P Z Myers and his gang wreck a Christian poll

First, read this blog entry from Pharyngula:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/christianity_today_is_full_of.php

Category: Pointless polls
Posted on: May 1, 2009 10:26 AM, by PZ Myers

Can you bear yet another poll today? The initial results of this one, before all of you readers get to work and use your magic clicky fingers, is mildly interesting. The readership of Christianity Today consists primarily of scientific illiterates and wishful dreamers, split between people who seriously believe the earth is 6000 years old, those who think the Bible is a science text and are willing to stretch a metaphor, and fuzzy thinkers who want a god to have guided natural processes.

I imagine the readership here can rock their little world.

What best describes your view of the origins of creation?

Young-earth creationism 29%
Old-earth creationism 28%
Theistic evolution 26%
Naturalistic evolution 4%
I don’t know 7%
None of the above 6%

Another fake “science” website

This is a direct sequel to:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/a-fake-evolution-site/

I’ve discovered another website with a false name:

http://www.allaboutscience.org/

On its home page it says:

Science: Knowledge and Discovery

Science is the human endeavor to discover truths about the world around us. Scientists seek out answers through observation and experimentation. As we discover more and more, we are able to apply what we’ve learned to develop new technologies and to improve everyday life. But perhaps more importantly, as we gain knowledge through science, we are able to begin satisfying our deep-felt need to know more about ourselves.

Which is absolutely true. But then you start to read deeper.

A really stupid way to honor Darwin

http://www.thebeagleproject.com/

The HMS Beagle Project

In 2009, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth we will build a sailing replica of HMS Beagle. An icon of scientific progress, she will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin’s wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers. They will carry out original research both at sea and on land, updating Darwin’s observations, breaking new scientific ground and relating the adventure of science to enthuse a new generation of young students. If you support our vision, contact us, donate to the build fund, request a sponsorship pack, or visit the Beagle Project Shop USA or Europe/Japan, buy the t-shirt and show ‘em you want a Beagle sailing the world in 2009.

Why is this idea stupid? Because you can accomplish a lot more scientific research with a modern ship dealing with present day biological issues rather than merely reenacting Darwin’s voyage. Science is not about taking the road already traveled, but going down a previously untraveled path to see what might be found.  I will not contribute a dime to such a dubious project. Indeed, I think it is a SCAM!

The irony of natural selection and voluntary birth control

Natural selection, the primary force that drives evolution, is based on the idea that successful organisms not only survive, but reproduce themselves. Indeed, it is impossible for evolution to occur without reproduction. Yet the very intelligence that we humans evolved enables us to realize that if we continue to reproduce without restraints of some kind, we will eventually destroy our natural environments and deplete our natural resources, thus destroying ourselves in the end.

Therefore, attempts have been made to make birth control, abortion, and sterilization freely available to all. The problem, however, is that those who for religious or ideological reasons reject or ignore these efforts continue to reproduce more than those who accept them, and thus their children end up becoming more in the next generation, passing on their backward and irrational values, and thus they ultimately defeat the purpose of birth control. The same forces of evolution that made man and all other organisms works against his efforts to stop his own destruction.

There is only one realistic way to save ourselves: Make sterilization MANDATORY for every woman who has had at least two children (or maybe even just one, in badly overpopulated areas), regardless of race, religion, social class, or age. Then the forces of natural selection won’t be a problem, for both beleivers and opponents of birth control will be on an equal playing field.

And for those bleeding hearts who say that forcible sterilization violates personal rights and therefore is dangerous, I say, “You are as irrational as outright opponents of birth control! The total downfall of humanity is MORE dangerous than any controversial procedure! When you are dying or in grave danger of death, personal rights are the least of your worries.”

Science, natural history, and evolution

Science is a way of knowing about the world that depends constantly on free inquiry, experimentation and empiricism. As such, anything that is established in science has credibility based on the methodology used, not on the word of any individual scientist. It is the ability of other scientists to duplicate the experimental results that one of their number publishes that makes a scientific law credible.

Physics and chemistry are the two foundational sciences on which all others, including astronomy, biology, and geology, are based. Unlike the first two, astronomy, biology and geology also have hypotheses and theories that are historical in nature. The basic assumption is that all physical and chemical laws are constant, remaining the same throughout deep time. Thus, any historical hypothesis or theory, to also be scientific, must be in strict conformance with all the known scientific laws that were previously established as valid via the scientific method.

Understanding this, we can consistently apply all known scientific laws to deep time to both test hypotheses and propose them. For example, the Doppler effect was used to discover that most galaxies were moving away from us and in proportion to their distance from our galaxy. This was defined as Hubble’s Law, which in turn led to the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins. Likewise, repeated experimentation on living animals and plants in which artificial selection is done to change the genetic makeup of their populations in a laboratory setting establishes the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. It stands to reason that if slight changes can be made in populations of organisms in a short period of time, then massive changes indicated by the fossil record should be possible over a long period of time. But to show this may not be possible, we’d have to do additional experiments to attempt to find the limits of genetic and physical change in such a population and thus possibly falsify evolution. Such an experiment was proposed and detailed here:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/dale-husband%e2%80%99s-evolution-experiment/

It is important to understand that it is impossible to have genuine natural history without a scientific basis. Previous attempts to describe the past history of the universe without science are mythology. Mythology has no references whatsoever to physical and chemical laws and usually involve one or more supernatural deities, thus they are not scientific. Any tests of a historical hypothesis or theory involving deep time can never contradict the scientific laws previously established as valid via the scientific method.

So, is evolution a fact? Is the Big Bang theory a fact? Is the theory of continental drift a fact? Only if you accept as valid all the scientific laws that support them. And those laws, in turn, are supported by the scientific method. That is why the concept of “creation science” is a fraud. It is nothing more than an attempt to support mythology by the misuse of scientific terminology.

