In honor of my recent controversial statement that all creationists are either extremely ignorant or extremely stupid, I present for those creationists an illustrated guide to their choices. Please choose one.

Would you rather be ignorant…

…or stupid?

Special Bonus

Unrelated to the above, I also found these two images at Creative Disease and thought I’d share them:

The irony flooding out of the Discovery Institute these days would make Noah nervous.

Their website devoted to debunking “Darwinism” has an article titled “Dr. Novella’s ‘Every Single Prediction’ in the Mind-Brain Problem”. The problem the Discovery Institute has with evolution and other science is that it is “materialistic”. That doesn’t mean science wants to own big-screen high-def plasma TVs. It means that there is a natural, real-world explanation for all phenomena we observe in our universe. To quote Wikipedia: “all phenomena are the result of material interactions”.

The problem with this view is that it leaves no room for God. That freaks out the DI. That’s their whole motivation for hating evolution and trying to suppress the teaching of it.

The DI’s article begins:

Atheist-materialist Dr. Steven Novella…

This is double-flag code-speak for the faithful. “OMG! He’s an atheist and a materialist! Bar the doors! Hide the children! He’s come to destroy our way of life!”

…is confident: all of our experiences and awareness arise from brain matter. There is no soul, no immaterial mind, separate from the brain itself.

You can see why they feel so threatened. In fact, this is worse than evolution to them. At least in evolution there is a little bit of wiggle room. That’s why they invented Intelligent Design creationism (“Accept no substitutes! If it doesn’t say Intelligent Design creationism, it’s just some crappy Chinese creationism! Make sure you buy your delusional ideas from the masters of delusion! Home-grown. Seattle-brewed. Mmmmmm! Discovery Institute Intelligent Design creationism!”).

The DI continues:

According to Dr. Novella, a neurologist at Yale, the debate is over, and all that is left to do is to eradicate a few stubborn pockets of resistance to the theory that the mind is merely a secretion of the brain, just as bile is a secretion of the liver.

Note how they subtly equate Dr. Novella’s theory with bile? Oh there’s bile in their article all right, but it isn’t coming from Dr. Novella!

Next, the article quotes Dr. Novella himself:

“The materialist hypothesis — that the brain causes consciousness — has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated.”

Here’s the part where I partially agree with the Discovery Institute. I get nervous when a scientist makes a broad, sweeping claim like that. Science can never know anything with 100% certainty. Some things we know with 99.999…% certainty. Everything else is known with a bit less certainty than that. That’s why scientists usually speak with an “out”: “The data are consistent with…”

Dr. Novella wrote the quoted sentence in his blog. He was speaking to a general audience and was trying to convey the extent to which we are confident in the materialistic theory of the brain. In those situations, the speech has to be more accessible to the audience. If he spoke in technobabble, people would get confused and wander off, probably ending up at Ken Ham’s creation museum in Kentucky.

It’s also important to look at the very next sentence that Dr. Novella wrote. This is from his blog, and it’s the part that the Discovery Institute left off:

Every single question that can be answered scientifically — with observation and evidence — that takes the form: “If the brain causes the mind then…” has been resolved in favor of that hypothesis.

This sentence qualifies the first. It is also a bit less sweeping. What he is saying is “Within the limits of science, all questions have been resolved in favor of the hypothesis.” Science is an ongoing process. It is always being refined. There could be some discovery tomorrow that contradicts the theory. Then the scientists would conduct additional experiments to confirm the observation. If it holds up, then the theory would be modified to accommodate it. We would then be even closer to an understanding of the brain.

But of course, this is too subtle and nuanced for the Discovery Institute’s quote miners. Let’s now return to the Discovery Institute article about Dr. Novella’s research:

A bit of advice: whenever a scientist says of his own theory that “every single prediction has been validated”, you’re being had.

I would agree with this, but remember that’s not quite what Dr. Novella said.

No scientific theory has had ‘every single prediction’ validated. All theories accord with evidence in some ways, and are inconsistent in others.

OK, that’s fair. Wow! The Discovery Institute managed to write two whole sentences without lying once! But now get ready for the howler:

Successful scientific theories prevail on the preponderance of the evidence, not validation of “every single prediction”. Real science lacks the precision of ideology. [emphasis added]

Woo hoo! Bop! Bingo! Zap!

