This is a good example of how scientists and science-lovers should deal with creationists. And that is not to deal with them, at least in debates and meetings.
A while back, religious students at Michigan State University announced that they would hold a one-day “Origin Summit,” a meeting about creationism at a public university. That was legal because the summit was actually organized by a student religious group (The Baptist Collegiate Ministry), which has the right to book rooms on campus for its own activities. According to a piece by Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, though, the students didn’t have much to do with the conference, which was organized by Outside Influences. (Could it be. . . . Satan?)
“The Origin Summit“‘s speakers and program are shown below; note the distinguished lineup. Sadly, I have never heard of any of these scientists or science educators.
That’s a rather pugnacious program, and includes attacks on the Big Bang (really?) and on Rich Lenski’s well-known experiments on bacterial evolution. They also played the Hitler Card, i.e., Hitler’s genocides were strongly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution. (For the definitive refutation of that ridiculous canard, see my colleague Bob Richards’s essay, “Was Hitler a Darwinian?“, free online. Hint: the answer is “no.”)
What the creationists really wanted was a debate, in particular a debate with MSU philosophy professor Rob Pennock, a well-known opponent of intelligent design and author of what I think is the best anti-ID book, Tower of Babel. Pennock also testified for the prosecution in the famous Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. case, a case in which ID was resoundingly trounced as “not science.”
Pennock wouldn’t bite, and good for him. As Slate reports:
The summit’s website asks whether Pennock’s arguments can “withstand the scrutiny of debate” and suggests that he’s too cowardly to stand up for evolution.
The summit had one thing right: Pennock refused to respond to its request. But it wasn’t out of timorousness.
“Scientists have already shown that there is no substance worth debating in these old creationist challenges to evolution,” he told me. Evolution is fact, creation is fiction, and there’s just no point in pretending like there’s a real scientific debate between reality and fantasy. I asked Pennock whether he was alarmed by the conference.
“It’s a sign of how desperate creationists have become,” he said. “[T]hey have to make schoolyard bully taunts, blame evolution for Hitler, and raffle a free iPad (‘Must be present to win’) to try to create a controversy and draw an audience.”
The rest of the Michigan State scientists also refused to engage, though of course they were peeved that such a stupid event could take place on a respectable campus. But it’s the Baptists, Jake!
Thwarted in their attempt to validate the conference with a debate, the summit leaders might at least have hoped for an attention-grabbing outcry among scientists at the school. There, too, they were foiled. Once MSU’s science professors caught wind of the event, they collectively decided to ignore the conference and refuse requests for comment. (Indeed, no professor would speak to me until I promised not to publish a story before the summit occurred.) The summit leaders were counting on the school’s scientists to criticize the conference and give them free publicity. So the scientists kept their mouths shut.
Kudos to my colleagues at MSU! The only pushback by Team Science was a pro-evolution table at the conference organized by some students. But faculty resolutely refused to either engage or attend. In the end, it wasn’t much of a win for the creationists:
The summit’s leaders were expecting an uproar, but MSU’s scientists, unlike Bill Nye, refused to take the bait. To debate creationism and evolution, they realized, was to imply that evolution is plausibly disputable. To ignore creationist calls for debate, on the other hand, relegates the theory to lowest rung of evangelical pseudoscience, where it so obviously belongs.
Ultimately, thanks to the university’s emphatic silence, the conference drew fewer than 100 attendees, according to Baskett—only about one-third of whom appeared to be younger than 30. There were no debates or shouting matches, and the creationists were, by all accounts, gracious and civil. A handful of MSU students sat in out of pure curiosity, Pennock told me, including a resolutely pro-science graduate student who studies evolutionary microbiology. At the end of the event, the student won the iPad raffle.
“Chance?” Pennock asked, “or a sign from above? You be the judge.”
My advice to all, and that included Bill Nye, who I think erred in debating Ken Ham, is to not engage creationists on a public platform, and that means in conferences or debates. Issues like the worthlessness of creationism are not decided by rhetoric, but by thoughtful contemplation. I fight creationism not by talking to its advocates in public, which only gives them credibility, but by criticizing their ideas in articles and book reviews, which can be read at leisure. But I do this as little as possible, and only when they’ve said something that, I think, needs rebutting. My strongest critique of creationism was not in fact a critique, but an exposition of the massive and irrefutable evidence for evolution, laid out in WEIT.
