Is Ignorance Bliss?

Caught an interesting line from a post over on The Slowly Boiled Frog: "The conservative Christian freak-out over Barna's Gen-Z study".  While's its subject isn't my usual cup of tea, I was caught by one line in particular:

"Religious literalism causes people to be wrong most of the time yet never uncertain. In effect it is a celebration and affirmation of ignorance. "

'Wrong, but never uncertain!'   It certainly can explain a few things, maybe even more than a few things.  Theists are always so sure, whether or not they can articulate any sort of valid reasoning for what they are so sure about.  I think that's one of the things that annoys me the most.  They embrace ignorance, celebrate it, want to pass laws protecting it, and  . . . worst of all . . . demand the right to force their ignorance on all schoolchildren, not just their own.

I know any theists will claim not to be ignorant, but the word applies.  What does a theist usually do when faced with actual evidence?  Look at little kennie ham and his Kentucky ministries for example.  He ignores it.  If he cannot ignore it, he denies it.  If that doesn't work, he rationalizes it.  When pressed he comes up with the most outlandish stories to remain as ignorant as possible.  Plus, like all to many others, he makes his living pushing such ignorance.

OK, if you want to argue semantics, I guess it's acceptable to be ignorant when you are not exposed to something.  But once you have been exposed, remaining ignorant is a choice, and it's one all too many theists make.  What they 'know', particularly when it comes to science, is pretense.  Here is a Jesus and Mo strip that explains it well:

" . . . as long as there are questions, there are people who will pretend to know the answers!"  Great line, but it gets even worse when they convince other people to join them in their pretense, and then they get organized and the followers pay for the privilege of being ignorant.  The final step is they want everyone, not just their followers, to pay for their ignorance.  Think about how much money the taxpayers of Kentucky have paid and will continue to pay for little kennie's ministries!

Now, just to be clear, when I say 'ignorant', I am not talking about intelligence.  There is nothing to indicate theists are more or less intelligent than non-theists.  While there was a study that some sites tried to make such a claim, it really doesn't support that idea. (Did a Study Find That Atheists Are Smarter Than Religious People? Not Quite.)  What the study did find that when intuition comes into play, non-theists tend to do better.  I believe that's because a theists intuition will invariably follow their religious beliefs -- which often turn out wrong in the real world, as we stated above.

The old saying "Ignorance is Bliss" doesn't seem to apply either.  I mean are theists really more blissful than non-theists?  The more hardcore ones certainly are not.  They are at war with the rest of the world all the time.  One of the most common reasons for war are religious differences.  And we are not just taking war, but fighting and disagreements in general.

Case in point, remember Tammy Kitzmiller, she was a parent in the Dover PA school district and one of the 11 parents who were plaintiffs in the Dover suit. For whatever reason her name was listed first so the suit is commonly referred to as Kitzmiller v. The Dover Area School District. According to Lauri Lebo's excellent book "The Devil in Dover" and many articles about the trial, Ms Kitzmiller and her family suffered verbal abuse and attacks from self-identified Christians. In a York Dispatch article they mentioned some of it:

• One letter she received, scrawled in big letters across a sheet of yellow notebook paper, begins, "When you open your eyes in hell. ..."
• One boy at school told the girls to tell their mother to "go to hell," delivering the message through a third person.
• The atmosphere worsened as campaigning began for a hotly contested school board election and people prepared for the trial. There were nasty phone calls and confrontations in restaurants and on the streets.

These attacks were enough to have her stop her daughters from even answering the phone! This isn't the only example. The judge in the Dover, Judge John E. Jones also received death threats as a result of which he and his family were given around-the-clock federal protection. I believe the parents who sued John Freshwater after he burned a cross into their son's arm also received similar backlash once their identity was revealed. The members of the Iowa State University, after they refused to give Guillermo Gonzalez tenure -- tenure let me remind you that he failed to earn -- were vilified by some online blogs and posts, same with Ball State University's president, Jo Ann M. Gora and the whole Hedin/Gonzalez issue (yes, the same Gonzalez who screwed up so spectacularly at ISU).

So, what have we discovered?  While theists may be as intelligent as non-theists, often they are wrong when it comes to matters that impact their belief system - mainly because they rely on that system to answer questions it is unsuited to answer.  And while they may be certain, certainty is not a measure of being right.  By the same token, that certainty often bring them into conflict, conflict driven by those same beliefs.  That conflict manifests in everything from full-scale war to make attacks against people who refuse to share their belief system.

It's this close-mined certainty that makes dealing with many theists so challenging.  As soon as you challenge any part of their belief system, they avoid, deny, or outright lie to protect it -- regardless of any actual evidential support for their position.  Ignorance may breed certainty, but it sure doesn't bring out the bliss.

I think I have a new Favorite Newspaper!

Back during the Dover Trial, I enjoyed the coverage from the York Dispatch, which was linked from a variety of sites.  That paper was certainly discussed in Lauri Lebo's book "The Devil in Dover", which I enjoyed immensely and have mentioned in a number of previous posts.  I was on Facebook and caught a post from Lauri pointing at an editorial from the York Dispatch.  It is a masterpiece.

Here a link to the article "EDITORIAL: Ban us, you big baby".  Rather than reproduce it, I will quote a couple of things, but I heartily suggest you click the link and enjoy it in its entirety.  Like most folks, I was aware of Trump's war on the media.  I hadn't realized that some media outlets would see it as a badge of honor to be so banned  . . . and I just have to quote this:

"We also believe you’re [Trump] acting like a spoiled-rotten child — the petty poster boy for why we need a strong Fourth Estate. (It’s how the grown-ups sometimes refer to journalists, dating back to … oh, never mind.)"