The DI has spent years trying to sell us on ID creationism as if it’s some sort of real scientific theory, but they’ve never given us one shred of unambiguous data. Intelligent Design creationism is nothing BUT ideology!

News reports are now coming in that the Discovery Institute was just washed away in a flood of irony.

The Design of Life is an ID creationist lie-fest passing itself off as a textbook. It’s written by two of the biggest proponents of this religious non-science, William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells, who both work at the Discovery Institute clown college. This book is actually just a retitled third edition of the book Of Pandas and People that got laughed out of the Kitzmiller v. Dover creationism trial.

One of their tactics for promoting the book is by having a blog, where they post sciency articles that creationist stooges like Denyse O’Leary and Access Research Network (see earlier BoF articles here, here, and here) can then trumpet over and over in their own blogs.

So over on the Design of Life blog is a post titled “The Tree of Life and Speciation – the odd case of the beefalo”, written by Jane Harris-Zsovan. All I could find out about Jane Harris-Zsovan is that she’s an anti-science writer living in Canada. Let’s see what she has to say about the Beefalo and how it proves ID creationism or disproves evolution or demonstrates perpetual motion, or whatever crazy claim she has (I still haven’t figured out what her goal is here).

Does the classification system used by biologists accurately reflect the path of natural selection through the generations? And does it trace the differentiation of species? Not necessarily.

Stop the presses! Oh wait. That’s something we already knew. I guess it’s news to the ID creationists, though. Those people don’t know a whole lot of science.

Taxonomy is an attempt to describe and classify all living organisms. Closely related to that is Systematics, which studies how these organisms are related to each other through evolution. It’s a little more complicated and nuanced than that, but hopefully those definitions will work well enough for this article.

OK, so scientists want to know what all the plants, animals, fungi, etc. are, and how they all evolved. They’ve come up with the classification scheme that we know today. Ideally, the taxonomic charts that we’ve put together would accurately reflect exactly how everything is related and how they evolved. There’s going to be a little bit of error here. In the old days, they had to rely on morphology and other techniques to puzzle out relationships. Things have gotten a lot better now that we have genetics, but there are still places that need tweaking.

Anyway, so we have animals classified into different orders, genera, species, etc. It’s not a perfect classification, partly due to historical inertia. It takes time to get everybody to agree that there’s enough evidence to justify calling something a new sub-species or merging two genera or such. Until that consensus emerges, we continue to use the old classification. Remember, there are millions of species, and there aren’t that many people working just on taxonomy and systematics. This stuff takes time to resolve.

So in Harris-Zsovan’s article published on the Design of Life blog, she’s claiming that the current taxonomic charts aren’t perfect. We already knew that. What’s your point, Jane? And how does that help your claim? And just what is your claim? Well, let’s delve deeper into the article.

Consider the Bovoids, genus bison (for example, the North American buffalo) and genus bos (for example, domesticated cattle).

Now might be a good time to look at their relative taxonomies.

Notice how closely related the two are. They’re even in the same sub-family, only splitting at the genus level. Theoretically, two organisms of the same genus but different species cannot mate and produce fertile offspring. In the case of the bison and cattle, we’re even going one level higher than that: same sub-family but different genera. If the guys who put this table together are correct, the two can’t interbreed. (Remember, though, that nature is a broad continuum. It is only humans who want to put things into artificial boxes. The boundaries between boxes are often blurry in real life.)

According to most theories of speciation, a cross between two genera (such as genus bison and genus bos) after a geographical separation of many thousands of years is unlikely.

Actually, time has nothing to do with it. If the animals have been correctly cataloged and truly are of different genera, they wouldn’t be able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, even if they’re sharing the same pasture.

But tell that to a rancher in Western Canada or the United States where buffalo bison, raised on ranches, are interbred with cattle. (These animals have been known to interbreed since the 18th century.) The resulting offspring are called beefalo or cattalo.

As she points out, this is not news, so I’m still having trouble figuring out what this has to do with ID creationism or evolution or the Roswell crash (or whatever she’s trying to convince us of).