Since it is obvious that evolution is scientific, and creationism is not, why is there even a controversy over teaching such concepts as “Intelligent Design” in public schools? Because of politics and religion interfering with science education. And this is nonsense if you just follow the chain of reason that was used from the late 19th Century onwards to support evolution.

Natural selection and the scientific peer review process

Natural selection describes the process by which variations in a population of organisms are edited over time to enhance the ability of the individual organisms to survive and reproduce in an environment. Even if over 90% of all mutations, being random, are harmful to the next generation, natural selection can still eliminate those and keep those others that are beneficial, thus countering the destructive effects of mutations in general.

It is the same with the scientific peer review process. Because science has made so much progress over the past few centuries, most people have the impression that scientists are unusually brilliant, nearly infallible, and totally objective in their views and methods. But in fact, that is simply not the case for most of them, at least as individuals. Scientists can be just as mistaken, corrupt, dogmatic, and failing in their efforts and assumptions as the rest of humanity. A few of them can even be downright stupid!

If that is true, how can science be trusted to produce reliable facts and theories? Because the scientists use peer review as their means to test any new ideas put on the table by one of their number. No scientist’s word need be taken at face value. In order for his idea to be accepted as anything beyond a speculation, he must show observational or experimental data, clearly defined, that supports it. Thus, it should always be possible for other scientists to duplicate the results of the first scientist making the claim. If attempts to duplicate the observations or experiments do not produce the same result, the idea is rejected.

Sometimes the peer review process goes too far in its skepticism, and a valid idea, such as continental drift, is rejected and even ridiculed by scientists even though it explains all the data collected and is contradicted by none of it. But that’s why repeated testing of that idea is required, as long as it is not outright falsified. Continental drift WAS accepted in the 1960s once an overwhelming amount of evidence was found to support it and those geologists who had been bigoted against it in the 1920s had died or retired, and a new generation had arisen that was more open-minded. Those who supported the continental drift theory were able to come up with a mechanism, plate tectonics, that explained it, and once they did opposition to it faded away rapidly.

Individual scientists may fall so deeply in love with their own ideas that they refuse to accept the peer review process when it rejects their ideas. Then they become cranks who no longer do science, but instead put out propaganda to appeal to the scientifically illiterate. This is especially true of Creationists and global warming denialists who happen to have science degrees. They even go so far as to attack the peer review process itself! But it must be noted that they can never produce anything that would produce superior results in terms of seeking objective data in the universe and explaining it.

Scientists who refuse to recognize that an idea of theirs is wrong are like a population of organisms that are too specialized in their lifestyle to adapt to any sudden change in their environment, resulting in their extinction. Fortunately, the progress of science continues even in spite of such incidents, just as life on Earth has continued despite the mass extinctions that have wiped out most species that evolved on Earth before.

Lunacy from a racist “Christian”

As much as I despise Ben Stine for making that idiotic Expelled movie that attacks evolution as an inspiration for the Nazi Holocaust and portrays Intelligent Design promoters as martyrs, what’s even worse is when some deranged psycho slams Stine himself for attacking racism as well. I think I’ll just copy and paste the entire piece of nonsense to show what was done. I hope you have your bathroom door open, in case you feel like puking!

http://tarobb.blogspot.com/2008/04/trap-is-set.html

Censorship in the name of religious freedom?

I’ve never seen such a blatant attempt at denial of academic freedom! Now, if the people being attacked were committing libel, this lawsuit would make sense. This is a clear example of hypocrisy!

http://www.pacificjustice.org/resources/news/focusdetails.cfm?ID=PR080512a

An Evolutionary View of Religion

Considering that most of the opposition to evolution is based on religious bias, it is ironic that evolutionary concepts are most useful for explaining the history of religion. It is common knowledge, for example, that Christianity evolved from Judaism, Buddhism evolved from Hinduism, the Baha’i Faith evolved from Islam, and that Christianity has diversified into hundreds of sects including Roman Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Thus religions themselves illustrate the concepts of common ancestry, mutation, and adaptive radiation as well as mass extinctions (many pagan religions died out as Christianity and Islam expanded, leaving behind “fossils” in the form of published records that are today dismissed as “myths”).

And now I wish to dispel one of the most common misconceptions about evolution: That because humans evolved from ape-like animals, that humans are by nature superior to their ape cousins. And that evolution is a ladder of progress in which all decendants are by nature superior to their ancestors. It is ludicrious to suggest that fish are inferior to mammals. Both fish and mammals are animals well adapted to their environments. If they were not, they’d become extinct. Most fish cannot breath air and thus cannot survive out of water, but the reverse is true of most mammals, which would die if they could not breath air. So from a fish’s point of view, a mammal must seem inferior, even the whales, which must also rely on their lungs to breath, not gills. Evolution is all about change, not progress. A fish is merely different from a mammal, period.

Likewise, Judaism is different from Christianity. There is no reason for Christians to think themselves or their faith superior to the Jewish faith, except by their own arrogance. Judaism has been in existence longer than Christianity, but it has also evolved just as Christianity has. For a Christian to convert to Judaism is not to take a “backward step”, merely to adopt a different set of teachings.

Thus, I totally reject the Baha’i concept of “Progressive Revelation” that implies that the Baha’i Faith is the supreme religion because it came after all the others, and that other religions are valid but destined to be replaced by the Baha’i Faith. Must we assume that because mammals came later than fish, they are destined to replace all fish? NO, that is nonsense! In my view all religions must be seen as equal because all of them have evolved and adapted to their environment. Until this is understood by nearly everyone, wars and discrimination based on religious bigotry will remain a serious threat.

PZ Myers fan here!

I am a regular reader of the blog by PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/