As this country becomes more secular, creationism will disappear of its own accord, for its umbilical cord is religion. There are virtually no creationists who aren’t motivated by religious origin tales, and when those tales lose credibility (granted, it will take a long time), creationism will no longer be with us. The IDers and creation-mongers know this, so they try to pump life into their movement by seeking the credibility and visibility of debates with scientists.
Don’t engage them, at least in person.
h/t: Alexander and others
sub
Too
rranean Homesick Blues.
Sorry.
KP
I’m on the pavement, thinking about the government…
Excellent!
And notice this weird business about how evolution is really about de-evolution and deterioration! Wow, what a bunch of crazy jokers.
“And notice this weird business about how evolution is really about de-evolution and deterioration!”
John Sanford, formerly an actual scientist, wrote a book on that theme, Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome. It is awful in numerous ways.
Is that a pun?
I don’t think so.
That would be “aweful in numinous ways”.
I think it’s time to stop saying that Bill Nye “erred” or that he was somehow misguided in debating Ken Ham. Now that Nye’s book is out, it seems clear that he knows a good marketing opportunity when he sees it. The debate immediately gave him public notoriety as a representative of biologists, an area in which he previously attained no particular recognition.
Sorry, but I don’t appreciate your telling me what I should say or not say. He got notoriety, Ham got notoriety and dollars.
Read the Roolz.
The dollars might not do him any good though. Apparently the Ark Park’s employment practices may be illegal. It’s so cut and dried that Kentucky has halted its funding.
You have been consistent and I would not have you say other than that you think Nye “erred,” but I do happen to disagree with that view. And while it might have had marketing benefits for Nye–who doesn’t strike me as either anti-capatilist OR purely mercenary–it also introduced some creationists to SCIENCE, while do no harm whatever to people who already accept the science. I just downloaded the book this morning, and it looks quite good so far. If people interested in the “debate” also read Nye’s book–and you know some naughty evangelical kids will do just that because they’ve been told not to–I think it’s a net good. It’s complex and no one can probably say for SURE what the best strategy would have been, but from my limited perspective, I’ve seen Nye’s participation with Ham as a net good, albeit a marginal one.
Gawd I hope I BAID DA ROOLZES!
To be honest I was anti Nye’s involvement, but that was before seeing what a complete car-crash the ark park has turned into.
It was always going to end badly, but the fact that it’s looking that way sooner rather than later makes me think that the absolute drubbing that Nye laid down was a little more worthwhile (sooner than I expected,to be honest, and after a lot less public money has headed in that direction).
I’d happily say that I was anti-debate at the time, still think that the value could be questioned, but am impressed at how badly handled the park has been.
Yes, it’s a nice fence that I have here. Very comfy!
I’ve been getting into biomimetics in the last few years, and I have never, ever, not even once heard of it being used to scaffold IDiocy. So they’re batting 1000 in terms of total irrelevance.
The power of silence. Nice. Glad the student got the iPad too. That would be the only reason I would go. 🙂
Totally agree, Jerry. Any idea who sponsored 4 speakers and travel expenses, etc?
No idea, but it was either the student group or some Outside Organization. It certainly would have been expensive to bring in and house four speakers.
Yes. Even if they were relatively local, travel, accommodation, expenses and honoraria would all add up. For ~100 attendees, can’t imagine it was less than $100 per head (plus an iPad!). A real bargain!
Obviously someone with a lot more money than scientific sense…. ;o)
It is my information that the student group had no idea what the symposium was all about and were lied to by the cretins at the Dishonesty Institute.
I also note that the speakers constitute the scrubbinies. Where were Dumbski, Behe, Minnich, Douglas Axe et al?
Educated guess: The Institute for Creation Research, Jerry Bergman’s employer? I think they have money.
Also, Bergman was the only name I directly recognised. Read his Rationalwiki entry, he’s quite a piece of work, fake doctorate and all.
Good work. And a pro-evolution student winning the raffle is just the icing on the cake!
I have to admit, I’m genuinely curious to learn how the big bang (it’s the latest thing, don’t you know?) is fake. Hoping for youtube video.
