Randomly growing an embryo. It can work.

Worth noting: plenty of unicellular organisms find their way to regions of high food concentration by a similar mechanism, in which the concentration of nutrients affects their random walk. If concentrations are low, do lots of long straight runs so you end up somewhere else. If concentrations are high, do shorter runs and more turns so you stay in the same area.

Yet another evolutionary truism: the stuff that the multicellular organisms do is based on modifications of stuff that unicellular organisms do for other reasons.

SAWells said: Worth noting: plenty of unicellular organisms find their way to regions of high food concentration by a similar mechanism, in which the concentration of nutrients affects their random walk. If concentrations are low, do lots of long straight runs so you end up somewhere else. If concentrations are high, do shorter runs and more turns so you stay in the same area. Yet another evolutionary truism: the stuff that the multicellular organisms do is based on modifications of stuff that unicellular organisms do for other reasons.

I prefer the term "stochasticity." The difference is subtile, and is technically probably not meaningful... but "randomness" feels like it drags in some unrelated and imprecise baggage.

What's happening in that embryo is actually quite intricate and precise. It makes use of the stochasticity of the system and of nature. To me the moral of the story is that if it exists, evolution will use it to accomplish something.

This is a very difficult concept for most students to understand. Whenever you describe to them the definition of diffusion, they get a funny look and usually ask something like - "yea but how do the molecules KNOW to move in that direction." Then you have to patiently explain that they took the class before, memorized the definition of diffusion and remembered it long enough to pass the test. You can also point out that if diffusion depended on the ability of molecules to learn that they themselves would be incapable of diffusion!

Seriously, some people just cannot comprehend that a predictable phenomena does not require a guiding intelligence. Some people just cannot seem to grasp the concept of randomness. Why is it that creationists have decided that this is a dirty word? Why is it OK if god does not have to control every lightning strike, but she still has to direct every thing that occurs in development and every mutation?

Adam,

You also get an endorsement from me for using the term stochasticity, though I might opt to refer to this as a stochastic phenomenom. It still boggles my mind that I know creationists who will accept as random such natural phenomenona as earthquakes and lightning strikes and even violent storms as hurricances, but are unwilling to recognize the same for biological systems such as that which occurs in the developing embryo.

Steve,

Thanks for another great post. Yours are as well reasoned and written as PZ Myers's here. Keep up the great work.

Sincerely,

John

Del: Thank you for giving us some of your personal background. I agree with you that God has revealed Himself and truth through both His written word and His creation. That is why I am so fascinated by both. Neither are the products of random processes. ... So, if I understand your argument correctly, you are saying that DNA cannot be classified as “information” or as a “design specification”, but it is essentially part of a fairly “random” process. Is that correct?

Me: [M]uch of the misunderstanding between scientists and lay people is that we use the word differently. To most people random connotes purposeless and no direction. Within science random means in part not predictable by humans. Even with this more restricted definition, evolution is considered a non-random process even by Richard Dawkins. Now parts of it are random in the restricted sense but the environment puts non-random restrictions on the evolutionary process. The question arises is evolution as Richard Dawkins claims, directionless and purposeless. A Biblical example is in order here. God’s prophet predicted that King Ahab would die. Ahab did everything in his power to live. Yet, an arrow shot “at random” killed him just as God predicted. If Richard Dawkins was on the battlefield he would have concluded that arrow had no purpose. We, however, know better. Yet, without Biblical revelation, even believing science cannot *detect* that purpose.

While theists can have a variety of legitimate views on life's evolution, surely they must maintain that the process involves intelligence. So the question is: Can an intelligent being use random mutations and natural selection to create? No. This is not a theological problem; it is a logical one. The words random and natural are meant to exclude intelligence. If God guides which mutations happen, the mutations are not random; if God chooses which organisms survive so as to guide life's evolution, the selection is intelligent rather than natural. Theistic Darwinists maintain that God was "intimately involved" in creation, to use Francis Collins's words. But they also think life developed via genuinely random mutations and genuinely natural selection. Yet they never explain what God is doing in this process. Perhaps there is still room for him to start the whole thing off, but this abandons theism for deism. So there is a danger in the approach of theistic Darwinists such as McGrath. He is surely right that the religious and scientific worldviews are compatible. Harmony can be found. But this is not because theism can concede a materialist origin story and escape unscathed. Rather, it is because the materialist story is false and, further, is contradicted by mounting physical evidence in physics, chemistry, and biology.

In his critique of Alister McGrath's The Dawkins Delusion? ["The CT Review," November], Logan Paul Gage fails to distinguish between scientific randomness and metaphysical randomness. By insisting that these two concepts are inextricably linked, Gage concludes that McGrath (and Francis Collins) maintain a position that precludes divine providence. Evolution is not a purely random process, though as with all natural processes, there are underlying random events involved. But even if evolution were completely random, God's action is not limited by randomness, just as human creative activity may involve random actions. The Bible records several instances when God's guiding action was expressed through the casting of lots. Does Gage have a better explanation than McGrath and Collins have provided for how God carries out his sovereignty through means that appear to us as scientifically random? Randy Isaac Executive Director, American Scientific Affiliation Ipswich, Massachusetts

If Isaac actually thinks an intelligent being can guide randomness, then it is up to HIM to explain how that works--not the other way around. I have claimed that it is impossible. Providence can certainly reign over random events; and Providence can certainly know the outcome of future contingents; but all that is different from saying that Providence can guide truly random events.

Another good post Rich, but let me rephrase this for you:

If intelligent design and randomness are mutually exclusive then when we observe randomness, there is no intelligent design. Q.E.D. Clue to ID proponents: it’s not up to your opponents to provide an alternative hypothesis, it’s up to you. Your intellectual laziness brings down all of us. Stop it. And stop adhering to the pathetic mendacious intellectual pornography emanating from our so-called "Christian" brothers at the Dishonesty Institute. They are a great malignancy on current Christian thought and their actions, collectively, are those which Christ, our savior, would repudiate.

Adam Ierymenko said: I prefer the term "stochasticity." The difference is subtile, and is technically probably not meaningful... but "randomness" feels like it drags in some unrelated and imprecise baggage.

Joe Felsenstein said: I wonder -- are the cells dividing during this process? That would affect the movement too: if there were also more cell division in the high-variance region, that might offset the tendency to flee that region.

I second Adam, and would add that any mention of randomness when communicating science should be followed up with mention of the word “stochasticity” - if for nothing more than followup by audience members. After that, I'm fine with either.

Also, it's important to clarify the difference between uniformly random and directed or otherwise non-uniform randomness.

The basic idea isn't new. The "Brownian ratchet" was first proposed almost a hundred years ago, was popularized by Feynman, and has been tentatively identified in one biological system. See Lizunova and Zimmerberg Current Biology "Cellular Biophysics: Bacterial Endospore, Membranes and Random Fluctuation".

Funny, I was going to use the term "stochastic".

One of the strange aspects of the universe from the human perspective is probability.

When a lot of small scale things occur as random variables, the larger scale outcome can appear deterministic, at least at levels of resolution that don't detect the individual random changes.

Richard Blinne -

Your arrow example is actually a rather profound one in some ways.

Traditional thinking suggests that stochastic processes mask underlying determinism. For example, that dice rolls appear random only because we don't have all the starting information we need to perfectly predict the roll.

Quantum physics may suggest the opposite - the operationally deterministic processes are actually the result of extremely large numbers of much smaller scale stochastic processes.

These may not be mutually exclusive, in a sense.

I forgot to include this rather obvious link in my comment above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

Adam Ierymenko said: I prefer the term "stochasticity." The difference is subtile, and is technically probably not meaningful... but "randomness" feels like it drags in some unrelated and imprecise baggage. What's happening in that embryo is actually quite intricate and precise. It makes use of the stochasticity of the system and of nature. To me the moral of the story is that if it exists, evolution will use it to accomplish something.

harold said: Richard Blinne - Your arrow example is actually a rather profound one in some ways. Traditional thinking suggests that stochastic processes mask underlying determinism. For example, that dice rolls appear random only because we don't have all the starting information we need to perfectly predict the roll. Quantum physics may suggest the opposite - the operationally deterministic processes are actually the result of extremely large numbers of much smaller scale stochastic processes. These may not be mutually exclusive, in a sense. I forgot to include this rather obvious link in my comment above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

I like to point out that many of the complaints about evolution turn out to be at least as appropriate to reproduction and development. This seems to be yet another example - if you don't like evolution because of the "randomness", then what about this?

There is more than just a joke to "Scientific Storkism".

I forgot to include this rather obvious link in my comment above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

— harold

Frank said:

I forgot to include this rather obvious link in my comment above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

— harold

On a related note, the graph in that link neatly illustrates the evidence (any one of multiple independent lines or it) for evolution and how it's misrepresented by ID/creationists. To paraphrase Pope John Paul II, the evidence neatly "converges" on an explanation, with no one seeking or fabricating any desired outcome. Yet ID/creationists object each time the running average misses the mark, add up the "gaps" and pretend that they accumulate against evolution. Alternately they object how the running average keeps changing and accuse "Darwinists" of constantly changing their minds because their theory is "in crisis."

Rich Blinne said: ID's issues are much deeper than the law of large numbers and miscalculating probabilities. ID proponents are real "pros" on the latter ...

MrG said:

Rich Blinne said: ID's issues are much deeper than the law of large numbers and miscalculating probabilities. ID proponents are real "pros" on the latter ...

"Probability calculations are the last refuge of a scoundrel." (Jeff Shallit)

Rich Blinne said: Jeff should know. He had a lot of "scoundrels" commenting on his blog as he patiently tried to explain to them algorithmic information theory.

Is I'D a subspecies?
Of what?
If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species.
Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

6.7

Those last two "sentences" are top shelf looniness.

Just Bob said: 6.7 Those last two "sentences" are top shelf looniness.

Robert Byers said: Is I'D a subspecies? Of what? If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species. Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

ID’s issues are much deeper than the law of large numbers and miscalculating probabilities.

— Rich Blinne

Robert Byers said: Is I'D a subspecies? Of what? If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species. Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

Frank J said:

Robert Byers said: Is I'D a subspecies? Of what? If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species. Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

OK, just a little "feeding": As you know and pretend not to, "creationism" has several definitions. Critics generally define it as any strategy that promotes unreasonable doubt of evolution and proposes a design-based nonexplanation in its place. That includes ID, for the simple reason that nearly all who are persuaded by ID's arguments infer some scriptural "creation" account from it. A classic example is the rubes in Louisiana. The public, however defines "creationism" almost exclusively as "honest belief in the 6-day creation in Genesis." Some define it to include YEC and OEC versions, but most people simply haven't thought it through, and lump all the mutually contradictory accounts as one that occurred "a long time ago." The DI routinely baits-and-switches the definitions to trap critics into careless "ID is too creationism" responses. Then like clockwork they jump all over those critics. Yet they usually just "look the other way" when a Biblical literalist says the same thing. Unless it is so blatant and public that it undermines the DI's careful plans, as has just occurred in Louisiana. Then the DI has no choice but to go into damage control.

Rich Blinne said:

Frank J said:

Robert Byers said: Is I'D a subspecies? Of what? If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species. Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

OK, just a little "feeding": As you know and pretend not to, "creationism" has several definitions. Critics generally define it as any strategy that promotes unreasonable doubt of evolution and proposes a design-based nonexplanation in its place. That includes ID, for the simple reason that nearly all who are persuaded by ID's arguments infer some scriptural "creation" account from it. A classic example is the rubes in Louisiana. The public, however defines "creationism" almost exclusively as "honest belief in the 6-day creation in Genesis." Some define it to include YEC and OEC versions, but most people simply haven't thought it through, and lump all the mutually contradictory accounts as one that occurred "a long time ago." The DI routinely baits-and-switches the definitions to trap critics into careless "ID is too creationism" responses. Then like clockwork they jump all over those critics. Yet they usually just "look the other way" when a Biblical literalist says the same thing. Unless it is so blatant and public that it undermines the DI's careful plans, as has just occurred in Louisiana. Then the DI has no choice but to go into damage control.

It's important to remember that the Discovery Institute is a political think tank with it's president that was a political operative in the Reagan Administration. As noted in Chris Mooney's the Republican War on Science these think tanks goal was to replace the independent research done at universities. These think tanks such as the Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute also betray a corporatist agenda and were used to sow doubt such as cigarettes really don't cause cancer. Creationism started out anti-corporatist. William Jennings Bryan opposed evolution not because of an old earth but because he saw a distortion of it promoting laissez faire economics. But as Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life also noted is that what he thought was dying creationism in 1964 was very anti-intellectual where an entire shadow academy, the Bible college system, was established. But even these institutions like Steve Matheson's Calvin College also became more independent. This often set up power struggles between the faculty and the boards of directors. So, even research from Christian institutions could not be guaranteed to be "under control". So, what you have is a union between people who naturally distrusted an independent academy being wooed by a political class that sought to substitute their politically- and economically-motivated research from their "think tanks" for the research in an independent academy, even an independent Christian academy. Thus, you have ID putting out propaganda like Expelled because their research is rejected because it isn't peer reviewed, that it didn't go through independent review. Thus, calling ID creationists is not precisely correct. Rather, ID uses creationists as political pawns. With the emergence of the Tea Parties with the corporatist agenda getting directly made those pawns may very well be sacrificed.

