This is day four of my back being out. It's slowly getting better, but it still hurts to stand up. This is ridiculous.

On an amusing note, have you seen Science Against Evolution? It's a hilarious Web site. It's not just the "my nephew made this" look and feel; it's how the people who created this have managed to put together a laughable set of "theses" to support their idiocy. Of the two officers of this non-profitr organization with a listed background, their science background consists of electrical and civil engineering. There's no anthropology, astronomy, genetics or anything else which might actually relate to the subject matter at hand (astronomy counts, but it would be a long digression).

Here are the "theses" numbered 15 through 17:

15. "Abiogenesis" is the belief that life can originate from non-living substances through purely natural processes.
16. The theory of evolution depends upon abiogenesis as the starting point.
17. If the theory of abiogenesis is false, then the theory of evolution is false.

Number 15 is almost correct. Strike the work "belief" and replace it with "hypothesis". When they have such a subtle twist on a straightforward definition, you know something's amiss. I wonder if this was deliberate? Their general lack of sophistication suggests to me that it's not.

Number 16 is also subtly twisted. The theory of evolution depends on life being created as a starting point. Many religious people believe a supernatural entity created life and let evolution take over (just as the Catholic church). Catholics don't require abiogenesis as a starting point for evolution. I wonder why these people aren't telling you this?

Of course, their subtle psychological attack in number 15, combined with their distortion of point 16 leads to the outright lie in point number 17. Are they cognizant of this lie? I doubt it, so maybe it's not a lie per se, but this inability to reason about something is the sad state our education system has left so many people in.

Of course, many who support the theory evolution are often no better.

I will, however, give the people behind the "Science Against Evolution" Web site credit for at least understanding that there's a difference between the origin of life and the evolution of life. Most creationists I've talked to don't even understand that.

Before reading this entire entry, please answer the poll question below.

Imagine you live in a totalitarian state and you and your partner are planning to have a child. The doctor, a geneticist, tells you that you must choose a wide or narrow intelligence range for your child. If it is a wide range, your child has a better chance of being a genius -- or being mentally handicapped. If it's a narrow range, your child is unlikely to be a genius, but also unlikely to be mentally handicapped.

Poll #1082762
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53

Will you choose a wider intelligence range?

( The above poll may not be entirely fantasy )

In the spirit of the pagan festival Samhain, which the Catholic church co-opted by moving All Saint's Day to November 1st and eventually became the secular Halloween festival, I present yet another celebration of evolution: how to evolve a watch (via: reddit).

ID proponents routinely use the "watch implies a designer" argument as a rebuttal against evolution. What they forget is that there's a crucial difference between watches and living things: watches aren't alive. They don't breed. They don't mutate. They don't compete for limited resources. Those are three key things for living organisms. So the author of the "How to evolve a watch" decided to write software to find out what would happen if watches could do those things (competing for natural resources is referred to "natural selection", but it's the same thing). The results are fascinating. Complicated yet accurate watches, some with four hands, evolve.

But some people will say that since the author wrote the software, that implies that he's a designer. This is false. It's the abiogenesis/evolution confusion. The two should not be conflated. Abiogenesis is complicated and science cannot explain it. Perhaps science never will. Who knows? The author merely provided the initial conditions necessary for "life" (abiogenesis). He did not design the watches (evolution).

For those desiring a more (recently) traditional topic, here are my pumpkins from a couple of years ago.

I'm not going to talk about intelligent design proponents. I'm going to call a spade a spade and refer to them as creationists. Let's just get this straight: there is no "intelligent design". There are creationists who explicitly embrace God and ID proponents who lie and pretend that religious zealotry is not what's behind their campaign of deceit. Of course, I'm sure that God doesn't mind a little intellectual dishonesty to prop him up, right? Clearly the ID folks have realized that faith ain't enough, praise the Lord!

This is not to say that all who believe in Creation are liars. There are many well-meaning people out there who sincerely and devoutly believe in the story of creation and there are more folks who are swayed by the creationists arguments because the creationist campaign of lying and their very selective use of information has created a propaganda machine that politicians can only envy. However, when you look closely at the creationist claims, most of it boils down to one thing: evolution supporters don't know everything, therefore they're wrong, praise the Lord!¹

It's tough to find a better example of how far we are willing to go to lie to ourselves. It's tough to find a better example of the self-deceit we are willing to engage in when we can accept such a specious argument. And it's tough to keep a straight face while listening to it. So I won't. Praise the Lord!

( Creationists want to eat your babies )

Important: Note that I did not delete any of the "deleted" posts. The author of the posts chose to do that. So long as the commentary is honest and deliberate, I will not delete posts. Only when the commentary is abusive or clearly "trollish" will I do so.

(Note that I've sourced a bunch of the stuff here, but it's getting late and trying to source all of it is becoming too tedious. If you don't believe what I'm writing, look it up for yourself. Also, though I take some digs at Christians, those are primarily aimed at Christians who are using lies to spread their beliefs.)

First, some people tried forcing our children to learn creationism in lieu of evolution. Because that's clearly a religious belief, our courts threw that out.

Then, some people tried forcing our children to learn "creation science" alongside evolution. Because that's clearly a religious belief, our courts threw that out. (Hint: if it has the word "science" in the name, it probably isn't).

Now these people are trying to force our children to learn "intelligent design". They keep trying to force their religious beliefs on others. The courts keep shutting them down, but since they have no respect for the First Amendment of the US Constitution, they don't care. They're sitting in court lying their asses off as if somehow God won't mind deceipt in his name.

Their first assault on science lies in claiming that evolution is "just a theory". There are plenty of flaws with ID, but let's start with the "just a theory" part. What the Christians pushing "intelligent design" (ID) want us to think is that "theory" more or less means "guess". It doesn't.
( More Christian Hypocricy )

Isn't it nice to crawl into a bed with clean sheets, warm blankets and a squishy pillow?

Nice pillow.

Nice fluffy pillow.

Nice fluffy pillow of death.

Seems that pillows are hotbeds of stuff. Nasty stuff. Stuff that you and I don't really want to breathe but are anyway. There's a beautiful little ecosystem of fungi, mites, bacteria and other things that we feed every evening with our hair, skin and drool. Asthmatics and allergy sufferers are particularly at risk from this but we probably didn't expect this to be deadly:

Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients.