Creationism

Unsurprisingly (she used William Dembski as a consultant), her book’s coverage of evolution is crap: It contains the usual stock creationist crap presented at a rapid pace, full of the usual bald assertions of outright lies, intentional misinterpretations, and lots and lots of quote mining. Seriously, it looks like every paragraph contains multiple falsehoods or screwy manglings of science. She claims Darwin’s theory is “one step above Scientology in scientific rigor”, that it is a “tautology”, that there is “no proof in the scientist’s laboratory or the fossil record”, and the only reason it’s still around is that “liberals think evolution disproves God." ...

I’m about a month late in linking to this, but Mark Chu-Carroll has done a good job of debunking the Dembski’s “Searching Large Spaces: Displacement and the No Free Lunch Regress.” He shows that Dembski’s use of the NFL theorems is dishonest and inappropriate (even after he’s repeatedly been told that, even by the discoverer, David Wolpert), involves jargon-filled misdirection, and proves nothing.

Looks like there’s some evidence that Bush’s new press secretary, Tony Snow, is an advocate of intelligent design.

Ed Brayton has written an excellent article describing how many major intelligent design arguments come directly from the creationist literature. A similar earlier article by Jason Rosenhouse may be found here.

Now the Discovery Institute is claiming (via Michael Francisco, on the DI’s EvolutionNews blog, reporting on an American Enterprise Institute article co-authored by former DI policy analyst, attorney Seth Cooper) that the newly elected Dover Area School Board intentionally cost the school district $1 million in legal fees by refusing to rescind the illegal policy in December, after the trial was over and before Judge Jones had issued his ruling. This is at odds with the fact that their rescinding the policy would not have changed the outcome of the trial or the awarding of legal fees, which is why they didn’t do it until after the ruling came. What’s worse, they have attributed malice and conflict of interest (now retracted, to the original source’s partial credit) to one of the new board members who was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit regarding this decision, even though he was not yet on the board at the time of the December discussion (there was no vote) on changing the policy due to a runoff election. And further worse–on William Dembski’s blog, someone who pointed out the facts had their comment deleted. There’s nowhere to place the blame for the $1 million in legal fees except on the original board who put the policy in place over the warnings and objections at the time that their action was unconstitutional–and perhaps to some extent on the Discovery Institute advisor who they initially spoke with about what policy to adopt, Seth Cooper. UPDATE (April 5, 2006): Michael Francisco has revised the wording of his blog post, probably to make it less actionable under defamation laws. Ed Brayton points out the specifics of his revisions.

Jeff Shallit reports on Nancy Pearcey, a young-earth creationist who used to be a regular contributor to the Bible-Science Newsletter (and some of those pieces became part of the intelligent design textbook, Of Pandas and People, published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics). Jeff checked out her 1994 book, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, co-authored with Charles Thaxton (who was also the co-author of The Mystery of Life’s Origin, the first book from the FTE). He shows how her book gives a simple, short, clear, and straight-forward description of information theory, which suffers only from being completely wrong.

