Teh Internet Hookup - In Panda Person

Professor Steve Steve joined the folks at After the Bar Closes in August, and at Panda's Thumb he chronicles our trip to the Darwin Exhibition at the Field Museum.

Of Pandas and People...

Professor Steve Steve and me at the Darwin exhibition in the Field Museum!

(Listen...strange women lazing around in museums distributing photo-ops is no basis for a system of government!)

Origin of Species

UPDATED: For those of you who are confused by the "Burn Kristine she's a witch" meme by Rich(ard Hughes) at Pharyngula and at After the Bar Closes, all I can say is, it's a long story.

Now that evil warlock Richard Hughes has photoshopped my photo with the good Richard!

I shall marshall my forces, and all my sea horses, to take my revenge. Stay tuned.
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I brought Origin of Species and Descent of Man to the island that was Darwin's favorite, James (Santiago) Island.

Okay, I'll start the Galapagos Diary soon and stop gloating, I promise! (Today was a hectic day at work for me, if that makes you feel any better.)




However, this comment from Russ made my day:

When one of my favorite bloggers shares a significant event, I often go over the relevant blog entries with my family. It's a great way to kick off non-trivial conversations with my two kids, daughter, 14 and son, 16. Earlier this evening, I rounded up the kids(my wife was at karate) at a computer to share your entries about your Galapagos trip. When I scrolled to the "Origin of Species" entry, my teen son and daughter, in unison, said, "Hey! Isn't that Richard Dawkins." It made me feel quite proud that they both recognized him, but to top it off, they both knew that he is an important evolutionary biologist.

Whether one chooses to call it gloating, in jest, or sharing, in earnest, I think is less important than the way it can raise our awareness to the world and the people around us. As a parent I don't always know if my efforts to guide my children toward a clear perspective on the state of the world are getting through. All too often I have to ask: am I wasting my time? Then, like a shot something simple, like their response to your blog entry, Kristine, has a deep calming effect on me. It puts my heart at ease to think they're catching on, they're getting it.

So, thank you, Kristine. As you continue sharing your recent experiences, who knows what manner of epiphany - yours and mine alike - awaits.

William Dembski's School of Science

As you may recall, William Dembski sent an, er, animation-gram last Christmas to many of the people that I admire. Being a lover of the animated show "Family Guy," I came across an animation-gram that my favorite undertaker can really, um, get behind!

The ULTIMATE GRAM!

(Shimmies to Kabane52, who's just a kid but also an up-and-coming biologist and who has some sage advice for Christians, being that he's one himself.)

UPDATED: Holy crap, this is so unbelievable that I'm going to cross-post it at the Darwin Didn't Believe This! thread as well. Dembski claims that his misattribution of a racist quote to Charles Darwin was his little plan all along! So, if it looks designed, it's designed, but if it looks dishonest, it's not dishonest. Got that, class? There will be a test.

Un-be-lievable. (Shimmies as always to RedStateRabble)

SECOND UPDATE: Now Dembski says that Christian biologist Kenneth Miller has "wasted his life" and is on the verge of "collapse." Kenneth Miller, fer pete's sake! A scientist and a Christian who wrote the marvelous book Finding Darwin's God. (Well, I didn't get the last two chapters, but the rest of it rawks.) Okay class, here's your test. According to William Dembski, you can be a Christian and accept evolution at the same time. True or False?

A. True
B. False
C. Depends if your audience is an group of informed biology students, or a bunch of gullible, fundy-home-schooled teeny-boppers.
D. False, but I say true, because that pulls in the undecided students and the confused parents.
E. True, but I say false on my blog because it suits me. And I can change my answer whenever I want. (Which I do - constantly.)

Okay, post your answers, class.

Afarensis shows how deeply Charles Darwin loathed slavery.

Darwin Didn't Believe This!

William Dembski, at his blog, falsely attributes to Charles Darwin this nefarious quote from The Descent of Man:

The reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: “The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts—and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal ’struggle for existence,’ it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed—and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults."

Charles Darwin was quoting other people.

In order to refute their racist arguments.

Have you no shame, William Dembski? How many lies are you willing to tell? You know better. What is your point? How is this justified at all?

Truly having an open mind does not mean keeping a defunct argument open forever. It means looking at the evidence and then drawing some conclusions.

I think we can safely draw the conclusion that the intelligent design movement has run out of ideas and must resort to these easily-refuted tricks to shock its Frankenstein monster again. But can Dembski shock his patchwork creation for the next nine years? (See left.)

UPDATED: On "cursing the light."

(Shimmies to RedStateRabble and Pharyngula)

UPDATED: Now William Dembski says:

I was well aware of the context [of the quote by another attributed to Darwin]. But if I make the context clear, PvM and his fellows will find something else to attack. Better to give them what appears a minor slip-up, let them attack that, and then show how they’re acting in bad faith because they have ignored the gist.

Believe it or not, it really helps that the other side thinks we’re such morons... [This is] a fact, one that can be exploited.

Oh, boy! Something that can be exploited - you being considered a moron! Only you, Bill. You know what? I don't think you're a moron. I think you're an opportunist.

And as for the "Have you no shame?" question, you just answered it. Thanks.

Kansas vs. Darwin, the Film

UPDATED: Reason prevails in Kansas. May it prevail all over the U.S. Let freedom ring.
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Last night I saw the documentary Kansas vs. Darwin at the Bell Auditorium. I highly recommend this film, so see it if you get a chance! Apparently, a Young Earth creationist was in the audience and told the director, Jeff Tamblyn, that it was a fair and compassionate treatment of the May, 2005 Kansas School Board hearings, which apparently mirrors what other Y.E.C.s have told the director about the film.

When I heard about that I did kind of feel a little bad for the Y.E.C., because we are all human beings after all, and the audience, including me (especially me, you know me by now), was verbally hooting at the creationists—but you just can’t help it, since they hang themselves by their own golden chains!

I also found the film to be objective and fair, and yet it got some digs in, too. The visual juxtapositions display a fine wit. It does take a point of view—all films do, no matter what—in its calm observation of the proceedings, in the gentle encouragement of the creationists to tell their stories, and in the deft interweaving of the testimony before the board, including statements by Jonathan Wells (whom I hissed—I harbor a secret affection for a lot of the ID folks but I simply detest Wells) with commentary from scientists (including Jack Krebs—I applauded for him) and the Kansas Citizens for Science group.

Mr.Tamblyn led a discusson about the film afterward, both in the auditorium and a little later at a cake-cutting for Darwin’s birthday sponsored by Campus Atheists and Secular Humanists (C.A.S.H.). The man is a wonderful speaker and thinker, and provoked some really good discussion on the issue of science education in this country and of the stereotypes that Americans on both sides of the issue have of each other. He challenged me to justify my opinions at one point, and he is as passionate and informed about this issue as anyone I’ve met. He made me think about a few things that I hadn’t before, and it was really a pleasure to meet him and to see his work. This film is truly a crucial document of an important point in American history and deserves a wide release.

And I noticed that Pat at RedStateRabble was among those thanked in the credits!

Next Tuesday, the Kansas School Board will vote on the ID-inspired standards adopted last year. The expectation is that these standards, which allow for supernatural explanations for phenomena, will be discarded in favor of science standards drafted by the curriculum writing committee, chaired by Steve Case. Stay tuned.

And don’t diss Kansas, people—that state is usually ahead of the rest of the nation in dealing with issues (remember Brown v. the Board of Education?) and is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of us.