I mean . . . damn!  I did also love when they ranked a Trump Event as less important than a new Starbucks grand opening!  At the end, they sign off with:

"Sincerely, and with all the respect you’re due,"

Yes, with all the respect he is due . . . LOL.  I thought it was done, but they added a little editor's note:

"(Editor’s note: This opinion piece has been changed to clarify Donald Trump has the demeanor of an over-indulged 2-year-old.)"

I hope they end up on Trump's sh** list, I cannot imagine a better place to be!  Without a doubt this has been an example of the worst side of American Politics.  Not just Trump, although he is the absolute bottom, but when you look at all of the potential candidates that started back a while ago, you can clearly see what John Oliver recently called the 'Cirque De Dismay', would you trust any of them to pet sit your dog?

Why Teaching Biology may be Harder than it Needs to be!

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is an online comic strip that I think I don't look at nearly often enough.  To the right is an old one that was recently passed to me.  It was too good not to pass on.  Have you run into someone so entrenched in their position, nothing in the way of logic or evidence can possibly dissuade them?  I know I have! It does illustrate that it can be hard to get some points across, particularly when the person you are talking with has been indoctrinated in their view that evidence gets summarily dismissed.  I do enjoy, as odd as it might sound, driving believers to the point where they have to invoke their deity to keep their belief set in play.  Check out panel 4: "Put here by Satan to fool non-believers". Funny, I have heard two versions of that.  On the one hand it was placed by Satan to fool folks, however more often I have heard the evidence was placed by God to test people's faith.  The end result is the same, the believer denies the evidence.  But sometimes I want to put two of them in the same room and let them duke it out to determine who 'planted' the evidence.  It always amazes me the lengths people will go to to maintain their delusions! It's not just theists, but people who believe in other supernatural foolishness, homeopathy, climate-change deniers, and -- of course -- the whole anti-vaccination movement.  Evidence is only meaningful if it can be twisted to support their entrenched position! Hopefully there isn't an actual 'Creation History Foundation', but you never know.  How often have we spoken about the Discovery Institute re-writing history? Think about how their pseudo-historian Michael Flannery, for example, has been telling us how Darwin is responsible for racism and Hitler -- regardless of the fact . . . and I do mean fact . . . because Hitler claimed to have been given a divine inspiration! While many Christians hear that and get upset, claiming that Hitler wasn’t a Christian that he just used the Bible as an excuse to justify and rationalize his actions. I agree! But then why does the DI insist that Darwin’s work caused the Nazi atrocities? Sounds a little self-serving and more than a little dishonest. Here is a something from Main Kampf just to prove my point: " . . . [Jews] very existence is an incarnate denial of the beauty of God's image in His creation." (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt) History re-writes abound, things like the whole 'The US was established as a Christian Nation' to the DI re-baptizing people who are safely dead as 'Intelligent Design' supporters.  I commented on that a few years back in "Social Studies next on the firing line?" and Laurie Lebo had an article in 2011: "Fundamentalist-led Texas History Standards get 'D' from Conservative Think Tank."  There she reports that: "Texas’ new standards are evangelical-led revisionist history" So while there may not (yet) be a 'Creation History Foundation', one may come to pass.  I will be pretty confident that it will have as much to do with history as the DI has to do with science and it will probably be based in Texas . . . sorry Texas! I hope that you enjoy SMBC as much as I do, and as much as I plan to do on a more regular basis.  I do have a link to a short list of comics I do read daily.  That list includes XKCD, Dilbert, and Jesus and Mo.  I will be adding SMBC to that list. Note to SMBC:  I did copy your comic image for inclusion here in case the image link doesn't work in the future.  I've had that problem on a couple of other sites.  If you object, please let me know and I will change it to a link.

Does Judge Jones Misunderstand his Critics?

Caught an article on the Discovery Institute's usual site and it made me think.  Before reading the article, I wanted to just think about the title:  "Ten Years After the Dover Case, Judge Jones Misunderstands His Critics".  Does he really misunderstand his critics?  I don't think so.

Before reading it, I thought back over the past 10 years to the Dover Trial.  I recall the reaction to Judge Jones being the one to hear the case.  In Lauri Lebo's still excellent book "The Devil In Dover", she quoted one of the contributors over on Wild Bill Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, describing Judge Jones:

"Judge John E. Jones on the other hand is a good old boy brought up through the conservative ranks. He was state attorney for D.A.R.E, an Assistant Scout Master with extensively involved with local and national Boy Scouts of America, political buddy of Governor Tom Ridge (who in turn is deep in George W. Bush’s circle of power), and finally was appointed by GW hisself. Senator Rick Santorum is a Pennsylvanian in the same circles (author of the “Santorum Language” that encourages schools to teach the controversy) and last but far from least, George W. Bush hisself drove a stake in the ground saying teach the controversy. Unless Judge Jones wants to cut his career off at the knees he isn’t going to rule against the wishes of his political allies. Of course the ACLU will appeal. This won’t be over until it gets to the Supreme Court. But now we own that too. "

 These seemed to be a common theme, a conservative judge, appointed by a Republican President couldn't possibly rule against Intelligent Design (ID).  Of course, as history has shown us, not only did Judge Jones rule against ID, but his ruling pretty well demolished any hope the DI had of ID being taken seriously as anything other than Creationism.  And their reaction was pretty typical, they vilified Jones.  Not only that, he was directly threatened from multiple quarters to the point he needed protection from Federal Marshals. 

John West, President of the Discovery Institute immediately called him an Activist Judge, something Judge Jones even mentioned in his ruling.  Let's talk about that for a moment.  According to most sources, Judicial activism refers to judicial rulings suspected of being based on personal or political considerations rather than on existing law.   Just in case any Creationists are reading, that bears repeating:  "personal or political considerations". 