Answers in Genesis had been an international organization, with the U.S. branch under Ken Ham based in Kentucky, and an Australian branch under Carl Wieland in Queensland (which was formerly known as the Creation Science Foundation). Now the Australian group (along with ministries in Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa) has changed its name to Creation Ministries International, explaining in a recent brochure that the U.S. group did not want to be “subject to an international representative system of checks/balances/peer review involving all the other offices bearing the same ‘brand name’." This explains why an article critical of bad creationist arguments (and specifically Kent Hovind) disappeared from the Answers in Genesis site, but is found on the new Creation Ministries International site. (UPDATE (March 6, 2006): This statement was not quite accurate, but the linked-to page gets it right. The article listing arguments not to use is still present on the Answers in Genesis site, but it no longer links to the separate “maintaining creationist integrity” page and response to Kent Hovind which is present on the Creation Ministries International site.) Wieland’s group has made a point of publishing material critical of bad creationist arguments, on its website and in its technical journal. Ken Ham, on the other hand, has made a point of publishing and presenting bad creationist arguments. The U.S. group, known for spending millions on a creationist museum, has interesting Form 990s filed with the IRS. Some highlights from 2003 and 2004: Revenue: $9,016,228 (2003), $10,423,222 (2004). Expenses: $6,894,456 (2003), $8,320,926 (2004). Assets: $10,778,086 (2003), $17,368,759 (2004). Liabilities: $1,693,035 (2003), $6,086,610 (2004). Officer/Director compensation: $313,960 (2003), $926,837 (2004). Other salaries/wages: $2,938,288 (2003), $2,852,351 (2004). Pension plan contributions: $87,819 (2003), $0 (2004). Other employee benefits: $317,802 (2003), $399,482 (2004). Payroll taxes: $223,636 (2003), $307,267 (2004). Employees with salaries over $50,000: Kevin Markesbery, Construction Manager, $87,000 plus $8,778 to benefit plans/deferred income and $1,375 expense account (2003). $88,678 plus $6,850 to benefit plans, $4,076 expense account (2004). John Pence, Dir. of Planned Giving/Legal Counsel, $87,539 plus $7,728 to benefit plans/deferred income (2003). (Became a director in 2004, see below). Patrick Marsh, Director, $73,713 plus $5,202 to benefit plans (2004). James Hatton, Controller, $70,763 plus $8,609 to benefit plans/deferred income. Kathy Ellis, Dir. Administration, $68,519 plus $7,078 to benefit plans/deferred income. Mark Looy, VP Ministry Relations, $68,417 plus $8,460 to benefit plans/deferred income and $2,232 expense account. (Became a director in 2004, see below.) Tony Ramsek, Systems Mgr., $62,720 plus $6,821 to benefit plans (2004). Dan Zordel, Director, $57,724 plus $6,816 to benefit plans and $839 expense account (2004). Charles Tilton, Director, $56,828 plus $3,109 to benefit plans and $112 expense account (2004). Directors: Carl Wieland, Board Member, $0 (2003). Ken Ham, President, $125,739 salary, $11,033 benefits, $44,478 expenses (2003). $121,764 salary, $6,887 benefits, $63,808 expenses (2004). Bill Wise, CFO, $121,418 salary, $8,845 benefits, $2,535 expenses (2003). John Pence, General Counsel, $93,115 salary, $3,148 benefits (2004). Kathy Ellis, Vice President, $86,068 salary, $5,261 benefits (2004). Mark Looy, Vice President, $85,615 salary, $6,820 benefits, $3,518 expenses (2004). James Hatton, CFO, $81,000 salary, $6,831 benefits (2004). Mike Zovath, VP, $74,798 salary, $8,707 benefits, $2,267 expenses (2003). $90,201 salary, $6,830 benefits, $1,115 expenses (2004). Brandon Vallorani, $74,432 salary, $8,313 benefits, $1,368 expenses (2003). COO, $90,344 salary, $6,223 benefits, $2,316 expenses (2004). Don Landis, Chairman, $0 (2003). $0 (2004). Dan Chin, Board Member, $0 (2003). $0 (2004). Mark Jackson, Board Member, $0 (2003). $0 (2004). Carl Kerby, Board Member, $6,538 salary (20hrs/week), $1,650 benefits, $22,462 expenses (2003). Vice President, $65,112 salary, $4,225 benefits, $27,240 expenses (2004). Dan Manthei, Board Member, $0 (2003). $0 (2004). Peter Strong, Board Member, $0 (2003). Greg Peacock, Board Member, $0 (2003). $0 (2004). Paul Salmon, Board Member, $0 (2003). David Denner, Board Member, $0 (2004). Dale Mason, Vice President, $115,621 salary, $4,828 benefits (2004). John Thallon, Board Member, $0 (2004). Tim Dudley, Board Member, $0 (2004). They paid their top building contractors in 2003: plumbing and HVAC: $829,979 concrete: $310,252 steel erection: $279,428 building electric: $249,450 concrete foundations: $195,872 In 2003 they sold or gave away several old computers, and gave a 2002 Toyota Camry to CFO Bill Wise (who also got a free Compaq laptop). The full AiG 2004 Form 990 may be found here (PDF). Ken Ham earns a pretty good salary for someone who spouts misrepresentations of and about evolution for a living and resides in a state where the median household income in 2002-2003 was $37,270. Answers in Genesis of Kentucky’s unwillingness to undergo even the peer review of fellow creationist organizations indicates to me a lack of ethics and integrity. UPDATE: I didn’t explicitly note above that this schism must have actually taken place back in 2005, since Carl Wieland and the other Australians (Greg Peacock and Paul Salmon) disappeared from the AiG Kentucky board in the 2004 Form 990 (signed on August 10, 2005, apparently an update since the original was due by May 15). Also of note is that John Thallon, an Australian who helped lose the Creation Science Foundation thousands of dollars in a bogus investment (he was also a victim, not a party to the fraud–see the “Loss of Funds” section of my article “How Not To Argue With Creationists”), has moved to Kentucky and is on the board as of 2004. One other thing worthy of note is that as Answers in Genesis of Kentucky has grown, it has pulled support away from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), which Henry Morris’ son John Morris has never really had his heart in running. The ICR’s 2004 revenue was $4,341,000, with expenses of $4,231,885. They had assets of $5,628,352 and liabilities of $537,283–so they’re not exactly hurting, but they’re not doing AiG-sized business, either. (2004 Form 990 for the ICR is here (PDF).) It wouldn’t surprise me if AiG ultimately completely displaced (or perhaps acquired) the ICR. ...

