Fixed It!

Lions as a Variable

Louis C.K. performs some new jokes on last night’s Letterman

Winds of Change in the Middle East

The issues in Tunisia, Lebanon, and Egypt differ, but yesterday anger boiled over in all three countries as grievances were brought to the streets.

In Tunisia, where protests have already overthrown President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, continued demonstrations sought to depose his allies still in their positions. Meanwhile Tunisia's interim government has issued an international arrest warrant for the former president and members of his family.

In Lebanon, Sunni supporters of ousted Prime Minister Saad Hariri took to the streets in a "day of rage", burning tires and blockading roads in Tripoli and Sidon.

It was in Egypt where the most dramatic events unfolded as the largest protests in a generation rocked Cairo. Demonstrators, many inspired by events in Tunisia, called for an end to nearly 30 years of rule by President Hosni Mubarak.

Protesters in Egypt Defy Ban as Government Cracks Down

By KAREEM FAHIM and LIAM STACK

Protesters marched against President Hosni Mubarak for the second straight day. In Suez, protesters set fire to a government building.

• Photographs
• Warily Eyeing Egypt, Israelis Feel Like Spectators
• The Lede: Egyptian Bloggers Report on New Unrest

Egypt's Young Seize Role of Key Opposition to Mubarak

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Hosni Mubarak's traditional foes have been displaced by the leaderless tens of thousands of young Egyptians who turned out this week to demand an end to his 30-year rule.

I'm at first, very excited to see pro-democracy boom in the Middle East (whoa, isn't that what George Bush said we were fighting for over there, and EXACTLY what would happen if we took out Sadam?!) My hesitation to get really super excited is that, well, who's to say they won't 'elect' a crazy imam to replace their totalitarian masters?

Of course, this author is quick to note that the GOP has backed crazy imams (Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee) too!

Eh, screw it: Viva Revolution!

There's Still Hope

"Mississippi's House Bill 586, which if enacted would have required "scientifically sound arguments by protagonists and antagonists of the theory of evolution" to be presented in the state's schools, died in committee on February 2, 2010, according to the legislative website.

In 2009, the bill's sponsor, Gary Chism (R-District 37), introduced a bill, HB 25, requiring biology textbooks in the state to include a hybrid of two previous versions of the Alabama evolution textbook disclaimer; that bill also died in committee."

Idiocracy

Happy Darwin Day

Today marks the 150th Anniversary of the publishing of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
[Read it Here]

In this book, Darwin described how evolution by natural selection works — and presented a huge body of evidence, drawn from every field of biology then known, that evolution can account for the patterns we see in nature.

Which religious fundies dismiss, not because they observed contradictory scientific evidence, but simply because they "don't believe in it." Well, I'm sure I can just as easily disregard their beliefs as flippantly as they disregard science.

In the meantime, I think the word evolution has been hijacked and we need to look at the concept of 'Adaptation.' My half cent.

There are quite a few celebrations this year of one form or another—the 200th anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine; the 350th anniversary of the birth of Henry Purcell; the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel; the 200th anniversary of the death of Haydn; and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mendelssohn. There's going to be a lot of concerts in Europe tonight.

Also, please note, it's the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and the 150th of the book.

Om nom nom nom

Thought you'd like this. Saw it on a car the other day.

Doublethink? Doubleplus good!

Submitted by Lara.

If you can’t beat them, take their published works, remove what you disagree with, and then add a 50 page ad hominem attack. That’s what one fundamentalist group has done to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Although there were too many big words, so the Creationist version is handily identifiable by being titled “Origin of Species”.

Think I’m being biased? In their own words, straight from their site:

A recent study revealed that in the 50 top universities in the U.S. (in the fields of psychology and biology), an amazing 61 percent of respondents described themselves as atheists or agnostics. It’s no wonder atheism has doubled in the last 20 years among 19-25 year olds. An entire generation has been (and is being) brainwashed by atheistic evolution, and it’s radically changing the culture of our nation.

In an effort to combat this, we produced a special 280-page full color cover edition of Origin of Species, which contains a 50-page introduction. This introduction gives the history of evolution, a timeline of Darwin’s life, Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, his disdain for women, and his thoughts on the existence of God. It lists the theory’s many hoaxes, exposes the unscientific belief that nothing created everything, points to the incredible structure of DNA, and the absence of any species-to-species transitional forms.