If the Judge had allowed his Conservative roots to influence his ruling, as expected by many, wouldn't that have been an example of Judicial Activism?   It seems pretty clear to me that too many folks were expecting him to do just that!  So instead of him actually being an Activist Judge, they accuse him of being one simply because he gave a ruling they didn't like, and in a typically knee-jerk reaction call him an Activist Judge.  As I said, Judge Jones expected this and even addressed it in his conclusion:

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

But Westie and his cronies went beyond that, they did what they usually do and wrote a book.  Yes, a Court Ruling explained that Intelligent Design is not science, so instead of going into the lab and proving the judge wrong, they wrote Traipsing into Evolution, a book-length critique of the decision.  Why am I not surprised?  When in doubt, write a book!  Don't do anything that might be mistaken for science, write a book!  Don't address the shortcomings of ID, write a book attacking the Judge who helped open the kimono and show those shortcomings to the world! It's nothing more than another example of marketing rather than taking any actual action.  What else could they have done?  You might notice that no one appealed the ruling.  You might also notice that no other school system has tried to emulate that the Creationists on the Dover Board tried to do.  You would think that the DI would want this case tried again in front of a different judge and if it was truly the act of an Activist Judge, the second ruling could very well correct it.  But for some reason no one is clamoring for a new trial.  The DI simply keeps trying to place the Judge on trial!

Judge Jones has many times addressed his critics.  Just recently he was interviewed as part of a series of articles in the York Daily Register on the Dover Decision:  "Dover intelligent design 10 years later: Q&A with U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III"  

Of course little casey luskin just couldn't resist whining in yet another attempt to try Judge Jones.  You remember casey?  He was the Discovery Institute lawyer whose participation in the trial was offering press releases for a couple of days and then he just disappeared. (Devil in Dover pages 120-121).  I don't know how offering press releases makes him qualified to comment on anything Jones says, but then qualifications aren't something the DI seems to pay much attention to . . . unless they are inflating them (Since the "700" keeps coming up . . .).

So, the first error little casey makes is assuming the DI is the target of Judge Jones comments.  If he actually read for comprehension, he would see that Judge Jones had a number of folks critical of his ruling, and he specifically said 

"What happened was that the punditry, who disagreed with my case, you know, came out and in a sort of firestorm, this sort of Bill O'Reillys and Ann Coulters of the world, and they were very strident and I think misleading in their criticism."

So little casey thinks the DI is on the same level as political punditry, or is it he can't stand the DI being shunted to the side in favor of O'Reilly-ers and Coulter-ites?  Actually that makes more sense than claiming to be an organization dedicated to actual science.  After all, what is a pundit?  Someone marketing their opinion, most often to people who already agree with them.  Sounds like a good definition of the DI, doesn't it?

Little casey's primary point is he think the Judge overstepped.  That as soon as he determined that the Dover School Board's in purpose was religious, he not looked at anything else.  Of course that would have made the DI happier than the actual result.  Dembski even predicted that the results of the trial had about a 70% change of being: 

"The Dover policy is overturned but the scientific status of ID is left unchallenged." (Life After Dover)

Which is exactly what might have happened if the Judge stopped doing his job.  Think about what that would have done for the DI and their pet Creationism/ID.  It would have kept the door open for people just like the Dover School Board's Buckingham and Bonsell to push for the inclusion of religion in science class.  You might not remember Buckingham and Bonsell, but if you read the Dover Decision you will find things like:

•   . . . the Dover School Board members' testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath
• It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy

The judge was talking about the school board members who voted for ID, which included William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell, whose testimony did raise cries of perjury!

So, to little casey's mind, once you achieve the minimalist possible objective, you should always stop there.  I don't know about you, but I wasn't raised that way, and apparently neither was Judge Jones.  I am pretty sure little casey, and the rest of the bunch at the DI, wish the Judge had done just that is because the actual ruling was the one Dembski gave a less than 10% change of happening. 

What I find funny is how Dembski said it really wouldn't be that damaging if it did happen.  Even today, 10 years later, the DI is still trying to spin Dover as pretty much very limited impact on them.  How true is that?  Well since in the last decade where has ID gone?  How many public schools teach it in their science curriculum?  How many presentations to scientific conferences have happened?  How many peer-reviewed papers on ID have been published in reputable scientific journals?  I did specifically use the words science and scientific so anyone can differentiate between DI revival meetings and self-published journals as compared to real scientific conferences and scientific journals.  I believe the answer to all three is 0.  I also specified 'public schools' because the curriculum requirements for non-public schools is very different, however even the majority of non-public schools teach Evolution (Baylor, University of Dayton two nationally ranked Christian universities are good examples).  So in reality, ID hasn't done much but continued marketing.  They certainly have been quiet on the science front . . . and no I do not, nor does the scientific community, consider self-published, popular press, or religious imprint articles and books to be scientific.

So what we have is a Judge doing his job and not just looking at their motivations, but examining the entirety of what was happening in Dover using the precedents previously established in cases like

• Epperson v. Arkansas - 1968
• Daniel v. Waters - 1975
• McLean v. Arkansas - 1982
• Edwards v. Aguillard - 1987

Of course the Judge didn't stop where casey and his little friends would have liked nor where they where they expected him to stop.  Judge Jones made a complete ruling and one that has caused the DI to spend considerable time and energy distancing themselves from, and also attacking Judge Jones pretty regularly.  Judge Jones specifically said:

"The conclusion was probably the toughest part of the opinion, because I felt that I, frankly, given the length of the opinion at 139 pages, that a lot of people would only ever read the conclusion. So I labored over that. Because I wanted to make that as powerful and as clear as I possibly could."

And he most certainly did make a powerful ruling.  One that has had a lasting impact on the modern Intelligent Design Movement, no matter how much casey and pals try and spin things.  Does the Judge misunderstand his critics?  No, I don't think so.  I think his critics misunderstand not just Judge Jones but the law.

If you are interested, there are other articles from the York Daily Register about the 10 year anniversary.  I hope you find them as interesting as I have.  It does stand to reason these articles are much more interesting than anything put out by the DI, especially by their press release mouthpiece luskin.

