"Teach the controversy"? Uh....NO!

Here in Colorado, we're once more faced with a brigade of  semi-literate knot heads that want to try to inject their idiotic brand of pseudo-science into classrooms under the aegis of "teaching the controversy" .In other words, teaching creationist nonsense along side evolution. I guess they figure that if they can toss up enough gibberish - and because creationism is simplistic compared to evolution-they can get the rank and file of their captive student audiences to gobble this piffle up.

Phil Plaitt, a physicist, in a post on Jan. 22nd,  warned of this impending bollocks:

"I live in Boulder, Colorado, which is a bastion of scientific research. There are four major space science centers here (CU-Boulder, SwRI, the Space Science Institute, and Ball Aerospace), two major atmospheric research centers ((UCAR and NCAR, as well as NIST and many other well-known science research centers.


But the state of Colorado, apparently, still wants to live in the 15th century: Just a few days ago, a bill was introduced into my home state’s legislature that would allow teachers “to miseducate students about evolution, whether by teaching creationism as a scientifically credible alternative or merely by misrepresenting evolution as scientifically controversial.”

Those words are from my good friend and tireless hero for science Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, an organization that has the goal of educating people about real science. The antiscience bill HB 13-1089 is one of the Orwellian-named “Academic Freedom” thrusts by creationists, where legislators claim they just want teachers to have freedom about what they can teach, but is in fact a clear and obvious attack on scientific fields that disagree with the beliefs of the conservative lawmakers. Don’t believe me? Here is the opening shot of the bill:

“The provisions of the acts direct teachers to create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning.”

If this were really about academic freedom, why is it so specific? Why not include all fields of science, instead of just those three? In fact, why not include all academic fields? I’d be fascinated to see literature, art, and math added to that. Or religious study…how about supplementary texts that show the contradictions in the Bible? I wonder how that would go over".
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He goes on to note that all the co-sponsors of this bill are, to a person, Republicans.  Well, what would you expect of the STUPID party? The party hijacked by Tea Party extremists, religious fundie crazies and warmongering fools? The party that is so detached from reality they deny any human responsibility for global warming-climate change. That alone shows the worth of the bill, as we must always consider the source.


As it is, our students - especially in high school - are falling behind across a broad swatch of disciplines compared to other nations such as Sweden, Norway, Germany, Singapore and China. Do you think THOSE nations dilute their hard science courses with unproven, impossible bullshit - such as dinosaurs being alive at the time of "Adam and Eve" (see also:  http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/idiocy-beyond-belief-charles-pierce.html   )

As I showed in a number of earlier blogs, e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/01/of-russet-dinos-and-first-dino-birds.html, no creationist arguments can be supported.  The Bible itself, the source book for much of this crap, can't even get scientific facts partially right, e.g. http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-bible-based-scientific-idiocy.html, which is no surprise since it was scribbled by scientifically illiterate nomads. So why in the hell would anyone of normal I.Q. want to teach this ancient bull pockey to any student of the 21st century?

The answer has to be to brainwash the student into being a religious goober or pawn. An unthinking yokel who lacks any questioning or critical thinking aptitude. The fact is, any state which turfs out evolution to accept Adam and Eve and creationism, is already dumb as a sack of hammers. Any state which attempts to mount the Ten Commandments on court house steps, as if our jurisprudence is based on them, is also a collective pack of morons. But it seems that if this asinine bill isn't slain where it stands, Colorado may join the ranks of the dumb Confederate states, like MS, AL, TX. None of us living in this state want that, given we pride ourselves as having the 2nd highest proportion of university grads in the nation - and we interpret that to mean that those university educated ought to side with reality, not mythology or ancient fairy tales.

It would be a cruel injustice to our students to force them to listen to two "sides" of how the Earth and life on it originated and evolved. There is only ONE side, and that is what needs to be taught. And it isn't a matter of being "afraid" of creationism, but rather realizing that every minute consumed by this bullshit is a minute lost for teaching scientific principles and reality - even made more difficult now with state wide tests gobbling so much precious class time.

The (majority) Dems in the Colo. state house need to shut this baloney law down and never let it come up for a vote again. Spreading ancient bull crap is not democracy, it's all about endorsing buffonery!

Another Whacknut Pastor Enabled by an Incompetent Media

WHERE do these kook "pastors" like Bob Enyart come from? Maybe we'd be better off not knowing!

 In a previous blog, http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/idiocy-beyond-belief-charles-pierce.html, based on the book 'IDIOT AMERICA' by Charles Pierce, I underscored his point that the biggest idiots around - even bigger than the source idiots (who espouse bunkum like a 'young Earth', or UN black helicopters and FEMA concentration camps) are the media who give them time, or column space without showing how their deformed views are......well deformed.

