The best creationism website ever

Are you sure that's not a parody? Anyone who uses "LOL!" in any context other than idle banter isn't quite right in the head.

I love how step 7 has lots of links to ID sites. I wonder if the IDists know that they're being represented by a nutty YEC. I guess it doesn't matter -- they only get upset when us evos conflate ID with creationism, not when creationists do it.

Predictably moronic. The trouble is, its also kind of snazzy to look at, no doubt rather appealing for kids.

Compare this (and other equally well designed sites like AiG) to many pro-evolution alternative. If I were a complete lay person googling for info on a topic and had to pick between a well designed and well written website (usually the YEC one) and something bashed up in half an hour, I know which I'd go for.

We are losing the PR battle IMO. Scientists need to engage with the public. They should do it out of the desire to inform but if this aint good enough they should do it in the knowledge that their funding might one day be cut in favour of a new kind of 'science.'

Science will never win the PR battle. People simply don't want to work or understand something they don't want to believe. When offered a visually or rhetorically attractive alternative, they'll go for it and defend it with their money/reputations/lives. Evolution in action!

There will people that will never be convinced. However, I still think that science could do more to reach out to those that float below complete and utter closed mindedness. Plus some fundies do change their minds so its worth a try.

oooooh! shiny graphics. I'm convinced, and am now off to bash my bible. You evil bunch of liberal atheist dawinistism people.

Sorry, got a bit carried away there. The email adress gives it away though - available from a link at the top of the page.

I don't understand, I'm only a computer engineer (and british with bad teeth to boot) but hasn't he mixed all his creationist fundy arguments together to come out with something that's just plain wrong? Some of that looks like YEC, some looks like ID and some looks like bollocks (That's english for 'not very good')

Poor old Einstein's E=MC^2 wrong! Well, who'd have thought?

That music! If there is a God, he's not a kind one if he allows that.

I am still trying to figure out what "explicitly unique" parts are. Can you be implicitly unique?

Wow! Where do you start with something like this? The take home message, apparently, is if you ignore science (and troll for small incongruities), pay no heed to common descent, understand nothing about adaptation and niches, don't know anything microbial anatomy (and that a flagellum looks nothing like a Mercury motor), misrepresent probability and statistics, and butcher the first amendment then the theory of evolution falls apart. Unfortunately for this person (who has a good understanding of Macromedia, if nothing else), when we objectively approach the world in the quest for knowledge, evolution makes an awful lot of sense.

I especially like his assumption of the hierarchy of life -- creationists love talking about higher and lower life forms.

Well, 'looks like their name server ns.christianwebhost.com is unreachable from my location. Too bad.

The "science must get splashier" argument raises an interesting question- in so many areas, people have apparently become accustomed to think that they are each legitimate arbiters of truth. This, regardless of whether they're wise or foolish, educated or illiterate, have spent a decade studying the problem or a few minutes...
That is to say, I can make a 1 paragraph argument for ID or for evolution, and (without any additional information about how the world works), they're both equally persuasive. Because neither has enough info or context upon which to base a decision.
Heck, Id even say that the ID paragraph would probably be more persuasive, because it's basically an appeal to nonsensical & nonscientific arguemnts that make people feel good, or play on bad logic or misinformation that intentionally sounds logical (as opposed to, say, quantum mechanics, which is based on scientific results, but sounds fairly batshit on its face).

So, truth starts out at a disadvantage, because it isn't crafted to convince or to appeal to what people would like to believe. It's only advantage is that, being true, it will appeal to those with the willingness to study the matter in-depth and the character not to deceive themselves.
We really don't need a flashy website with grabby one-sentence comebacks. Or, if we do, I think we're already fucked.