• Plaintiffs, attorneys drawn together by the case
• Whatever happened to 'Of Pandas and People'?
• Ruling deterred other legal challenges
• Defendant says 'nobody did anything for religious reasons'
• Plaintiff's young son now creating his future
• Evolution cartoons from Dover Area High School
• 'No frontal assault' on evolution since Dover case

Wikipedia deserves an Award! They Annoyed the DI! Yea!

The Discovery Institute does not like Wikipedia, what a shock!  Since when does the Discovery Institute like anything, or anyone, who doesn't grant them every concession they seem to feel is somehow owed to them?  Disagree?  Well think about two cases in point, Intelligent Design (ID) and the Dover Trial.

When it comes to Intelligent Design who wants it to be taught alongside real scientific theories as if it had any actual science behind it?  Exactly!  They keep demanding to be allowed at the science lectern through tactics that never seem to include performing any actual science.  Think about their tactics "Teach the Controversy", "Evolution is only a Theory", Strengths and Weaknesses", "Academic Freedom", to name a few.  Any actual science involved?  It's all marketing and politics.  Currently their "official" position is that they don't want it to be taught.  I don't buy that, their own guiding documents doesn't say that -- its just another tactic.  I think they don't want it to be taught yet.  First they want to weaken science and science education, then they can more easily market their theistic-ally friendly ideas without ever having to do actual science.

And how about Dover, more specifically the Federal Judge.  Who was it touting a slam dunk when a Conservative Judge, appointed by a Republican President, was announced.  It must have thrilled them to the core.  As mentioned in several books, their confidence level of winning the Dover Trial went up considerably at that point.  Lauri Lebo quoted one of the contributors over on Wild Bill Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, describing Judge Jones:

"Judge John E. Jones on the other hand is a good old boy brought up through the conservative ranks. He was state attorney for D.A.R.E, an Assistant Scout Master with extensively involved with local and national Boy Scouts of America, political buddy of Governor Tom Ridge (who in turn is deep in George W. Bush’s circle of power), and finally was appointed by GW hisself. Senator Rick Santorum is a Pennsylvanian in the same circles (author of the “Santorum Language” that encourages schools to teach the controversy) and last but far from least, George W. Bush hisself drove a stake in the ground saying teach the controversy. Unless Judge Jones wants to cut his career off at the knees he isn’t going to rule against the wishes of his political allies. Of course the ACLU will appeal. This won’t be over until it gets to the Supreme Court. But now we own that too. "

Once the trial started, they started circling the wagons.  When the verdict was handed out, Judge Jones was vilified, called an Activist Judge, and is regularly whined about by the DI still today, 10 years later.  What changed?  Judge Jones upheld the law and didn't let the DI get away with anything.  What did they try and get away with, you might ask?  Well if you read the transcripts, a lot.  They tried to offer opinion as facts, contested assertions as if they were facts, they tried to squash the testimony of prosecution witnesses because they knew just how devastating their testimony would be, they tried to re-define science and evolution to make their particular kool-aid more palatable.  The list gets pretty long, but Judge Jones held them up to the light of day, and their little heart shriveled right up.  It doesn't seem like they have learned anything in the last 10 years.

Such is a common theme.  When you play nice with the DI, they say nice things about you.  The problem is that their idea of playing nice is you do what they want, you say what they want you to say, and by no means ask or say anything that might be interpreted as critical of the DI or their pet ideas.  If you cross them, they get out one of the pack of toothless Chihuahuas to attack you, most often little casey luskin or davey 'klingy' klinghoffer.  If you think I kid, do you remember little casey's diatribe attacking a quilter who dared win an award with a quilt entitled "Myths of our Time: Intelligent Design.".  Any time someone says critical stuff about ID, the DI has a knee-jerk reaction to defend it!  They do it all the time (Evidence of Evolution and Selection, DI's knee-jerk anti-ID whine, The Discovery Institute responds on Ohio HB 597, are a few examples.) 

Before getting specific with their issues with Wikipedia, let's talk a little about it.  It is one of the most popular websites in the US, with good reason.  I know, I use it all the time.  Now, what I wouldn't use it for is a reference for an academic paper, even though a 2005 study by Nature declared that Wikipedia is as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.  Now that being said, I would also not use Encyclopedia Britannica for an academic paper either.

It might sound strange, but we are talking about encyclopedias, which are great for bringing together information, but it's the source of the information in the encyclopedia that is a better reference than using the encyclopedia itself.  I grew up with a set of encyclopedias and in elementary school and high school they were in constant use.  However, in college and for my Master's Degree I used a number of sources, the authoritative source for information, not second or third hand like an encyclopedia.  Encyclopedia's are great for quick reference, but not the authoritative source for anything.

While the study said Wikipedia and Britannica were equal in accuracy, there are differences between the two.  Wikipedia does use an open-source model for editing that does seem to lack some level of author non-repudiation and editorial control.  I think the early assumption was based on people being honest, but too often they re-discovered that isn't always the case.  There have been a number of cases where one particular point-of-view tried to hijack Wikipedia pages, there have even been lawsuits about it when someone tries to remove what they feel is damaging information about themselves or their organizations.  So they have had to implement various processes to help keep folks honest.  But still problems do happen.  It doesn't invalidate Wikipedia as a reference, but it does require some care.

Just for fun I popped over the PubMed to see how many times Wikipedia was used as a reference . . . also Britannica, just to be fair.  I found 295 references of Wikipedia and 3 of Encyclopedia Britannica -- however, looking over the abstracts I didn't see them being used as references, but the papers were about them.  Here are two examples:

• HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS IN THE RECENT EDITION OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.
• Automatically Expanding the Synonym Set of SNOMED CT using Wikipedia.

