Religious Beliefs vs. Personal and Professional Responsibilities

This has been a recurring theme in this blog, and in many other places.  In a recent post (Let's Rename the Discovery Institute to the 'Re-writing History Institute'), I tried to make this clear, at least my own position, but I decided to really lay out my thinking on the subject.  In that post I said:

"In my opinion, religious beliefs do not trump personal and professional responsibilities."

Let's expand upon that for a while.  When I use the phrase 'personal and professional responsibilities', what I mean is that as one goes through life, one assumes various responsibilities, for example:

• By accepting a job, you accept the requirement to perform specified duties.  
• By signing up for a college course, you accept the requirement to perform assignments and participate in the activities of the class.  
• When you get married you accept a number of responsibilities, too many to list in this short paragraph.  
• When you enter into a personal relationship with someone, there is a certain amount of give-and-take as the two of you define many of those responsibilities.  
• Becoming a parent, by deliberate choice or not, you have an even longer list of responsibilities, all revolving around the care and development of a new life.

You assume these responsibilities through specific actions of your own, YOU decided to attend school, YOU decided to accept a job offer, YOU decided to enter into a relationship, YOU decided to have children . . . while I know some folks who didn't make that particular conscious decision, they still took the actions that resulted in childbirth.  Whatever the reasons, you made these decisions, and many more, and each and ever one of them came with a set of personal and/or professional responsibilities.  Sometimes those responsibilities conflict and overlap, and part of your life is always spent dealing with them.

Now why do I separate Religious Beliefs from personal and professional responsibilities?  While many would lump them into 'personal', and I am sure you can make an argument for that -- I want to focus on them in a different light because religious beliefs can, and do impact many other decisions because for many people it's part of their decision-making criteria.

For example selecting a college, many people elect to attend a non-secular school because the school aligns with their religious beliefs.  Personal relationship criteria is often based on religion, as in not dating or marrying someone who didn't share the same religious faith.  While it is only one of the possible sets of criteria, it is one of them commonly used.  I worked with someone years ago who was single . . . and enjoying it to the fullest, including the late 1970's Sexual Revolution.  However for all the women he was involved with, he would not consider marrying a single one of them unless they were Jewish!  That was an absolute hard-line for him.  He dated, had sex, had three children that I knew of . . . yet refused to consider marrying any of the mothers of his children because they didn't share his belief set.  I'm not trying to pass judgment on his behavior, simply offering it as an example of how religious beliefs are often used as a decision criteria.

My issue revolves around what do you do when your religious beliefs conflict with already accepted personal or professional responsibilities.  My position is simply, your personal religious beliefs should in no way come before your personal and professional responsibilities!

So let's look at a few examples, like college.  If you do not want to learn subjects that conflict with your religious beliefs, then go to a school that is also based on those beliefs.  If you go to a public school, you do not have the right to force the school to comply with your beliefs.  That's what I am talking about with this conflict between personal responsibilities and religious beliefs.  Imagine a Catholic student in a Muslim school demanding the school support their belief set!  I know, I know, the immediate question is why would a Catholic go to a Muslim school in the first place . . . but you can ask the same question about why an Evangelical Christian would attend a public school and then demand the school let them opt out of classes that disagree with their religion?  Yet that seems to happen all the time.

Personal relationships are like that as well.  People of different religious beliefs, and even the same religious beliefs can come into conflict over those beliefs.  Yet people manage to overcome those difficulties regularly.  Those that cannot, end those relationships in one manner or another.  They say breaking-up is hard to do, but hopefully you learn the lessons and carry them into your next relationship.

Having children is a huge set of responsibilities, and the news has frequently cited examples of where parents caused actual harm, and even death, to their children in the cause of complying with their religious beliefs.  Children haven't yet had the option of accepting any set of religious beliefs, so forcing their compliance on the parents belief set seems more than a bit unfair, and in many cases deadly for the children.  I've stated many times that children shouldn't be even exposed to religion until they are over 18.  After all, they can't vote, drink alcohol, or join the military, so they should get to examine the options and elect once they know what those options are.

When it comes to professional responsibilities, when you accept a position, you also have to accept the responsibilities that come along with it . . . all of them!  If there are responsibilities that you cannot accept due to your religious beliefs . . then do not take the position!  If the responsibilities change while you are in the position and the new ones conflict with your religious beliefs . . . then you have a choice to either suck-it-up and do the job or resign your position and go find something else to do.