The Darwinsucks.com site is everything I warn my Multimedia kids about- all glitz and no content. Steve F worried that creationists had all the good graphics, but I've seen well designed evolution sites. The PBS.org evolution page is better looking, and it has all those silly facts that get in the way of the YEC folk. If you're looking for a quick Flash interactive, I made one about Kettlewell and the peppered moths. It's aimed at Middle School or Freshman students. At the end, students play the role of a bird feeding and find out for themselves that it is easier to feed on moths that are no longer camouflaged properly. You'll find it at http://www.techapps.net/interactives/peppermoths.htm

The Darwinsucks.com site is everything I warn my Multimedia kids about- all glitz and no content. Steve F worried that creationists had all the good graphics, but I've seen well designed evolution sites. The PBS.org evolution page is better looking, and it has all those silly facts that get in the way of the YEC folk. If you're looking for a quick Flash interactive, I made one about Kettlewell and the peppered moths. It's aimed at Middle School or Freshman students. At the end, students play the role of a bird feeding and find out for themselves that it is easier to feed on moths that are no longer camouflaged properly. You'll find it at http://www.techapps.net/interactives/peppermoths.htm

The Darwinsucks.com site is everything I warn my Multimedia kids about- all glitz and no content. Steve F worried that creationists had all the good graphics, but I've seen well designed evolution sites. The PBS.org evolution page is better looking, and it has all those silly facts that get in the way of the YEC folk. If you're looking for a quick Flash interactive, I made one about Kettlewell and the peppered moths. It's aimed at Middle School or Freshman students. At the end, students play the role of a bird feeding and find out for themselves that it is easier to feed on moths that are no longer camouflaged properly. You'll find it at http://www.techapps.net/interactives/peppermoths.htm

Sorry for the redundant posts!

And remember, on Panda's Thumb there aren't four seasons. That's just some arbitrary definition of "season" according to y'all. Bill O'Reilly was assailed for stating that four seasons are a scientific fact. I was assailed for stating that Bill was correct.

Evidently at "Windows on the Universe", a link to which Nick Matzke points us to learn about annual deviation in distance from earth to sun, they're supporting that unpanda-like heresy that there are four seasons. They've even got a lovely picture illustrating the equinoxes and solstices I tried to tell all you chuckleheads were what delimits the four seasons.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/the_universe/uts/seasons2.html&edu=high

What the heck?!

ROFLAMO

DaveScot clearly doesn't live anywhere near the equator.

The pain it causes my fellow Brisbanites trying to rationalise our year into the four "seasons" their European counterparts talk about!

SteveF

Before scientists engage the public (scientists aren't a segment of the public???) they're going to have to engage with the truth first.

For instance, when a member of the public asks "Has anyone actually observed random mutations causing the emergence of a new order?" you have to reply "No" which of course is the true answer. If you prevaricate you lose credibility.

Or if they ask "Isn't it true that observed random mutations have never resulted in anything more than variation within a genus?" you have to answer "Yes".

So Steve, has anyone actually observed random mutations causing the emergence of a new order?

Real evidence of evolution in action: trolls in the year 2000 have evolved from eating children under bridges, to posting stupid comments on messageboards. Look in the mirror DaveScot, you are evidence of evolution.

Um, DaveScot, is meteorology a science? Is Astronomy?
If so, kindly resolve their usage of the term 'season' within your faintly insane mindset that strictly associates the seasons with the equinoxes and solstices.
Or defend your view that the one of your choice is not a science.

with all due respect,
Shirley Knott

DaveScot wrote...has anyone actually observed random mutations causing the emergence of a new order?

Well, the insect Order Mantophasmatodea didn't exist until 2002, or therabouts. Orders, as well as genera, phyla, families, or kingdoms, are not natural populations, but are artificial categories erected by taxonomists in order to describe the patterns they see in nature.

DaveScot should learn some systematics.

fusilier
James 2:24

Hey, DaveScot, are you trying to tell us that the earth-sun distance causes the seasons?

Dave, you've already shown in other threads you lack even the basic grammar skills necessary to read a text by Darwin wherein he said that mutations affect the reproductive organs; somehow you're able to read that as being about arms and legs.

Do you REALLY feel confident about applying yourself to the biological sciences, when you still need to work on Reading 101?

And as others have said, if you live near the equator, all those things like equinoxes and solstices are *meaningless*.

Try living somewhere else in the world one day. You'll be amazed.

Glad to see all the discussion surrounding my www.darwinsucks.com website.

Now if only someone would answer the questions posed there with empirical scientific evidence.

As for the speed of light issue. That question is indeed up for debate.

http://www.ldolphin.org/constc.shtml

Thanks for visiting.

Doug P, author and webmaster for;
www.darwinsucks.com

Hey Doug P.,

Denyse O'Leary called and she said that "sucks" isn't a very scholarly term. Then she mumbled something about serialization going the drain.

As for the speed of light issue.  That question is indeed up for debate.

— Doug P.

For instance, when a member of the public asks “Has anyone actually observed random mutations causing the emergence of a new order?” you have to reply “No” which of course is the true answer.

Perhaps the speed of light is up for debate. Victor Flanbaum claimed to have shown that the fine structure constant, and therefore the speed of light, was a few parts in 10^5 higher 12 billion years ago. Right or wrong, his work shows that the speed of light was at least close to current speeds billions of years ago. You can read an overview here.
Sorry Doug, you can't squeeze a young earth creation into that small of a gap. Studies of the fine structure constant also reinforce the validity of radioactive dating.

I'm happy to learn from Denyse that a flagellum is an organism and if one part of it is removed, it dies. I suspect that somehow this fascinating fact was left out of Miller and Levine's Bio text.

Bob

Doug P., web-master of darwinsucks.com said,

Glad to see all the discussion surrounding my www.darwinsucks.com website.

Now if only someone would answer the questions posed there with empirical scientific evidence.

On your web-site, you claimed that the K-Ar technique yielded age estimates ranging in the thousands of years for lava that produced by Mt. St Helens in 1980. Now, Doug P., can you tell us what the half-life of K-40 is? And what might that tell you about the suitability of the K-Ar method for dating lava that's just a few decades old?

Question 4 (in Step 4): The currently accepted speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. How far is that in a year? Do the math! Then answer this, how can you prove that light from a star 186,000 light years from earth travelled at a constant speed for the entire duration of its journey to our eyeballs?

Doug P,
Perhaps you could do everyone the reverse favor- read some of the posts on Panda's Thumb, and you'll see issues such as the flagellum addressed very thoroughly.