Thus, calling ID creationists is not precisely correct. Rather, ID uses creationists as political pawns.

— Rich Blinne

Intelligent Design arose in response to 1980s USA Supreme Court rulings rejecting “Scientific” Creationism as nothing more than religiously-inspired pseudoscientific nonsense. Moroever, in the “big tent” conference organized by Philip Johnson and held at Biola University (1994?) which led to the establishment of the Dishonesty Institute, it was all too clear to anyone being objective that the relatively nascent Intelligent Design movement was part of creationism’s “big tent”.

— Johhn Kwok

Richard Blinne -

Your analysis of the DI is dead on.

John Kwok -

When you stick to science and critquing creationists, your contributions are excellent.

Of course, it is perfectly possible to favor right wing policies, while still being entirely rational, skeptical, and scientific. As long as one is accurate and honest about what the expected outcome of a given policy will be, then the question of which policies one favors becomes a subjective decision - which outcomes does one perceive as "good" or "better"?

Nevertheless, the political nature of evolution denial, human climate change impact denial, and until recently, tobacco and disease risk denial, are obvious.

It would be irrelevant to the point at hand if "Democrats" or "the left" were also associated with different science denial movements, but anticipating that someone will make that claim, I will nip it in the bud.

There are some other major science denial movements, notably vaccine denial, which are politically more neutral than the ones I mentioned above. However, vaccine denial is not associated with the Democratic Party, nor with independent senator Bernie Sanders, and is found across the political spectrum. Other occasionally claimed "science denial on the left", such as belief in astrology, crystals, UFOs, etc, is also by no means strongly associated with any coherent political philosophy (it is easy to find conservatives who believe in these things and even easier to find progressives who scorn them*, such as me), and such beliefs mainly amount to largely harmless personal affectations at any rate.

I nearly alwas choose one particular party as the lesser of two very imperfect options. Some people choose the other. But there is no reason not to be honest with oneself about the politics of creationism and related science denial.

(*For full disclosure, I think that it is worthwhile to learn about astrology, from a purely skeptical perspective, due to its its important influence in late medieval and early modern art and thought.)

harold said: John Kwok - When you stick to science and critquing creationists, your contributions are excellent. Of course, it is perfectly possible to favor right wing policies, while still being entirely rational, skeptical, and scientific. As long as one is accurate and honest about what the expected outcome of a given policy will be, then the question of which policies one favors becomes a subjective decision - which outcomes does one perceive as "good" or "better"? Nevertheless, the political nature of evolution denial, human climate change impact denial, and until recently, tobacco and disease risk denial, are obvious. It would be irrelevant to the point at hand if "Democrats" or "the left" were also associated with different science denial movements, but anticipating that someone will make that claim, I will nip it in the bud. There are some other major science denial movements, notably vaccine denial, which are politically more neutral than the ones I mentioned above. However, vaccine denial is not associated with the Democratic Party, nor with independent senator Bernie Sanders, and is found across the political spectrum. Other occasionally claimed "science denial on the left", such as belief in astrology, crystals, UFOs, etc, is also by no means strongly associated with any coherent political philosophy (it is easy to find conservatives who believe in these things and even easier to find progressives who scorn them*, such as me), and such beliefs mainly amount to largely harmless personal affectations at any rate. I nearly alwas choose one particular party as the lesser of two very imperfect options. Some people choose the other. But there is no reason not to be honest with oneself about the politics of creationism and related science denial. (*For full disclosure, I think that it is worthwhile to learn about astrology, from a purely skeptical perspective, due to its its important influence in late medieval and early modern art and thought.)

There always has been a current in the opposition to evolution of not describing what the alternative was. So ID could be considered an extension of that current. I'd like to believe that some of the more aware anti-evolutionists were embarrassed by failures of YEC - the "vapor canopy" hypothesis, for example - and made a decision that there was no future to theories of creationism. Quite aside from the legal failures, this would provide motivation for a policy of "don't ask, don't tell".

John Kwok said: Rich, I respectfully disagree. As Barbara Forrest and Nick Matzke demonstrated in their extensive documentation on the "evolutionary" history of "Of Pandas and the People" which Barbara Presented during her testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs at the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial, Intelligent Design arose in response to 1980s USA Supreme Court rulings rejecting "Scientific" Creationism as nothing more than religiously-inspired pseudoscientific nonsense. Moroever, in the "big tent" conference organized by Philip Johnson and held at Biola University (1994?) which led to the establishment of the Dishonesty Institute, it was all too clear to anyone being objective that the relatively nascent Intelligent Design movement was part of creationism's "big tent" (As for the Tea Party Movement - and I will admit again that I am sympathetic to it - it seeks only limited government, substantially reduced government spending and substantially reduced Federal taxation. They have not indicated any substantial interest in adhering to some kind of "Moral Majority" agenda.):

Rich Blinne said:

Frank J said:

Robert Byers said: Is I'D a subspecies? Of what? If creationism is the genus then I.D is simply a species. Biblical creationists another species. Evolutionists are just a impact from outer space. Big noise and mess but now life is recovering finally.

OK, just a little "feeding": As you know and pretend not to, "creationism" has several definitions. Critics generally define it as any strategy that promotes unreasonable doubt of evolution and proposes a design-based nonexplanation in its place. That includes ID, for the simple reason that nearly all who are persuaded by ID's arguments infer some scriptural "creation" account from it. A classic example is the rubes in Louisiana. The public, however defines "creationism" almost exclusively as "honest belief in the 6-day creation in Genesis." Some define it to include YEC and OEC versions, but most people simply haven't thought it through, and lump all the mutually contradictory accounts as one that occurred "a long time ago." The DI routinely baits-and-switches the definitions to trap critics into careless "ID is too creationism" responses. Then like clockwork they jump all over those critics. Yet they usually just "look the other way" when a Biblical literalist says the same thing. Unless it is so blatant and public that it undermines the DI's careful plans, as has just occurred in Louisiana. Then the DI has no choice but to go into damage control.

It's important to remember that the Discovery Institute is a political think tank with it's president that was a political operative in the Reagan Administration. As noted in Chris Mooney's the Republican War on Science these think tanks goal was to replace the independent research done at universities. These think tanks such as the Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute also betray a corporatist agenda and were used to sow doubt such as cigarettes really don't cause cancer. Creationism started out anti-corporatist. William Jennings Bryan opposed evolution not because of an old earth but because he saw a distortion of it promoting laissez faire economics. But as Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life also noted is that what he thought was dying creationism in 1964 was very anti-intellectual where an entire shadow academy, the Bible college system, was established. But even these institutions like Steve Matheson's Calvin College also became more independent. This often set up power struggles between the faculty and the boards of directors. So, even research from Christian institutions could not be guaranteed to be "under control". So, what you have is a union between people who naturally distrusted an independent academy being wooed by a political class that sought to substitute their politically- and economically-motivated research from their "think tanks" for the research in an independent academy, even an independent Christian academy. Thus, you have ID putting out propaganda like Expelled because their research is rejected because it isn't peer reviewed, that it didn't go through independent review. Thus, calling ID creationists is not precisely correct. Rather, ID uses creationists as political pawns. With the emergence of the Tea Parties with the corporatist agenda getting directly made those pawns may very well be sacrificed.

When did the right wing’s ideologically driven attack on science begin? Erik and I trace it to the founding of the Marshall Institute [1984]. It began not so much with an attack on science but a defense of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The three fellows who created the Marshall Institute—Bill Nierenberg, Bob Jastrow, and Frederick Seitz—were all strong proponents of missile defense, and they created the Institute to defend SDI against the dominant criticism of the majority of scientists. They demanded that the press give them equal time for their views, even though they were vastly outnumbered. When the press didn’t give them equal time they threatened to sue under the Fairness Doctrine, which was a very effective strategy and one they have used in subsequent debates.

NEARLY FORTY YEARS AGO, in 1966, two talented young political thinkers published an extraordinary book, one that reads, in retrospect, as a profound warning to the Republican Party that went tragically unheeded. The authors had been roommates at Harvard University, and had participated in the Ripon Society, an upstart group of Republican liberals. They had worked together on Advance, dubbed “the unofficial Republican magazine,” which slammed the party from within for catering to segregationists, John Birchers, and other extremists. Following their graduation, both young men moved into the world of journalism and got the chance to further advance their “progressive” Republican campaign in a book for the eminent publisher Alfred A. Knopf. In their spirited 1966 polemic The Party That Lost Its Head, they held nothing back. The book devastatingly critiqued Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential candidacy—the modern conservative movement’s primal scene—and dismissed the GOP’s embrace of rising star Ronald Reagan as the party’s hope to “usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie.“ Read today, some of the most prophetic passages of The Party That Lost Its Head are those that denounce Goldwater’s conservative backers for their rampant and even paranoid distrust of the nation’s intellectuals. The book labels the Goldwater campaign a “brute assault on the entire intellectual world” and blames this development on a woefully wrongheaded political tactic: “In recent years the Republicans as a party have been alienating intellectuals deliberately, as a matter of taste and strategy.“ The authors charge that Goldwater’s campaign had no intellectual heft behind it whatsoever, save the backing of one think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, which they denounce as “an organization heavily financed by extreme rightists.” Continuing in the same vein, they slam William F. Buckley, Jr., for his attacks on leading universities and describe the advent of right-wing anti-intellectualism as “crippling” to the Republican Party. The book further deplores conservatives’ paranoid distrust of the “liberal” media and the “Eastern Establishment,” and worries that without the backing of intellectuals and scholars, the GOP will prove unable to develop “workable programs, distinct from those of the Democrats and responsive to national problems.” If the party wants to win back the “national consensus,” the authors argue, it must first win back the nation’s intellectuals. Clearly, The Party That Lost Its Head failed in its goal of prompting a broad Republican realignment. The GOP went in precisely the opposite direction from the one these young authors prescribed—which is why the anti-intellectual disposition they so aptly diagnosed in 1966 still persists among many modern conservatives, helping to fuel the current crisis over the politicization of science and expertise. In fact, the chief difference between the Goldwater conservatives and those of today can often seem more cosmetic than real. A massive number of think tanks have now joined the American Enterprise Institute on the right, but in many cases these outlets still provide only a thin veneer of intellectual respectability to ideas that mainstream scholarship rejects. Certainly, the proliferation of think tanks has not had as a corollary that conservatives now take scientific expertise more seriously. On the contrary, the Right has a strong track record of deliberately attempting to undermine scientific work that might threaten the economic interests of private industry. Perhaps more alarmingly still, similar tactics have also been brought to bear by the Right in the service of a religiously conservative cultural and moral agenda. The next three chapters demonstrate how cultural conservatives have disregarded, distorted, and abused science on the issues of evolution, embryonic stem cell research, the relation of abortion to health risks for women, and sex education. In the process, we will encounter more ideologically driven think tanks, more questionable science, and more conservative politicians willing to embrace it. The story begins, however, with a narrative that cuts to the heart of the modern Right’s war on science. You see, despite the poignant accuracy of their critique, the authors of The Party That Lost Its Head—Bruce K. Chapman and George Gilder—have since bitten their tongues and morphed from liberal Republicans into staunch conservatives. In fact, you could say that they have become everything they once criticized. Once opponents of right-wing anti-intellectualism, they are now prominent supporters of conservative attacks on the theory of evolution, not just a bedrock of modern science but one of the greatest intellectual achievements of human history. With this transformation, the modern Right’s war on intellectuals—including scientists and those possessing expertise in other areas—is truly complete. Three decades ago, no one could have guessed that Bruce Chapman—who did not respond to interview requests for this book—would wind up at the helm of a religiously inspired crusade against evolution. After the publication of The Party That Lost Its Head, Chapman carried on his liberal Republican campaign through his involvement in Washington state politics. Elected to the Seattle city council in 1971, he later became secretary of state of Washington and made an unsuccessful stab at the governorship in 1980, running to the left of conservative Democrat (and later ozone depletion denier) Dixy Lee Ray. (Both Chapman and Ray lost in their respective primaries.) Throughout this period, evolution historian and Chapman acquaintance Edward J. Larson has noted, Chapman was a moderate “Rockefeller Republican” to the core. That changed, however, when Chapman entered the Reagan administration in 1981 as director of the Census Bureau. In a Washington atmosphere in which Reagan himself catered to antievolutionist religious leaders like Jerry Falwell, Chapman moved to the right relatively quickly. Indeed, in Chapman’s transformation into a conservative who would absurdly declare evolution a “theory in crisis,” which he did in 2003, one can trace key trends in the development of the modern conservative movement, such as the rising influence of the religious Right and the launch of an array of ideological think tanks. Among the latter must certainly be counted Seattle’s Discovery Institute, where Chapman currently serves as president and where George Gilder—who underwent a similar ideological transformation, becoming a supply-side economics guru—now serves as a senior fellow. By June 4, 1983, Chapman could be found publicly condemning liberalism for its “shabby, discredited, sophistical values” and defending “traditional morality.” In an article on the “Harvard-trained former liberal,” the New York Times even singled out Chapman’s political shift as emblematic of “a converging of the intellectual left with the religious right within the [Republican Party] under the Reagan banner.” Chapman soon left the Census Bureau to work in the White House under Reagan adviser (and later antipornography crusading attorney general) Edwin Meese. “I have become more conservative as I have grown older,” he observed at the time. As the 1980s ended, Chapman initially seemed to veer away from his newfound social conservatism. In the early days of the Discovery Institute—which originated as a Seattle branch of Indianapolis’s center-right Hudson Institute—he drew heavily on connections from his moderate Seattle past. The Institute’s first slate of directors read “like the guest list for a gathering of liberal Republicans,” noted Seattle Times columnist Herb Robinson in 1991. Originally, Discovery focused on issues like the economic competitiveness of Seattle and telecommunications policy. The vibe was forward-looking, futuristic, and intellectually contrarian. Yet much as Chapman himself swung to the right during the Reagan years, Discovery too has turned to religious conservatism. In recent years, it has become home to a reactionary crusade against the theory of evolution that goes under the banner of “intelligent design” (ID). Bringing creationism up to date, ID proponents insist that living organisms show detectable signs of having been designed (that is, specially created) by a rational agent (presumably God), while denouncing “Darwinism” for inculcating atheism and destroying cultural and moral values that had previously been grounded in piety. Such arguments put the ID campaign squarely at the center of a religiously driven culture war, and Chapman has described ID as the Discovery Institute’s “No. 1 project.” His friend Gilder, meanwhile, has ridiculously pronounced that “the Darwinist materialist paradigm . . . is about to face the same revolution that Newtonian physics faced 100 years ago.“ Such declarations appear to have made more moderate Republicans rather uncomfortable. During a November 2004 science journalism conference in Seattle, I had the opportunity to ask former EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus, who once sat on the Discovery Institute’s board, what he thought of its antievolutionist activities. Ruckelshaus told me he hadn’t been interested in being involved in such a project. (In fact, in a 2000 speech on how to save the Pacific salmon, posted on the Discovery Institute’s website, Ruckelshaus called the fish “a marvel of evolutionary adaptation.“) Clearly, Bruce Chapman has presided over an uncomfortable merger between pragmatic, centrist Republicanism and the antievolutionist, culture-warrior wing of the Right. Today, Discovery touts Cascadia, a technology-intensive project to improve transportation in the Pacific Northwest that is funded in part by the Microsoft fortune (through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) even as it seeks to replace one of the cornerstones of biology with what Wired magazine has labeled the 2.0 version of creationism. And Chapman—a man who by all accounts cares deeply about ideas and whom the New York Times once called “serious and scholarly“—has morphed into a leader of the nation’s most prominent religious crusade against modern science.