Now I mentioned this recently to someone when that Kentucky Clerk decided to put her religion ahead of her responsibilities and they immediately brought up an example of what if your responsibilities involved killing.  My response was that now you are talking beyond religion and into legalities.  Being a policeman or a member of the military may well involve the taking of a life, those acts, when done in accordance with the law, are not illegal.  Any other form of killing is illegal and needs to be be dealt with.  Legal issues aside, what I am talking about  specific examples where people allowed their belief set interfere with their responsibilities, like:

• Kim Davis from Kentucky
• Nathan Abrahams and Woods-Hole Oceanographic Institute
• Catherine Crocker and George Mason University
• Richard Sternberg and Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington
• David Coppege and Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)

Each and every one of them put their religious beliefs ahead of their professional responsibilities, and they aren't the only ones.  In these cases, they made their stand and were held accountable to one degree or another.  The Discovery Institute (DI) and others like to hold these names up as example of some sort of religious persecution, but the reality is their religious views weren't the ones being violated, they were trying to use their religious views to violated the rights of others and then using their religion as a shield to allow them to discriminate against others.

That's why I consider religion to be one of the most dangerous forces on Earth.  It is incredibly divisive.  While some religions pay lip service to religious freedom, their acceptance of most other religions is one of tolerance rather than acceptance.  Most think the idea of religious freedom is one that protects them while they use their religion as a license to discriminate against those who do not share their beliefs.  I wholeheartedly disagree!  

Bottom line, is that religious beliefs are personal beliefs.  No one has the right to force those beliefs on anyone else, adult or child.  If personal or professional responsibilities conflict with  religious beliefs, then either take care of those responsibilities in spite of the beliefs or get out of the situation.  Resign from a professional position, get out of a personal relationship, even if it means giving a child up for adoption . . . which in my mind is certainly better than refusing them needed medical treatment because of religious beliefs . . . the child doesn't end up dead and the parent doesn't end up in jail.

While people like to say things like God, Country, Family . . . the exact order needs to be a bit more fluid.  But of the three, I would place religious responsibilities far in the back, well behind personal and professional responsibilities.  I know there are many who will disagree!  Personally I cannot imagine any deity worth following having a problem with someone accepting and handing their responsibilities.  There are so many different belief sets, that to try and follow them all would be insane.  Yet every time a theists asks for a religious exemption, that's exactly what they are trying to do, build a system that not only supports their belief set, but allows them the ability to force their belief set onto others.

I look at things a little more . . . well  . . . black and white.  When you accept personal and professional responsibilities, you make a commitment.  You made the choice, now you should live up to them.  If your religious beliefs will not allow you to carry out those responsibilities . . . then do not accept them.  Don't take the job, don't enter the relationship, and above all else, do not have a child.  But once you accept those responsibilities, then accept them fully and carry them out!  If you cannot, or will not, carry them out, then what you are is a liar and using your religious beliefs as an excuse for lying is contemptible.  Clear enough for you?

Let's Rename the Discovery Institute to the 'Re-writing History Institute'

I have to wonder what passes for a scholarship at the Discovery Institute (DI).  One of their most common, and typically disreputable, tactics involves a fanciful re-telling of events from the past. Their collective 'recollection' of the Dover Trial is something I've commented on regularly, their re-baptizing historical figures -- such as Thomas Jefferson and Alfred E. Wallace -- as Intelligent Design proponents is another example.  When you look at all the effort they keep spending trying to vilify Charles Darwin as the sole person responsible for Hitler and the Holocaust and you really do get the idea that there is absolutely no one at the DI who bothers with actual history or even what they might remember from grade-school history classes.

I don't know if you are familiar with alt-history, it's a genre of fictional literature where a historical event's outcome is changed and the story that follows chronicles those changes and subsequent events.  For example What if Germany had won World War II, or if the South had won the Civil War.  Amazon Prime Video has an alt-history series called "The Man In The High Castle" about Germany and Japan splitting the United States following a very different WWII.  Alt-history is usually big events with widespread changes and it can make some interesting reading.