While PubMed doesn't list the sources in their abstracts, you can tell by the abstracts that the articles were about Wikipedia and Britannica.  Certainly would make me realize that the scientific community also doesn't use encyclopedias as the authoritative source for information.  Guess any complaints in that department would be foolish, since that's not how encyclopedia's are used.

A recent article in PLOS ONE "Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale".  The authors looked at three politically controversial subjects:  Acid Rain, Evolution, and Global Warming and four non-politically controversial subjects: heliocentrism, general relativity, continental drift, and the standard model in physics.  What they looked at was the number of edits and even the number of words in the edits.  Luckily Wikipedia keeps track of the edits and makes that available for review.  What they discovered should have surprised no one, politically controversial subjects get edited more often.  Gee really?  Are you surprised?  I wasn't.

Now before we go on, I want to point out they didn't look at scientifically controversial subjects, but politically controversial subjects.  We all know there is no scientific controversy about these subjects, especially evolution.  Much to the annoyance of the DI.

OK, so there is no surprise for us, politically controversial subjects get edited more often.  It's just like people having conversations, politically controversial subjects tend to be talked about more and with more emotion.  Wikipedia edits can become like arguments, where people are trying to talk over each other.  If you happen to hit a topic during one of these edit wars, you might end up with material that is less than . . . shall we say  . . . objective.

Wikipedia does try to remain neutral and provide a place for experts to maintain information.  They don't always succeed, which is why my cardinal rule is always to check my sources!  Wikipedia does a good job of identifying the source of material and listing it at the end of each entry.  But before diving into what casey and the DI say about it, I want to mention one last thing on neutrality.

While Wikipedia does its best to remain neutral, it does not make the same mistake that many journalists make in claiming neutrality.  All too often a journalist, in an effort to be neutral, will provide an equal coverage to two opposing views.  There are times that is appropriate, but there are also many times when it is not appropriate.  For example on civil rights, would you provide equal coverage to a civil rights march and a Ku Klux Klan rally?  I don't think so.  While the two views are opposite, they are not equal by any means.  Journalistic 'neutrality' all to often is taken to mean equality.  Here is Wikipedia's own policy on Neutrality: [I added the underlines]

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views."

We see this frequently in papers, online, and even on-air articles between the political controversy between intelligent design and real science.  Reporters giving people like the DI equal time, even though they have yet to earn it scientifically.  Well Wikipedia does not emulate journalism and does it's best to insure that even controversial topics have some reliable sources, especially when it comes to science.

The PLOS ONE article looked at Evolution, for fun I looked up Intelligent Design in Wikipedia and I bet the very first line pissed off the DI to no end:

"Intelligent design (ID) is the pseudoscientific view that 'certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.' "

Also for fun I looked back in the recent edits and saw that someone was trying to change "the pseudoscientific view" to "a hypothesis of origins, considered by some to be pseudoscientific".  This particular editor claimed that would make the description:

" . . .more neutral, and a more accurate description. (Even evolutionists have been known to express belief in possible design behind evolution)"

Someone came along shortly thereafter and restored the original "the pseudoscientific view".  While it might be fun dissecting the differences between the two, a quick read shows that the attempted edit would not make things more neutral, but water down the issue of pseudoscience and assign what sounds like an unearned 'hypothesis' to ID, important differences when looking at things like intelligent design, astrology, or parapsychology.  So it's easy to see why the edit didn't stand.  Look at pseudoscience on Wikipedia (about 3/4's of the way down the page) it could have been written for ID!  Equal standing is earned, and one of the ways to earn it, especially for science, is what are scientific theories and what are not.  No matter what standard Wikipedia uses, if the DI doesn't get treated like real science, they will be attacking the source instead of correcting the deficiency!

I can also see, by the edit history, that in early July there were a number of rapid edits that caused Wikipedia to declare ID as a 'Disruptive Edit'.  Declaring such changes the editing policy to try and damp down the edit war, which is remarkably similar with a 'flame war', minus the profanity.  I am starting to get a feeling of what probably happened.  The DI got busted violating the various rules that govern Wikipedia.  And having gotten busted, are trying to make Wikipedia the bad guy.  I am starting to see nothing more here than the DI playing the Victim card once again.

Let's see little casey goes on . . . Wikipedia biases, partisan,  . . . obviously casey, and that means his bosses at the DI, doesn't like Wikipedia. Sounds like Wikipedia, and the editors, wouldn't let little casey and his friends . . . OK, here I have to quote the little guy:

 "I say this based upon years and years of people contacting me who tell of having tried to make bland, benign, reasonable edits and who then saw those changes immediately deleted by pro-Darwin editors. "

Bland, benign, and reasonable edits?  To paraphrase a favorite movie, I don't think those words mean what little casey thinks they mean.  I wonder if little casey would claim this is one of those 'bland, benign, and reasonable edits'?  One of the early edits to the Wikipedia page on Evolution changed a line to say this:

"It is worth noting that the theory of evolution is not falsifiable, hence not a scientific theory at all, since it includes the claim that God did not intervene in evolutionary history by creating new forms of life." 

I am sure the author feels his edit was bland, benign, and reasonable, but since the Theory of Evolution makes no such claim, his edit was corrected as short time later.  I bet little casey would have loved reading that one!  Take some time and go look at the edit history of any topic that interests you.  I think you might be surprised, especially in popular or politically controversial subjects.  When you look back at the edit history for items that might be of interest to the DI, I bet you will see lots of stuff the DI doesn't like!  I took a quick peek at the Sternberg Peer Review Controversy  and saw a number of edits that would have subtly, and some not so subtly, changed the page to make it sound more like how the DI tries to sell it, rather than the reality of the controversy.  Little casey claimed not to edit Wikipedia himself, but I would be hard-pressed to believe someone at the DI doesn't try.

So the bottom line seems to be that Wikipedia refuses to let the DI sell their pseudoscience, and in not doing so, earned the ire of little casey.  Is Wikipedia perfect?  No, but as a reference, it's as good as the gold standard of encyclopedias, Britannica.  The fact they are doing things that annoy the DI is just gravy!  Keep it up Wikipedia! 