I was wondering about this one too, as I had thought that creationists liked the idea of the BB. I did some online searching, and found no creationist drivel that was anti-BB.
So maybe that one is simply disputing that the universe was created 13.8 billion years ago.
There’s several camps. The “6000 years” crowd doesn’t like it and the crowd the realizes the (correct) view that it doesn’t leave room for actual *creation* also doesn’t like it. Others, including catholics, misinterpret it.
Dr Jackson quote:- “…Creationists make the one assumption that our Earth is someplace near the center of the universe. That means that time would have started back up again around the edges of the universe first, because of God stretching it from around the edges. When time started back up at the edges first, the light from all of the galaxies at the edges, would have immediately taken off (at the speed of light) in all directions. Meanwhile, Earth is still stuck in the center where time is yet standing still. The light would have had plenty of “time” to get from there to here, before time were to begin again at our location, which is nearer to the center of the “trampoline” of space. So, it really did take millions of years of space-time for the light from the other galaxies to get here to Earth. But meanwhile, no time had passed on Earth, since the stretching had not yet pulled Earth and its neighboring stars up out of the “time dent” yet. So really, no time passed on Earth during Day Four, until time had begun again in our place near the center part of the universe.”
Oh yes, that is very clear. 🙏 Hallelujah, I am converted!
Well he does have an EdD (??) in science “education” (or is that “science” “education”?), so he must be right.
Yes the scientifical process of debate. They must be some really scientifically scientifical creationists.
The flyer posted above lists a “Dr Donald DeYoung” as an “astronomer”.
So I’ve just put that name into NASA’s database that covers all publications in astronomy and astrophysics. It gave a big fat zero.
Wait – Donald DeYoung – wasn’t he in Styx?
I imagine their definition of “astronomer” is “a guy who occasionally glances up at the night sky”.
And what does the Big Bang have to do with Evolution anyway? They’re two theories proposed to explain different things and have absolutely no logical connection with each other.
Actually they are connected. If it could have been shown that the Big Bang happened much later than we think it happened, or if it could have been shown that something else produced the earth very recently, then evolution (which needs a lot of time) could not have happened. This is why Darwin had concerns about Kelvin’s mistaken thermodynamic arguments about the earth.
Sometimes I pick my nose and look at the result. Does that make me a doctor?
Ever checked out your earwax or coughed up something mysterious? Fully accredited ENT specialist!
No, that’s Dennis.
He’s a creationist teacher of “science” at the evangelical Grace College & Seminary in Indiana. From what I can see, all he’s published are creationist books meant for an evangelical readership.
The guy withe the Hitler/Darwin thing – Nietzsche was certainly not a Darwin fan,
eg Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism by Dirk Johnson –
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/jns/reviews/dirk-s.-johnson-nietzsches-anti-darwinism
& I would have said that he was more influential on the thinking of Hitler, which was, let’s face it, not in the slightest intellectual or coherent, but rather a mish-mash of what suited his pre-conceived prejudices.
Why not go straight to horse’s mouth? E.g. this 1937 speech by Hitler, which is explicitly creationist:
“God did not create the peoples so that they might deliver themselves up to foolishness and be pulped soft and ruined by it, but that they might preserve themselves as He created them! Because we support their preservation in their original, God-given form, we believe our actions correspond to the will of the Almighty.”
(Funny how the creationists never quote that one!)
[Citation and more at Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist and opposed to Darwinism.]
Although Coel was too modest to mention it, the essay that he wrote (the link in his post) is my go to place for refutation of the Darwin-Hitler link. It’s really an amazing piece of work.
I have just skimmed through the link, thanks to Mark’s recommendation, and it is fascinating. i, too, will retain it for future reference and study.
And even if Hitler did find inspiration in Darwin, that doesn’t say evolution is false. Lots of people pervert ideas and theories; just because those people didn’t get it doesn’t mean the theory is tainted.
Adrian Desmond and James Moore give quite a different view of Darwin in “Darwin’s Sacred Cause” 2009, that he was partly driven to show common ancestry of all people, by abhorrence of slavery.