The DI's version of alt-history isn't for entertainment, well not intentionally.  Rather than make it clear that it is an alternate version of past events, they present their version as if it actually happened that way.  A good example is their latest from the 'Anti-Historical Society' of the DI.  we have them placing NASA in the middle of a lawsuit that wasn't against NASA to begin with.  They are again trying to market alt-history by re-writing the David Coppedge lawsuit.  Here's their post, "NASA on Trial: David Coppedge Fell Victim to Anti-ID Zeal at America's Space Agency", by one of their regular mouthpieces, davey 'klingy' klinghoffer.

When I say the lawsuit didn't involve NASA, what I mean is Coppedge was an employee of Caltech, not NASA.  NASA was the customer of the CalTech who runs Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).  Now anyone who knows about government contracts, the government doesn't have much say in hiring and firing.  If the people assigned by CalTech can do, and are doing, the job, the government will say very little.  I know, I spent 20 years as a contractor working on over 12 different projects.  The government-side of that relationship can actually get themselves in trouble if they interfere with the decisions of the contractor, as long as the job is getting done.  The lawsuit itself didn't even name NASA as a plaintiff:

 Do you see NASA listed?  I don't, but since when does the DI allow facts interfere with their re-writing of history.

Before getting into their post, you might think back for a few about David Coppedge.  He was a JPL system administrator who worked there for 12 years (hired in 1996 as a contractor and later directly for CalTech/JPL) before his religious zeal started getting him in trouble.  He was considered senior because of the length of employment and was given an additional responsibility as a Team Lead, which was an unpaid administrative position.  Apparently he wasn't performing it well and there were multiple reports of harassment over California Proposition 8 (gay marriage) and Intelligent Design.  It was the harassment that caused his problems, not his religious beliefs.  If you read the decision you will find that his religious beliefs were well known and weren't a bar to being hired as a contractor and then eventually hired directly with JPL.  If you are familiar with the contracting world, a contractor that gets hired by a client usually shows superior performance and reliability, but you have to keep your skills current and handle your responsibilities.  When you don't, well you find yourself looking for work, just like Coppedge!

Things seemed to start Coppedge's downhill slide when he was first removed from an unpaid additional duty because he wasn't doing it well.  He sued for that, claiming religious discrimination.  Later he was let go as part of downsizing at JPL and he added all that to his suit.  In a nutshell, he became a poor employee, who had a habit of harassing other employees over his religious and homophobic beliefs, did not get a long well with customers, and didn't keep his skill set current -- so when his current project was downsized -- he was let go.  There was no evidence of religious discrimination, other than in the mind of Coppedge and his lawyers . . . Oh, and apparently the Discovery Institute.  If you want more, you can search this blog, there are too many posts to list.  Or, better, you might read the decision in his lawsuit.  It reveals a great deal about Coppedge and why he was removed from a position and eventually let go.  From reading the DI's latest, apparently they haven't bothered reading the decision.

Klingy has forgotten to mention a few things, like the harassment of his co-workers, the customer complaints about Coppedge's work, the conflicts with management, and  . . . best of all . . . Coppedge's own acknowledgement that the people who weren't downsized were superior to him in their skills.  No, the only thing klingy is interested in is painting the man as a martyr for the cause, the Intelligent Design (ID) cause.  it's pretty evident when klingy says things like:

"He had taken a shine to Illustra Media's series of documentaries laying out the evidence for ID in biology and cosmology."

That's a rather tepid view of his interest.  He was an Creationist/ID supporter well before his job at CalTech, it was a known quantity and didn't stop them from hiring him.  But does klingy mention that the trouble with Coppedge's employment started after he was doing more than just offering his opinions, that he was pressuring people to the point of harassment and even had a list of people showing that he needed to approach them again . . . Again?  That his harassing behavior was further exposed when he complained about the Holiday Party not being called a Christmas Party multiple times, or that his opposition to California Proposition 8 caused him to accuse one of his managers that 'he must hate children!'.  No, none of that matters to klingy, just that after years of employment, klingy thinks is ended because of his 'shine' to a set of DVDs about ID.