Both domestic cattle and American bison can interbreed with their cousin, the European bison (the wisent), as well as with yaks and other members of the bos genus. A cattle/wisent cross is called a zubron. A yak/cattle hybrid is known as a dzo.
…
Hybridization of European and American bison does not appear to cause fertility problems even in first generation males. Some taxonomists argue that the wisent and the American bison are not separate species at all.

Those taxonomists are probably correct. It looks like the charts need to be updated. This is science in action. When new data come in, you revise your hypothesis accordingly.

Ancestors of American bison and European bison are thought have descended from an ancient relative in Southern Asia over 400,000 years ago in the Pliocene epoch.
…
But, after millennia of separation, European and North American bison are still recognizable as bison.

BFD. Crocodiles are still recognizable as crocodiles after millions of years. All that means is that their environment has been relatively stable and hasn’t produced much evolutionary pressure.

Darwin’s theory of speciation through natural selection would predict that the hybridization of cows and yaks with bison is quite unlikely.

What? Who says? Show me where in evolutionary biology it says that populations separated geographically for thousands of years are required to be separate species. If the environments are similar and there are no other evolutionary pressures, you would expect them to remain the same species! (Genetic drift is one factor that could cause speciation, but that’s random and could just as easily not happen.)

She then points out (as I did in the table above) that bison and cattle are in two different genera.

The existence of the beefalo and its cousins, the dzo and zubron, show us that - after millennia of separation - the gene pool of individuals in the genus bison and genus bos has not changed enough to make interbreeding impossible.

Yes, Jane. So what’s your point?

And, in the case of European bison and American bison, there is debate as to whether speciation has fully occurred.

Yes, Jane. So what’s your point?

Clearly, the Darwinian theory of speciation by natural selection is not the whole story. Maybe it’s not the true story at all.

What?! That’s your whole thesis? I read this whole article just to find out you’re retarded?! Just to find out that you have no concept of how evolution works?

I’ll repeat my question from above: Where in “Darwinian” theory, or anywhere else in biology for that matter, does it say that speciation has to occur? And since you brought it up, where in this narrative is the natural selection? There’s no selection pressure! Without selection, speciation by natural selection can’t happen!

“[S]peciation by natural selection is not the whole story”, because it’s not any part of this story, you freaking moron!

And even if this were somehow a flaw in evolutionary theory (it’s not), how does that prove Intelligent Design creationism? It doesn’t! Once again, the ID-iot creatards think that proving the moon isn’t green somehow proves that it’s purple!

Once — just once — I’d like to read an article by these people that showed an understanding of any of the following:

• Evolution
• Science
• Logic
• Reality

Take your pick, Jane. Just one is all I ask.

Update: I’ve been Bad Astronomered! Welcome to everyone coming here from Phil Plait’s site.

You’re probably aware that fundie clowndick Ben Stein has a forthcoming movie about the alleged “Darwinist” conspiracy to suppress science. I’m expecting the film to be something on the order of the infamous Fox TV Moon Hoax “documentary”, which was full of outright lies and deceptive editing. When it comes out, maybe we can compare the two and see which is worse.

Fundiecast Cybercast News Service has published an interview with Ben Stein. Let’s take a look.

Intelligent design theory…

Wow! They don’t waste any time. The very first phrase is a lie! Intelligent design creationism is not a theory. The American Heritage Dictionary has a good definition of “theory”.

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

As you can see, ID creationism fails on three counts:
1. It has not been repeatedly tested.
2. It is not widely accepted.
3. It can not be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

Let’s get back to the Cybercast article:

[A] new movie, “Expelled” starring Ben Stein explores how an “elitist scientific establishment” is apparently muzzling and smearing scientists who publicly discuss ID.

There’s no question that anybody claiming that ID creationism is science is being laughed at — not only by scientists but just about anybody with even a remote understanding of science — but there is no vast conspiracy to muzzle anybody.

The First Amendment is under brutal attack in the scientific community, Ben Stein, a former presidential speechwriter-turned-actor and commentator, says in the film, which opens in theaters on Feb. 12.

