing me to? Jesus? Alas, that is probably exactly what they meant.

Finally, the God-wailers leave the stage! There is much applause!

John Baumgardner: So What If Darwin Was Wrong?

Our first torturer speaker of the evening: Dr. John Baumgardner.

So who is this guy? First of all, he’s one of the co-conspirators behind Logos Research Associates. If this organization ever grows into a significant source of mis-information in the public mind, you can blame this guy.

Here is what Wikipedia tells us about him:

He became a Christian at 26 and has tried to prove Noah’s Flood scientifically ever since…

It also tells us that he has a PhD in geophysics and space science from UCLA! Argh! Another one snuck through!

His topic tonight is: “So What If Darwin Was Wrong?” That’s an excellent question. The correct answer is the one I mentioned previously: It doesn’t matter! Darwin could have been a young-Earth creationist, and it wouldn’t have mattered. What matters is what is the current state of evolutionary theory?

Rock solid, that’s what. He should have quit there and saved us all a lot of trouble. But no. He chose to lie to us instead. Let’s take a look at what he had to say.

(Note that in all of the speaker summaries that follow, I was writing stuff down as fast as I could, but I missed things. In going over my notes now, I’m choosing the things that sort of stick out. I won’t necessarily give you a summary of the entire talk. It’s just what strikes me as worthy of comment.

Also, for anybody who is interested, Logos is putting videos of all of these speakers on their web site. View them at your own risk. You have been warned.)

Baumgardner tells us that Darwin was wrong! It’s time for the church to challenge Darwin!

Baumgardner also tells us that people back then knew about small changes in species over generations. Of course it was always within the same “kind”! Where Darwin screwed up, Baumgardner tells us, is that he decided that there were no limitations on the process of natural selection.

I think by “limitations”, Baumgardner is referring to the arbitrary restriction in the Bible about animals staying within their kind. I mean it’s right there in black and white! What the hell was Darwin’s problem? He completely ignored the law of the universe by saying that animals could evolve into different kinds! That dirty, stinking son of a bitch! We’ve been mopping up after his screw-up ever since!

Baumgardner didn’t phrase it quite as succinctly as I did in that last paragraph, but that’s what he means.

Baumgardner said that Darwin’s theory eliminated the need for God. This was Darwin’s agenda!

This is exactly what the atheists and materialists were waiting for! Hallelujah! Praise non-god! We have our savior!

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were also thrilled. Somehow On the Origin of Species turned into The Communist Manifesto. Baumgardner didn’t really explain how. I guess it’s so freakin’ obvious that it needs no explanation!

And don’t forget, kiddies, the estimated number of victims of communism is:

And they are ALL on Darwin’s head!

Evolution was also embraced by Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel believed that evolution justified racism and eugenics. Hitler thought that was a splendid idea. Baumgardner said “No one paved the way for Hitler more than Haeckel.”

So it seems to me that Baumgardner’s beef is with Haeckel, not Darwin. Baumgardner doesn’t see it that way. It’s Darwin’s fault! Darwin I tell you!

Next Baumgardner said a very interesting thing:

Darwin’s agenda was to eliminate the Jews from the face of the Earth.

I’m sure he meant to say “Hitler”, but he Freudian slipped. This is really what it boils down to. Fundies like Baumgardner see things not only in black and white, but in a very stripped-down minimalist way. Darwin is responsible every time his theory is misused, misunderstood, misapplied, or misattributed. You know, the same way that Jesus Christ is responsible every time an unhinged fundie assassinates an abortion doctor.

Darwin gave us eugenics, which gave us Hitler, which gave us abortion!!

Darwin is the biggest mass-murderer in history! (I don’t remember Baumgardner saying this outright, but that is what he is implying.)

Next Baumgardner gave us an example of correlation not being the same as causation. He actually had the intellectual dishonesty to show us some charts that showed that after the Supreme Court banned prayer in the schools that:

• Morality is down!!
• Crime is up!!
• SAT scores are down!!
• Breasts are sagging!!
• Touched by an Angel got cancelled!!
• Puppies cry themselves to sleep at night!!

He then dropped this bomb on us: Many Christian kids leave the church after going to college!

But don’t fret little fundies. There is some great news: Darwin was wrong! Double-hallelujah!

Here are the important points:

• The materialist framework is dependent on evolution!
• Evolution is now extremely vulnerable!!
• Evolution has been falsified!!!
• Carmen Electra’s breasts are real!!!!

It is up to Christians to let everyone know. And save the world from destruction (or something).

[Next: The night is still young. Just like the Earth!]

Postscript: I was originally planning to take just one or two points from each speaker’s talk and debunk them. I decided that it’s better to give you more of what each speaker said (without debunking), so you can get a better feel for what each clown was saying. Most of their claims are so absurd that it isn’t worth taking the time to debunk them. I’ll probably make an exception for a couple of the arguments that we’ll encounter in the later talks. If you are curious about any of the other points raised, the best place to get your answers is the Talk Origins Archive.

[In Part 1, I told you how I discovered that a lunatic creationist organization called Logos Research Associates was planning to put on a significant “scientific” seminar called Darwin Was Wrong. Since I hadn’t had a good laugh in quite a while, I decided to go.

In Part 2, I told you about my phone conversation with one of the organizers, who assured me that this wasn’t some Bible sermon. “Oh no!”, he said. “This is all about the science!“]

On Friday, November 13th, at 6:10 PM, I was standing outside my hotel in Santa Ana, California. I was waiting for the taxi to arrive and take me to church. I was mentally prepared to enter this den of iquity. I had my gear, too: notebook, two pens, seminar flyer, and cell phone (for calling a taxi or 911, depending on how urgently I needed evacuation).

I was running a little behind schedule. The “seminar” was due to start at 6:30. I had counted on waiting 20 minutes for the taxi and the ride itself being 10 minutes. I had waffled in my hotel room a little too long. Do I take my camera or don’t I? I mean if it’s a real, honest-to-God (*snicker*) seminar, then I should be able to take photographs. Of course if it’s just a cheesy sermon, it’s probably rude to be taking snapshots in the middle of praising Jesus.

I eventually decided to leave the camera in the hotel room. That decision, it would turn out, was prescient. (Foreshadowing: The sign of good literature!)

I had also taken time to remind myself how to behave and what to say. I had to keep my usual scoffing and sneering and chortling and pointing and snarking and deriding to a minimum. My goal wasn’t to try to convince anyone there that they were wrong. (My goal was also to try to avoid being thrown out!) I had to keep my mouth shut as much as possible. If spoken to, I would have to be as vague and non-committal as possible. I was a spy, after all, and spies don’t blow their cover.

I had come to learn. No, not learn about why “Darwin was wrong”. I already knew that Darwin was wrong about some things. That’s actually irrelevant. Darwin could have believed that there were little green men with Xerox machines inside every cell in the body, and that’s how inheritance was transmitted. What’s relevant is that the modern theory of evolution, with 150 years of unrefuted data behind it, explains the development of species better than anything else.

Nor had I come to learn what logical fallacies and misinformation the creationists believed. I spend a lot of time reading creationist propaganda. I thought I had seen all of their arguments, so I wasn’t expecting anything new. (Actually, they did surprise me with one or two new ones, which we’ll get to in future articles).

The reason I was there was to learn about the fundies themselves. This is the anthropologist in me. I wanted to get inside their heads. I wanted to understand what makes them tick (Actually, the ticking might be the bomb they have strapped around their waist. Look around you. If you’re near an abortion clinic, RUN!!).

I could have just watched this seminar on the web, but that would have only given me a narrow window onto the stage. I needed to be there. I needed to see all of the people in attendance. I needed to overhear what they were saying to each other. I needed to absorb the atmosphere and the crowd sentiment to see how well the manure being pitched on stage was being eaten up by the coprophiles in the audience.

So there I was, standing outside the hotel, waiting for the taxi. Despite this being Friday night, the cab arrived fairly quickly (this was the only time that ever occurred). We made good time, and the taxi dropped me off at the church at 6:35 PM.

Most of the churches I’ve been to have been big, imposing buildings. That’s what I was expecting. That’s not what I got. This thing was like a flat turd on a prairie. It was one story with a relatively flat roof. Interestingly, three sides were almost completely glass. You could easily see inside and view all the happenings from a safe distance. They also had a screen on one window, and onto this they projected a video image of the stage (or pulpit or altar or whatever they call those things). They were also piping the audio outside via speakers somewhere. This allowed anybody on the outside to see and hear the sermons inside. Are they hoping Dracula will stop by, and since he can’t enter a holy building, he can comfortably watch from the outside? (Or maybe it’s just for overflow crowds.)