This isn't the first time klingy has tried to re-write history about Coppedge, the last time was just this

past May, "Time to Re-Write History . . . Again". The last time klingy said that:

"Coppedge's claims that his advocacy of Intelligent Design (ID) was always done in 'the most respectful, appropriate manner' and 'If anyone expressed disinterest, he says, he immediately backed down'"

Yet the testimony from his co-workers found that the opposite was true, he not only was persistent, but had a list of people to approach again . . . approaching someone again isn't something I would consider 'respectful and appropriate'.  The decision specifically stated:

" . . . the evidence reflects that Coppedge was less skilled than those retained, regarding the skills needed on Cassini going forward; Coppedge himself testified that the other SAs [System Administrators] were more expert in these areas."

Yes, so this time around the DI is changing the tune a bit, claiming that:

"Coppedge made the mistake of misjudging one coworker's attitude. Soon she was complaining about him to their supervisor, and before you knew it, the HR department was conducting a full-scale witch-hunt. A mild-mannered individual for whom advancing NASA's mission was a long-held dream come to true, David Coppedge was the witch."

First of all, klingy, it wasn't just one complaint, but multiple, and mild-mannered individuals do not behave as Coppedge did, to the point of having to apologize to at least one manager.  HR also didn't get immediately involved until the managers saw a pattern of behavior.  Once the pattern was established, JPL needed to take action.  Coppedge's religious beliefs might be his rationalization for his behavior, but it was that unprofessional and harassing behavior that got him disciplined and it was his less than stellar skill set that got him downsized.  But klingy and the DI will never admit it.

I do have to laugh at this line:

"Coppedge tells his own story for the first time. "

That's not particularly true either.  Coppedge told his story over and over again to anyone who would listen, he also told his story in court.  The problem is his story didn't match the facts, but --  once again -- when do facts seem to matter to the DI?

In my opinion, religious beliefs do not trump personal and professional responsibilities.  Coppedge, among the other pseudo-martyrs the Di likes to parade, allowed their belief set to drive their behavior until they crossed personal and professional boundaries.  Too often they believe that their religious beliefs will protect them from repercussions, much like the pedophile priests once believed.  Politicians might be afraid of losing votes by holding religious nut-jobs accountable, but businesses can't really afford to keep such people on the payroll.  Coppedge is a bully, and as such was held accountable and removed from a position of administrative responsibility.  His firing was primarily related to his lack of the needed skillset, by his own admission.

Imagine the lawsuits if JPL failed to take action against Coppedge's bullying?  Do you think his harassment wouldn't have escalated over time?  Does it ever not escalate once the harasser believes they will not be held accountable?  What would the impact to CalTech and JPL if they kept poor performers on the books?  Government organizations hire other organizations for their expertise, not for poor performance.

In this case, CalTech did the right thing, the court made the right ruling, and the DI just can't accept it so they do what they always do . . . spin!

Yet Another Post That is Sure to Annoy Little kennie ham, Yes!

Yes, another Christian basically saying kennie's off his rocker . . . and not just any Christian, but a Pastor!  Here's the article: "Noah’s Ark facsimile raises questions that go beyond fact"
Pastor Steve Hammer, Esperanza Lutheran Church in Phoenix, AZ, had quite a bit to say.  Including these gems:

"One of the things you will see at the Ark Encounter is human beings coexisting with dinosaurs even though the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago and human beings as we know them have only been around for a couple of hundred thousand years." 

"This may seem obvious to some, but sacred story is story. It is not science, it is not journalism, it is not history." 

". . .as the old saying goes, a good story teller never lets the facts get in the way of the truth."

I had to underline a few things to highlight some of the things sure to raise little kennie's blood pressure.  I can't help but wonder how many other Christians do not treat the Bible as if it were a science textbook?  From everything I have read over the years, including time spent in parochial school -- I have to say that it's not just most of them, but the overwhelming majority of them do not treat the Bible as a science, history, or even philosophy text. . . and that has to get little kennie's goat every time anyone posts about it.

PS: I haven't even posted this yet, when I checking my Google News Alerts and found that little kennie has certainly read Pastor Steve's article and responded to it! "Ken Ham Tells Pastors: If Noah Is a Myth, Then Jesus Is a Liar".  Little kennie accuses the Pastor of being a Liberal, which doesn't mean that the Pastor is actually a political Liberal.  You should realize that there are very few people to the political right of kennie ham.  To kennie, anyone who disagrees with him is a Liberal.  Here is a quote:

 ". . . says the account of Noah is not history, but if that's true then Jesus, Peter, and the author of Hebrews lied. The pastor says Genesis is myth."