But Im an insomniac, so Ill go through your 7-step program to Freedom from Knowledge with a few critiques:
1)
a)Animals don't decide to evolve. That is, evolution via natural selection isn't teleological.
b)There isn't anything inherently illogical about some fish evolving into terrestrial organisms, some of which then evolved back into marine organisms. Regardless of how much LOLing you do.
c)Theories cannot be definitely proven. Understanding how science works would probably add to the strength of your critique.
d)transitional fossil series have been suggested for the evolution of whales. Google for them at your leisure. You will also find some poorly-thought-out critiques of those series by creationists, which you will undoubtedly buy hook, line, and sinker.
e)even if such series did not exist, your argument would merely be from ignorance. That is, you would be arguing that because we don't have evidence of something, it cannot have occurred.
2)
a)Again, life forms do not chose to evolve.
b)Again, there isn't anything inherently illogical about organisms changing in size in response to natural selection. Surely you're familiar with the variation in size caused by artificial selection in dog breeds, so the idea cannot be as implausible to you as you suggest.
c)Again, very good candidates for transitional series exist for these changes. Surely you are familiar with the recent Chinese discoveries of dinosaur-bird transitions?
d)Again, the argument from ignorance.
e)Again, theories cannot be definitively proven.
3)
a)as caerbannog indirectly pointed out above, an error range of 20k years is just peachy for a dating system which is used to measure millions of years. That would be an error rate of 2%. For 100 million years ago, it would be off by .02%
b)you didn't mention the errors that some creationists have cited, where argon dating has been off by millions of years. That would make your case stronger, but it is still easily refuted. This occurs when the rock is reheated and recrystalized, which can be determined by a competent geologist, so it should pose no serious problems to the dating method.
c)Once more, theories cannot be proven. Empirically or theoretically.
4)
a)Neither you nor I are competent to even have an opinion about variability in the speed of light, and you haven't exactly offered a significant amount of evidence on the matter.
b)the mere possibility that the universe might be younger than we currently believe is not a strong challenge to evolution. Strong evidence or proof that it was much, much younger might be, but this does not exist.
c)disproving evolution via natural selection would require the earth itself to be considerably younger than it appears to be as well. Cosmology isn't necessary, as geology demonstrates strongly that the earth is billions of years old.
d)Argument from ignorance again.
5)
a)Microbiolgists may agree that removing parts from a living organism could kill it, but that does not make it IC. Even ID people understand this, not everything that's complex is claimed to be IC. Thus their concentration on a few specific areas (the flagellum, the clotting cascade, etc).
b)IC is not an accepted scientific concept, since it relies on the argument from ignorance (ie if we can't see how it could be reduced, it's IC, but that's dependant on our ability to dream up or locate possibilities, which may be insufficient) as well as constant redefinition by its proponents. Again, read some of the work here on PT, you'll see ample demonstration of the weakness of the IC argument.
c)IC ignores the possibility that systems might be developed from simpler systems that had alternative uses. For example, many of the parts of the flagellum are found in a simple cellular pump (see the cite). Ergo, it is not IC.
d)the flagellum is not a life form. Ergo, it did not evolve by itself. Your terminology here demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of the matter.
for more on the flagellum, see:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html
6)
a)if the coastlines were flooded, or much of the planet were covered by ice, that would not necessarily inhibit the development of life.
b)the earth's axial tilt is variable over time. Why is it currently 23.5, and why does it vary between 21.5 and 24.5? Who knows. Does it matter? If it weren't for the Isthmus of Panama, the Atlantic wouldn't be as salty, and the Arctic Ocean might be significantly warmer- but so what? You're not even citing the universal constants that make matter possible- the stuff that the bright creationists like to cite.
c)Same thing for the 24-hour day. Mars rotates in just under 25 hours- so what? And the earth is slowing down (friction due primarily to the tides), the day used to be several hours shorter... but it's entirely possible that life could evolve on a tidally locked planet (perhaps in the vicinity of the terminator).
d)you should be interested in the 'random chances' that arguably would have stopped life from forming (or, better yet, matter as we know it, since arguing about what conditions would be impossible for life is- guess what- the argument from ignorance- in this case, a boatload of ignorance, since we know very little about the possibilities of life) rather than trivial issues like the length of the day or the axial tilt.
Id also like to introduce you to the weak anthropic principle. To wit, arguing from the probability of known past events is pointless, since they have already occurred. Quick version- If only 1 planet in 10 billion had the proper axial tilt, etc to produce life, that's the only planet upon which you could be standing wondering about probabilities...
My favorite example of the wap- 1000 men are to be executed at dawn, and the emperor ahs decided to spare one, chosen at random. Each of the men pray through the night that they'll be the one. And, sure enough, in the morning, one of them is spared and the rest are executed. That man may feel that his prayers were answered, but it's obvious to the observer that someone was going to be spared and feel this way. This doesn't disprove Divine Intervention, but it certainly doesn't prove it in any way, since we can explain the entire event without invoking it. Despite how the lucky man feels about it.
-----

In summation, not a single one of your points is scientifically valid. Most of them aren't even up to snuff as far as creationist arguments go. You should spend less time coding Flash and more time reading, both pro and con sites. And understand that more Flash is not necessarily better Flash.

I can make a 1 paragraph argument for ID or for evolution, and ... Id even say that the ID paragraph would probably be more persuasive, because it's basically an appeal to nonsensical & nonscientific arguemnts that make people feel good, or play on bad logic or misinformation that intentionally sounds logical ...

The Darwinsucks.com site is everything I warn my Multimedia kids about- all glitz and no content.

Yet another case of reality outrunning satire:
I invite insomniacs agnostics, and dyslexics to compare this text: (from Step 6)

Question #6 Given all the complexities of earths distance from the sun, its tilt and rotation, the balance between land, water and atmosphere, what are the mathematical odds that all these things could have occured by random chance?

with my effort at http://imbecilities.blogspot.com/. Scroll down to "Dispatch from Normalville."

Honestly, don't us would-be satirists have it tough enough?