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Darwin plagiarizes Wallace … the YEC perspective
I’ve been picking on creationists for a number for years now, so it is somewhat strange for me to come out and offer one a gold star but, hey!
Todd Wood, a YEC at Bryan College had had a paper accepted over at Answers Research Journal that gives his take on the whole ridiculous “Darwin was a plagiarist” riff that the likes of Roy Davies have been shilling. So to recap, John Wilkins, Jim Lennox, and now Todd Wood (a creationist for cripes sake!) think that Davies is wrong.
Short version of Wood:
According to Davies, these alleged evidences of Darwin’s misdeeds have been ignored by Darwin scholars for more than twenty-five years, ostensibly in an effort to preserve the myth of Darwin as the great discoverer of evolution and intellectual hero of Britain. That charge can hardly be leveled at this author, an American creationist. Some readers might be wondering why a creationist would bother writing a paper defending Darwin. This work should not be seen as merely an exoneration of Darwin but as a genuine attempt to discover the truth. If Darwin had plagiarized, then that should surely be made known, but there is no evidence that he did so. The individual claims made by Davies do not withstand scrutiny, and the argument as a whole simply does not hold together. As Christians concerned with presenting the truth, creationists should avoid Davies’s conspiracy theory. Love him or hate him, Darwin was the author of his theory of evolution by natural selection.
Now let’s move on, shall we?
Wood is one of the prime movers in the YEC baraminological movement. His blog is actually worth checking out.
Latest Gallup Poll on Evolution Denial
(source; click for larger version)
So 60% of Republicans – versus 40% of Independents and 38% of Democrats – think that God created humans as is, 10,000 years ago. Let’s get this clear – this isn’t 60% accepting some form of “intelligent design” and allowing the archeological and fossil records to speak for themselves. This isn’t some form of theistic evolution that may be compatible with some form of intelligent design (the numbers there are 32, 36 & 39% respectively). No, this is 60% of Republicans (and 44% of Americans) being abjectly ignorant and accepting a young earth creationist position.
Let’s take the ID proponents at face-value. Let’s allow them to claim to be aiming to teach “good science.” Let’s accept Phillip Johnson’s claim that ID proponents are "the ones that stand for good science, objective reasoning, assumptions on the table, a high level of education, and freedom of conscience to think as we are capable of thinking." Can we then expect the Discovery Institute to issue a press release decrying the 44% of the American population who clearly are scientifically illiterate and do not realize that we have fossil Homo sapiens going back 200,000 years? Will Evolution News & Views mention that?
Didn’t think so.
Worst justification ever.
Why to not engage in scientific peer review:
We have often received feedback in the form of questions on the lines of, ‘If creation is scientific, then why don’t you publish in peer-reviewed secular journals?’ Andrew Kulikovsky answers this common question in detail. He points out the advantage of peer review but then documents its many shortcomings in practice, including rejecting top research while admitting fraud, as well as an all-to-common role in protecting the ruling paradigm. So it is folly for anticreationists to hide behind it instead of dealing with the arguments. This is why, to keep the advantages and overcome its drawbacks, creationists have started their own journals, e.g. CMI’s longstanding publication now titled Journal of Creation.
Whaaaaaaaaaaa? Full version here.
If I had a vote, who would get it?
Some of the other SciBlings are doing it, so why not …
My compatibility with the current gaggle of presidential candidates:
- Kucinich (95)
- Gravel (90)
- Richardson (82)
- Edwards (81)
- Dodd (78)
- Clinton (74)
- Obama (72)
- Biden (72)
- Paul (61)
- McCain (44)
- Thompson (38)
- Huckabee (36)
- Romney (35)
- Giuliani (34)
- Hunter (28)
Somewhat predictable, though I’m surprised at Clinton over Obama. Feel free to comment as to your results.
Open Laboratory 2007
The 486 nominations for Open Laboratory 2007 have been whittled down to 53 and Bora has the complete listing of the entries that will appear in book form in time for the 2nd Science Blogging Conference. I’m happy to report that my Pithecophobes of the World, Unite! Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV have been judged suitable for inclusion. Thanks again to the reader who nominated them!
I guess I have some editing and formatting to do!
Arguments about evolution, redux
An English backpacker who stabbed a Scottish traveller to death during a row about creationism and evolution was sent to jail for five years by a judge in Australia.
Alexander York, 33, from Essex, had become involved in a bitter argument over the origins of mankind and later, in the caravan park where they were staying, the row turned to violence.
Scottish backpacker Rudi Boa, 28, from Inverness, fell dying into his girlfriend’s arms after being stabbed in the chest by York in January last year.
Guess which one was the creationist?
Genesis held to be literally true by 60% of adult Americans
One result from a Barna Group poll on biblical literalism:
The Bible opens with the description of God creating the universe in six days. That report is accepted as literally true by 60% of the adult population. This passage brought out major distinctions across people groups. For instance, while 73% of the adults who did not attend college believe this account to be literal, just half as many college graduates (38%) hold that view. About half of the residents of the Northeast (52%) and West (50%) hold a literal view of the creation account, compared to 62% of those in the Midwest and 72% of those in the South. Again, the Catholic-Protestant divide was sizeable: half of Catholics (52%) and three-fourths of Protestants(74%) have a literal interpretation of creation. More than four out of five blacks (83%) are literalists on this matter, versus 64% of Hispanics and 59% of whites.
