Do Creationists Understand How Science Works? Apparently Not!

Apparently not. One of the Discovery Institute (DI) talking heads has a new book out, and in a 'video conversation' he claims that "Fossil Finds Only Confuse Human Origins".

But my issue is more serious than that bit of misleading labeling -- I mean 'video conversation'?  Just what is 'conversational' about the video?.  His words characterized my issue:

"The problem with such fossil finds is that they never provide the lasting clarity about human origins . . ."

Now, for years the DI has been claiming that science is too hidebound, that is they are too resistant to new idea . . . specifically Intelligent Design.  Think it through, did you see the DI supported 'Expelled' pseudo-mockumentary?  Their moniker of 'Big Science' to try and create this feeling that there is some huge secret monolithic organization controlling scientific thought.  How about the DI developed 'academic freedom bills' which have nothing to do with academic freedom, but are designed to cast doubt on actual science without offering a viable alternative.

And yet here we have Wells whining that new discoveries only confuse things and that:

" . . . each discovery complicates matters even more than they were complicated before."

This particular post from none-other-than little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer, closes with:

"If Darwinian theory accurately characterized the history of life and satisfactorily identified the engines of biological evolution, it would provide more clarity as time went by, not less. Don’t you think?"

Actually when I read this I saw a common theme (e.g.: Teaching People to Mistrust Science and If You Don't Know It All, Then You Don't Know Anything . . . Really? are a couple of examples that I've commented on it before). That if science cannot answer every question to an absolute degree of certainty, it should be tossed aside.  That's garbage, plain and ordinary garbage.  It's not even the creative kind of garbage we've all come to expect form the DI.

One of science's strengths is its ability to change as we learn new things.  I've said it before, scientific theories are like snapshots in time.  They are the best explanation we have today based on our current state of knowledge.  Tomorrow, as we learn more, we not only have the ability to adjust our thinking and theories, but we have the desire to do so.  If this were not the case, we would still be living in caves -- if we dared set foot in a cave in the first place.

I can see it now, a group of neanderthals standing in the rain, looking at a cave.  The ones with more forethought are trying to move into the cave and out of the rain.  But there is always at least one in the group who wants to stand out in the rain, because they don't know everything about the cave to begin with.  It might be wet inside, there might be an animal in it, it might even be dark -- or the ultimate whine 'the spirits might not like it'.  There's always at least one who refuses to even look inside the cave to get a better understanding.  Who needs understanding when you think you already have the answers!

Science is a process, and Wells' comments further convince me that the DI doesn't understand the process or how it works.  If they understood the process, they wouldn't say such foolish things.  And if they understood how the process worked, they wouldn't whine so often about not being taken seriously -- they would know why no one takes them seriously.  But admitting such would dry up their funding from religious sources, which is nearly all of their funding.  I mean if anyone was after actual scientific results, the DI is the last place they would go asking questions.

I do have a question for klingy and Wells . . . which is it?  Is science so locked into its dogma that it cannot evaluate new ideas . . . or do new ideas only confuse and complicate things?  So which is it?  I have a suggestion.  It's not that science is closed to new ideas, what they are closed to is religion and pseudo-science masquerading as if was actual science.  If Wells thinks new knowledge confuses things, I can understand that -- after all how much change does a Creationist ever admit too!

A License to Discriminate

As much as I hate to admit it, little kennie ham made a point I didn't originally consdider . . . it was in his response to his many critics about using state funds/tax incentives for his ark encounter ministry.  I did address it in my post "Kentucky Common Sense Part III", but there was one angle I didn't give much thought, so here goes . . .

In his post he tried to compare his discriminatory hiring practices to two other organizations, the  Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and American Atheists.  Little kennie claimed how foolish it would be to force them to hire people who disagree with their basic philosophy.  And he tried to use that as justification for his continued discriminatory practices.  As I said in Part III, since those organizations weren't asking for state funds/tax incentives, kennie's comparison was meaningless.

Now, I want to address this from another angle, can a vegetarian be a butcher?

I know, it seems like a really tangential thing to consider, but look at the question.  Can someone who butchers, cuts, packages, and sells meat be a vegetarian?  The answer should be an obvious 'Yes' and an equally obvious follow-on 'but why would they want to'.  The 'yes' is because there is nothing that says a butcher has to eat meat to be able to do their job.  The follow-on is really because it's challenging to see a vegetarian even wanting such a job.  I know a number of vegetarians and I cannot imagine any of them wanting to handle raw meat.  One of them gets nauseous watching the scene in Rocky where he's punching slabs of beef and any myths in Mythbusters that use a pig carcass really grosses her out.  In fact the one where they put the pig carcass in a deep-sea diver suit and . . . never mind . . . if you haven't seen the episode it's really cool . . . apparently unless you are a vegetarian.