After the Dover decision came down in December 2005, Sen. Rick Santorum resigned as a director of the Thomas More Law Center (which defended the Dover school board) and publicly stated that “I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did." This was his first flip-flop, as he had earlier in 2005 written an op-ed which supported the Dover school board. Now he’s flip-flopped again, writing a forward to a new book about Philip Johnson, Darwin’s Nemesis. (Hat tip: Pharyngula.)

Today would be Darwin’s 197th birthday… as part of the Darwin week events at Arizona State University, tomorrow is a public lecture on “Creationism and Evolution in America: World Views in Conflict” by Regents Professor Geoffrey A. Clark of the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change. The event will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Murdock Hall, room 101 (I remember that room well from my undergraduate days in computer science). The event is sponsored by the Secular Freethought Society (the “Secular Devils”), which has a 2006 event calendar online.

Genie Scott of the NCSE gave a talk on “Creationism and Evolution: Current Perspectives” to a standing-room-only audience of several hundred at the ASU Physical Sciences building. This crowd came out to see her despite the fact that Jared Diamond was speaking at ASU at the same time, about his book Collapse. The lecture began with a few words about Bob Dietz, who was a strong supporter of evolution and critic of creationism, and showed a few slides of him and his book, Creation/Evolution Satiricon: Creationism Bashed. Genie gave an overview of creation science, comparing and contrasting it with evolution. She pointed out the logical flaw of the “two model approach” in assuming that evolution and creation are the only two possibilities and that falsifying evolution is all that’s needed to prove creationism. There followed a discussion of the Paluxy river mantracks, and how Glen Kuban’s work led even the Institute for Creation Research to stop using them as evidence that humans and dinosaurs lived together. She talked briefly about some problems with the ark story and the misidentification of geological features as fossilized arks (another example which creationists themselves have refuted). Genie described the NCSE Grand Canyon raft trips, pointing out how they teach both the evolution and creationist sides of the story, while the ICR raft trip only teaches the creationist version. She put up a photo of Steve Austin and his book Grand Canyon, Monument to Catastrophe, along with a photo of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, pointing out that they should not be confused, even though the creationist Steve Austin does work on cold stone. (This reference worked well with the young audience–my expectation was for a comparison photo of Lee Majors as the “Six Million Dollar Man” as the joke.) She spent some time describing how the Grand Canyon is composed of thousands of layers of sediment which the creationists claim to have been laid down through repeated walls of water and sediment precipitation. This set the stage for Austin’s claims about the canyons around Mt. St. Helens, where a 30’ deep ditch was cut by water in seven days–thirty feet of unconsolidated ash and loose sediment doesn’t compare to four thousand feet of individual layers of shales, limestones, sandstones, etc. Since the event was at ASU, home of the Institute of Human Origins, she mentioned Donald Johanson tiring of correcting bogus creationist claims about Lucy’s knee joint. She then turned to intelligent design, or “creationism light,” which she described as consisting of only a single philosophical claim–that you can detect the evidence of things that are designed and are the products of intelligence, and in particular the product of a divine designer. ID has proposed two concepts for identifying design, Behe’s irreducible complexity and Dembski’s design inference. She described the Discovery Institute and the Wedge Document, and pointed out that there are many criticisms of Behe’s irreducible complexity and Dembski’s complex specified information on the web. The structure of the ID arguments, she argued, is the same as that of creation science–that evolution can’t do it, therefore it must be intelligent design. Michael Behe’s favored example of the bacterial flagellum was shown in an animated slide, and Genie pointed out that they like to use examples of complex systems where we haven’t yet developed full explanations, but they ignore other examples of apparently “irreducibly complex” systems where we do have full explanations, like the evolution of the mammalian ear (which she proceeded to illustrate). She gave a history of the intelligent design movement and its roots in creationism–covering the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas decision, Jon Buell’s formation of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, and the publications of Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen’s Mystery of Life’s Origin and Of Pandas and People. She described the science of the latter as awful, giving as an example its treatment of genetic distances between organisms based on cytochrome c, a demonstration that the authors don’t understand evolution (a topic discussed in the Dover case). Wesley Elsberry’s work on word counts of “creationis[t/m]” vs. “intelligent design” in the sequence of manuscripts that became Of Pandas and People was graphically depicted, showing the former dropping to zero and the latter increasing to the level of the former in 1987, after the creationists lost at the U.S. Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard. She briefly commented on William Dembski’s draft of version three of Of Pandas and People, which used “sudden emergence” instead of “intelligent design,” and about the Discovery Institute’s move to a “teach the controversy” position which it has held for a few years, and its model policy for school boards to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution adopted by the Grantsburg, Wisconsin school board in December 2004. She listed seven states that have introduced anti-evolution legislation this year (Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah), promoting books critical of intelligent design and creationism (including Young and Edis’ Why Intelligent Design Fails, Pennock’s Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, Forrest and Gross’s Creationism’s Trojan Horse, Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God, Shanks’ God, the Devil, and Darwin, Isaak’s Counter-Creationism Handbook, and her own Evolution vs. Creationism, which she was pleased to announce had just been reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. She showed a screen shot of Amazon.com listing her book with a sales rank of #284, though she noted this is an hour-by-hour rank and she had to wait until late on Sunday night to get the shot. In closing, Genie noted that Bob Dietz was a real scientific iconoclast who advocated views that were outside of the mainstream when he initiated them–that seafloor spreading occurs and is evidence of continental drift, that moon craters are asteroid impacts not volcanoes, that shatter cones are evidence of meteoritic impacts. He didn’t respond to criticism by starting a policy institute, hiring a PR firm, and lobbying to have his theories taught in public schools–he responded by doing scientific work, by doing research, by writing and presenting papers. That’s the work that needs to be done to get things taught in public school science classes. Afterward, there was a small reception outside the auditorium, and Genie was swamped with people asking questions for quite some time. I was surprised that there were no obvious creationists or intelligent design advocates–those who were present (I’m sure there were some there) kept their views to themselves. ...