What if people stopped believing in Darwin?

Ann Gauger, you know the lady with the non-existent lab over at the Biologic Institute, posted something totally ridiculous:  "What If People Stopped Believing in Darwin?"

First the obvious, people do not 'believe' in Darwin, any more than they 'believe' in gravity.  What people do is accept the explanations from real scientists when it comes to explaining phenomena like Evolution and Gravity.  There is a world of difference between belief and acceptance of an explanation.  I do understand why Ann, and her cohorts at the Discovery Institute, have trouble understanding the difference, they demand faith with no supporting evidence.  But that's the obvious critique.  Let's have some fun.

First off, let us remember who Ann works for, the Biologics Institute, which is the pet apologetic 'lab' of the Discovery Institute (DI).  When you factor that in, you know she's not talking about evolution being out of the picture, but her religious alternative being the only game in town.   That being said, it certainly changes the picture, because everyone knows how open-minded and accepting theists can be, right?

One of her comments was a real corker:

"Biology students might feel free to express their opinions on origins."

Since when does having a religious explanation for anything make people feel free to express their opinions?  Annie's point is that because of Darwin students don't feel free to offer their opinion.  Of course that's not the whole truth, because I have yet to be in a classroom where student's didn't raise their opinion.  One of my students read this blog and wanted to discuss in class -- and I teach Information Technology!  What I think Ann means is that theists do not feel free to raise their non-scientific objections to evolution in science class.  If Ann had said that I would heartily agree.  Raising a religious objection to actual science IN science class is a waste of time and deserves to be shut down.  I did shut down my student by explaining that Life's Origins aren't an appropriate topic during Java Programming.  When he persisted, I invited him to comment on the blog or discuss it after class.  He chickened out and did neither.  But that's the point, Creationism is not science and other than a brief historical perspective, doesn't belong in science class.

Let me give you a for-instance.  Suppose you are a member of a church-going family who for years went to the same church as many of your neighbors, you are involved in church activities, and lived in the area and raised your family there.  Then you get more than a little annoyed when a cross gets burned in your son's arm by his science teacher and you dare to question it.  Not only that, but you learn that the 'science' teacher in question isn't teaching science, but his very evangelical view of science.  You have the audacity to complain.  What happens?

Well according to Ann, you should have been welcomed, your opinions and questioning should be encouraged, and all Christians are nothing but polite and accepting people, right?

However the reality seems a bit different, as an article about the family who dared raise questions about John Freshwater in Mt Vernon Oh:

"We've gotten phone calls, things in the mail, anonymous letters. They send scriptures and how you should raise your children, implying we're not raising our children correctly. Everywhere we go I feel like people know it's us so they don't talk to us or they will say things. Even in church." Eventually it was too much for the Dennis family. They moved 35 miles away."

This isn't an isolated instance, do you recall the Dover Trial, or shall we call it by it's usual name:  "Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al".  What happened to Tammy Kitzmiller and her family?  More examples of welcoming, openness, and acceptance?  No, she and her daughters received hate mail, accusations of being atheists, her children confronted, confrontations in restaurants and in the street.

Sure, religion does nothing but open people's minds and hearts! Maybe other religions do, but apparently not Christianity. In a review of Lauri Lebo's excellent book "Devil in Dover" from the Aetiology blog:

" . . .that even most of the biology teachers at Dover were church-going Christians, yet they were ostracized and bad-mouthed by those supporting the school board’s anti-evolution stance–rejected and slandered by Christians who seemingly had no problem attacking fellow believers."

I have to repeat this phrase:  " . . .no problem attacking fellow believers".  Sure, Ann, dismissing Darwin makes everything sunny and bright.  Really?  As you can see I find it hard to believe that if somehow Darwin disappeared overnight, so much would change for the better.  Look at all the people living under repressive religious regimes.  Are you going to tell me Christianity would be different?  Was it in the past?  Tell me when?  Show me an example!

More from Ann:

"The world would see a new flush of academic freedom."

Since when does religion encourage academic freedom?  Seriously, I am asking.  How many professors and teachers have gotten in trouble for teaching evolution?  Too many to count, like John Scopes, Pamela Hensley, Tom Oord, Gary Scott, Stacy Mendrick . . ..  The impact was directly on them teaching evolution.  They did their job and got in trouble.  People forget that the textbook John Scopes was using included evolution or that Pamela Hensley and Stacy Mendrick were well regarded teachers who were teaching the required elements of their courses.  The list is quite long, and not always at a parochial school, but public schools as well usually due to parental pressure,  So this is how religion improves academic freedom?

Now aside from the marketing campaign by the DI, how many teachers got in trouble for teaching Creationism/ID?  While the DI likes to trot out people like Caroline Coker, John Freshwater, and Guillermo Gonzales, the real story is a little different.  These people were hired to perform a job, usually to teach science.  However they made a personal decision that their religious beliefs precluded them from performing their job.  And when they get held accountable, they whined about religious discrimination and the DI trots them out as victims.  I don't see them as victims.  They took the job under false pretenses -- I see them as liars.  Of course Freshwater did more than just fail in his job, but that's another story.

Now I would like to believe that I wouldn't accept a job that conflicted with my belief set so strongly I couldn't do it.  I would be honest about it rather than say one thing and then perform another.  But that's just me and how I was raised.  I guess that level of honesty isn't needed when you are lying in the cause of your religion.  You could ask kennie ham, but he does the same sort of stuff.


Of course she had to try and drag in 'Academic Freedom', which anyone with a functioning brain knows that's not what the Discovery Institute is interested in.  It's just another tactic to try and wedge their way into the classroom.  Their idea of academic freedom means to be able to teach their religion as if it were science and to remove real science from the classroom.  Don't blame me, it's their stated goal:  to replace science with a more theistic-ally friendly version.  It's again like little kennie ham who's idea of religious freedom is to be free to believe how he wants and force others to believe as he [kennie] wants as well.  Not very open-minded and accepting.