Their master plan? To flood college campuses nationwide on November 24th (the 150th Anniversary of the first publishing) with altered copies. Their goal, to give a 1000 copies away per school.

To quote submitter Lara “This is the size of the template at stickerguy.com, in case someone wants to have some printed to put all over the f**ked-over Origin of the Species books showing up at schools.”

A fine idea indeed. For reference, the template she used was for 4.25 x 2.75, and again you should use the full size version linked here.

You can also read the original via Google Books.

Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story

See, it's complicated if your Board of Education doesn't allow you to learn science.

Why Earth Isn't Millions of Years Old

"Comets indicate the solar system is less than 10,000 years old"

I'm fascinated with this guy... he can just go on talking about things that he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, and flatly just wrong about... and I keep watching. Hypnotized, lulled into his calm but serious voice.

Ken Hovind Creation-Evangalist seminar, excerpt from: "Seminar 1 Why The Earth is Not "Millions of Years Old."



My favorite parts?
"No one's ever seen a sun being born."
"Big Dinosaurs were Mooned To Death"
"Comets indicate the solar system is less than 10,000 years old."

A little about the speaker: He's 57, he graduated from East Peoria Community High School. He is married and has three adult children and five grandchildren. Since November 2006 Hovind is serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution, Edgefield in Edgefield, South Carolina, after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including twelve tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and forty-five counts of structuring cash transactions. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Kent Hovind is scheduled for release from prison in August 2015.

Can't Chew Gum and Evolve at the Same Time

Look, I know that this is a viral ad, and I'm just perpetuating their message by posting this - but what does it say about your Board of Education when a chewing gum commercial understands the concept of evolution better than they do?

Clearly that gum was intelligently designed. Someone will probably sue saying that their gum didn't last "that" long.

Me? I think they should change the term to "Adaptation" as it more clearly defines the concept. It's not survival of the fittest, it's the adaptation to the environment that wins the day.
Kind of like how nerds with money are getting laid now-a-days.

Of course, no amount of education will stop some people from thinking that the Flintstones is a documentary.

Sasquatch Evidence Update

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum.

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.

This coverage by the mainstream media was all started by the release of a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.

The two men who "discovered" (I love the use of scientific words in stories like these) apparently are a correctional officer and a policeman on disability. Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two who say they discovered the Bigfoot corpse while hiking in the woods of northern Georgia.
They also are co-owners of a company that offers Bigfoot merchandise. Wow! What an amazing coincidence!

Here's a video where they tout their services as bigfoot trackers (pops a new window for you)

Here's another where they have a 'scientist' (he wasn't, and was later outed as the brother of one of the guys) talking about the bigfoot corpse. (pops a new window too)

Seriously, check those videos out.

Now - a couple things that I'd like to discuss. First off, why was the news media - including highly vaulted entities such as the New York Times giving this any attention? Are we so completely out of news that we have to treat THIS as news?

Second, and more importantly, the thing about this hoax that amazes me and that absolutely no one has brought up:
If the pile of opossum they produced is 4% human - who was it?

Shouldn't this start a criminal investigation?

For the rest of you, who might be finding this link via the interwebs, or on a google search - looking for Sasquatch or Bigfoot news - let me recommend a book that has all the answers to UFO's, Big Foot, the Chupacabra, the lost continent of Atlantis, witches and Wigi boards...

If you find that it's too difficult to read, have some one read it to you.

Museums

An Evolution Museum plans to build a museum dedicated to evolution in Petersburg, KY, opposite the Creation Museum.

The Evolution Museum believes that all people must be educated on the theory of evolution. The world needs balance and the Evolution Museum aims to create balance in the Midwestern states of the U.S.

The proposed location for the Evolution Museum is right across the highway from the Creation Museum.

The Evolution Museum will be a non-profit and funded through online donations. The pillars of the non-profit will hold the values of transparency and social direction. All activities will be published online and members will be able to give guidance to the non-profit.

That's awesome -- but I thought, don't we already have those? They're called "Museums?"

It was all fun and games...

until I found this picture...

My gads!! Not only is this picture depicting the idea of adapting to one's environment - AKA the notion of Evolution... it's ALSO FUGGING WRONG!!! Horses DIED OFF and went EXTINCT in the Americas. Neither fun, nor facts.

I hereby declare that this form of ignorance should be considered child abuse and prosecuted with vigilance. If you are a believer of such stuff, you should ask for a refund from your grade school.