Which isn't exactly what the Pastor said, he never claimed creation was a myth, but he did say it was a story and not a historical fact.  Little kennie can't stand it!  Genesis has to be historical for kennie, which give you a hint just how weak kennie's faith really is.  Little kennie also said:

"Would the pastor rather have children be taught evolution as fact and creation as myth?"

The majority of Christians are taught the Bible is a collection of allegorical stories designed to teach various moral lessons.  The stories are not presented as factual histories and it was never an issue about the lessons it attempts to teach. Let me repeat that -- it was never an issue when it comes to the lessons it tries to teach!  Even if Mose's didn't actually come down the mountain carrying two stone tablets, that doesn't invalidate the lesson of "Thou shalt not kill" does it?  But, apparently, to kennie it does matter.  Instead of learning the lessons the Bible tries to impart, kennie gets hung up on spending more time trying to market it as historical.  Where is any sort of compassion, where are any of the positive messages from the Bible? 

Little kennie is a living example of this quote often attributed to Gandhi:

"'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"

Does kennie offer any support as to the factual nature of Genesis?  No, he never has, and I doubt he ever will.  But in reality he seems to be missing the point.  Does the historical accuracy of the Bible really mean all that much?  It doesn't seem to  . . . not to anyone but the most narrow of the Evangelical Christian sects, like kennie and his Hamians.  The rest of Christianity seems to focus on other things.

Time to Re-Write History . . . Again

A few years have past so now it's time for the Discovery Institute (DI) to resurrect David Coppedge and paint him as another martyr for the cause.  The post by the toothless chihuahua davey 'klingy' klinghoffer is "World Magazine Tells David Coppedge's Powerful Story" and, as I recall, it wasn't a very powerful story, actually it was pretty dull.

Let me nutshell it for you, if you aren't familiar.  Coppedge preaches to co-workers about Intelligent Design and his personal homophobia to the point of Human Resource complaints and does a poor job in an unpaid leadership position.  He gets counseled and relieved of his leadership position . . which was an unofficial position, an additional duty.  He sues claiming religious discrimination for his 'demotion'.  During the run up to his trial, he gets downsized because he wasn't keeping his skills up-to-date and . . . as you can guess . . . adds that to his lawsuit.  He loses his lawsuit and so the DI paints him as yet another victim, like John Freshwater, Guillermo Gonzales, Catherine Coker, and a few select others.

While klingy likes to paint him in the most positive light possible, Coppedge's co-workers painted him in a very different light.  Klingy repeated Coppedge's claims that his advocacy of Intelligent Design (ID) was always done in "the most respectful, appropriate manner" and "If anyone expressed disinterest, he says, he immediately backed down" and yet the complaints by his co-workers, multiple co-workers and managers, not only about his advocacy, but his job performance painted a very different picture.  They used terms like 'unwelcome' and 'disruptive'.  Eventually he was fired as part of a downsizing event, but you know that the DI can't just leave it at that.

Just to contrast, Since 1996, the year Coppedge was hired as a system administrator, I have been a Delphi programmer, Web Developer, Programming Instructor, Program Manager, Project Lead, and a Java Programmer.  What all Information Technologists learn quickly is that the key to continuous employment is constant upgrade of skills.  The field changes so quickly that your expertise can become obsolete much faster than many people will believe.  So the idea of Coppedge being downsized when his skillset was no longer needed is easily believable.

As a matter of fact, I think I have heard this tune before.  Yes, I had to check, but in 2011 the same psuedo-news organization reported about Coppedge only that DI write-up was by Anika Smith instead of klingy say pretty much the same sort of things.  I haven't noticed anything from Smith lately, so I guess it's up to klingy to re-write things.

Bottom line for Coppedge, he lost his lawsuit, you can read the statement of decision here.  Coppedge and his lawyers had a bunch of objections to the proposed statement, but it was approved by the Court. This decision certainly showed Coppedge was not the respectful and appropriate co-worker the DI likes to claim he is, nor is he one who backed down when disinterest was shown to his religious ideas.  What he was doing was preaching during work, he was also performing his additional duty poorly, and refused to keep his skills current and eventually got fired during a downsizing.  The DI likes to claim that as a senior person, he normally wouldn't be part of being downsized, but when you factor in not keeping his skills current -- that makes him an obvious candidate.  Here is a quote form the decision:

" . . . the evidence reflects that Coppedge was less skilled than those retained, regarding the skills needed on Cassini going forward; Coppedge himself testified that the other SAs [System Administrators] were more expert in these areas."