One last thing and then I will go back to ignoring most of annie's posts.  Here final comment:

 "That's why they say scientific revolutions happen one funeral at a time." 

Really, so scientific theories get replaced when the author or supporters die off?  Apparently that hasn't worked for Darwin and the Theory of Evolution at all, has it?  It didn't work for Alfred Wegener, whose theory of Continental Drift didn't get confirmed until 20 or 30 years after his death.  I wonder if she expecting the next generation of scientists to knock Darwin to the curb and instill her organization's pet ideas?  Maybe that does explain why they [the DI, annie, wild bill and the lot], don't bother doing science and only marketing and public relations in their efforts to damage science education.

I wonder where annie expects to next breakthroughs in vaccines, medical treatments, and new technologies to come from?  Divine intervention?  Yea, like that has worked real well so far.  Let's ask Ian, Neil, Matthew, Austin, Amy, Robyn, Andrew, Harrison, Nancy, Dennis, Arrian, Zachery, Troy, Shauntay, and Rhett.  Oh, wait you can't.  They all died because some people, often their theist parents, believed prayer beats out medical care.  Not a great track record.

Response to 'That's Deception, not Concern' post

I got a couple of emails about how disingenuous I am for accusing the Discovery Institute (DI) of doing something everyone does when they use words to make a point.

I do agree everyone uses words to better their own position, that is a recognized tactic.  But the DI seems to be much less honest about it.  Did they ever mention their religious objective to euthanasia?  Wouldn't that have helped a reader grasp why they were making the argument?  In the past did they ever mention that their pet idea, Intelligent Design, isn't a scientific theory?  Did they forget to tell lawmakers and voters that the 'academic freedom' laws they helped write and get passed in Louisiana has nothing at all to do with academic freedom?  How often have we heard how ID is not Creationism, yet the religious underpinnings are clear for all to see?  That what I mean about being more dishonest about it.  I've seen many articles where a individual or group's motivation is included in most diatribes.  Most groups are proud of their positions and aren't afraid to tie into that motivation.  Do you ever see the DI being so open and honest?  I don't think so.

The problem is more that this indicates a pattern of behavior, not just playing lawyer-word games.  Here are a few others I've mentioned in the past:

• Remember how the DI misrepresented the organizational affiliations on the 'Dissent from Darwin' petition? (here) 
• Now about how the DI forget to mention that the reason most of the 'scientists' who signed their petition didn't sign for scientific reasons? (here)
• One of their authors, Stephen C. Meyer, identified two reviewers of one of his books as not being ID proponents, when nothing could have been further from the truth. (here, the part near the end about Philip Skell and Norman Nevin)
• How about the behavior of the DI before during and after the Dover trial?  You can check out Panda's Thumb for the good information, or read Lauri Lebo's 'Devil in Dover' -- but let me remind you of a couple of things: When the Conservative judge was announced, the DI pretty much said it was over and they won, yet after the trial they claimed the judge was an activist judge and tried to spin the ruling that was devastatingly against them.  Don't forget the three of their senior fellows bowed out of testifying.   They also claimed not to have given any help or advice on one hand and on another claimed to have advised Dover's school board not to pursue it . . . of course these comments differ sharply from what the Dover School Board members said during testimony.
• My all time favorite will always be the bibliography given to the Ohio School Board trying to convince them of evolution's imminent demise (here).  After their shenanigans, they did add a disclaimer to the bibliography, but it doesn't change how they represented it in Ohio.

This list can get pretty long, but I hope you get the idea.  In my opinion, the Discovery Institute cannot be trusted to represent themselves in an open manner.  They fail to follow a standard methodology expected of all scientists, yet they demand a place at the lectern in science class for teaching their religion.  They do this using tactics that, again in my opinion, are reprehensible.

Texas scores again, and not in a good way.

You might remember all the rough and tumble politics the past few years in Texas and how the vocal minority failed to achieve all their goals to gut science education. Well in addition to attacking science education, they were also doing their best to re-write history. I commented on it in May 0f 2009 with "Social Studies Next on the Firing Line".

Well yesterday one of my favorite folks, Lauri Lebo, has a terrific post about it. It seems the Texas Social Studies curriculum received a 'D' from the conservative Thomas Fordham Institute. You really have to read it for yourself. "Fundamentalist-Led Texas History Standards Get ‘D’ from Conservative Think Tank". Some choice quotes include:

• "Complex historical issues are obscured with blatant politicizing throughout the document"
• "Native peoples are missing until brief references to nineteenth-century events. Slavery, too, is largely missing."
• "Incredibly, racial segregation is only mentioned in a passing reference to the 1948 integration of the armed forces."
• "The conservative majority on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has openly sought to use the state curriculum to promote its political priorities, molding the telling of the past to justify its current views and aims." [Italics added]

Ouch! Can it get much worse for the students in Texas? At least Texas voters had the sense to vote out some of the more overt Creationists, like Don McLeroy. But his influence will be hurting Texas for a while. I can't call it a legacy, because you normally think of a legacy as something positive. I don't believe Don McLeroy was anything positive when it came to Texas schoolchildren. His specific narrow religious viewpoint and politics were much more important to him than the education of the next generation.

Of course the report is fired upon by Conservative Texas-based Liberty Institute, an arm of Focus on the Family. But like most of their comments, it's a dud. Trying to paint the Thomas Fordham Institute as "elitist ‘think tank’, with left-wing funding and an agenda"
is just absurd, especially for anyone who knows anything about them. Lauri talks about that as well!

Thanks Lauri for another insightful column! So when is the next book coming out? :-)

In case you don't remember, Lauri is the author of the excellent book "The Devil in Dover: Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America", a book about the 2005 trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover in which intelligent design was ruled creationism by a conservative judge.