Evolution Dance

Optimus Prime's Evolution of Dance... No wonder Megatron wants to kill this guy.

Another Win for Evolution

2007: Intelligent design say HIV evolved nothing new. 2008: Scientist say not has HIV evolved new features but that these evolutionary biology results "led to new drug targets for new HIV/AIDS therapies" Thanks evolutionary biology!

(Link to the incredibly hard follow original post, unless you're a microbiologist, that is)

Now I think that Doonsbury is one of the worst comic strips - it's usually not funny, or all that politically scathing, so it's just half-assed. However, when I read the story, this is the first thing I thought of. If it's not big enough for you to read, click on it - it shall im-big-en itself, like all the pictures on Blasphemes. Enjoy.

Creationists Fail in Florida

Creationists: "If you put evolution in textbooks, you have to call it a scientific theory."
School Board: "Um, sure. And let's teach kids what that actually means too."
Creationists: "HAHAHAHA... wait, what?"

The Florida Board of Education officially upheld evolution yesterday.

The board didn't quite mean to do that, of course. In a 4-3 vote, the Board accepted a proposed curriculum that replaced all references to evolution with the phrase "the scientific theory of evolution." In so doing, the board inadvertently made evolution central to public school science education, and also, almost incidentally, mandated education on just what constitutes a "scientific theory." (linky-to-story in Wired)

I love it when Creationists show short sighted and the inability to smell a trap by smart people. Apparently, the opposition only needed to put a brown paper bag on the floor, and the Creationists wouldn't have been able to escape it.

Not only will Florida's students learn about evolution; they'll also learn that the scientific definition of a theory is different from the everyday definition , referring not to wild-eyed speculation but to a vast body of observation and testing that confirms a hypothesis so strongly that it might as well be considered fact.

Thanks and a shout out to religious critics of evolution education. The language change will better help Florida's children understand not only evolution, but science itself.

Suck it.

Ironic Evolution

Kentucky's Creation Museum expanding, adapting to it's environment.

Enlarge By Mark Lyons, Getty Images The privately funded museum which exhibits the Earth's history according to the Bible opened to the public for the first time on May 28 and is part of the Answers in Genesis project.

PETERSBURG, Ky. (AP) — Northern Kentucky's Creation Museum is 'evolving' into a larger facility. Thus, one of my favorite punching bags gets another post. Thanks Creation Museum!

The museum will add 663 parking spaces, outdoor canopies and a maintenance building and will move its main entrance as part of a $500,000 upgrade, according to a report in The Kentucky Enquirer.

The controversial museum, which uses literal interpretations of the Bible to tell the earth's history, welcomed its 250,000th visitor five months after its opening on Memorial Day. The museum had expected to get 250,000 visitors its entire first year. That's 1/4 of a million people, folks. My guess is that some of those numbers are inflated, as many people had to come back - because it is very hard to read all those hard words on the placards.

The larger-than-expected crowds left the facility with an overflowing parking lot, forcing staff to park miles away. That's too bad. If they would have gotten there earlier, say before it opened, maybe they could have had the pick of the lot?

Adam and Eve from the Creation Museum - Looks to me like Eve likes it on top? Where's Lilith? I mean, if you're going to make Evangelical pr0n... go all the way - not that limp Skin-a-max garbage.

Bill Hicks once said, ""In many parts of our troubled world, people are yelling 'Revolution!'. In Tennessee they're yelling 'Evolution! We want our thumbs!"

Discussion Evolves

Getting "Creationism" into schools failed. "Intelligent Design" had its day in court, and has lost. Now it's time to "Teach the Controversy."

In 2005, Pennsylvania federal Judge John Jones III handed down a stunning decision that, at the time, most thought would take down the intelligent design movement. But American creationism doesn't die. It just adapts.

It's amazing to me that the Creationist movement has evolved and adapted, but their thinking has not.

A while ago, when the courts deemed creation science -- proto intelligent design -- a religious view and not constitutionally teachable as science in public schools, it adapted by cutting God off its letterhead and calling itself "intelligent design." The argument for I.D., and for "scientific creation theory" before it, is that evolution isn't up to the task of accounting for life. Given biology's complexity, and natural selection's inability to explain it, I.D. thinking goes, life must be designed by a, well, designer. I.D.ers skirted any mention of God, hoping to avoid getting snagged on the First Amendment's prohibition against promoting religion by arguing that I.D. was just a young and outlying science.