In another light, this also demonstrates how quickly the DI is to try and re-write history.  In Stephen C. Meyer's book "The Signature in the Cell" Meyer completely rewrote the 'Sternberg Peer Review Controversy' until it was nearly unrecognizable from the reality.  Every once in a while they bring this subject up again and keep trying to peddle their revisionist history.

They repeated attack the Dover Decision, most recently here, even after claiming that it wasn't particularly binding nor had any lasting effect.  How many times will they attempt and re-try the trial?  I guess we'll find out pretty much every December.  They literally repeat the testimony they would have wanted to give if they had the intestinal fortitude to do so during the trial.

Often their history re-writes take historical figures and re-baptize them as Intelligent Design proponents, like Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas Jefferson, and even Anaxagoras, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.  Of course these folks are safely dead and cannot refute their re-baptismal.

The history re-write they most often use is to try and blame Darwin for pretty much everything under the sun that they disagree with.  'Darwinism' is the blame for social ills, Hitler and the Holocaust, and even the decline of church attendance.  If it weren't for Darwin we would all be living happy, religious lives . . . as though there were no problems before the advent of Charles Darwin.  Sure, our history books show the world was all happiness and light before Darwin was born, right?

Well, that's enough today.  It's 'nice' to know that the DI will continue to re-write history.  I am glad that most of us don't fall for their foolishness.  In fact is there a difference between the DI and an old-fashioned snake oil salesman peddling his wares from a traveling wagon?  I don't see much of one, at least not philosophically.

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.

Historical/Observational Science

I don't often peruse the pages of Answers in Genesis (AiG) mainly because I have trouble stomaching most of it.  Seriously!  I have trouble with how wildly little kennie ham and his worshipers twist reality around to justify their narrow belief set to themselves.  It's really hard to take.  Being ignorant happens, but I have trouble with not only willful ignorance, but active participatory willful ignorance.

One of the common themes I read about often is little kennie's interpretation of 'observational' science vs 'historical' science.  Luckily we don't rely on kennie to define our scientific terms for us!  In my opinion, all he is doing is attempting to confuse people.  Actually ham's basic definitions aren't that bad, but what he does, as he always does, is insert the Bible as the authoritative source of historical information.  There, he's done, basically 'if it ain't in the Bible, it ain't', to paraphrase.

"What we can do, however, is check our historical research against a trustworthy eyewitness account. But what about for the history of the earth? Does something like that exist? You bet—and this amazing compendium of history isn’t hard to find. Just pull out your trusty Bible. . . .Starting from the Bible, given to us by the Creator of all things, we know when we’re on the right track"

So according to kennie the Bible, the book he worships, is not only a science textbook, but a history text as well.  I'm sure if I dig a little deeper we will find kennie using it as a sociology text, a mathematics text, and even a human sexuality text as well.  Well I guess he already does that last one, since homosexuality is one of the more written about subjects on AiG:  "Are there really Gay Christians", "Homosexual Behavior vs. The Bible" and "How to Deal with the Homosexual War" are just a few examples.  You don't need to click on the links, just look at the titles.  Yes, kennie ham and his followers are rampantly homophobic as are most evangelical Christians.  They do spend an inordinate amount of time writing about it, usually in pretty venomous terms:

• The Bible not only describes homosexual behaviour as detestable, but it also calls for the punishment of those involved (Leviticus 20:13). 
• Their unrepentant attitude caused God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24–25).
• Just as homosexual conduct has been punished in the past, so it will also be punished by God in the future. “ … Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

I raise this for a reason, and yes, it's on point of the topic.  Little kennie ham's issue with historical science is that when you look at things that happened in the past, you have to interpret them.  Interpretations are inherently bad because they are influenced by many things outside of the item you are looking at, therefore without eye witnesses, historical science is not particularly reliable.  In keeping with that theme, he then puts the Bible up as the ultimate eye witness, so therefore when you use the Bible to base historical science on,there are no problems.