And don’t forget too that some of the most important opponents of ID creationism (Unlike Rich I think we need to emphasize the creationist roots of ID, which fellow conservative Judge John Jones did in his memorable Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling) include not only Judge Jones but also biologist Paul R. Gross, who has, with Barbara Forrest, has been a most attentive student of its history, motives and aims as demonstrated in their book “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”, which also includes substantial discussion of the DI’s links to Xian cults such as the one to which leading DI contributor Howard Ahmanson belongs.

If you are really honest in contending that evolution denialism is primarily a conservative phenomenom, then explain why there are substantially more Americans who don’t refer to themselves as either Republicans or Conservatives who reject the overwhelmingly robust evidence for biological evolution. This has been the case in polling data for decades.

Not only that, physicist Lisa Randall has recounted a most interesting airline conversation that she had with an idealistic young Obama supporter...

Frank J said:

Intelligent Design arose in response to 1980s USA Supreme Court rulings rejecting “Scientific” Creationism as nothing more than religiously-inspired pseudoscientific nonsense. Moroever, in the “big tent” conference organized by Philip Johnson and held at Biola University (1994?) which led to the establishment of the Dishonesty Institute, it was all too clear to anyone being objective that the relatively nascent Intelligent Design movement was part of creationism’s “big tent”.

— Johhn Kwok

I'm not sure that you and Rich fully disagree. Anti-evolution activists who "created" ID's big tent included those who previously promoted YEC and OEC, plus some who never doubted common descent. Rich can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the rank-and-file "creationists," not the activists, who are the "pawns" of the ID scam. Either way, while I don't have "hard data" like "cdesign proponentsists" I strongly doubt that the legal losses were the only reason for the steady retreat into "don't ask, don't tell what the creator/designer did, when or how." Surely many, if not all, activists who joined the big tent, were concurrently becoming aware that the evidence simply does not fit a YEC or OEC scenario, and that the contradictions alone were devastating to any promise of an alternate "theory." Surely many had a Morton moment, but their prior commitment to save the world from the evils of "Darwinism" precluded them from admitting it.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Richard Cizik, the former chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals. He was forced to resign in December 2008, after a FRESH AIR interview in which he said he supported gay civil unions. Early this year, he co-founded a new organization called the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which describes itself as an alternative to the past generation's old partisan and ideological culture wars. Now, the evangelical vote was considered a key vote in the Republican Party to turn out during the Bush-Cheney era, and now I think we're hearing much more about the Tea Party movement than about the religious right. And I wonder if you think the religious right has been upstaged a little bit by the Tea Party movement? Rev. CIZIK: Oh, of course, GROSS: Yeah? Rev. CIZIK: Oh, of course, yeah. And the Tea Party movement is irreligious, significantly so. It's got lots of problems. I wouldn't join it if I were an evangelical, urge others not to or at least to be suspicious of it, because it doesn't bring with it in my estimation the whole biblical concept of our responsibility and the rest to God, and so I'm not a Tea Party fan. GROSS: So, the Tea Party seems to not emphasize the Bible, but to emphasize a kind of fundamentalist reading of the Constitution. Rev. CIZIK: Yeah. Yeah. In other words, it's a kind of secular constitutionalism, albeit a false one in my opinion. I have been for many, many years an advocate of sort of strict constructionism and have supported conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, in some cases made a big mistake in doing so. Well, you have to repent at times, move forward, and so I happen to think that it's a kind of - that is the Tea movement is a regressive movement.

As a third example of increase in entropy being put to biological work, there is the notion of entropic sorting, versions of which are known as the "Brazil nut effect" and the like. What happens is that large spheres mixed with small spheres are, perhaps counterintuitively, can be more random when the spheres are sorted by size. If the large spheres don't have too much wiggle room no matter what, you can give the small spheres lots more wiggle room by separating them from the large spheres. A search on PubMed turns up lots of entries, so it's a well-known and well-documented phenomenon.

william e emba said: ... so it's a well-known and well-documented phenomenon.

william e emba said: As a third example of increase in entropy being put to biological work, there is the notion of entropic sorting, versions of which are known as the "Brazil nut effect" and the like. What happens is that large spheres mixed with small spheres are, perhaps counterintuitively, can be more random when the spheres are sorted by size. If the large spheres don't have too much wiggle room no matter what, you can give the small spheres lots more wiggle room by separating them from the large spheres. A search on PubMed turns up lots of entries, so it's a well-known and well-documented phenomenon.

Oh, it's the return of Mike Entropy. Get him mad on that subject and he turns into a huge green monster: "Hulk SMASH!"

Not that I fail to sympathize, when it comes to scientific bafflegab the Hulk can smash all day long for all I care. And when mainstream scientists carelessly go along with the game, they're in some ways more culpable than the cranks.

Speaking of which, MrE, do you feel that the word "information" has become clearly toxic as re the discourse of physics? It gives me the creeps, particularly when I see a physicist using it in some absolutely incomprehensible fashion. I get the nasty impression they are using it when more straightforward terms would better communicate their ideas.

MrG said: Speaking of which, MrE, do you feel that the word "information" has become clearly toxic as re the discourse of physics? It gives me the creeps, particularly when I see a physicist using it in some absolutely incomprehensible fashion. I get the nasty impression they are using it when more straightforward terms would better communicate their ideas.

Mike Elzinga said: The problem arises more with the popularizations that are floating around out there. The word “information” gets pushed as having some technical significance related to spatial arrangements. And now we are off and running on all those conflations among entropy, information, spatial order, and the universe coming all apart.

Well, that’s not totally true. You have been listening. :-)

MrG said: Yes, to the extent that when considering the concept of entropy I fear the wrath of the Hulk. But otherwise I not scientist, I engineer by background. Closely related fields with distinctly different and sometimes clashing mindsets.

harold said: John Kwok -

And don’t forget too that some of the most important opponents of ID creationism (Unlike Rich I think we need to emphasize the creationist roots of ID, which fellow conservative Judge John Jones did in his memorable Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling) include not only Judge Jones but also biologist Paul R. Gross, who has, with Barbara Forrest, has been a most attentive student of its history, motives and aims as demonstrated in their book “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”, which also includes substantial discussion of the DI’s links to Xian cults such as the one to which leading DI contributor Howard Ahmanson belongs.

1) You are addressing the imaginary claim that "all conservatives are creationists" by giving examples of conservatives who are not creationists. But since that is not the claim I made, and since I even carefully clarified "Of course, it is perfectly possible to favor right wing policies, while still being entirely rational, skeptical, and scientific" in my original post, this response is irrelevant. Furthermore, one of your examples may be wrong. I am not sure that Paul R. Gross is a political conservative. He is a strong critic of science denial, whatever the origin, which is good thing. What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools, whether at the level of the federal government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment, state legislatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Freedom_bills, state school boards (Kansas, Ohio, Texas), or local school boards (Dover etc), are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record.

If you are really honest in contending that evolution denialism is primarily a conservative phenomenom, then explain why there are substantially more Americans who don’t refer to themselves as either Republicans or Conservatives who reject the overwhelmingly robust evidence for biological evolution. This has been the case in polling data for decades.

You are addressing the imaginary claim "all people who do not self-identify as conservative are not creationists". However, since I did not make that claim, this is not relevant. Furthermore, you are conflating claims of personal creationist convictions (a 100% constitutionally protected instance of free expression) with efforts to teach sectarian creationism as "science" in taxpayer funded public schools (an illegal violation of the constitutional rights of the students and their families).

Not only that, physicist Lisa Randall has recounted a most interesting airline conversation that she had with an idealistic young Obama supporter...

Your anecdote addresses the imaginary claim "All Obama supporters never engage in personal expression of creationist beliefs". However, since I never made that claim, it is not relevant. What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools, whether at the level of the federal government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment, state legislatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Freedom_bills, state school boards (Kansas, Ohio, Texas), or local school boards (Dover etc), are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record.

Rich Blinne said:

Frank J said:

Intelligent Design arose in response to 1980s USA Supreme Court rulings rejecting “Scientific” Creationism as nothing more than religiously-inspired pseudoscientific nonsense. Moroever, in the “big tent” conference organized by Philip Johnson and held at Biola University (1994?) which led to the establishment of the Dishonesty Institute, it was all too clear to anyone being objective that the relatively nascent Intelligent Design movement was part of creationism’s “big tent”.

— Johhn Kwok

I'm not sure that you and Rich fully disagree. Anti-evolution activists who "created" ID's big tent included those who previously promoted YEC and OEC, plus some who never doubted common descent. Rich can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the rank-and-file "creationists," not the activists, who are the "pawns" of the ID scam. Either way, while I don't have "hard data" like "cdesign proponentsists" I strongly doubt that the legal losses were the only reason for the steady retreat into "don't ask, don't tell what the creator/designer did, when or how." Surely many, if not all, activists who joined the big tent, were concurrently becoming aware that the evidence simply does not fit a YEC or OEC scenario, and that the contradictions alone were devastating to any promise of an alternate "theory." Surely many had a Morton moment, but their prior commitment to save the world from the evils of "Darwinism" precluded them from admitting it.