Yes. Hitler apparently liked Wagner and this leads to Wagner’s being called anit-semitic. But Richard Strauss who played right on through gets a pass.
There’s a funny Curb Your Enthusiasm about that where Larry is whistling Wagner and a guy calls him a “self loathing Jew”. Larry ends up getting an orchestra to play Wagner outside the guy’s house in the middle of the night.
Hitler didn’t invent the term “Aryan Supremacy,” which was already used by people such as Teddy Roosevelt in the late 19th century. I first discovered that reading “The Imperial Cruise” by James Bradley, which I recommend.
Jerry, you’ve never heard of these “scientists” and “educators” because you don’t hang out at the Encyclopedia of American Loons, a depressingly long list!
Here’s your new BFF, Charles Jackson.
Although it’s dated, ERV’s takedown of this IDiot is breathtakingly surgical.
The EAL is a great resource. I check it often and am amazed at all the stupid out there.
Agreed. He is the only one I recognized on this list. His debate with ERV is really interesting (If you can stomach Charles’s smarminess).
I have heard of couple of them.
Jerry Bergman is an absolute wacko, you can find postings about him at Pharyngula.
John Sanford, an actual “Courtesy Associate Professor” at Cornell’s Dept. of Horticulture, and inventor of the gene gun is a young earth creation who testified at the Kansas Board of Education hearings back in 2005 that he thinks the universe is less than 100,000 years old, and possibly less than 10,000. He wrote a book with his bizarro notions of genetic decay (Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome). And perhaps most interesting, he was involved in a similar stunt in 2011 in which creationists rented a meeting room in a hotel on the Cornell campus for their symposium on Biological Information: New Perspectives. While this technically occurred on the Cornell campus, no Cornell department sponsored the meeting.
The proceedings of the 2011 symposium were eventually published by World Scientific Publishing. Note that the web page for the book repeatedly invokes the name of Cornell University although, as I already mentioned, no Cornell departments were involved. Rather, the meeting was sponsored by Sanford’s own organization, “Feed My Sheep.”
You can find several articles at Panda’s Thumb about this series of events.
Feed My Sheep?
Are you serious?
Sounds like a grunge band out of Portland.
FEED MY SHEEP MINISTRY OF GOD
That may be the wrong organization, I see their location is in Florida.
This looks to be the right one.
FEED MY SHEEP FOUNDATION INC
Livonia, NY
Contact: John Sanford
What do you feed the sheep to? Wolves?
Nope, the shepherd, eventually…
“Nope, the shepherd, eventually…”
So true. 😉
Call me when they change their name to Fuck My Sheep.
I might want to, er, contribute.
I had the honor of using the prototype gene gun at Cornell’s Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY in the late 80s. I must have met Sanford, but don’t really remember. All I remember is the gunshot sound and the way the plant leaf recoiled when it was hit. We were trying to transfect apple tissue with a gene from the silkworm.
… in the late 80s
Sanford may have been fairly normal back then. Accounts say he began his slide in the “mid-1980s,” and gradually slid into more extreme forms of Christianity and Creationism.
I wonder if Sanford’s Feed My Sheep Foundation may have been the organization that shelled out for speaker’s expenses. I think he used it for that back in 2011.
I still think the Nye-Ham debate has its silver linings.
1. It can serve as a lightning rod for future debates so scientists can use their time on worthwhile endeavours.
2. It clearly demonstrates for neutral laypersons that there is no more debate concerning creationism to be had.
3. It clearly demonstrates for experts of all kinds that religion and science can still clash and that NOMA only works insofar religion always accept evidence when it contradicts faith. Ham didn’t.
4. The creationist theme park will serve as a prime example of hopeless religious squander in a time where many people struggle to make ends meet. It might leave Ham’s piggy bank obese, but I doubt it’ll recruit any creationists. For everyone not creationist, it serves no purpose other than an example of just another theme park.
5.It was two public laypersons debating biology and Christianity on Christian turf and biology clearly came out on top. No experts needed and a public show of the shortcomings of religion opposed to science.
I doubt Nye would do it again, but I am grateful for the convenient reference point when/if creationists complain about evolutionists shying away from debate because of fear. They’ll probably pull a no-true-creationist card, but at least this particular kind has been knocked out of the park. This time around though, the game didnt take place in a courtroom.