Such is the case with "Pastor" Bob Enyart of Arvada, Colo. ('Arvada Pastor Says His Science show is the Real Deal', Denver Post, Dec. 2, p. 1B) whose whole shtick is destroying "old Earth and Darwinian evolution" myths via his KLTT radio show "Real Science Friday" which aims to skewer the dastardly "demonic myths" taught Colorado young uns about evolution and where their ancestors came from. Quoting Enyart-  a "self-described fundamentalist pastor of the 60-member Denver Bible Church" (SHEESH, where do these "self-described pastors" come from?):

"No, I do not believe your ancestors were apes."

Actually, dummy, NO ONE said they were! Darwinian common ancestry is a totally different concept (see prior blog) whereby in the context of ancestry, man and ape are both descended from a genetically common ancestor in the distant past. This common ancestry's giveaway is the cytochrome-c sequence occurring in apes (like chimps) and humans. But see, "pastors" like Enyart are too dopey to grasp it. Worse, the reporters who scribble the (two page- headlined) stories about them are too uneducated to point out the errors of their ways.

But maybe it's no coincidence that the author of the piece, Electa Draper, is the same one who penned the bollocks of how Aurora theater shooting survivor Bonnie Kate Pourciau was miraculously saved with her friend, even as dozens were mowed down including little 6-year old Veronica Moser. Draper didn't ask the hard questions then, such as how or why Pourciau's "god" favors lithe 18-year old females over 6-year old innocents, and doesn't now with Enyart and his creationist nonsense. No, she just drones on recycling tripe after bunkum byte without calling Enyart to account or countering with what real scientists say.

Another example: pumping up Enyart's gibberish about "dinosaur soft tissues unearthed in the mid-2000s and written up in the respected journal Science in 2005." She merely parrots Enyart's rot that "such things as bone cells, blood vessels and elastic tissues aren't expected to survive fossilization". In other words, dinos are really YOUNG critters that would've been around at the time of Adam and Even - SO HEY! They could have been lassoed and ridden! (See Pierce's image from blog link above)

Had Draper at least read that Science issue she'd have ascertained the special and unique conditions under which dinosaur soft, elastic tissues could be preserved which had been theoretically known for nearly 25 years (thereby providing the basis for the fictional Spielberg film, 'Jurassic Park') Interestingly, Draper makes much of the fact that when one googles "dinosaur soft tissue" one sees that "Enyart's site if fourth, well ahead of NPR's and National Geographic's. Well, what do you expect, Electa, when you media lunkheads give it so much undeserved play and attention, thereby driving loonies to bring up Enyart's bollocks more often. (Really, Enyart ought to form a Bozo Consortium with young Sun "physicist" Jason Lisle who I also demolished before see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/jason-lisle-astrophysicist-dont-make-me.html  and:  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/jason-lisle-faux-astrophysicist.html.

Electa then dignifies Enyart's nonsense that "to creationists like Enyart the Earth is several thousand years old". No counterpoints, no counter arguments, nada!

The good aspect: at least REAL science program journalist Ira Flatow ('Science Friday') has filed suit against Enyart for encroaching on his copyrighted name.  The suit was filed Nov. 9 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Therein Mr. Flatow correctly argues that "Real Science Friday" is a knockoff logo to promote Enyart's radio show- thus a violation of 'Science Friday's' rights.

Once Flatow prevails, Enyart will at least be forced to change the name of his idiotic show, for idiots.

In the meantime readers can find out more about this holier- than -thou sock poppet  moron here:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/08/30/fox-amp-friends-latest-extremist-guest-and-conv/170003

Also, evolutionary biologist PZ Myers on why it's a waste of time to debate such human refuse:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/22/bob-enyart-wants-me-to-respect/

Idiocy Beyond Belief: Charles Pierce Exposes Our Religiously Nutcase Nation

“Things are in the wrong place. Religion is in the box where science used to be. Politics is on the shelf where you thought you left science the previous afternoon. Entertainment seems to have knocked over and spilled on everything.”


― Charles P. Pierce,  Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free



Reading Charles P. Pierce's book  Idiot America: How Stupidity Became A Virtue in the Land of the Free, is sobering to say the least. The first chapter, on the Creationist Museum of Ken Ham in Kentucky, is like being whacked by a two by four - and you wonder how so many 'Muricans' could be so dumb as to spend $149 each to see exhibits (e.g. dinos with saddles at the time of "Adam and Eve") when it's all bullshit.  Soon after the "stars" elicited by Pierce's 2 x4 whack (or maybe wake up call) settle down, one begins to see how this country became so totally screwed up that the inmates are literally running the asylum. It also doesn't inspire a lot of hope, unless and until more of us are willing to call out and ridicule the idiots among us or those in the media who turn a blind eye toward them- thereby encouraging their foolishness. For more on this, and to get Pierce's POV directly, check out this You tube interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20zM1OblhKk


I especially liked how Pierce reserved special invective for the semi-literate creators  Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, of the absurd  Left Behind  series (p. 132):

“Thousands of people ascending bodily to heaven? Antichrists from the UN with names like James Bond villains? Jesus chopping up folks in the sand? To call this medieval is to to insult Thomas Aquinas; this is the kind of thing dreamed up by religious lunatics..”