As I walked toward the church from the parking lot, I surveyed the scene. This was really easy, since I could see everything that was going on inside. This was my last chance! Run!! Don’t go inside! They’ll inject their spores inside of you and use your body as the incubator!

I could see that the church was fairly full. A couple of “musicians” were onstage, and they were singing about Jesus. That sure is a peculiar choice of entertainment for a “scientific seminar”!

Out front were a bunch of tables, which were piled high with all sorts of books, DVDs, magazines, and pamphlets. A bunch of people were standing around them, looking the stuff over. I decided to ignore those for the moment. I knew there would be time later to buy all the science-laden material I could afford. (Just so I don’t keep you in suspense: Despite my desire to load up, I couldn’t find anything on those tables that had any science in it!)

I stepped into the foyer and looked around. I really expected to see some sign-in tables. Even fake seminars like to capture your name and address. I was prepared to give them the address of a strip joint in San Francisco. All I saw were more people milling about, plus two inner doors leading to the main church hall. Each door was manned by a bouncer usher, who was passing out seminar flyers.

The Jesus music was louder now. Here I was. Among them. Most of the seats were filled. With them. I was seriously outnumbered. I swallowed hard, took a pamphlet from the usher, and stepped through the door.

[Next: “I’m a doctor, not a preacher! No, that’s not right. I’m a preacher, not a doctor!”]

After reading the press release about the Darwin Was Wrong seminar, I had to run off to work. While I’m sitting there at work, my mind is coming up with all of the reasons I shouldn’t go. It takes place in one of their churches. I’d be surrounded by fundies! What if my head exploded? What if they tried to gang-save me? What if I got cooties? (This is what psychologists call catastrophizing)

If I’m really going to go down to Santa Ana to see their “overwhelming evidence”, I have to know what the risks are. I tried infiltrating a fundie “seminar” once before, and it was a traumatic experience. What to do? Give them a call, of course!

The top of the press release said “Contact: Dick McDonald” and gave his phone number. OK, Dick. Let’s see if I can pull this off without screaming at you.

I’m at work. I can’t make the call from my desk. What would my coworkers think?

You might recall that under great protest, I did finally get a cell phone. It’s only for when my car breaks down or if I’m ever being chased by Scientologists. That’s all. Otherwise, I run the risk of becoming one of you obnoxious cell phone people, who are always yakking on your phone no matter where you are and pissing off everyone else around you. (Although, now that I think about it, everyone else is also on their cell phones. I’m usually the only person in a crowd who isn’t plugged in to some other state of awareness. It’s like my high school experience all over again!)

A mental breakdown (i.e., considering going to a fundie church) probably falls into the same category as fighting off hordes of killer zombies, so I guess I can justify using the phone just this once. (It’s just a cell phone, not a magic ring of invisibility. It could never control me !)

OK. So I decide to use my cell phone. I run out to my car for some privacy. I dial the number. It rings. And rings. Oh, crap. What if he isn’t there? Oh good, he picks up. Oh crap! It’s his voice mail! I don’t want to leave a message. He might call back! I hang up and return to work.

A few hours later, I decide to try again. I go back out to my car. Strange. I have a voice mail. Oh crap! It’s from Dick McDonald! He called me back! I have caller-ID blocking on my home phone, but I forgot that I don’t have it on the cell phone! Oh crap! A fundie has my phone number! O-crap-o-crap-o-crap-o-crap!

I listen to the message:

Hi. This is Dick McDonald. I see you tried to call me, but I wasn’t here. I thought this might have to do with the Darwin Was Wrong seminar. It’s going to be a wonderful two days of great speakers. I hope you can come. If it isn’t about that, please forgive me. God bless!

While I’m digesting that message, the phone rings. I see by the caller-ID (Hey! That’s a useful feature!) that it’s Dick McDonald. I answer the phone, and we talk for several minutes.

He tells me that the seminar is free (That’s a relief. The last thing I want to do is pay them to lie to me.). He also says that lunch on Saturday costs only $6, and it’s catered by Chik-Fil-A. Why does that not surprise me?