There is the thing that I think little kennie fails to realize, his discriminatory practices let him avoid hiring anyone for any position who doesn't already believe his particular brand of kool-aid.  But the real question is why would anyone who didn't already believe as he does want to work there?  His belief set would probably discourage people who didn't share it from wanting to work there, as I am sure not being an atheist might discourage people from wanting to work for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU)  or the American Atheists.  While the law doesn't allow the atheist groups to discriminate, it does allow kennie to discriminate because he's a non-profit religious organization.  Actually I take part of that back.  I am pretty sure not being an atheist might discourage people from applying to the American Atheist organization, but it might not discourage folks from the Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  I mean responsible theists might have an equal interest in the separation of Church and State, right?  That's more conceivable than a non-atheist wanting to work for an atheist organization or a non-Evangelical Christian pseudo-biblical literalist wanting to work for kennie.  OK, back to the topic at hand.

I would think that kennie should be more worried about getting qualified people to work for his organizations, but that's not kennie's way.  He wants to first make sure of their 'religious reliability' and any other skills they bring to the table seems to be a distant second.  Is such legal discrimination really necessary?  If he needed someone of my skills -- should my disagreement with his religious beliefs be an issue for either of us?  Makes me wonder if kennie follows the old Soviet Union policy of appointing political commissars to oversee military officers to insure their political reliability?  Interesting comparison, don't you think?  Anyone know if one of the additional duties in kennie's places of business is that of 'religious commissar'?  Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if anyone voiced opposition to kennie what the result would be.  You might think it far-fetched, but I still remember the warning signs and omnipresent security on my visit to the Creation 'Museum'!

To me this is an example of little kennie using the law to his own end.  I wouldn't want to depend on kennie for my livelihood, but the law makes it legal for kennie not to hire someone like me, regardless of my skills and expertise.

Let's look at another example, can a pacifist work for the Department of Defense (DoD)?  Since the DoD has a great many employees, I am sure some of them would consider themselves pacifists.  So can they apply for a job and be hired?  Certainly!  Would their pacifistic beliefs get them fired?  No, however if they practiced their beliefs in interfering with the mission of the DoD, those actions would probably get them fired.  Right up until the point they started acting in opposition to the mission of the organization, their beliefs were a moot point.

Can a butcher be a vegetarian?  Certainly, and their job would be secure as long as they continued doing their job.  But the second they refuse some aspect of their job because of their vegetarianism, their job would be in jeopardy . . . as it should be.  But it would be in jeopardy NOT because of their vegetarianism, but because they were refusing to do the job for which they were hired.

Remember Nathanial Abraham, the Creationist hired by Woods-Hole Oceanographic as an evolutionary biologist, who after being hired refused to perform something like 90% of his job because he didn't believe in evolution?  Yes, he got fired and sued, claiming religious discrimination, and his many complaints and suits failed to change anything.  He was fired for failing to do his job, not for his religious beliefs.

How about David Coppedge?  A Creationist who was let go during a staff reduction who also sued for religious discrimination and whose suit ended in his being embarrassed.  He could have been fired because he tried to use his job to influence the people around him with his belief set.  But the bottom line is he was let go due to downsizing.

And my favorite -- John Freshwater!  He was fired for his actions, not his beliefs.  His actions included using a electrostatic device to burn student arms with a cross, displaying a Bible and other religious materials in his classroom even after being ordered to remove them, and failing to teach the subject for which he was hired to teach.  Even the US Supreme Court decided his appeal wasn't very appealing.

So the question really becomes SHOULD little kennie be allowed to hire based on people's religious reliability?  I know it's the law, but I think it's a ridiculous law.  When it comes to certain jobs, maybe, but not carte blanche.  A minister certainly should have the belief set of the people he will be ministering, for the most part -- although you could argue against that using military chaplains as a good example.  A fighter pilot should be willing to pull the trigger . . . these are examples of specific jobs where beliefs can impact the performance of the job!  But an accountant or a CAD designer?  What difference does their belief set have in the ability to perform their duties?  That's where I think kennie is stretching his discriminatory hiring practices past the breaking point and maybe it's time to change the law.  I'm sure kennie would say something like he's just protecting people from themselves, after all who would want to join an organization that might make them feel less than welcome or in any way uncomfortable.  I think it should be the individual's choice, not an institutional mandate.  If I am able and willing to do the job, my personal beliefs shouldn't matter -- unless they are central to performing the job!

No one should have the ability to discriminate in job requirements that have nothing to do with the ability to perform the job!  Little kennie should allow the very fact of working for organizations like his ministries discourage would-be job applicants, but he should not be given a license to discriminate!