You got it right, Frank. The rank and file creationists -- more precisely those who hold to creationism by default because that's all they've heard -- are the pawns. I do not deny the creationist activist origins of ID but to deny the libertarian political origin is to miss a good part of the story. What has been personally frustrating is TEs who are global warming denialists. Glenn Morton had no such Morton moment on that score. What drove me to this conclusion was why were all my creationist friends also global warming denialists when it has nothing to do with creation or creationism? An independent and strong scientific community is a threat to business. Creationists in particular and the Religious Right in general were convenient co-belligerants at the time. But with the rise of the Tea Party and Bruce Chapman's latest piece in the American Spectator my fellow evangelicals better start reading the tea leaves. Get prepared to hear a quick buh-bye. Note particularly this interview with Rich Cizik:

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Richard Cizik, the former chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals. He was forced to resign in December 2008, after a FRESH AIR interview in which he said he supported gay civil unions. Early this year, he co-founded a new organization called the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which describes itself as an alternative to the past generation's old partisan and ideological culture wars. Now, the evangelical vote was considered a key vote in the Republican Party to turn out during the Bush-Cheney era, and now I think we're hearing much more about the Tea Party movement than about the religious right. And I wonder if you think the religious right has been upstaged a little bit by the Tea Party movement? Rev. CIZIK: Oh, of course, GROSS: Yeah? Rev. CIZIK: Oh, of course, yeah. And the Tea Party movement is irreligious, significantly so. It's got lots of problems. I wouldn't join it if I were an evangelical, urge others not to or at least to be suspicious of it, because it doesn't bring with it in my estimation the whole biblical concept of our responsibility and the rest to God, and so I'm not a Tea Party fan. GROSS: So, the Tea Party seems to not emphasize the Bible, but to emphasize a kind of fundamentalist reading of the Constitution. Rev. CIZIK: Yeah. Yeah. In other words, it's a kind of secular constitutionalism, albeit a false one in my opinion. I have been for many, many years an advocate of sort of strict constructionism and have supported conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, in some cases made a big mistake in doing so. Well, you have to repent at times, move forward, and so I happen to think that it's a kind of - that is the Tea movement is a regressive movement.

John Kwok said: If evolution denialism was a problem confined primarily with conservatives and Republicans, then why do you see it in someone like the idealistic Obama supporter who shared an airline flight back to Los Angeles with physicist Lisa Randall.

What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools...are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record.

— harold

Frank J said: John & Rich: I'm not as familiar as either of you are with the libertarian component in the history of the anti-evolution movement, so I can't deny it. One or both of you did note that people do change their political ideology, so many may have started out libertarian, then became more authoritarian after getting more involved with the movement. Whatever the case, I find it hard to call anyone a "conservative" who demands that taxpayer pay for students to learn pseudoscience that their parents can pay for. And particularly a pseudoscience that has not earned the right to be taught in science class. What complicates it of course is that most of those people call themselves conservatives and vote for Republicans - politicians who are mostly science-illiterate, but even if not will pander to the evolution-deniers just for votes. Science-literate Democrat politicians have it much easier. On that note:

What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools...are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record.

— harold

I can't dispute that either, but I do recall counting current anti-evolution bills in an issue of RNCSE a few years back, and about 20% of those who introduced them were Democrats.

Frank J said: I can't dispute that either, but I do recall counting current anti-evolution bills in an issue of RNCSE a few years back, and about 20% of those who introduced them were Democrats.

Paul Gross is a conservative. He has a history of attacking liberal bias in academia, especially from the perspective of higher education. If you were to check his bibliography, then this would become all too clear. And I’m not just singling him out in isolation. Both George Will and Charles Krauthammer had Washington Post columns praising Judge Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling within days of its announcement. More recently The National Review’s John Derbyshire has condemned Ben Stein and his involvement with “Expelled”.

Again you are missing my key point. If evolution denialism was a problem confined primarily with conservatives and Republicans, then why do you see it in someone like the idealistic Obama supporter who shared an airline flight back to Los Angeles with physicist Lisa Randall. I am merely citing him as an example of the untold millions who are not Conservatives or Republicans and still reject the scientific fact of biological evolution. Again, the polling data for decades has supported my conclusion.

John Kwok said: Frank J, Rich contends that there is a stronger Libertarian component than I am prepared to accept, and I base that primarily on the work done by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross in exposing the Dominionist Xian ties to the Dishonesty Institute, of which Howard Ahmanson may be the best known example, but I believe he isn't the only one. Think Rich needs to refer to their work before commenting further on a Libertarian bias (And I might add that is based IMHO on the fact that yes, two of the key co-founders of the Dishonesty Institute are Libertarian-oriented Republicans George Gilder and Bruce Chapman. But neither one - with the possible exception of Chapman - is strongly involved with the DI Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, which is the intellectual "heart" of the Intelligent Design creationist movement (This center was known originally as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, hence the parenthesis around Renewal, etc.).):

Ahmanson also contributes heavily to the Discovery Institute, the 'intellectual' flagship of the Intelligent Design movement, and the George C. Marshall Institute, which disputes research indicating that human activity contributes to global warming.

Frank J -

I strongly agree that religious authoritarianism and blatant efforts to violate the constitution most certainly do not qualify, within the context of the USA, as "conservative", in the traditional sense of that word.

However, the word has been hijacked, and has become a euphemism. For better or for worse, any idea, however radical, is currently referred to as "conservative" if it is right wing. (Meanwhile, any progressive idea, however moderate, incremental, and pro-market, is automatically labelled as "socialist" or "left wing".)

That's another reality.

harold said: John Kwok - Please don't repeat points that have already been addressed, and cherry pick details while ignoring the fundamental issue. It seems as if you are unable, when this topic is being discussed, to actually read what others are saying correctly. Perhaps an analogy will help here. I tend to vote for the Democrats, but I have many, many, many complaints and outright problems with many current Democrats. However, I don't resort to either denial of reality, nor to using the profoundly cynical "the other guy does it too" justification. I look reality in the face and admit the true situation.

Paul Gross is a conservative. He has a history of attacking liberal bias in academia, especially from the perspective of higher education. If you were to check his bibliography, then this would become all too clear. And I’m not just singling him out in isolation. Both George Will and Charles Krauthammer had Washington Post columns praising Judge Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling within days of its announcement. More recently The National Review’s John Derbyshire has condemned Ben Stein and his involvement with “Expelled”.

I didn't use the term "straw man" above, out of politeness, but now I will. The false claim that anyone said or implied that all political conservatives are creationists is a straw man misrepresentation of what was actually said (even though you literally block-quoted all of what was actually said). Not only did I not say that all conservatives are creationists, I specifically clarified that I was NOT saying that in my original post. Then I re-clarified that in my second post on that topic. Now I am re-clarifying that again for the third time.

Again you are missing my key point. If evolution denialism was a problem confined primarily with conservatives and Republicans, then why do you see it in someone like the idealistic Obama supporter who shared an airline flight back to Los Angeles with physicist Lisa Randall. I am merely citing him as an example of the untold millions who are not Conservatives or Republicans and still reject the scientific fact of biological evolution. Again, the polling data for decades has supported my conclusion.

It is disturbing to me that you repeated this bizarre anecdote. In the first place, it is not relevant, as again, you are addressing a straw man. No-one made the claim that "all people who do not self-identify as conservative are creationists". In the second place, and far more importantly, it conflates personal expression, which is legal and hurts no-one, with efforts to use the political process to violate constitutional rights. Now here is the reality. I have it bolded and have repeated it several times. I don't know what else it would take to draw attention to it. What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools, whether at the level of the federal government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment, state legislatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academ[…]reedom_bills, state school boards (Kansas, Ohio, Texas), or local school boards (Dover etc), are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record. Furthermore, climate change denial is also slanted in this way. Clearly, John, lay conservatives like Paul R. Gross and John Derbyshire, etc, are not doing enough to stop their fellow conservatives in elected positions from advocating science denial. And no, this problem does NOT exist to the same extent with the current Democratic party. I have many complaints with them (not the same complaints as you do, although there is slight overlap), but I do not have to complain of a pervasive anti-science bias in legislative proposals and bureaucratic appointments. And all the denial in the world will not change this reality.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Frank J, Rich contends that there is a stronger Libertarian component than I am prepared to accept, and I base that primarily on the work done by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross in exposing the Dominionist Xian ties to the Dishonesty Institute, of which Howard Ahmanson may be the best known example, but I believe he isn't the only one. Think Rich needs to refer to their work before commenting further on a Libertarian bias (And I might add that is based IMHO on the fact that yes, two of the key co-founders of the Dishonesty Institute are Libertarian-oriented Republicans George Gilder and Bruce Chapman. But neither one - with the possible exception of Chapman - is strongly involved with the DI Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, which is the intellectual "heart" of the Intelligent Design creationist movement (This center was known originally as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, hence the parenthesis around Renewal, etc.).):

If you are to follow the money you find that Ahmanson also funds libertarian causes. He runs the Fieldstead Foundation (his middle name) and this is a major funder of the George C. Marshall Institute of which I discussed previously http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/HowardAhmanson

Ahmanson also contributes heavily to the Discovery Institute, the 'intellectual' flagship of the Intelligent Design movement, and the George C. Marshall Institute, which disputes research indicating that human activity contributes to global warming.

The Council for National Policy started in 1981 by Tim LaHaye in which Ahmanson is a member has on its board of directors Grover Norquist of the Club for Growth and Howard Phillips of the U.S. Taxpayers Party and the Conservative Caucus in it. One other curious member of CNP would be of interest to evangelicals, the Rev. Moon. Jonathan Wells is also a Moonie.

John Kwok said: Fair enough, harold:

harold said: John Kwok - Please don't repeat points that have already been addressed, and cherry pick details while ignoring the fundamental issue. It seems as if you are unable, when this topic is being discussed, to actually read what others are saying correctly. Perhaps an analogy will help here. I tend to vote for the Democrats, but I have many, many, many complaints and outright problems with many current Democrats. However, I don't resort to either denial of reality, nor to using the profoundly cynical "the other guy does it too" justification. I look reality in the face and admit the true situation.

Paul Gross is a conservative. He has a history of attacking liberal bias in academia, especially from the perspective of higher education. If you were to check his bibliography, then this would become all too clear. And I’m not just singling him out in isolation. Both George Will and Charles Krauthammer had Washington Post columns praising Judge Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling within days of its announcement. More recently The National Review’s John Derbyshire has condemned Ben Stein and his involvement with “Expelled”.

I didn't use the term "straw man" above, out of politeness, but now I will. The false claim that anyone said or implied that all political conservatives are creationists is a straw man misrepresentation of what was actually said (even though you literally block-quoted all of what was actually said). Not only did I not say that all conservatives are creationists, I specifically clarified that I was NOT saying that in my original post. Then I re-clarified that in my second post on that topic. Now I am re-clarifying that again for the third time.

Again you are missing my key point. If evolution denialism was a problem confined primarily with conservatives and Republicans, then why do you see it in someone like the idealistic Obama supporter who shared an airline flight back to Los Angeles with physicist Lisa Randall. I am merely citing him as an example of the untold millions who are not Conservatives or Republicans and still reject the scientific fact of biological evolution. Again, the polling data for decades has supported my conclusion.

It is disturbing to me that you repeated this bizarre anecdote. In the first place, it is not relevant, as again, you are addressing a straw man. No-one made the claim that "all people who do not self-identify as conservative are creationists". In the second place, and far more importantly, it conflates personal expression, which is legal and hurts no-one, with efforts to use the political process to violate constitutional rights. Now here is the reality. I have it bolded and have repeated it several times. I don't know what else it would take to draw attention to it. What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools, whether at the level of the federal government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment, state legislatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academ[…]reedom_bills, state school boards (Kansas, Ohio, Texas), or local school boards (Dover etc), are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record. Furthermore, climate change denial is also slanted in this way. Clearly, John, lay conservatives like Paul R. Gross and John Derbyshire, etc, are not doing enough to stop their fellow conservatives in elected positions from advocating science denial. And no, this problem does NOT exist to the same extent with the current Democratic party. I have many complaints with them (not the same complaints as you do, although there is slight overlap), but I do not have to complain of a pervasive anti-science bias in legislative proposals and bureaucratic appointments. And all the denial in the world will not change this reality.

However, if you read too much of the New Atheist blogosphere, you will conclude that: 1) All Republicans and Conservatives are Science Deniers. 2) All Republicans and Conservatives must therefore reject evolution as sound, well-established mainstream science. 3) Liberals and Democrats are not Science Deniers 4) Liberals and Democrats do accept evolution as sound mainstream science. In the future I would appreciate it if you remind others that there are many Republicans and Conservatives - of which I am one - who are not Science Deniers nor reject evolution as sound, well-established mainstream science. And that there are many Liberals and Democrats and Independents who are both Science Deniers and reject evolution as mainstream, well-established science. Because if they didn't exist, then decades-old polling data here in the United States would show that most Americans accept the fact of biological evolution and recognize it as sound, well-established mainstream science.

Malchus said: John, this is utterly false. If you feel that reading the NA blogs creates that impression, you should be able to document it. You cannot. You are obsessed with a straw man argument that no one is making. Perhaps you could drop your crush on Lisa Randall and get back to the topic at hand. Thanks.

John Kwok said: Fair enough, harold:

harold said: John Kwok - Please don't repeat points that have already been addressed, and cherry pick details while ignoring the fundamental issue. It seems as if you are unable, when this topic is being discussed, to actually read what others are saying correctly. Perhaps an analogy will help here. I tend to vote for the Democrats, but I have many, many, many complaints and outright problems with many current Democrats. However, I don't resort to either denial of reality, nor to using the profoundly cynical "the other guy does it too" justification. I look reality in the face and admit the true situation.