It’s improvement, imo.
I am personally on the side that thinks it was not a good thing for Nye to have the debate, but I think that you have put together the best possible arguments for the debate. So although we may not agree, I still respect your opinion.
The reason why I’m ag’in it, is that the creationists do not care so much if they are perceived to have won or lost (though i am relieved they lost by all credible accounts). What they care about is the appearance that they are relevant enough to be debated. They will spin that into a win for their side by conveniently leaving out details like the result. That, plus they made some $ toward their silly theme park.
Any publicity is good publicity, so I can’t argue with you there. I think Nye is surprised at the momentum he may have provided for the whole Ham shindig. At least I was.
I don’t know if I serve as a good example of the typical non-American spectator, but I’m hoping that Nye took this one for the team and that his effort counts as a contribution towards containing the problem as a largely American phenomenon.
Anyone watching from outside the trenches would have to dig long and hard to find any reasons whatsoever for adopting a new world view based on Ham’s utterings.
But yeah, it’s kind of a shitty feeling to know that Ham and his associates couldn’t care less. It must be for Nye, too.
I doubt Ham would do it again, either. Nye was so engaging, so clear … and so deep in Christian territory.
One night only. No refunds.
Nye was luck that Ham is a terrible debater. I don’t know how he would’ve handled the ‘Gish gallop’…Since Gish and Henry Morris aren’t alive anymore, I don’t know if there are any old earth creationist debaters that are decent debaters (Gish and Morris ‘won’ many debates even though they were incredibly dishonest and their arguments were ridiculous). Ham was an awful debater. If Ken Miller was debating Ham, the debate wouldn’t have gotten as much attention, but Miller would have absolutely destroyed Ham. Nye was okay…. but Ham was so bad that Nye looked great by comparison, and Ham helped Nye demonstrate how ridiculous creationism is. I kind of hope that the ark park is built. I doubt that it will convince any nonbelievers… but I strongly believe that it will demonstrate to many people how insane young earth creationism is.
“Don’t engage them, at least in person.”
You are really gunning for two Censor of the Year awards in a row, aren’t you?
Not to be nit-picky, but the blurbs about the different presentations are really bad. They are not only full of dubious and misleading pseudo-science and ad hominem appeals, but “you might say he picked up the ‘survival of the fittest’ ball and ran with it” and “The Big Bang may be the latest theory and a popular TV show” are examples of really bad writing.
I’m not pointing this out to be petty, promotional materials that are hacky and lack polish speak to the seriousness and credibility, or lack thereof, of those organizing the conference.
Refusing to engage is a sound strategy. And, I think Pennock nailed it when he said IDers are “getting desperate.”
So very proud of my undergrad alma mater. Up here in my little corner of northern Michigan I’ve been debating one of the lunatic pastors of a local megachurch on the the subject. Fish in a barrel.
Neil DegGrasse Tyson spoke last month at Alma College, 50 miles up the road from MSU. There was very little advanced publicity. The arena was packed and tickets were sold out weeks ahead of time. A lot of kids in attendance.
The most common defense against the Hilter-was-an-evolutionist claim is to show evidence of Hilter and Nazi Germany having heavy Christian influences.
We might need to spend more time reminding Christians of their use of torture and mass-killings during the Inquisition, witch-hunts and colonialism. The Nazis were tame compared to some Christian tortures. Nazi Germany is long gone, but Bible-based witch-hunts still go on in Africa today.
For heavens sake, Hitler’s first name was not “Adolph”.
Spelling it like that demonstrates a lack of research. Or it demonstrates poor spelling. And Hitler was himself a poor speller. You don’t want to be like him now do you. (Two can play at that game!)
I could not agree more strongly. I’ve literally had creationist say to me, when I’ve pointed out that there is nothing to debate, :if there’s nothing to debate why did Bill Nye debate Ken Ham”. How do I as a layman respond to that when it implies I know better than Nye does whether creationism v. evolution is debatable?
Oh, I meant #22 as a reply to this post.
You could try telling your questioner that Nye was taking an opportunity to talk to the kiddies. They’d been sheltered and he’s an educator. Then you can politely reassure the creationist that you consider them an adult.