I tell him that I see it’s taking place in a church. Is this really a seminar, or is it just a sermon? Am I going to get there and just hear that Darwin was wrong, because it says so in the Bible?

He said “Oh no! This is all about the science! We have seven PhD scientists who will present lots of evidence showing how Darwin was wrong. We have a geologist…”

No, I thought. You have Steve Austin!

“… and a biologist and a paleontologist and a…” he went on and on.

I can’t remember what else he said, but it was clear to me that he was trying to convince one of us (I’m still not sure which) that this really was a scientific seminar full of lots of real actual science.

I tell him that I can hardly wait to attend.

[Next: Friday night, and the beginning of the “seminar”!]

I had been planning to take a short vacation for a while, but I didn’t want to go away while the contractor was busy not fixing my condo. I knew if I left, what little he was doing would stop completely until I got back.

When I finally got to move back home, I knew I needed a vacation (because if you’ve been living in a hotel for nine weeks, the perfect vacation is to go somewhere and live in a hotel for another week! Gosh, I’m clever!)

I had to come up with something fast, because I had to take the vacation before things got busy at work again. Palm Springs was a possibility, but there isn’t enough to do there for a whole week. Where else could I go?

I have a lot of Google alerts set up on fundie topics. It’s how I always manage to bring you the best fundie moronitude. In one of those alerts, I saw a press release titled “So. Calif. to Hear How Darwin Was Wrong”:

SANTA ANA, Calif., Nov. 3 /Christian Newswire/ — While many people continue to believe in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, a group of scientists will present overwhelming scientific evidence against Darwin’s speculations.

That caught my attention. A bunch of fundie “scientists” are going to get together and pretend they’re Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney? (“Hey, gang! I have an idea! Let’s put on a show!”)

“We can perhaps excuse Darwin, given his ignorance about the true complexity of living organisms and about genetics,” said Dr. Baumgardner, a geophysicist whose career was as research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. “Today’s knowledge of molecular biology, however, has made Darwin’s imagined single-cell-organism-to-man evolution indefensible.”

Hey, what happened to “molecules-to-man”? Did we finally beat that fallacy out of them? “Single-cell-organism-to-man” doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

Seven Ph.D scientists will highlight Darwin’s mistakes from genetics, geology, molecular biology, paleontology and other science areas.

They then list their panel of “experts”. I scanned the names, and a couple jumped out at me. First is Steve Austin! No, not that Steve Austin. And no, not that other one either. It’s this Steve Austin, the young-Earth geologist! This guy is genuinely and truly cracked. Here’s what they say about him:

[G]eologist Steven A. Austin, Ph.D., has traveled to southern Argentina to document Darwin’s geological mistakes. “Let nobody confuse you — Darwin was a geologist, but he was wrong about geology,” said Dr. Austin, who just returned from leading a Geological Society of America field trip to Mount St. Helens, Wash., where volcanic eruptions in 1980 and 1982 formed in just hours what many geologists had thought took much longer to form. “Mount St. Helens proved these changes can occur in days – not millions or billions of years.”

As you see, he believes that Noah’s flood formed the major geologic features, such as the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, in just a few days. (Actually, he doesn’t think Hoover Dam is naturally formed. It’s clearly the work of an intelligent designer.)

The scary part about the above excerpt is the revelation that the Geological Society of America, which claims respectability, is letting a young-Earth creationist lead their field trips. WTF, man? Seriously, WTF?!

Here is what the Geological Society’s own position paper on the teaching of evolution says about the organization’s beliefs:

• Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time must be part of science curricula at all levels, including K–12, college, and post-graduate education. [emphasis added]
• Creationism, whether in its earlier form as creation “science” or its more recent guise of intelligent design, has no place in a science curriculum and should not be taught alongside evolution in any science classroom.

The Geological Society has some serious explaining to do.

You can read more about Steve Austin in the article I wrote about him last year. It’s one of my better articles (Yes, I do have a few good ones!), so do yourself a favor and learn more about this intellectual helium-weight.

Well just being able to see Steve Austin was making this creationism seminar awfully tempting (or just awful, depending on your perspective), but there’s more!

Who else is on the list? Why none other than:

Yes!! I’m there!! Vacation solved!

[Next: Making plans. And taking precautions.]