Really? Now the First Amendment is “under brutal attack”. Actually, that part is true. The attack isn’t coming from scientists, though. It’s coming from crackpot organizations like the Discovery Institute and Access Research Network that are trying to get their religious dogma (ID creationism) taught in the schools.

In an exclusive interview with Cybercast News Service - with audio clips below - Stein contends that rigid Darwinists are silencing their critics in academia, which the film explores, and discusses how ID ideas are helping in cancer research and similar work.

Really? ID creationism cures cancer! Please, Ben Stein, tell us how!

Hello?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Apparently no one’s home. As is typical of creationist asshats, he makes wild claims and then never bothers to back them up.

Yet the ID research that could potentially produce medical breakthroughs, says Stein, is also being undermined by Darwinian scientists who don’t want ID research viewed as legitimate.

According to Ben Stein, there is cancer research being stifled by Darwinists because of some sort of philosophical agenda. I agree that would be bad. But apparently it’s OK to stifle stem cell research because fundies don’t like it. Yeah, Ben. Real consistent.

Now we get into the actual interview between Cybercast News Service (CNS) and Stein. In the interests of brevity, I will only excerpt parts of the longer answers. (You can go to the article to see that I’m not quote mining):

Stein: Science should always be in the business of attempting to disprove itself. Neo-Darwinian science is exactly in the opposite business of endlessly trying to rationalize itself - and reprove itself, you might say - reprove that it’s right without any kind of test.

Science is in the business of attempting to disprove itself. He is mischaracterizing modern biology, and not providing any support for his allegations. He also suffers from Kevin Wirth syndrome. He’s so fixated on Darwin that he has blinded himself to the advances in evolutionary theory that have happened since. No wonder he thinks evolution is outdated. He’s using a 150-year-old definition.

CNS: What sort of separation do you see or perhaps don’t see between creationism, on the one hand, and intelligent design?

Stein: I believe in God and God created the heavens and the earth and all the life on the earth. But what other people, who are intelligent design people, think, I could not characterize.

At least he’s honest about his own motivations. Apparently old Ben isn’t above mischaracterizing others on his own side, though. Intelligent design is creationism, just a different flavor.

CNS: …[N]eurosurgeon, Michael Egnor, and another scientist, Jon Wells, who indicate that given how the cells are put together, with eye toward intelligent design, and with the idea that animal cells have tiny turbines - or if viewed as tiny turbines - he was able to formulate a theory that said in the event these things malfunction and don’t properly shut down and could break apart, this is the first step on the way to cancer.…

First of all, that isn’t a theory. It’s a hypothesis. Second, intelligent design creationism is irrelevant here. Viewing the organelles inside the cell as turbines may be useful, but ID creationism is not needed. If proponents are lumping this into their pile of breakthroughs resulting from ID creationism, they’re just plain cheating.

CNS: …He doesn’t explicitly say ‘a cure for cancer,’…

Wait. Is this the great big scientific breakthrough in cancer research that these retards alluded to earlier? It’s not even connected to their “theory”!

Stein: [T]here is this big issue about RNA and DNA, and whether RNA and DNA can respond to changes in the world around them. I think we say it can respond to changes in the world around them and that neo-Darwinians say it can only do that by random chance…

Again, Stein shows his colossal non-grasp of science. Evolution isn’t random. The mutations are random, but they are acted upon by the environment.

Stein: …We say the cell may have the possibility of doing itself in an intelligent way that there may be some intelligence in the cell itself…. We believe there’s some possibility the cell could have an intelligence of its own.

Ben Stein thinks that the cells can intelligently respond to the environment and reprogram their DNA accordingly. That’s pretty far-fetched, but we should never rule anything out. If it’s true, and they’ve yet to provide any data that it is, the mechanism would be naturalistic. If it’s naturalistic, then it isn’t intelligent design!

Stein: I was just overwhelmed by the fact, at least as I am told, that Darwinists have never observed natural species being originated…

Lie.

Stein: There’s not even a clear definition of what a species is…

Another lie, although nature doesn’t fit into clean boxes. There are always things at the edges that don’t quite fit our definitions.

Stein: …and the Darwinists have no theory whatsoever about the origin of life, none whatsoever, except the most hazy, the kind of preposterous, New Age hypothesis.…

A completely irrelevant separate issue.