You know, maybe folks like the Liberty Institute and the Discovery Institute should try and appeal to more Liberal organizations. They sure aren't having much luck with Conservative ones. I mean the Thomas Fordham Institute and Judge Jones are both Conservatives. Just a fun thought.

Wild Bill and his sidekick Glenn Beck-erhead

PZ Myers on Pharyngula, Lauri Lebo on Religion Dispatches, and Jack Krebs on Panda's Thumb are among the posts reporting something that should surprise very few. William Dembski is a Young Earth Creationist (YEC). Gee! Who'd have thunk it!

It is funny that the man who several times has predicted the demise of Evolution within 10 years has undergone his own transformation within that same time limit. Yes, in 2000 he wrote an essay saying he was NOT, emphatically not, a YEC because the evidence of an old Earth was so strong, and now, just 10 years later, he announces that. . . as Jeff Foxworthy would put it "He are one!" My question is how is this going to help his credibility the next time he announces the decennial demise of Evolutionary Theory? (Head Smack!) Of course, since he has absolutely no credibility there is no impact.

I guess a second question is how will this sit with his Discovery Institute's lords and masters? I mean they tend to bend over backwards to appease the members of their 'big tent' approach and avoid internal conflicts until they can rid the world of evolution. Billy switching camps might create some internal conflict -- we can always hope. Will Billy's next fluff piece still support Michael Behe who, as far as I know, is not only not a YEC but a supporter of Common Descent? This might be fun.

On a side note, PZ's link also has connection to a Glenn Beck-erhead radio interview where he, once again, reveals to the world his colossal ignorance of anything scientific. There's another surprise. That Glenn is also a died-in-the-blood Creationist, as if his earlier rants weren't already pretty indicative. What does surprise me is how he expressed it. The script might as well have been written by kennie ham. Becker-head says that he's never seen a half-monkey/half-man and asks why haven't other species evolved into humans, and several other inanities that do nothing but show how little he knows.

Now I know all Glenn is doing is pandering to his core audience -- who will continue to make him wealthy by buying his junk and attending his shows. But even he has to realize just how stupid it makes him look. With any luck he might lose a few supporters and then he and Wild Bill can commiserate over a beer.

Thanks to Jack, Lauri, and PZ for highlighting all the fun and games. Now to get some popcorn and watch for fallout. Who will be first? Will Dembski try and weasel his way out of it? Will a mouthpiece for the DI tell us how Dembski's change is no big deal? Will kennie ham ever come out of the closet? Will Glenn Beck-erhead continue to spout about nothing at all? Stay tuned!

An additional note on Modesto

PZ Myers on Pharyngula picked up on this one as well ("The science media make my head hurt") and he commented on something I noticed but hadn't thought through -- so I wanted to add this to my original post.

If you went to the original link ("Modesto science teacher's plan to teach intelligent design sparks debate") you saw that off on the left-side of the main article are two sets of links, one explaining ID and one explaining Evolution. The article's writer went to the Discovery Institute (DI) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) for their information. The error they made, and one I agree with PZ on, is that they seemed to treat both organizations the same. This offered way to much credibility to the Discovery Institute! As PZ said:

"And of course, they go to the Discovery Institute for their story about ID, and set them against the NCSE, as if these two groups have an equal investment in the scientific truth. They do not. Intelligent Design has no credibility, no empirical support, and no reasonable proposals for scientific investigation. When will the media wake up and realize that their constant pushing of a false equivalency is a major factor in feeding this pseudo-controversy?"

One of the factors driving the success of the Discovery Institute's marketing campaigns is that the media tends to treat them as if they have credibility, as if they are offering something on par with evolutionary theory. That's is simply not true!

Lauri Lebo discussed this in her excellent book "The Devil In Dover" with a quote from Science Magazine's Donald Kennedy:

"There's a very small set of people who question the consensus," Kennedy said. "And there are a great many thoughtful reporters in the media who believe that in order to produce a balanced story , you've got to pick on commentator from side A and one commentator from side B."

She also quoted Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their book "Elements of Journalism":

"Balance, for instance, can lead to distortion. If an overwhelming percentage of scientists, for example, believe that Global Warming is a scientific fact, or that some medical treatment is clearly the safest, it is a disservice to citizens and truthfulness to create the impression that the scientific debate is equally split."

Nan Austin of the Modesto Bee made the error of consensus. Oh I am sure she means well, but by giving the impression that the NCSE and the DI have the same degree of credibility, or that Evolution and Intelligent Design are on equal footing in the scientific community is just plain wrong!

Lauri Lebo v. David Klinghoffer! He didn't stand a chance.

Recently I had a post "Klinghoffer . . . Again!" concerning David's attempt to link Darwin and Hitler with his Huffington Post case of verbal diarrhea "The Dark Side of Darwin". In my response I did mention another HuffPo article castigating him by Eric Michael Johnson "Intelligent Design Creationists Abuse Science and Victims of the Holocaust".

Well Eric is not the only one who seems to enjoy 'correcting' David. Lauri Lebo also shows David David how to do research in "HuffPo Columnist Tries to Link Darwin to Hitler" and then seriously takes him down!

Lauri Lebo also wrote my favorite book on the Dover Trial "The Devil in Dover" which, in my opinion, is a must read for anyone interested in the contrived Creationism/ID v Science controversy.

We all should be extremely interested in what she says because of the potential negative impact folks like David can have on science education. You know, now that I think about it, we might also count David as having a negative impact on education in its entirety -- if his post is a representative example on how to research and support an article! I know his example would not pass muster during my graduate degree program.

I also discovered that she posts regularly on Religious Dispatches and it's been added to my RSS reading list. I recommend you keep an eye on her work as well. Always insightful, well supported, and interesting. Thanks Lauri.