In the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge Jones ruled that if you want to teach intelligent design in science class, first you have to show that it is a distinct species from its earlier, creationist form, not just a modified type. You've got to show us the science part.

Besides, Jones declared, your intelligent designer is obviously God.

The six-week trial -- the focus of a Nova documentary, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial," aired Nov. 13 -- addressed a host of heady questions. What is science and how does it work? Can evolution account for the diversity of life we see on earth? What is religion? Can science say anything about the existence of a creator and still be science? It also examined the motivations of a local school board that tried to smuggle creationism into its high school biology curriculum. The judge's decision -- that I.D. was not science and that the school board was trying to promote its members' own religious views -- was followed by a short period of shock from the I.D. community. But now they're reorganizing and is now attacking Evolution through the expanded coverage of the controversy.

"Evolution remains under attack," says Eugenie Scott, an anthropologist and a director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching evolution in public schools. "If creationists have their way, teachers will eventually just stop teaching evolution. It'll just be too much trouble. And generations of students will continue to grow up ignorant of basic scientific realities."

(Here's all of it)

The Evolution of Creationism

I was surprised by the question, because it was the very same one I've been wanting to ask people like her for a looong time...

I was listening to Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN) last week. With Time carrying us all toward the culmination of one of the most, um, grave religious seasons of the year, when all of Christendom celebrates the resurrection of the man-sized, clown-faced, egg-laying Easter Bunny by filling brightly-colored plastic eggs with candy and then hiding them, Cooper was running a series of... segments, I guess you'd call them, entitled, "What is a Christian?"

In one of these... segments, Cooper was moderating (fueling the fire of) a debate --which on cable news means a verbal splooging of finely-honed dogma that escalates into a shouting match of not so finely-honed dogma before the host cuts them off and reminds everybody that this is, after all, America in the twenty-first century and, therefore, commercialism trumps news or views or discussion, every time, and we'll be right back-- moderating a debate over whether or not the Theory of Intelligent Design should be taught alongside the Theory of Evolution in public schools.

The Theory of Intelligent Design is a prime example of the latest, ahem, evolution in the shaping of the message being pushed by the Religious Right. It is the next step up the ladder from simple spin doctoring-- one of the best examples of which is the labels applied to the abortion issue.

Most supporters of Roe v. Wade refer to themselves as "pro-choice." It's an accurate enough term: While they're not in favor of abortion per se, they are in favor of keeping the option legal, if only for others to use. The implied rhetorical logic, of course, is that opponents of the Roe v. Wade decision are "anti-choice" --which is also accurate. If you need proof of that, all you have to do is read enough bumper stickers that say "It's not a choice. It's a child."

Anti-abortionists, realizing early on that they weren't getting anywhere by labeling themselves "anti-abortionists," or by labeling their opponents "murderers" and "baby killers" --not to mention the hypocrisy of killing abortion clinic employees-- decided to give themselves a positive label: "Pro-life." Apparently, their views on capital punishment are an entirely separate issue.

As I said before, the Theory of Intelligent Design represents the next step-- a far more sophisticated mechanism for introducing theology into the secular world. Fully realizing that they run the risk of being branded as kooks and superstitious crackpots if they do nothing more than thump The Book of Genesis down on the debate table, the Religious Right and others who desperately want there to be something more than a great big empty out there have carefully crafted an argument which they hope will seem more reasonable and be more palatable. It is a somewhat clever (insidious?) argument, because it utilizes one of the basic imperatives of the scientific method itself: The imperative to question and to challenge that which is accepted.

The Intelligent Designists, you see, do make a valid point when they say the Theories of Evolution and Big Bang --no matter how widely they are accepted-- should be continually explored, questioned, and challenged with alternatives. The very same scientific method which led to the acceptance of those theories says so. One thing many people tend to overlook most of the time is that the word "theory," within the realm of science, has a weighty definition: It means that while the evidence would seem to support a particular idea, that while all the data seems to fit, nothing has been proven.

Furthermore, Intelligent Designists are also accurate when they accuse evolutionist of having a knee jerk negative reaction to any theory that isn't Darwinism and the Big Bang. Most evolutionists, seeing a lamb in wolf's clothing --theology in the guise of science-- do have that reaction.