Here's my point, let's take Leviticus 20:13 as references by kennie.  Does he bother advertising the fact that the translation that he uses, one that is common in most english versions of the Bible is not well supported by the original Hebrew text?  Yes, I know the King James version of the Bible is widely used and very popular, but when you go back to the original works that were translated (interpreted) and became the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, you find many changes and even many discrepancies.

So typical of kennie.  He berates the idea of interpretations, yet he is using them himself to justify his belief set.  If he really wanted to know more about the Bible, he might study up a bit.  Even just reading the instructions given to the committees writing the KJV was interesting:

Further, the King gave the translators instructions designed to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of the Church of England.  Certain Greek and Hebrew words were to be translated in a manner that reflected the traditional usage of the church.  For example, old ecclesiastical words such as the word "church" were to be retained and not to be translated as "congregation".  The new translation would reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and traditional beliefs about ordained clergy. (King_James_Version)

Ecclesiology is a word I wasn't familiar with, so I followed the link to get a handle on it.  What I found was that ecclesiologies changes from one institution and the next, the word may also refer to a particular church or denomination’s character, self-described or otherwise – hence phrases such as Roman Catholic ecclesiology, Lutheran ecclesiology, and ecumenical ecclesiology.  So, in other words, King James made sure his version of the Bible reflected his particular belief set, and not necessarily the beliefs of the Bibles originators.  Certainly would make more people think, but not kennie, oh no, not kennie! 


What little kennie also seems to be trying to do is another rather typical creationist canard, a binary set.  He treats these two concepts as 'types of science' and seems to want to not just draw a line between the two, but build an insurmountable wall between them.  The reason seems simple, it's similar to the artificial distinction Creationists keep trying to make about evolution, the whole micro vs macro foolishness.  By convincing people that the two 'types' of science are incompatible, it gives little kennie an out when he cannot deny the evidence from science, he labels it as Observational, He simply tosses the parts of science he doesn't like over the wall and claims that it's nothing but an interpretation of events no one actually witnessed.  Pretty weak argument, but then does he have any stronger ones?

As usual, the reality is much different than whatever kennie says.  According to the NCSE:

"Philosophers of science draw a distinction between research directed towards identifying laws and research which seeks to determine how particular historical events occurred. They do not claim, however, that the line between these sorts of science can be drawn neatly, and certainly do not agree that historical claims are any less empirically verifiable than other sorts of claims. "

I do tend to try and boil things down to something more understandable, at least to me.  I see observation, or experimentation, science as the 'What' and historical science as the 'How'.  Look at it this way, scientific theories are the best possible explanation, based on the evidence, for a given occurrence.  That being said, an occurrence means something happened.  We saw something, dug something up, discovered something . . ..  The 'what' is understanding in detail what actually happened.  Very rarely is the occurrence simple or easily understood.  Even an apple falling on a head isn't as simple a just an apple falling.  Yes, I know it's a metaphor and not historical fact, but just go with it for a few.  The research, experimentation, and repetition, all go into understanding exactly what happened.  Along the way we formulate various laws to codify the happening.  We make science predictable in that way.  Therein is the observational science.

Once you get past the 'what', you want to know 'how' something occurred.  You want to identify the source, how did it develop, for example where does the force we call Gravity come from and not only how does mass affect gravity. but does it affect it at all? . . . the list of 'how' questions might seem endless, but that is the direction our curiosity takes us.  We don't just want to understand what we can see, touch, replicate, we want to know more than that.  We've taken the theory of gravity from explaining the what and how objects fall to the formation of the Earth, the solar system, and even the universe.  That's what you get from historical science and observational science as well!  They aren't two separate entities so kennie can split scientific hairs, they are two sets of methodologies, each used in building more complete explanations than either can build alone.

I think kennie's wall started crumbling well before he laid the first brick.

As for little kennie's prejudices, I would like to say one more thing about this particular subject of AiG and Homosexuality.  In the history of the United States the activity of denying rights to a group of people is doomed to failure.  Many of the arguments today being used against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) folks are the same arguments that were once used against women and minorities in previous decades.  Eventually the majority of US citizens remember how futile and foolish it is to deny any group the same rights that we tend to assume for ourselves and they are given the rights that should have never been withheld in the first place!  The downside is the time it takes and what Americans are capable of doing to each other often in the name of religion.  I would like to think that as a nation we tend to learn from our mistakes, but that doesn't always seem to be the case.  But it does seem that eventually we reach the just decision. 

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.