Stein: …And I think our theory that there is a creator strikes even some people, even Dawkins very possibly, as more likely than it all happened by total chance.

Now Stein even knows what Richard Dawkins thinks!

Stein: [Richard Dawkins’] idea that there is a complete rock solid consensus [in favor of evolution] is completely wrong.

And Ben Stein is clearly more qualified to make that assessment than Richard Dawkins.

CNS: Why do you think the very idea or suggestion of intelligent design is so antagonistic to scientists who claim they have evidence?

Stein: That’s a deep question.… One, if they are Darwinists and they owe their jobs to being Darwinists, they are not going to challenge the orthodoxy because that would challenge the whole basis of their jobs and their lives. So they are not going to challenge the ideology that has given them lush positions in real life.

Hey, Ben! Where are all of these Darwinists you’re always talking about? I’ve never met any.

Secondly, the whole point of science is to challenge itself. You made this unfounded claim before that there is some sort of conspiracy to retain a set of beliefs against all outside attacks. The only place I’ve seen that behavior is at the Discovery Institute.

Stein: Second thing, once people are locked into a way of thinking, they are unlikely to change.

OK. There is truth to that statement, but that refers to individuals. There are so many scientists out there looking at new things that there is no stagnation in science.

Stein: Third is, if they acknowledge the possibility of intelligent design and that intelligent design is God, then they may think God has moral expectations of them and they may be falling short of those moral expectations, and they may be worried about some sort of judgment upon them.

Holy crap! What a pile of holy crap! So Ben Stein knows that scientists cling to evolution, because they’re afraid of God’s judgment!

Stein: There is a very powerful Marxist establishment within the intelligentsia that does not allow questioning of its premises.

I give up. That’s so batshit crazy I can’t even respond to it.

Stein: [T]his to us - at least to me…- is a bit like the Civil Rights movement. You want to have freedom, where our goal is freedom. We want freedom. We want all our rights, not some of them, all our rights to free speech. We want them here in America, and we want them now.

Martin Luther King!!

Thurgood Marshall!!

Ben Stein??

The latest Carnival of the Godless is up at Axis of Jared, and it’s an especially good one! When I let you know about these, I like to point out at least one good post that you should read, in case you don’t have time for them all. There are just too many good posts this week. Here are my favorites. Consider reading at least these.

Let’s start off with something fun. Polite Company has a hilarious script showing what happened when God got Mary “in trouble”. And he didn’t even have the decency to make an honest woman of her! You should consider performing this play at your next church event.

The next two are philosophical. The Barefoot Bum talks about what “The New Atheism” is really about. He says:

The New Atheism is anti-religion. Not because religion is always bad, or because everything bad comes from religion, but you can use religion to “prove” anything, good, bad or indifferent. It denies and actively erodes the skepticism and criticality that is each person’s only fundamental protection against being exploited and oppressed by lies and bullshit.
…
But, bad as religion is, it cannot be eliminated by force. Religion is, in a sense, self-slavery, and you cannot free a person who has enslaved himself.

Martin Wagner, at The Atheist Experience, has a profound insight into religion’s hold on people, in his article “Is faux-intellectualism part of religion’s appeal?” This might explain the behavior of one of our recent prolific commenters:

It would seem that, to a least a percentage of its followers, Christianity appeals because it provides them with a vehicle for intellectual poseurdom. Without anything in the way of scientific education or expertise behind them, creationists are unique among cranks in the perverse confidence with which they lash themselves to the mast of their stale and long-debunked claims. They’ll confidently and even condescendingly inform experts with Ph.D’s and 25 years of field work that there is no evidence at all to support what is probably the best-supported theory in all science. This goes beyond mere stupidity or even run-of-the-mill ideological denialism into a bold and deliberate repudiation of knowledge and even reality itself.

Speaking of our recent troll, Shalini tells people like him “For what seems like the millionth time, I am *not* a Darwinist”. Here’s just one pithy excerpt:

A lot of Darwin’s ideas are outdated and plain wrong. Therefore, when the ID-iots trumpet their silly list of ‘scientists who are skeptical of Darwinism’, it is clear that they are either liars or people who have no clue about what they are attempting to argue against.