Paul Gross is a conservative. He has a history of attacking liberal bias in academia, especially from the perspective of higher education. If you were to check his bibliography, then this would become all too clear. And I’m not just singling him out in isolation. Both George Will and Charles Krauthammer had Washington Post columns praising Judge Jones’s Kitzmiller vs. Dover ruling within days of its announcement. More recently The National Review’s John Derbyshire has condemned Ben Stein and his involvement with “Expelled”.

I didn't use the term "straw man" above, out of politeness, but now I will. The false claim that anyone said or implied that all political conservatives are creationists is a straw man misrepresentation of what was actually said (even though you literally block-quoted all of what was actually said). Not only did I not say that all conservatives are creationists, I specifically clarified that I was NOT saying that in my original post. Then I re-clarified that in my second post on that topic. Now I am re-clarifying that again for the third time.

Again you are missing my key point. If evolution denialism was a problem confined primarily with conservatives and Republicans, then why do you see it in someone like the idealistic Obama supporter who shared an airline flight back to Los Angeles with physicist Lisa Randall. I am merely citing him as an example of the untold millions who are not Conservatives or Republicans and still reject the scientific fact of biological evolution. Again, the polling data for decades has supported my conclusion.

It is disturbing to me that you repeated this bizarre anecdote. In the first place, it is not relevant, as again, you are addressing a straw man. No-one made the claim that "all people who do not self-identify as conservative are creationists". In the second place, and far more importantly, it conflates personal expression, which is legal and hurts no-one, with efforts to use the political process to violate constitutional rights. Now here is the reality. I have it bolded and have repeated it several times. I don't know what else it would take to draw attention to it. What I frequently note is that essentially all political efforts to force ID/creationism into taxpayer-funded public schools, whether at the level of the federal government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_Amendment, state legislatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academ[…]reedom_bills, state school boards (Kansas, Ohio, Texas), or local school boards (Dover etc), are originated by Republicans. That is factual matter of easily checked public record. Furthermore, climate change denial is also slanted in this way. Clearly, John, lay conservatives like Paul R. Gross and John Derbyshire, etc, are not doing enough to stop their fellow conservatives in elected positions from advocating science denial. And no, this problem does NOT exist to the same extent with the current Democratic party. I have many complaints with them (not the same complaints as you do, although there is slight overlap), but I do not have to complain of a pervasive anti-science bias in legislative proposals and bureaucratic appointments. And all the denial in the world will not change this reality.

However, if you read too much of the New Atheist blogosphere, you will conclude that: 1) All Republicans and Conservatives are Science Deniers. 2) All Republicans and Conservatives must therefore reject evolution as sound, well-established mainstream science. 3) Liberals and Democrats are not Science Deniers 4) Liberals and Democrats do accept evolution as sound mainstream science. In the future I would appreciate it if you remind others that there are many Republicans and Conservatives - of which I am one - who are not Science Deniers nor reject evolution as sound, well-established mainstream science. And that there are many Liberals and Democrats and Independents who are both Science Deniers and reject evolution as mainstream, well-established science. Because if they didn't exist, then decades-old polling data here in the United States would show that most Americans accept the fact of biological evolution and recognize it as sound, well-established mainstream science.

John Kwok said: That he may, but you are ignoring the fact that the DI has allied itself with Dominionist Xian "Christian" churches.

And no, I don't have a crush on Lisa Randall. However, I do have the utmost admiration for her work in science, especially since her work was the one most cited by her colleagues in physics during a five year period in the previous decade. She's also an exceptional science communicator and has done more than her fair share of work - in stark contrast to her high school classmate Brian Greene - in condemning creationists for attacking not just the fact of biological evolution but also the scientific method.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: That he may, but you are ignoring the fact that the DI has allied itself with Dominionist Xian "Christian" churches.

I'm scared. A bunch of miniscule churches in Tyler TX fighting each other. The closest thing to having a large church backing was the late D. James Kennedy's Coral Rigde Presbyterian. But since his death things have changed. Note how Knox Seminary -- the seminary founded by the late Dr. Kennedy -- recently hired Bruce Waltke. http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/04/bruce_waltke_he.html

May I suggest that you read not only Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's work, but also read Robert S. McElvaine's "Grand Theft Jesus: THe Hijacking of Religion in America". I believe historian McElvaine is one of your religious compatriots too. But one who clearly recognizes the dangers posed by Xian "Christian" groups and individuals.

Malchus said: You are obsessed with a straw man argument that no one is making. Perhaps you could drop your crush on Lisa Randall and get back to the topic at hand.

John Kwok said: May I suggest that you read not only Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's work, but also read Robert S. McElvaine's "Grand Theft Jesus: THe Hijacking of Religion in America". I believe historian McElvaine is one of your religious compatriots too. But one who clearly recognizes the dangers posed by Xian "Christian" groups and individuals.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: May I suggest that you read not only Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's work, but also read Robert S. McElvaine's "Grand Theft Jesus: THe Hijacking of Religion in America". I believe historian McElvaine is one of your religious compatriots too. But one who clearly recognizes the dangers posed by Xian "Christian" groups and individuals.

I've seen the hijacking of the evangelical church first hand but it's a political hijack and not a religious one. When you hear the words "big tent" think politics which is where it came from. It was never intended to get all theists together with respect to origins. TEs were never invited to the party. Rather, it was to get religious and fiscal conservatives together. When D. James Kennnedy overtured the PCA General Assembly re Judge Roy Moore it went down in flames because it violated the underlying theology of the denomination to not mix politics and religion. This is because the power of the church is ministerial and declarative only. Things have gotten a lot worse since then, though. You can be a TE and you're tolerated but if you're a Democrat they start questioning your salvation.

Rich Blinne said: I've seen the hijacking of the evangelical church first hand but it's a political hijack and not a religious one.

MrG said:

Malchus said: You are obsessed with a straw man argument that no one is making. Perhaps you could drop your crush on Lisa Randall and get back to the topic at hand.

Wrestling with the Kwockodile again, eh Malchus?

Try "Kwokodile Rock".

Mike Elzinga said:

Rich Blinne said: I've seen the hijacking of the evangelical church first hand but it's a political hijack and not a religious one.

It isn’t just the conservative, evangelical churches that are being pressured; the United Methodists are also under attack.

MrG said: Try "Kwokodile Rock".

Sorry Rich, here's my revised observation:

McElvaine contends it is BOTH religious and political. In short, he claims that the Xians are making a mockery of Christ's teachings at the same time as abusing those teachings on behalf of their political agendas. He condemns their reliance on Christ's teachings without stressing the need to adhere to them by doing good works or to sacrifice themselves financially on behalf of Christ.

John Kwok said: Sorry Rich, here's my revised observation: McElvaine contends it is BOTH religious and political. In short, he claims that the Xians are making a mockery of Christ's teachings at the same time as abusing those teachings on behalf of their political agendas. He condemns their reliance on Christ's teachings without stressing the need to adhere to them by doing good works or to sacrifice themselves financially on behalf of Christ.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Sorry Rich, here's my revised observation: McElvaine contends it is BOTH religious and political. In short, he claims that the Xians are making a mockery of Christ's teachings at the same time as abusing those teachings on behalf of their political agendas. He condemns their reliance on Christ's teachings without stressing the need to adhere to them by doing good works or to sacrifice themselves financially on behalf of Christ.

I've never said otherwise. You on the other hand have denied the real issues that come from political conservatism. Historically, evangelicals have either been apolitical or even anti-political. When the right tempted evangelicals with political power they sadly fell into it. But the deal was stick your noses in the bedroom but not the boardroom. It's a shame that my fellow evangelicals don't realize that the wall of separation protects both the state and the church. There is hope that evangelicals might rediscover their roots but I see little or no hope for the radical right because it is and always has been about power.

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

John Kwok said: That polling data doesn't take into account demographic population variation. If it was standardized with regards to differences in the population sizes of the three groups, it might resemble more closely this: % of Americans who deny global warming Democrats - 30% Republicans - 25% Independents - 45% The poll figures you cited are misleading since they look at each group independently, and calculate the ration as follows: % misleading or exaggerated/ 100% of political party affiliation The statistics you cite only give us relative percentages of how many Democrats, Republicans and Independents are skeptical of global warming, not how many Americans, period:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

Mike Elzinga said: It needs to be emphasized that entropy refers to the number of accessible energy microstates of a thermodynamic system. It has almost nothing to do with spatial order unless there is a one-to-one correspondence between spatial location and energy microstate.

MrG said:

Malchus said: You are obsessed with a straw man argument that no one is making. Perhaps you could drop your crush on Lisa Randall and get back to the topic at hand.

Wrestling with the Kwockodile again, eh Malchus?

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

John, the more telling figure is the difference in Republican views with time. It's true the demographics change with time but it just shows that the kind of Republicans that they have been losing are the sane, pro-science ones. The graph matches my experience inside the party. 2006 marked the start of the great white RINO hunt. The elected Republicans that lost were also in swing districts. For example, pro-science Republicans like Rep. Sherwood Boelert lost. What was left were the Ihoffes.

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

MememicBottleneck said: That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not.

william e emba said: I mean, I first learned of entropic sorting from a prominent chemist, and I have no memory of whether he used "disorder" or not.

John Kwok said: That polling data doesn't take into account demographic population variation. If it was standardized with regards to differences in the population sizes of the three groups, it might resemble more closely this: % of Americans who deny global warming Democrats - 30% Republicans - 25% Independents - 45% The poll figures you cited are misleading since they look at each group independently, and calculate the ration as follows: % misleading or exaggerated/ 100% of political party affiliation The statistics you cite only give us relative percentages of how many Democrats, Republicans and Independents are skeptical of global warming, not how many Americans, period:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

Rich Blinne said: John, the more telling figure is the difference in Republican views with time. It's true the demographics change with time but it just shows that the kind of Republicans that they have been losing are the sane, pro-science ones. The graph matches my experience inside the party. 2006 marked the start of the great white RINO hunt. The elected Republicans that lost were also in swing districts. For example, pro-science Republicans like Rep. Sherwood Boelert lost. What was left were the Ihoffes.

Malchus said: Unfortunately, that's irrelevant. The statistical trend is quite clear: Republicans/conservatives are becoming more anti-science, rather than less. This is not a particularly encouraging trend - that a single, reasonably identifiable block of the population increasing rejects the findings of science.

John Kwok said: That polling data doesn't take into account demographic population variation. If it was standardized with regards to differences in the population sizes of the three groups, it might resemble more closely this: % of Americans who deny global warming Democrats - 30% Republicans - 25% Independents - 45% The poll figures you cited are misleading since they look at each group independently, and calculate the ration as follows: % misleading or exaggerated/ 100% of political party affiliation The statistics you cite only give us relative percentages of how many Democrats, Republicans and Independents are skeptical of global warming, not how many Americans, period:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

MememicBottleneck said:

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not. We could make a game of this. Every time he mentions his high school, college, Klingons, pornography or name drops, the first person to post "Kwok-a-doodle-do" wins.

Is my analysis of Evangelical Protestant Christian history in the 19th and early 20th Centuries correct, Rich? If you have any doubts, then please refer to writings from the likes of Susan Jacoby and others. As for my observation with respect to late 19th Century acceptance of evolution by American Evangelicals, I recommend reading Donald Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters".

John Kwok said: And if the statistical trend is valid for only twenty percent of the American population - which is according to recent polling data the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans - then how does that account for an increasing trend in science denialism as seen in denying the fact of anthropogenic global warming. You are concentrating on a small segment on the American electorate and without weighting the data to account for more accurate demographic data comprising the entire American electorate, then your observation is statistically meaningless:

Malchus said: Unfortunately, that's irrelevant. The statistical trend is quite clear: Republicans/conservatives are becoming more anti-science, rather than less. This is not a particularly encouraging trend - that a single, reasonably identifiable block of the population increasing rejects the findings of science.

John Kwok said: That polling data doesn't take into account demographic population variation. If it was standardized with regards to differences in the population sizes of the three groups, it might resemble more closely this: % of Americans who deny global warming Democrats - 30% Republicans - 25% Independents - 45% The poll figures you cited are misleading since they look at each group independently, and calculate the ration as follows: % misleading or exaggerated/ 100% of political party affiliation The statistics you cite only give us relative percentages of how many Democrats, Republicans and Independents are skeptical of global warming, not how many Americans, period:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

MememicBottleneck said:

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not. We could make a game of this. Every time he mentions his high school, college, Klingons, pornography or name drops, the first person to post "Kwok-a-doodle-do" wins.

Dale Husband said:

MememicBottleneck said:

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not. We could make a game of this. Every time he mentions his high school, college, Klingons, pornography or name drops, the first person to post "Kwok-a-doodle-do" wins.

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in grade school? It's like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I'm a moderate Liberal and a non-theist.

To most people random connotes purposeless and no direction. Within science random means in part not predictable by humans.

Simply change the terminology. Problem solved.

— Steve P.

Steve P. said: Rich, Out of curiosity, if there is so much confusion by lay people as to what is meant by the scientific community when scientists use the word 'random', why not consider discontinuing its use and simply say what it is you mean?