Kentucky Common Sense Part III

OK, part III, little kennie ham has been heard from, and he pretty much shrugs his shoulders and says "So What’s This Hubbub All About?"  I think we now have an idea of what his strategy is going to be.  His post, if you want to read it yourself, is: "Ark Encounter in the Headlines Again!"

How I read this is that kennie is going to  . . . and let me quote him to make sure I get it right . . .

"The Ark Encounter has confirmed over and over to the state and media that it will carefully adhere to all applicable federal and state laws in hiring." 

Here's the thing made clear in this post, kennie thinks that his organization's discriminatory hiring practices are within applicable federal and state laws because he's a religion . . . did he forget the part about for-profit business?.  There is where we disagree.

Kennie tries to compare what he is doing to the two other organizations, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and American Atheists, claiming how foolish it would be to force them to hire people who disagree with their basic philosophy.  This raises several question to me. 

• The first question is simple, is a religious organization who owns a for-profit company asking for state funds and tax incentives allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices?  I don't know the legal end, but common sense tells me they are not so allowed, or at least they should not be.
• Second of all are Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and American Atheists building some edifice and asking for state money and tax incentives?  I took a look at their websites and don't see them asking for state money or tax incentives for anything.  So what kennie is trying to do is distract us from the central issue of the money.  Quite disingenuous if you ask me!
• Third question is do Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and American Atheists discriminate in their hiring practices?  There is nothing on their websites that indicate they focus on anything other than the ability to do the job for any applicants . . . I repeat . . . nothing.  So kennie's comparison is meaningless.
• Fourth question. Little kennie, like Mike Zovath, is trying to claim this as an issue of religious freedom.  Since when does religious freedom require state funds and tax incentives?
• Fifth question.  Little kennie says that the whole issue of state money and tax incentives have been used by 'similar tourist projects'.  Is that a true statement?  Are there other religious ministries asking for state funds and tax incentives?  For some reason I think kennie is again trying to confuse everyone.  His ministry is not for the purpose of bringing in tourists.  It's not for entertainment, it's not for everyone either.  It is a religious ministry, as he himself said!  AiG is a ministry, the Creation 'Museum' is a ministry and the Ark Encounter is a ministry!  Somehow I don't think Kentucky has authorized state money and tax incentives for any similar projects.  I think if that was true, kennie would have said something more than a vague 'similar tourist projects'.  He would have named the project!

I did find humor in one thing, remember when one of kennie's many attorneys claimed the job opening that raised this whole issue was for AiG and not for the Ark Encounter Ministry, at least kennie himself validated that the job opening was not for AiG, but for the Ark Encounters Ministry.   So I guess his lawyer did tell an untruth.  Gee, a lawyer lying?  Who would have thought?

Little kennie closed with these two lines:

"Think about it—groups like the AU would rather Kentucky not have millions of dollars in additional revenue to fund programs to benefit its citizens than see a Christian message proclaimed.
Ultimately, AU and groups like them want freedom from Christianity, not freedom of religion! Thankfully, under our Constitution, such oppressive ideas will never float."

Is kennie's new project going to generate millions of dollars in additional revenue?  I would like to see how much money the so-called Creation 'Museum' has earned for the State of Kentucky?  For some reason I think he's overstating the idea of millions.  I would really like to know exactly how much money from kennie's various activities has been given to the state to fund other programs for the benefit of it's citizens? 

You know what I would really love to know. . . if any of the money from kennie's activities are used to fund any programs kennie himself would object to?  Now that would be hilarious!  I know, no way to figure that out.  If there is anything from kennie's activities, it would be lumped in with other monies . . . but I still think it would be hilarious.

I think he also misstates who is oppressing whom.  kennie has stated over and over again that he does not believe in freedom of religion.  His idea of freedom of religion is that he is free to believe as he wishes and he is free to make you believe as he wishes as well.  He is perfectly willing to use the Constitution to force his views on other people.  He has, in my opinion, set up his own sect of Evangelical Christianity.  I personally believe kennie should no longer be considered a Christian, but his followers should be called 'Hamians', but he won't agree.  He gets too much mileage claiming persecution when anyone disagrees with whatever he seems to want.

I am clear in what I believe, and I know kennie will call me an atheist . . . which is fine with me.  Little kennie thinks anyone who disagrees with him is an atheist, regardless of their actual religious beliefs.  But I believe the State of Kentucky should allow kennie to build his next ministry, but he should be given the freedom to fund it himself and not ask the people of Kentucky for one cent! 

New DI attack whine -- Science Funding

OK, we all know the Discovery Institute does not actually perform science. They write popular press books and articles, they market the hell out of themselves, they use disreputable tactics in all they do, they whine incessantly, and they tend to run away when things get warm.