Barna is hardly a disinterested source but …
Mutant Randomites Arise!
First we were "slime-snake-monkey-people". Now we’re "mutant randomites," and Johnson accuses us of name-calling! Mr Mote, meet Mr Eye.
This just keeps getting better and better.
‘Slime-Snake-Monkey-People’ of the World, Unite!
Creationist Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. has just published a book detailing Noah’s role in Greek art as a known historical figure. Yeah, *that* Noah. Johnson says:
“In Greek art, we find detailed, consistent portrayals of the early Genesis themes including: the ancient garden, the serpent-entwined apple tree, the first family, Cain killing Abel, the Flood, and the successful rebellion against Noah after the Flood. Greek artists made the gods look just like people because that’s who they were–our ancestors. Socrates himself referred to the gods as such”
As this article notes:
To shock the Darwinists out of their denial of the overwhelming evidence in Greek art for the reality of Genesis events, the author urges Creationists to refer to evolutionists as what they imagine they are–”Slime-Snake-Monkey-People.” Mr. Johnson, who holds a general science degree from West Point, also suggests that since Slime-Snake-Monkey-People insist they evolved over millions of years through a countless series of random mutations, Christians should also refer to them as “mutants.”
Bergman on Bergson – Typical YEC Scholarship
Jerry Bergman is well know to those of us who follow creationism – in the past he has blamed Darwin(ism) for practically every ill that afflicts the modern world and regularly publishes “historical” work in the journals of the Answers in Genesis and teh Creation Research Society. Bergman’s history is deeply flawed and he twists facts to suit his pre-ordained position (like many YEC commentators).
Bergman has recently written a piece for ICR Impact discussing the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, author of L’Evolution créatrice (1907, not 1944 as Bergman indicates). The articles begins:
An anti-Darwinian theory of biological origins that was well received and widely accepted for years was creative evolution. This theory attempted to deal with some of the major problems of Darwin’s theory, especially the origin of biological information. Developed by Henri Bergson, the level of the theory’s acceptance is indicated by the fact that the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in this area. It is the only Nobel ever awarded for an anti-Darwinian theory of biological origins.
As Bergson’s theory is adequately discussed here, it will suffice for me to point out (as Bergman himself nottes) that Bergson’s Nobel prize was for literature “in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brillant skill with which they have been presented,” certainly not an indicator of “the level of the theory’s acceptance” and hardly an endorsement of “an anti-Darwinian theory of biological origins.” Certainly there is no evidence for Bergman’s claim that
Bergson’s theory was honored with a Nobel because it appeared to a large number of scholars to be a plausible explanation for the source of genetic variety which natural selection could fine tune.
It’s Alive! Alive!
Sahotra Sarkar (Philosophy of Biology, University of Texas) has revived his blog in response to the creationist takeover of the Texas Board of Education.
Sarkar is the author of Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution and thus will no doubt have good things to say about the situation in Texas.
A role model for ID?
The New York Times has run a story about the young earth creationist (and ex-DI Fellow) Marcus Ross who received his PhD in geological sciences. Predictablly, the denizens of Uncommon Descent see this as some sort of victory. Cordova comments:
He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and even young earth creationists can matriculate through Darwinist controlled institutions.
A role model? Perhaps. But only if one believes that it is OK to lie your way through graduate school. As PZ notes:
He was doing “research” on the distribution of mosasaurs 65 million years ago, but what he was actually doing was echoing ideas he disagreed with to fit the expectations of his advisors–he was a complete fraud.
Exactly.
Freepers on AiG finances
Noticed a few hits from FreeRepublic.com this morning as someone called “truthfinder9″ had linked to my post about Ken Ham and AiG revenue. Here is a highlight:
Poor Ken Ham
Back in March, I noted that creationism was a profitable business … at least for Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis who had a salary of $121,764 for 2004. Now Jim Lippard is reporting that Ham has taken a pay-cut and only made $60,000 in 2005. Poor, poor Ken … must be rough surviving in a state
where the median household income is $37,270.
Update (12/30): Jim left this comment which is worth putting up front-and-center:
Actually, as I’ve now pointed out at my blog and in comments at Pharyngula, I made an embarrassing mistake by failing to notice a technical reason for the apparent (and unfortunately not real) decline in AiG revenue–they filed only a six-month Form 990 for 2005, rather than a full-year report. To get an approximation of their 2005 numbers, multiply the numbers from that report by two.
That yields a 2005 salary for Ken Ham of $120,000, rather than $60,000–that’s only very slightly lower than his 2004 salary of $121,764, and puts him far, far above the median household income in Kentucky.
Jim has publicly corrected an “embarrassing mistake” …. how often have we seen a creationist do that?
Happy Birthday!
As some of you may know, in 1650, the Irish archbishop, James Ussher dated the beginning of the universe using the Book of Genesis and calculated the date of creation to be October 22, 4004 BC. That would make the universe 6002 6009 years old today.
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