The last article I want to call your attention to is not part of the Carnival. While I was over at Shuffl reading his Carnival entry, I found an even better article: “If Religions Made Bras”. For example:

Fundamentalist Christian “Original Sin Bra” “The Fall” came when Eve ate the apple and so there isn’t anything to be done about it since bosoms are evil, evil, wicked, satanic, vile, and against biblical family values, but our bra is richly padded and embroidered with biblical passages to make you look more upright and smug and yet pleasing to the eyes of the men God has sent to bless your life.

ID Bra
1 One size fits all creationists. (from Frank J.)

2 It supports nothing, but does a pretty good job of covering it up. (from Jim Lovejoy)

3 It provides no support and comes in two sizes: myth and misses! (from Homer Sapiens).

4 Actually you can order it, but it falls apart on examination. (from Walter Bushell)

What? No Duggar Family bra?

Lastly, for your entertainment pleasure, I present the ID Creationist Bingo card. Use it the next time an ID-iot leaves a comment here. I had to shrink it to get it to fit within my margins. You can find the easier-to-read original over at Skeptico. This was suggested by one of the commenters to Shalini’s post.

In the last week, I’ve made a few posts about the crackpots over at Access Research Network. Who or what is ARN? I referred to them as “the poor-man’s Discovery Institute”. Let’s look at that description closer.

Wikipedia tells us that the organization broadly covers many fundie issues, but it’s best known for promoting Intelligent Design creationism. They also tell us that two of the organization’s directors are fellows at the Discovery Institute. This makes the two organizations at least informally related. I’m not sure what niche ARN thinks they’re filling that DI doesn’t cover.

ARN is considerably smaller and less well known than the DI, though. Jim Lippard investigated creationist finances a year ago. He found that ARN’s 2005 revenue was just under $79,000. Compare that with the Discovery Institute, whose 2004 revenues were about $3.5 million. Another important distinction between the two organizations is that the DI has a paid staff with cushy salaries ($132K for their president). Poor little ARN has to scrape by entirely on volunteer effort. It’s like ARN is just a little creationist club. I bet they have a treehouse! But if ARN takes its vitamins, it may one day grow big and strong, just like the DI. Dream big, ARN! Dream big!

Comments

This blog has been “blessed” recently by the comments of Kevin Wirth, ARN’s director of Media Relations. Kevin has taken time out of his daily workload of spreading disinformation to real media outlets in order to dump some onto us.

He was in a big pout, because I said:

Yes, I throw in derogatory terms, such as “crackpot” and “moron”, but they are accurately descriptive. If you promote crackpot ideas like creationism, then you’re a crackpot. If you proudly advertise your lack of comprehension of sixth-grade science, then you are a moron.

I guess I hurt Kevin’s feelings. He replied thusly:

Yes, I suppose so, in the same sense that the word “darkie”, “spic”, “wetback” and worse are ‘accurately descriptive’ in the minds of those who (like you) feel that such comments are warranted for blacks and latinos.

Way to relate to the media, Kevin! No wonder they don’t pay you. You can’t accuse somebody of hate speech just because he thinks you’re a dolt! For your information, there is a huge difference between simple descriptive insults and racial epithets. “Crackpot” was never used to oppress an entire class of people. Nobody ever shouted “kill the moron!” right before the lynching.

The bulk of Kevin’s comment barrage was focussed on trying to convince us that there is a conspiracy to promote the original 1859 version of evolutionary theory (what he calls “Darwinism”), while suppressing all other possible explanations, including all science that has come after. His only support for this claim is a mine-full of quotes, some extracted from reputable scientists and some taken straight from creationist propaganda. His claim is so ridiculous and so unfounded that it doesn’t warrant a response.

I received an email from BoF reader Terri. I tried to respond, but my email bounced. I’ve been having internet connection problems for the last day and a half, but I don’t know if that’s the cause.

Terri wrote:

Today, my local newspaper published a long article about Adrian Bejan’s Constructal Law. I’m not enough of a scientist to judge, but the way the article was written seems to be subtly supporting intelligent design. I would appreciate your opinion, or a reference to another blog or person that could help me; if I am correct, I intend to write the paper about misleading readers.