Main Entry: ²random Function: adjective Date: 1632 1 a : lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern b : made, done, or chosen at random (random passages from the book) 2 a : relating to, having, or being elements or events with definite probability of occurrence (random processes) b : being or relating to a set or to an element of a set each of whose elements has equal probability of occurrence (a random sample); also : characterized by procedures designed to obtain such sets or elements (random sampling)

Why not use the existing word unpredictable (which is much closer to your desired meaning if not totally capturing it), rather than random? If you want, use the acronym, UbH- unpredictable by humans. Or be creative, and come up with a totally new word that you can add to the scientific lexicon. It seems complaining that proponents of ID(like myself) misconstrue, misuse, and/or misunderstand how scientists use the word random is not going to resolve the issue. Why fault lay people when the word random is overwhelmingly used to mean "proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern". Simply change the terminology. Problem solved.

Malchus said: I am simply pointing out that you keep changing the terms and scope of the discussion. Perhaps you could stick to one or at most two arguments and we could address those? No one has claimed that all conservatives are science-deniers, but a far larger percentage of them seem to be, and given the peculiar nature of the American political system, Republicans in power can derail a great deal of science-related efforts. If you would stop just defending conservatives and address what people are actually posting, this conversation might proceed a great deal quicker.

John Kwok said: And if the statistical trend is valid for only twenty percent of the American population - which is according to recent polling data the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans - then how does that account for an increasing trend in science denialism as seen in denying the fact of anthropogenic global warming. You are concentrating on a small segment on the American electorate and without weighting the data to account for more accurate demographic data comprising the entire American electorate, then your observation is statistically meaningless:

Malchus said: Unfortunately, that's irrelevant. The statistical trend is quite clear: Republicans/conservatives are becoming more anti-science, rather than less. This is not a particularly encouraging trend - that a single, reasonably identifiable block of the population increasing rejects the findings of science.

John Kwok said: That polling data doesn't take into account demographic population variation. If it was standardized with regards to differences in the population sizes of the three groups, it might resemble more closely this: % of Americans who deny global warming Democrats - 30% Republicans - 25% Independents - 45% The poll figures you cited are misleading since they look at each group independently, and calculate the ration as follows: % misleading or exaggerated/ 100% of political party affiliation The statistics you cite only give us relative percentages of how many Democrats, Republicans and Independents are skeptical of global warming, not how many Americans, period:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: What I do deny is the tendency of some here - and elsewhere - to regard Conservatives and Republicans as the sole segments of the American populace which are rife with science denialism. If such was the case, then biological evolution and anthropogenic global warming wouldn't be viewed as controversial by most Americans today, but instead, as very well-established, highly corroborated mainstream science:

Note this Gallup poll. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116590/increased-number-think-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx Percentages of people who think reports of Global Warming is exagerated in 1998: Democrats: 23% Independents: 35% Republicans: 34% In 2009: Democrats: 22% Indpendents: 44% Republicans: 66% If you look at the graph it peaks at 2004 hits a low point at 2006 (when an Inconvenient Truth was released) and has been off to the races ever since. In 2006 was when I noticed increased political pressure on evangelicals from Republican/conservative political activists.

Malchus said: Like John, I suspect you need to spend more time reading the actual posts and less time jumping to conclusions. The amount of commentary on John seems to be justified by his peculiar and somewhat outlandish behavior.

Dale Husband said:

MememicBottleneck said:

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not. We could make a game of this. Every time he mentions his high school, college, Klingons, pornography or name drops, the first person to post "Kwok-a-doodle-do" wins.

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in grade school? It's like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I'm a moderate Liberal and a non-theist.

Steve P. said: Rich, Out of curiosity, if there is so much confusion by lay people as to what is meant by the scientific community when scientists use the word 'random', why not consider discontinuing its use and simply say what it is you mean? Why not use the existing word unpredictable (which is much closer to your desired meaning if not totally capturing it), rather than random? If you want, use the acronym, UbH- unpredictable by humans. Or be creative, and come up with a totally new word that you can add to the scientific lexicon. It seems complaining that proponents of ID(like myself) misconstrue, misuse, and/or misunderstand how scientists use the word random is not going to resolve the issue. Why fault lay people when the word random is overwhelmingly used to mean "proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern". Simply change the terminology. Problem solved.

To most people random connotes purposeless and no direction. Within science random means in part not predictable by humans.

Malchus said: Like John, I suspect you need to spend more time reading the actual posts and less time jumping to conclusions. The amount of commentary on John seems to be justified by his peculiar and somewhat outlandish behavior.

Dale Husband said:

MememicBottleneck said:

MrG said:

MememicBottleneck said: I think of him more like a strutting rooster. You get the Kwok-a-doodle-do from morning til night.

Rooster? How about a Kwokoduck?

That would be a creationist reference, which he is clearly not. We could make a game of this. Every time he mentions his high school, college, Klingons, pornography or name drops, the first person to post "Kwok-a-doodle-do" wins.

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in grade school? It's like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I'm a moderate Liberal and a non-theist.

Steve P. said: Rich, Out of curiosity, if there is so much confusion by lay people as to what is meant by the scientific community when scientists use the word 'random', why not consider discontinuing its use and simply say what it is you mean? Why not use the existing word unpredictable (which is much closer to your desired meaning if not totally capturing it), rather than random? If you want, use the acronym, UbH- unpredictable by humans. Or be creative, and come up with a totally new word that you can add to the scientific lexicon. It seems complaining that proponents of ID(like myself) misconstrue, misuse, and/or misunderstand how scientists use the word random is not going to resolve the issue. Why fault lay people when the word random is overwhelmingly used to mean "proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern". Simply change the terminology. Problem solved.

To most people random connotes purposeless and no direction. Within science random means in part not predictable by humans.

John Kwok said: I am not changing the terms and scope of the discussion Malchus. I have said consistently that there are more Democrats and Independents combined who are science denialists than Republicans, and this trend has been substantiated by decades-long polling data from the 1970s if not before. You have to look at the entire electorate, not those belonging to a particular political party or affiliation (as in nonaligned or Independent), before you can make such grand, sweeping statements as these: 1) Republicans are definitely comprised more of science deniers than Democrats and Independents and that trend seems to be increasing over time (But is that a realistic assessment to make when no more than approximately twenty percent of the electorate identifies itself as Republican (Note that I am saying by party affiliation NOT WHETHER they support or reject the policies of a given political party.)? Sure one can claim that such a trend means that Republicans are responsible for increasing science denialism, however, such a claim doesn't include the other 80% of the electorate which is where the statistically significant increase is coming from, not the Republicans.).

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: I am not changing the terms and scope of the discussion Malchus. I have said consistently that there are more Democrats and Independents combined who are science denialists than Republicans, and this trend has been substantiated by decades-long polling data from the 1970s if not before. You have to look at the entire electorate, not those belonging to a particular political party or affiliation (as in nonaligned or Independent), before you can make such grand, sweeping statements as these: 1) Republicans are definitely comprised more of science deniers than Democrats and Independents and that trend seems to be increasing over time (But is that a realistic assessment to make when no more than approximately twenty percent of the electorate identifies itself as Republican (Note that I am saying by party affiliation NOT WHETHER they support or reject the policies of a given political party.)? Sure one can claim that such a trend means that Republicans are responsible for increasing science denialism, however, such a claim doesn't include the other 80% of the electorate which is where the statistically significant increase is coming from, not the Republicans.).

Gallup gives their self-identification rates for 2009. 36% Democrat, 37% Independent, and 27% Republican. Including leaners it's 53% Democrat and lean Democrat and 39% Republican and lean Republican. If you include independents the percentage of the denialists are: 19% Democrat, 39% Independent, and 42% Republican. If you don't include independents: 31% Democrat and 69% Republican.

John Kwok said: You would also need to look at the actual sample size, which is why I have stressed proportional to the entire voting electorate, not simply based on party affiliation. Here's a hypothetical case in point: Let's say for the sake of argument that 90% of Republicans reject evolution while 50% of Democrats and 60% of Independents reject it too and that the preponderance of Republicans accounts for this rejection. Let's assume that the poll in question had a total sample size of 500,000 (usually much smaller than that for temporal and logistical reasons: 100,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican 150,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Democrat 250,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican If you do simple calculations of percentage multipled by the numbers who identify themselves as belonging to one poltiical party (or not affliated) or another and then multiply the percentages of those within each party who claim that they are Evolution Denialists, then you get these results: Republicans: 90,000 Democrats: 75,000 Independents: 125,000 So under no circumstances can you say that Republicans are responsible for most of the evolution denialists in this hypothetical example. An example which clearly illustrates the points I have been making. As for the Gallup poll, do you have data on the total number of those surveyed (and does the question read which party do you belong to or which party are you most sympathetic to, which should lead to different - probably statistically different results):

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: I am not changing the terms and scope of the discussion Malchus. I have said consistently that there are more Democrats and Independents combined who are science denialists than Republicans, and this trend has been substantiated by decades-long polling data from the 1970s if not before. You have to look at the entire electorate, not those belonging to a particular political party or affiliation (as in nonaligned or Independent), before you can make such grand, sweeping statements as these: 1) Republicans are definitely comprised more of science deniers than Democrats and Independents and that trend seems to be increasing over time (But is that a realistic assessment to make when no more than approximately twenty percent of the electorate identifies itself as Republican (Note that I am saying by party affiliation NOT WHETHER they support or reject the policies of a given political party.)? Sure one can claim that such a trend means that Republicans are responsible for increasing science denialism, however, such a claim doesn't include the other 80% of the electorate which is where the statistically significant increase is coming from, not the Republicans.).

Gallup gives their self-identification rates for 2009. 36% Democrat, 37% Independent, and 27% Republican. Including leaners it's 53% Democrat and lean Democrat and 39% Republican and lean Republican. If you include independents the percentage of the denialists are: 19% Democrat, 39% Independent, and 42% Republican. If you don't include independents: 31% Democrat and 69% Republican.

John Kwok said: You would also need to look at the actual sample size, which is why I have stressed proportional to the entire voting electorate, not simply based on party affiliation. Here's a hypothetical case in point: Let's say for the sake of argument that 90% of Republicans reject evolution while 50% of Democrats and 60% of Independents reject it too and that the preponderance of Republicans accounts for this rejection. Let's assume that the poll in question had a total sample size of 500,000 (usually much smaller than that for temporal and logistical reasons: 100,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican 150,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Democrat 250,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican If you do simple calculations of percentage multipled by the numbers who identify themselves as belonging to one poltiical party (or not affliated) or another and then multiply the percentages of those within each party who claim that they are Evolution Denialists, then you get these results: Republicans: 90,000 Democrats: 75,000 Independents: 125,000 So under no circumstances can you say that Republicans are responsible for most of the evolution denialists in this hypothetical example. An example which clearly illustrates the points I have been making. As for the Gallup poll, do you have data on the total number of those surveyed (and does the question read which party do you belong to or which party are you most sympathetic to, which should lead to different - probably statistically different results):

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: I am not changing the terms and scope of the discussion Malchus. I have said consistently that there are more Democrats and Independents combined who are science denialists than Republicans, and this trend has been substantiated by decades-long polling data from the 1970s if not before. You have to look at the entire electorate, not those belonging to a particular political party or affiliation (as in nonaligned or Independent), before you can make such grand, sweeping statements as these: 1) Republicans are definitely comprised more of science deniers than Democrats and Independents and that trend seems to be increasing over time (But is that a realistic assessment to make when no more than approximately twenty percent of the electorate identifies itself as Republican (Note that I am saying by party affiliation NOT WHETHER they support or reject the policies of a given political party.)? Sure one can claim that such a trend means that Republicans are responsible for increasing science denialism, however, such a claim doesn't include the other 80% of the electorate which is where the statistically significant increase is coming from, not the Republicans.).

Gallup gives their self-identification rates for 2009. 36% Democrat, 37% Independent, and 27% Republican. Including leaners it's 53% Democrat and lean Democrat and 39% Republican and lean Republican. If you include independents the percentage of the denialists are: 19% Democrat, 39% Independent, and 42% Republican. If you don't include independents: 31% Democrat and 69% Republican.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: You would also need to look at the actual sample size, which is why I have stressed proportional to the entire voting electorate, not simply based on party affiliation. Here's a hypothetical case in point: Let's say for the sake of argument that 90% of Republicans reject evolution while 50% of Democrats and 60% of Independents reject it too and that the preponderance of Republicans accounts for this rejection. Let's assume that the poll in question had a total sample size of 500,000 (usually much smaller than that for temporal and logistical reasons: 100,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican 150,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Democrat 250,000 out of 500,000 polled identify themselves as a Republican If you do simple calculations of percentage multipled by the numbers who identify themselves as belonging to one poltiical party (or not affliated) or another and then multiply the percentages of those within each party who claim that they are Evolution Denialists, then you get these results: Republicans: 90,000 Democrats: 75,000 Independents: 125,000 So under no circumstances can you say that Republicans are responsible for most of the evolution denialists in this hypothetical example. An example which clearly illustrates the points I have been making. As for the Gallup poll, do you have data on the total number of those surveyed (and does the question read which party do you belong to or which party are you most sympathetic to, which should lead to different - probably statistically different results):

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: I am not changing the terms and scope of the discussion Malchus. I have said consistently that there are more Democrats and Independents combined who are science denialists than Republicans, and this trend has been substantiated by decades-long polling data from the 1970s if not before. You have to look at the entire electorate, not those belonging to a particular political party or affiliation (as in nonaligned or Independent), before you can make such grand, sweeping statements as these: 1) Republicans are definitely comprised more of science deniers than Democrats and Independents and that trend seems to be increasing over time (But is that a realistic assessment to make when no more than approximately twenty percent of the electorate identifies itself as Republican (Note that I am saying by party affiliation NOT WHETHER they support or reject the policies of a given political party.)? Sure one can claim that such a trend means that Republicans are responsible for increasing science denialism, however, such a claim doesn't include the other 80% of the electorate which is where the statistically significant increase is coming from, not the Republicans.).