As for me, I try to turn every debate on evolution into a debate on the existence of God. It’s easy; they think they want that. At first.
The gleam in your eye there made me laugh. 😀
It’s so common in this crowd to characterize efforts to understand the evolutionary process as efforts to see if undirected evolution happens. Of course, that does let you define whether these experiments have been successful. Which they never are.
I have often thought that scientists miss an opportunity with these event. I’m not suggesting they participate directly, but when asked they could say (though an unofficial channel) “Well, I might think about, but your Micro/Macro (as an example) is so poorly defined there is not much to discuss. You write up a concrete definition and post it to your web site and I’ll consider it – but no promises.” Then refuse to engage until they do it. Then ask for another carrot. Always unofficial and never good enough.
Make them dance to your fiddle, and get them to cast something in concrete.
Sad news Jerry. I spent the afternoon at Barnes & Noble, no books by Dawkins, two by Dennett, two by Hitchens, several by Harris on spirituality but none of his “Letters…”. Several by Karen Armstrong and Curtis White’s “Science Delusion.”
A full aisle on “Christian Teen Fiction.”
In the politics section the major authors are Beck, Coulter, et al.
I’ve actually stopped looking for WEIT on the shelves.
Always with the Hitler! It’s seems to me to be an unbelievable obsession with relating atheism, evolution (and Obama for some reason) to Hitler.
My personal theorey: majority Lutheran & Catholic country purged itself of its Jews. Blatant religious genocide. Now the Christians must rewrite history to absolve themselves of this sin.
One would be forgiven for thinking it would be simpler to ask for forgiveness, after all, they are supposedly experts!
As Yakaru pointed out above: I don;t who they are talking about with this Adolph Hitler person.
I know of an Adolf Hitler; but not the other guy they talk about in that bill.
I’m familiar with the stock standard creationist arguments against against biological evolution and the fossil record, but how can they argue against the Big Bang? I would have liked to be a fly on the wall at their meeting to hear them on that.
Jerry,
My comment seems to have not made it onto another thread, so I’ll re-post it here.
A “friend” of a “friend” on Facebook was responding to a post from my “friend” about evolution. He said, basically: My Catholic Church is down with evolution; but I just don’t understand how it could work. He asked my “friend” for more information. (He seemed genuinely open-minded.)
I replied and linked to your book. I advised him to read your book and to continue to learn about evolution.
One of the more useful and satisfying exchanges I’ve had on FB. We’ll see how he responds tonight when I look at FB.
Do let us know. 🙂
No reply and no likes on my comment (after ~24 hours). I’m kind of sad. I reread my note and his and both seemed friendly and genuine, so we’ll see. I will report back if anyone follows up.
Cheers.
I wonder if Sanford mentioned that, using his program, that no matter what ratio of beneficial v. detrimental mutation is input, the populations always go extinct – and if this was one of his starting conclusions. I doubt it.
Reblogged this on adventuresinpowercity.
I disagree that “Don’t engage them, at least in person” is the best way to go. If “them” means the speakers and organizers, then you’re probably right. If “them” means people attending the conference who are drinking the Kool-Aid because they don’t know any better, then I don’t see how having a scientist around for them to talk to is a bad thing.
I was the student who organized the pro-evolution table, and I think our effort went really well. We saw this as an outreach opportunity, to show that scientists are human, and friendly at that. If we corrected some misconceptions along the way, great. But we tried to avoid getting into drawn-out debates about the evidence, because I think you’re right that it doesn’t do any good. I think we had some really valuable conversations about how science works, and who scientists are (i.e., no, we don’t have an agenda to get everyone to accept evolution so that morality and ethics can be thrown out the window). A couple of scientists talked with a kid who had been home-schooled, and probably never exposed to anything but creationist propaganda.
I got handed a flyer for a monthly seminar at a local Lutheran church about evolution and creationism, and I’m going to go. How could it make the situation worse to have a scientist in the room? Engaging in debate is probably a mistake, but engaging in conversation and dialogue is not.
Local coverage of this ridiculous event:
http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/fear-and-loathing-at-the-origin-summit/Content?oid=2264723&showFullText=true
And its treated exactly as it should be. With lots of mockery. And hilarity.