The article does seem to suggest intelligent design creationism, but that may not be the actual intent. Here’s what I wrote to Terri in my email that bounced:

I read the article. Physical sciences aren’t my expertise, but I don’t think the guy is implying intelligent design. Things are designed by their environment. Look at a fish. They all have similar shapes, because that shape is the most efficient way to travel through water. Through mutation, some fish will have a more efficient design, and some will have less. The more efficient design is selected for. You end up with a design without a designer.

Does anybody out there know more about this Constructal Law and if the guy behind it is promoting ID creationism?

Thanks to PZ Myers for pointing me to an article on the website of Archaeology magazine. It’s called “Raiders of the Faux Ark” by Eric H. Cline, who is a real biblical archaeologist.

The article addresses the problem that the field of biblical archaeology has many crackpots, cranks, and kooks. The author says that it’s time for the legitimate archaeologists to speak up and refute all of the junk science that the crackpots are passing off in the popular media.

I recently reviewed a documentary on the National Geographic Channel, called “Curses of Ancient Egypt”. A couple of readers questioned the relevance of my article. The bulk of the evidence (or lack thereof) indicates that the Exodus fable never happened, so why even look at a possible scientific explanation for the ten curses? My answer is that many Bible fantasies are based upon earlier legends that may have been inspired by real events (a localized flood being retold as Noah’s flood, for example). The more we learn about what is real or plausible or unreal or impossible, the better we can understand that book and its followers.

Furthermore, there are a lot of people making claims about biblical archaeology, and I want to examine whether those people and their claims are credible. This latter point is the focus of the Archaeology article. The author states:

We are also living in a time of widespread biblical fraud, dubious science, and crackpot theorizing.…Every year “scientific” expeditions embark to look for Noah’s Ark, raising untold amounts of money from gullible believers who eagerly listen to tales spun by sincere amateurs or rapacious con men; it is not always easy to tell the two apart.
…
And so the professionals are allowing a PR disaster to slowly unfold: yielding a field of tremendous importance to pseudoscientists, amateur enthusiasts, and irresponsible documentary filmmakers.

I’m not an archaeologist, but I do have a skeptical eye. I like to watch these documentaries and try to detect which ones make sense to me. In the case of my recent article about the 10 Curses, I concluded that the explanations proposed were plausible, even if the proponents’ motivations were somewhat dubious.

What About Bob?

What I find especially satisfying about the Archaeology article is what it says about “Dr.” Robert Cornuke. For this tale, we need to roll back the clock one year, to a review I wrote on a similar documentary, “Exodus Revealed” (see part 2 of that article for the bit about Cornuke).

That documentary looked at more of the Exodus fable, including the bit where Charlton Heston drowned Yul Brynner’s army in the Red Sea. The program profiled Robert Cornuke (whose Ph.D. makes chiropractors look overeducated), who runs his own special Bible Explorers Club. Cornuke claims that he has found a few things that look like artifacts, therefore Exodus is true. That seemed like a leap of logic to me, and I said so.

Now here’s where it gets funny. Just two weeks ago, one of Cornuke’s supporters somehow found my article, and he left an offended comment. I replied to his accusations, reiterated my belief that Cornuke’s scholarship appears shaky, and challenged him to support his assertions.

(Sound of crickets)

For some reason, he chose not to respond.

So today, I read this in the Archaeology article:

For example, in 2006, Bob Cornuke, a former SWAT team member turned biblical investigator—and now president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (BASE) Institute in Colorado—led an expedition searching for Noah’s Ark. Media reports breathlessly announced that Cornuke’s team had discovered boat-shaped rocks at an altitude of 13,000 feet on Mount Suleiman in Iran’s Elburz mountain range. Cornuke said the rocks look “uncannily like wood.…We have had [cut] thin sections of the rock made, and we can see [wood] cell structures.”

But peer review would have quickly debunked these findings. Kevin Pickering, a geologist at University College London who specializes in sedimentary rocks, said, “The photos appear to show iron-stained sedimentary rocks, probably thin beds of silicified sandstones and shales, which were most likely laid down in a marine environment a long time ago.”

Ah, poor Cornuke! The data doesn’t fit his pre-conceived conclusion!