Gallup gives their self-identification rates for 2009. 36% Democrat, 37% Independent, and 27% Republican. Including leaners it's 53% Democrat and lean Democrat and 39% Republican and lean Republican. If you include independents the percentage of the denialists are: 19% Democrat, 39% Independent, and 42% Republican. If you don't include independents: 31% Democrat and 69% Republican.

You did a common creationist trick here going from the actual numbers to arbitrary ones. I was talking about global warming denialism and not evolution denialism. You have all the numbers necessary to check my work. The party self-identification breakdown I quoted is over all the polling Gallup does and thus has less MoE than the breakdown of an individual poll. So, I did the calculation you mentioned but again with the real numbers and not arbitrary ones. Your demographic shift argument does apply, however, to self-identified independents. It used to be the case that independent meant moderate middle-of-the-roaders. Now there is a significant number of conservatives that self-identify as such. Gallup polling of the Tea Parties show that while they self-identify as independents they are really crypto-Republicans. http://www.gallup.com/poll/141098/tea-party-supporters-overlap-republican-base.aspx It makes sense that in addition to Republicans, Tea Party independents make a significant part of the new climate denialism. For example. Lord Monckton was a speaker at the Tax Day Tea Party rally in Washington DC. There he extolled the glories of Fox News and lead the following call and repeat with the crowd: Global warming is ... bullshit Global warming is ... ... Bullshit Global warming is ... ... BULLSHIT!!!

Dale Husband said: It's like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I'm a moderate Liberal and a non-theist.

2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists.

3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

I have felt bad about the thread hijack that's occurred between John and me but let me swerve this all back on topic. Namely, this thread is a partial explanation of why we have problems with issues of lay people understanding randomness. Namely, motivated reasoning causes a good deal of statistical innumerancy. Religiously motivated reasoning drives the innumerancy concerning randomness while politically motivated reasoning drives the innumerancy concerning political polling. Given the recent conflation of politics and religion it's hard to determine which is dominant, particularly with evolution denialism, and that's why I have swung into considering climate change because there really isn't any theological objection to accept AGW. The other thing that both kinds of denialism have in common is the merchant of doubt "think tanks" obfuscating the science.

Science Avenger said: The problem with these poll numbers is they don't measure fervence of belief, or political activism. It's not the person who muses, while answering a survey question, that evolution might have had some divine assistence, that we're concerned/talking about.

Science Avenger said: It’s the one who gets on their school board, or board of education, or a congressional seat, and fights against science, and those are overwhelmingly Republican. Denying that only shows that political partisanship can blind even the most competent scientist.

Rich Blinne said: I have felt bad about the thread hijack that's occurred between John and me but let me swerve this all back on topic. Namely, this thread is a partial explanation of why we have problems with issues of lay people understanding randomness. Namely, motivated reasoning causes a good deal of statistical innumerancy. Religiously motivated reasoning drives the innumerancy concerning randomness while politically motivated reasoning drives the innumerancy concerning political polling. Given the recent conflation of politics and religion it's hard to determine which is dominant, particularly with evolution denialism, and that's why I have swung into considering climate change because there really isn't any theological objection to accept AGW. The other thing that both kinds of denialism have in common is the merchant of doubt "think tanks" obfuscating the science.

John Kwok said: Rich, please don't be so pompously self-serving. When can I get you to admit that: 1) Evangelical Christians have been poltically active for substantial portions of American history. The recent "alliance" with the so-called Religious Right isn't the first instance. 2) You realize that the problems confronting you and your fellow Evangelicals are not just political but also religious too. 3) That Evangelical Christians did accept evolution as valid, mainstream science in the United States from the 1860s until World War I.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Rich, please don't be so pompously self-serving. When can I get you to admit that: 1) Evangelical Christians have been poltically active for substantial portions of American history. The recent "alliance" with the so-called Religious Right isn't the first instance. 2) You realize that the problems confronting you and your fellow Evangelicals are not just political but also religious too. 3) That Evangelical Christians did accept evolution as valid, mainstream science in the United States from the 1860s until World War I.

I've already done that. Google is your friend. Use it.

It’s like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I’m a moderate Liberal and a non-theist

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

John Kwok -

My last comment on the side track, which, BTW, I think was an instructive and useful one.

Seriously, John, if you're trying to argue that creationism and global warming denial aren't concentrated among US political conservatives, EVERYONE is going to point out that you're wrong.

Say that at a tea party and they'll boot you out. Say that at the RNC meeting and they'll boot you out. They'll boot you out because they WANT the creationists and global warming deniers.

Say it here, and you'll be civilly and logically rebutted.

You are a conservative who doesn't deny science, just as the Klingons are hard core right wing but don't deny science.

However, here on the planet earth, the US political ideology that is usually referred to as "conservative" has adopted science denial, on these issues (and also on issues surrounding contraception).

No-one is saying it's a 100% association. There are liberal creationists, and maybe even liberal climate denalists. There are conservatives who respect science.

It's like smoking and lung cancer. Not all smokers get it. Some non-smokers get it. If smokers become rare enough, then despite their higher risk, the absolute majority of cases could be among non-smokers (they'd have to go down to about 12-13% of the adult population for a few decades for that to happen). Nevertheless, smoking is strongly associated with lung cancer.

Far be it from me to wander into the useless quagmire of the G*dwars, but I saw a quote from Orwell about IIRC "the sort of atheist who doesn't seem to so much disbelieve in God as dislike Him personally."

Right or wrong, justifiably or not, some do come across as soreheaded.

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

Similar polling data for widespread rejection of anthropogenic global warming would have to discard the possibility that most of the AGW deniers are fellow Republicans for the very reasons I have just stated with respect to evolution denialism.

Malchus said: The complaint about the "new atheists" - certainly a misnomer - is not about credibility and never has been. The complaint is about their tone, not their information or their logic. Apparently you are not well-versed in the writings of the "New Atheists". I recommend PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens.

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

John Kwok said: Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite writers. I like him more than Frank McCourt. But that doesn't mean that I can't - and I do - reject his militant New Atheism as being politically and emotionally unwise. I also have read much of Hitchens work - some of which I do like - and I still will read Myers's blog, but it is getting to be increasingly difficult for me to separate the few gems from the dross that he often writes:

Malchus said: The complaint about the "new atheists" - certainly a misnomer - is not about credibility and never has been. The complaint is about their tone, not their information or their logic. Apparently you are not well-versed in the writings of the "New Atheists". I recommend PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens.

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

Malchus said: So agree that your choice of words, "credibility" was inaccurate.

John Kwok said: Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite writers. I like him more than Frank McCourt. But that doesn't mean that I can't - and I do - reject his militant New Atheism as being politically and emotionally unwise. I also have read much of Hitchens work - some of which I do like - and I still will read Myers's blog, but it is getting to be increasingly difficult for me to separate the few gems from the dross that he often writes:

Malchus said: The complaint about the "new atheists" - certainly a misnomer - is not about credibility and never has been. The complaint is about their tone, not their information or their logic. Apparently you are not well-versed in the writings of the "New Atheists". I recommend PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens.

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

harold said: John Kwok - My last comment on the side track, which, BTW, I think was an instructive and useful one. Seriously, John, if you're trying to argue that creationism and global warming denial aren't concentrated among US political conservatives, EVERYONE is going to point out that you're wrong. Say that at a tea party and they'll boot you out. Say that at the RNC meeting and they'll boot you out. They'll boot you out because they WANT the creationists and global warming deniers. Say it here, and you'll be civilly and logically rebutted. You are a conservative who doesn't deny science, just as the Klingons are hard core right wing but don't deny science. However, here on the planet earth, the US political ideology that is usually referred to as "conservative" has adopted science denial, on these issues (and also on issues surrounding contraception). No-one is saying it's a 100% association. There are liberal creationists, and maybe even liberal climate denalists. There are conservatives who respect science. It's like smoking and lung cancer. Not all smokers get it. Some non-smokers get it. If smokers become rare enough, then despite their higher risk, the absolute majority of cases could be among non-smokers (they'd have to go down to about 12-13% of the adult population for a few decades for that to happen). Nevertheless, smoking is strongly associated with lung cancer.

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

John Kwok said: No, I stand by my credibility observation, which, I might add, David Sloan Wilson has alluded to in his observation that "atheism is a stealth religion". As for Myers, when he writes solely on science, he will write some of the best reporting I have seen (Only Carl Zimmer, and now, Steve Matheson, do it better.):

Malchus said: So agree that your choice of words, "credibility" was inaccurate.

John Kwok said: Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite writers. I like him more than Frank McCourt. But that doesn't mean that I can't - and I do - reject his militant New Atheism as being politically and emotionally unwise. I also have read much of Hitchens work - some of which I do like - and I still will read Myers's blog, but it is getting to be increasingly difficult for me to separate the few gems from the dross that he often writes:

Malchus said: The complaint about the "new atheists" - certainly a misnomer - is not about credibility and never has been. The complaint is about their tone, not their information or their logic. Apparently you are not well-versed in the writings of the "New Atheists". I recommend PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens.

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

John Kwok said: Philosophically I am probably much closer to PZ Myers than Rich Blinne or Steve Matheson. That may come as a shock for many who are reading this now, but I have said that though I am a Deist, that operationally, I function as an Atheist. I am not, however, willing to condone the harsh rhetoric - and yes, I regard it as anti-religious bigotry - that I see all too often from Myers and his fellow New Atheists. I especially find that disturbing since I count Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Jews, Buddhists and Sunni Muslims as relatives. If nothing else, just their existence has forced me to have ample appreciation and respect for the notion of religious tolerance:

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

Malchus said: John, I would like to ask a serious question: do you actually read the posts written in response to yours? I have never made this claim, nor, I think, has anyone else. Please try to address the topic under discussion - your inability to focus and apparently random responses makes this much slower and more painful than it should be.

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

Malchus said: You just contradicted yourself. Their credibility is not in question; their tone is.

John Kwok said: No, I stand by my credibility observation, which, I might add, David Sloan Wilson has alluded to in his observation that "atheism is a stealth religion". As for Myers, when he writes solely on science, he will write some of the best reporting I have seen (Only Carl Zimmer, and now, Steve Matheson, do it better.):

Malchus said: So agree that your choice of words, "credibility" was inaccurate.

John Kwok said: Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite writers. I like him more than Frank McCourt. But that doesn't mean that I can't - and I do - reject his militant New Atheism as being politically and emotionally unwise. I also have read much of Hitchens work - some of which I do like - and I still will read Myers's blog, but it is getting to be increasingly difficult for me to separate the few gems from the dross that he often writes:

Malchus said: The complaint about the "new atheists" - certainly a misnomer - is not about credibility and never has been. The complaint is about their tone, not their information or their logic. Apparently you are not well-versed in the writings of the "New Atheists". I recommend PZ Myers or Christopher Hitchens.

John Kwok said: 2) The fact that you are responding to me now in a manner that's all too akin to quite a few of the New Atheists posting here. No wonder why you're not viewed as credible by some in the ASA if you start sounding and acting like some New Atheists. 3) Acknowledging that you had erred in claiming that the problems faced by your fellow Evangelicals are primarily poltiical, when, as I noted yesterday courtesy of your fellow Evangelical, historian Robert S. McElvaine, that there are also substantial religious issues that need addressing as well.

Malchus said: Irrelevant to the discussion, though I appreciate your feelings.

John Kwok said: Philosophically I am probably much closer to PZ Myers than Rich Blinne or Steve Matheson. That may come as a shock for many who are reading this now, but I have said that though I am a Deist, that operationally, I function as an Atheist. I am not, however, willing to condone the harsh rhetoric - and yes, I regard it as anti-religious bigotry - that I see all too often from Myers and his fellow New Atheists. I especially find that disturbing since I count Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Jews, Buddhists and Sunni Muslims as relatives. If nothing else, just their existence has forced me to have ample appreciation and respect for the notion of religious tolerance:

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

I'm not really interested in commenting further, especially when this thread has veered substantially from Steve's original content. But I would appreciate from Rich a posting of the links in which he claims to have acknowledged what I have requested of him and also a retraction of his observation that I was employing a "creationist trick".