In my opinion they do not even understand how science works. The reason I say this started with that stupid Stein mockumentary, which featured the DI, and this label he kept using 'Big Science'. Exactly what is 'Big Science'? Stein never explained -- because he wouldn't have been able to do so. There is no single organization controlling scientific work in this country or around the world. There is no single pipeline of grants and funds. There is no cabal that make decisions for the entire scientific community in some secret smoke-filled room. Scientists are affiliated with a wide variety of businesses, schools, museums, foundations . . .. Their funding sources are as diverse as can be imagined. While the Federal Government funds a great deal of science, even that funding comes from a wide variety of sources.

In other words while we refer to a 'Scientific Community' colloquially, there really is no large-scale organizations of scientists. There are a number of loose federations, you might say, of scientists who share the same discipline. There is no controlling entity -- there is no 'Big Science!'.

OK, let's connect the two. Right now there is a Harvard Professor who apparently messed up. Harvard is dealing with it, as they should. Did he actually make mistakes, was it documentation errors or procedural errors -- are they correctable or not? Since he is affiliated with Harvard, Harvard gets the first crack at investigating him -- as they rightly should. Here is one source article from NPR "Harvard probes Claims of Scientific Misconduct".

So how does the Discovery Institute fit in? Bruce Chapman, yes the man who is busy running away from Louisiana. He blogged about the issue and says some pretty stupid things.

"Dr. Hauser probably can escape permanent damage to his employment prospects if he explains that his genes made him cheat. In the history of hominids, after all, shaking down taxpayers is a well-established behavior to enhance reproductive advantage."

Does that paragraph make any sense at all? Does Chapman understand anything? in my opinion, apparently not. But this is the line that killed me:

"And why does Big Science, alone among American institutions, get to police itself? "

First of all I object to the use of the word 'alone'. Is Chapman forgetting the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association? How about every Union in existence. How about the Catholic Church and their decades-old policies of self-policing pedophiles. These are a great many organizations that police themselves to a surprisingly autonomous degree, sometimes a shocking degree. So even if such an organization existed for all scientific research, the word 'alone' certainly would not apply.

My second issue, my real issue, relates to how I started this blog entry. What organization in 'Big Science' should be doing this policing Chapman is talking about? There isn't one! There isn't an organization to police! It's all in the mind of pseudo-scientists like Chapman who are looking for stuff to whine about.

Let's look more objectively at what happened.

• The scientist in question was reported by members of his own staff. Science:1 Chapman:0
• The organization he was working for investigated it. Science:2 Chapman:0
• They released their findings publicly. Science:3 Chapman:0
• They also sent their findings and evidence to the government organization who funded the research. Science:4 Chapman:0 If this was baseball I say Chapman took four swings to strike out!

It looks like everything that should have happened has happened. The scientist's future is still undecided, as is any action by the Government. It certainly looks like the scientific community started the ball rolling in policing themselves -- as they have for years. Remember Cold Fusion? It wasn't the Discovery Institute who discovered the problems with those experiments, but other scientists. How about the irregularities in the cloning experiments in South Korea? Other scientists yet again! Piltdown Man -- a favorite whine of Creationists -- yup, scientists announced the hoax nearly immediately!

So why am I concerned about anything Chapman has to say (while he continues distancing the DI from the problems they caused in Louisiana)? It's simple. Here we have an organization that doesn't seem to have a clue about how to do science claiming that someone outside of science should be monitoring and control science funding? Remember how the Discovery Institute operates, rather than science they politicize, they market, they whine -- they don't perform science. One of them posts something and a bunch of them jump on the bandwagon to make it look like there is an actual problem. Remember 'Teach the Controversy'? A controversy they tried to create out of a tempest in a teacup! How about their trying to tie Darwin to Hitler, another series of whines and posts that have no support. Lately their support of David Coppedge, the JPL employee who got demoted for harassing his co-workers. Their marketing schemes are certainly more successful than their efforts at science. Contrived and created for their own purposes!

Chapman's blog has already been picked up by . . . guess who? You got it, another Discovery Institute member, Wesley Smith and his blog "Do We Need Better Oversight On How Scientists Spend Public Money?" The attack on science funding is one we need to pay attention to because one of the last organizations on the face of the Earth that should have input to how scientists are using their research funding is the anti-science Discovery Institute!

Just out of curiosity, who polices the Discovery Institute? Well if they would actually publish in scientific journals the scientific community certainly would have input into their 'work'. But since they publish in the popular press, they really don't have to answer to anyone -- as long as they have their own funding. I wonder how many state and federal grants they have attempted to get over their existence? More interestingly would be how many have they received? Anyone have any ideas?