Such was the case last Wednesday night when Anderson Cooper was doing a not very good job of referee-ing the barnyard squabble between an evolutionist named Robert Boston (Americans United For Separation of Church and State) and a creat-- uh, intelligent-designist named Charmaine Yoest (Family Research Council). Had it been a debate competition, held in a vacuum, where it didn't matter who was right or wrong but only how well they represented their assigned point of view... she would have royally kicked his [donkey]. Whereas she came across as reasonable and fair-minded, he was the one who seemed dogmatic, exclusionary and nit-picky. During one near-hysterical exchange, he repeatedly interrupted her-- badgering her about the age of the planet. For her part, she chose to ignore the question on the grounds that her personal opinion regarding any one detail was beside the point of the larger argument.

This debate, however, was not and is not being held in a vacuum, and there are, I think, some important points to be, uh, pointed out...

Among many other things, Yoest, regarding what she referred to as the "censorship of anything non-Darwinian," said: "I think our children have more robust intelligence and, and questioning to be able to cope with looking at all the different theories that are out there."

Then she said: "I just have to ask: What is he [Robert Boston] so scared of?"

Later, as the squabble became more heated, she addressed Boston directly with the same question: "What are you so scared of?"

I was surprised by the question, because it was the very same one I've been wanting to ask people like her for a looong time: What are you afraid of?

Because I'll tell you what I'm afraid of. In fact, I'll go you one better, Charmaine: I'll tell you what you're afraid of, too...

Children --especially young children-- often do have a more robust intelligence than they are given credit for. However, they are sorely lacking in skepticism and critical thinking. In some ways that's good: It fuels creativity. In some ways, though, it's bad: It makes them gullible, impressionable. As children grow into adulthood, some of that early intelligence morphs into "common sense" and rote, the growing skepticism warps into a certain jadedness and, apparently, Charmaine, their critical thinking develops some major-league blind spots. You'd be appalled if you really knew how many walking, talking and otherwise clear-headed people there are in this country who are utterly convinced that all rivers flow south.

The Theory of Intelligent Design presupposes the existence of a supreme being. Any such theory is --by definition!-- theology, not science. Theology belongs in theology class, not science class.

The following passage is from the first chapter of The Book of Genesis: "God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night..."

Clearly, this passage refers to the sun and the moon. Notice the poetic --dare I say metaphorical-- use of the word "govern." If the god you believe in does exist, Charmaine, then neither the sun nor the moon govern anything at all-- He does. So much for a literal reading of the text.

Moreover, the moon is not a light source; it is a planetary body whose soil is appreciably reflective. It does not glow with light of its own; it reflects the light of the sun. The Book of Genesis is not a scientific text; it is an ancient collection of often rather stilted bedtime stories. In fact, that's all it was ever meant to be. Why, I got a phone call from God just last week, and he told me that he's very disappointed in all you creationists' failure to grasp the concept of allegory. He finds it strange that the very same people who think He invented, well, you know, Everything find it so hard to believe that He invented storytelling. He wonders why Jesus is allowed to use parables to make a point, but He isn't.

He also thinks Howard is a jerk.

And Dick Cheney, too.

So, Charmaine, what am I afraid of?
I'm afraid of superstitious, fairy-tale believers like you, with your heads in the sand and gaping holes in your critical thinking, filling the minds of impressionable young souls --that are already destined to have low test scores-- with bedtime stories masquerading as scientific fact. I'm afraid of you and your kind pushing this country and its people toward the very kind of theocracy we're supposed to be fighting against in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm afraid that you True Believers are the harbingers of a new Dark Age.

And now, Charmaine, do you know what you're afraid of?
Death. It is cold and dark out there and it lasts a long, long time, and you just can't face the very real possibility that when the end comes it will indeed be The End. You are afraid of the astounding insignificance that bespeaks-- that your existence was an accident to begin with and someday all too soon it will be Over, completely, forever, and your life will ultimately mean no more to the universe than the life of an ant in Timbuktu means to you...

Ah, but take heart: For while most evolutionists seldom speak of God and, indeed, very well may not believe in one, the Theories of Evolution and Big Bang do not preclude His existence. They don't even try to do that. What they try to do is explain the physical mechanics of the world and the universe, nothing more. Oh sure, in doing so they reaffirm that The Book of Genesis is a theological text, neither science nor, for that matter, history. But that's not the end of the world.

Heck, it's not even the beginning.

------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "The Serpent" Selig must go.