He also reserves some special opprobrium for TIME magazine which put the images of the culprits....errrr....creators on one of its covers. As he notes (ibid.):

"The article inside the magazine did not find it necessary to point out that (a) Jenkins and LaHaye are peddling a fringe interpretation of Scripture rejected by most scholars, and (b) the whole senario is absurd no matter how many people believe it."

And for sure, millions of idiots across this land do believe it, as certainly as I believe the Sun will rise in the morning- but predicated on astronomic reality. These idiots have found a "bouy" to latch on to in the midst of stormy uncertain times and seas. With their special latch keys to opening their 2,000 yr. old  "good book" they believe themselves privy to all that's going on now and all that will go on until their fantasy "Second coming". And anyone with the temerity not to side with them, or criticize their invite to "salvation" is damned on the spot as heathen, infidel or worse. They have to do that because it's the only way they can elevate their own imbecility.

But as Pierce argues in his interview, we don't have to assist in validating their specious rot, thereby enabling them as much of the media do! That's why he includes TIME, or any other journal or media outlet as Bigger Idiots when they promote or lend credence to such whacko beliefs. As Cenk Uygur who gives the interview offers up, it's mainly because formerly reputable journalistic departments have been converted to sales departments. All they see in front of them are $$$$$ signs, and if putting a couple of end-times promoting dopes on a cover can grab more sales, they will do it...'devil take the hindmost'.

But Pierce's major scorn is for how the lunacy of current religious crankery has flowed into our politics and turned it into the laughing stock of the world. As he observes (ibid.):

“Because nothing sells in the modern Christian Marketplace like the notion that Christians are beset on all sides by powerful forces desperately in need of a good dismebowelling, it was inevitable that religious marketing would flow into the country’s politics. Amnd religion has been sold there solely as a product.”

He goes on to point out (ibid.):

“Political religion has always been a sucker’s game for marks and prayerful mama’s boys, an ever vain search for a non-existent pea hidden beneath the swindler’s overturned chalices. It exchanges the loaves and fish for the rigged wheel and the marked deck.


A politician discussing his religion now refers to himself as a ‘person of faith’ – which tells you more about the politician’s balls than it does his soul. He doesn’t have enough of the former to call himself ‘religious’ because that leads to the question of which religion and why he chooses to follow it and not dozens of others, or none of them at all.”

What about "faith -based" programs or whatever? Pierce again:

“Faith-based is another dishonest term for a dishonest time. It’s a word for people too cowardly to call themselves religious and it is beloved by politicians too cowardly to debate something as substantial as faith. It was eagerly adopted by Idiot America  which is too lazy to do either one."

He goes on to add that Idiot America is too lazy because the faith based term conforms to the "Three Great Premises" - beloved by all simpletons in the country:

- It's a cheap salesman's term of art, something used to "pitch a cereal"

- It sounds like an additive, i.e. "faith based" - an artificial flavoring to make crude biases taste of bread and wine

- It's camouflage under which religion is sold like smuggled goods in places where it doesn't belong.

How fucked up is Idiot America? Let's take the  memetic "tour" offered by Pierce:

"Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark? Ken Ham's Idiot Answers in Genesis (AIG)


Welcome to your new Eden.

Welcome to Idiot America.

Let's take a tour, shall we? For the sake of time, we'll just cover the last year or so (2008-09).

A federally funded abstinence program suggests that HIV can be transmitted through tears. An Alabama legislator proposes a bill to ban all books by gay authors.

The Texas House passes a bill banning suggestive cheerleading. And nobody laughs at any of it, or even points out that, in the latter case, having Texas ban suggestive cheerleading is like having Nebraska ban corn.

James Dobson, a prominent conservative Christian spokesman, compares the Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan.

Pat Robertson, another prominent conservative preacher, says that federal judges are a more serious threat to the country than is Al Qaeda and, apparently taking his text from the Book of Gambino, later sermonizes that the United States should get with it and snuff the democratically elected president of Venezuela.

The Congress of the United States intervenes to extend into a televised spectacle the prolonged death of a woman in Florida.

The majority leader of the Senate, a physician, pronounces a diagnosis based on heavily edited videotape. The majority leader of the House of Representatives argues against cutting-edge research into the use of human stem cells by saying that "an embryo is a person.... We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was Jesus of Nazareth." Nobody laughs at him or points out that the same could be said of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or whoever invented the baby-back rib.

And, finally, in August, the cover of Time -- for almost a century the dyspeptic voice of the American establishment -- clears its throat, hems and haws and hacks like a headmaster gagging on his sherry, and asks, quite seriously: "Does God have a place in science class?"

Read Pierce's book if you dare, but better to do it in small quantized chunks, lest your head explode at the spectacle of so many idiots in our midst!