John Kwok said: If the comments are credible and not replete with ad hominem attacks, such as the criticisms I have seen from harold and Rich, for example, I will read them. If they aren't....

Malchus said: John, I would like to ask a serious question: do you actually read the posts written in response to yours? I have never made this claim, nor, I think, has anyone else. Please try to address the topic under discussion - your inability to focus and apparently random responses makes this much slower and more painful than it should be.

John Kwok said: Malchus, I am not trying to exonerate them. But if you are going to leap from that conclusion to contend that since Republicans reject global warming and biological evolution, then they are the ones numerically most prevalent in any polling result that shows that a majority of Americans are both global warming and evolution deniers, then your conclusion is statistically untenable. More than once I have condemned fellow Republicans and Conservatives for rejecting the well-established scientific data which corroborates anthropogenic global warming. And I will keep doing it as long as many in both political camps still insist that it's unproven science:

Malchus said: But John, the claim to be addressed is that the majority of Republicans/conservatives reject global warming (and apparently science in general). That is the point under discussion. I recognize that you wish to exonerate your "side" of the discussion, but it is impossible.

John Kwok said: Harold, While you have made some excellent points which I do find myself in agreement with, I disagree with a couple of your conclusions:

harold said: I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups".

If mostly Republicans and Conservatives were the ones mostly likely to reject the well-established fact of anthropogenic global warming while their Democratic and Independent counterparts did, then surely you would see a majority recognizing the fact of anthropogenic global warming. I'm not interested in speculating on the rationale here. But it needs to be stated again that there is a majority of Americans who reject it and most of them are not Republicans. Again, my hypothetical example with respect to evolution denialism could be applied as well toward anthropogenic global warming. Last month, a new poll was issued which seems to support my contentions insofar that most Americans who are evolution denialists are not Republicans: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 To quote from the NCSE summary: "In the United States, there was no statement commanding the assent of the majority of respondents: 35% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 47% preferred the creationism statement, with 18% unsure. In Canada and Great Britain, however, evolution was the majority view. In Canada, 61% of respondents preferred the evolution statement and 24% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure. In Great Britain, 68% of respondents preferred the evolution statement, and 16% preferred the creationism statement, with 15% unsure." Now even if one were to contend - and rather generously I might add - that self-identified Republicans were now definitely at least one third of the American voting population, it doesn't account for a relatively high rejection of evolution here in the United States (in comparison to both Canada and the United Kingdom) if one were to assume that most Democrats and Independents were not evolution denialists. If evolution denialism was confined almost exclusively to my fellow Republicans, then one would expect to see a much greater degree of acceptance of evolution here in the United States. You don't.

Rich -

As a postscript on your comment regarding the defeat of Congressional RINOS in the 2006 election, you should bear in mind that public mood was against both Bush and the Republicans that year for a variety of reasons, including Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. To blame anti-RINO party loyalists for RINO defeats is valid if and only if it could be shown that, in the vast majority of cases, anti-RINO party
loyalists were responsible for defeating RINOS in local and state primary challenges. If, however, most RINOS lost their seats during the November 2006 election, then their defeats owe more to anti-Bush and anti-Republican sentiment, NOT to anti-RINO party loyalists. That's why my answer to your comment was both Yes and No.

Again, I would appreciate the posting of links to your comments affirming my three key points stated earlier today and a retraction of your "creationist trick" remark. If these aren't forthcoming, then it's hypocritical of you to condemn New Atheists and then use their very tactics against me here.

What I am trying to tease out is which of the two factors in denialism, religion and politics, is dominant. Just because I say that politics drives denialism is not to deny that religion does also. Nor does my saying that historically there are periods in evangelical history where they retreated from politics is to say that there are not others where they advanced.

The problem with evangelicals is when they are engaged in politics – unlike Catholics – don’t have a coherent political philosophy. So, in one context evangelicals are libertarian and in another they are authoritarian.

This leaves them prone to political manipulation from those who do have a thought out political agenda such as corporate-sponsored think tanks. The fact you see interlocking boards and funding between DI and think tanks like this should not be surprising.

"emotionally unwise

leave it to the kwokster to come up with that one.

Just because I say that politics drives denialism is not to deny that religion does also.

psychology drives both. I suggest spending your investigative time there would be productive, if you are seeking explanations of behavior.

There are a number of New Atheist posters here who take special pride in declaring that my comments are meaningless inane

*smiles*

No, I stand by my credibility observation, which, I might add, David Sloan Wilson has alluded to in his observation that "atheism is a stealth religion".

John Kwok said: Rich - As a postscript on your comment regarding the defeat of Congressional RINOS in the 2006 election, you should bear in mind that public mood was against both Bush and the Republicans that year for a variety of reasons, including Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. To blame anti-RINO party loyalists for RINO defeats is valid if and only if it could be shown that, in the vast majority of cases, anti-RINO party loyalists were responsible for defeating RINOS in local and state primary challenges. If, however, most RINOS lost their seats during the November 2006 election, then their defeats owe more to anti-Bush and anti-Republican sentiment, NOT to anti-RINO party loyalists. That's why my answer to your comment was both Yes and No. Again, I would appreciate the posting of links to your comments affirming my three key points stated earlier today and a retraction of your "creationist trick" remark. If these aren't forthcoming, then it's hypocritical of you to condemn New Atheists and then use their very tactics against me here.

harold said: Dale Husband -

It’s like you either follow the party line (Republicans are stupid and/or evil and atheism is merely lacking belief in God) or you get insulted from the ultra-liberal and New Atheist fanatics. I find that appalling even though I’m a moderate Liberal and a non-theist

One one hand, I strongly agree, to the extent that I have literally almost made the same comment myself multiple times. However, it is not really applicable here. To summarize what has been going on - Richard Blinne, Frank J, and I pointed out that the vast majority of efforts to use the legislative process to put creationism into public school science classes, at all levels of government, are by Republicans/conservatives. John Kwok made the entirely correct but not logically relevant points that 1) some conservatives are strong defenders of science and 2) some liberals may express personal creationist attitudes. I noted out that JK's points, although correct, were not logical rebuttals to the public record facts about the origin of creationist legislation attempts. I also noted that mere personal expression, which is harmless and legal, should not be conflated with efforts to pass rights-violating legislation. JK eventually agreed, but argued (possibly correctly, for all I know), that "new atheists" assume that all conservatives are creationists, which, if true, would be an error on the part of "new atheists". Richard Blinne then pointed out that denial of human contribution to climate change is much more frequent among self-identified Republicans. John Kwok responded to that with irrelevant efforts to claim that the absolute number of non-Republican global warming deniers is greater than the number of Republican global warming deniers. Essentially, Richard made the equivalent argument of noting "A high proportion of Spartans are violent", and John is trying to argue the equivalent of "since Spartans are relatively rare, most of the violent people in the world are not Spartan, even though violence is statistically less frequent among other groups". Clearly, John Kwok's point is not a rebuttal to Richard Blinne's point. I'm not even sure John Kwok's point is factually correct, but even if it is, it isn't a logical rebuttal. As we all know, JK enjoys mixing his solid comments on science with, at a minimum, Klingonian political stances and over-the-top verbal feuding, particularly with PZ Myers and anyone perceived to be associated with PZ Myers, which explains most of the rest of the thread.

Sorry Rich, but it isn't a creationist trick. I could have used the same example for anthropogenic global warming as I noted earlier. However, I did not have the polling data handy, while I did with regards to public acceptance of evolution.

If you can't retract that, then I will treat with ample skepticism any further condemnation from you regarding New Atheists simply for employing there same rhetoric.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Rich - As a postscript on your comment regarding the defeat of Congressional RINOS in the 2006 election, you should bear in mind that public mood was against both Bush and the Republicans that year for a variety of reasons, including Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. To blame anti-RINO party loyalists for RINO defeats is valid if and only if it could be shown that, in the vast majority of cases, anti-RINO party loyalists were responsible for defeating RINOS in local and state primary challenges. If, however, most RINOS lost their seats during the November 2006 election, then their defeats owe more to anti-Bush and anti-Republican sentiment, NOT to anti-RINO party loyalists. That's why my answer to your comment was both Yes and No. Again, I would appreciate the posting of links to your comments affirming my three key points stated earlier today and a retraction of your "creationist trick" remark. If these aren't forthcoming, then it's hypocritical of you to condemn New Atheists and then use their very tactics against me here.

If you were paying attention just here you would know that I didn't deny any of the historical points made. For example, you noted that evangelicals did not deny evolution in the 19th century but we discussed my dating YEC to the 1960s. My noting the anti-political slant is for the time period after the rise of the so-called social gospel until the rise of the Religous Right and does not contradict the earlier activism which was more social than political. Going back even further note that Jefferson was writing the Danbury Baptists and most likely quoting Roger Williams. The Baptists were upset about the established Congregationalist church in CT since they didn't need to rewrite their constitution like some of the other colonies. The bottom line is that what I said and what you quoted don't contradict each other. All the conclusions you quoted sound pretty good to me and comports with my understanding of evangelical history. I don't disagree with them. Where I do disagree is where it has any relevance to what we are discussing. For the record, I stipulate everything you quoted from those historians. So what? As for my comment about a creationist trick, I stand by it. You were interested in the relative make up of science denialists by party affiliation. So, I looked up Gallup's demographic breakdown for 2009 and calculated it from there. You replied with made up data which is a trick used by creationists like when Michael Behe did in EoE when he made up SNP mutation rates in Malaria parasites to prove evolution was "impossible". I didn't call you a creationist but if you are going to use similar techniques I'm going to call you on it. Your comments about 2006 is bringing out my inner wonk. There really wasn't much the Republicans could do to get past the wave election. Moderates were more vulnerable because they were in swing districts. Once they were gone, things just got crazier and crazier. The only way to advance was to become more and more extreme. One fact you didn't mentioned was all the Republican corruption suppressed evangelical turnout. (The opposite effect with Democratic corruption may happen this year.) What I heard in the caucuses is telling, though. 2006 we need to be more pure because in 2004 the election was won by GOTV. 2008 double down. 2010 triple down. In 2006, there was a large diversity of views. 2008 in the Spring all but Fred Thompson had sane climate policy. As a caucus chair I supported John McCain for his stand w.r.t. science. In 2010 anybody that was the least bit "green" was the enemy. Something really really strange happened on the way to the 2008 election. I think Harold may have something. The violent rhetoric and overt racism at the Palin rallies presaged the whole Tea Party thing and the Republican party became completly unhinged. The people who sought to scare my friends succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations. Now that it's proceded from worry, to fear, to paranoia I don't think anyone knows where this will lead. All throughout the Bush Administration we were instructed to pray for our leaders. If the New Atheist folk will pardon my superstition for a moment, I've never been more motivated to pray for my President and the brave men and women in the Secret Service.

John Kwok said: Sorry Rich, but it isn't a creationist trick. I could have used the same example for anthropogenic global warming as I noted earlier. However, I did not have the polling data handy, while I did with regards to public acceptance of evolution. If you can't retract that, then I will treat with ample skepticism any further condemnation from you regarding New Atheists simply for employing there same rhetoric.

harold said: Richard Blinne - Not only do I find myself in agreement with you, but it was my recognition of the political aspects of creationism - and the extremely high correlation between it and the seemingly unrelated issues of HIV denialism and climate denialism is one thing among many that tipped me off - that helped me to understand and predict religious behavior. Prior to that, I had assumed that creationists were well-meaing souls trying to make sense of their place in the universe, and interested in the interaction between the traditional claims of their faith and modern science, or some such thing.

What I am trying to tease out is which of the two factors in denialism, religion and politics, is dominant. Just because I say that politics drives denialism is not to deny that religion does also. Nor does my saying that historically there are periods in evangelical history where they retreated from politics is to say that there are not others where they advanced.

My hypothesis, and it is only a hypothesis, is that as traditional church-going breaks down, people gravitate toward religious claims that support their pre-existing biases. The biases are then further reinforced. I also hypothesize that the religious right invented itself/was invented, to some degree, as a backlash against mainstream liberal Protestant and Catholic support for desegregation during the civil rights era. Of course, that's just my hypothesis.

The problem with evangelicals is when they are engaged in politics – unlike Catholics – don’t have a coherent political philosophy. So, in one context evangelicals are libertarian and in another they are authoritarian.

This may not be so mysterious. The current right wing orthodoxy seems to be to use libertarian cant when advancing fiscal or regulatory policy that net benefits only the very, very well-off, while using authoritarian tactics that target (depending on the flavor of the day) gays, ethnic minorities, immigrants, "terrorists" (but not violent white right wing extremists), "hippies", "feminists", and other "outsiders" to capture the votes of many who don't benefit, to put it mildly from the fiscal policy. (Fox News is on a 24/7 "anti-feminist pro-family" propaganda blast right now, with the ostensible underlying theme being the demonization of entertainer Jennifer Aniston for a mildly favorable comment she made about in vitro fertilization. You can't make this up, and they are so successful at getting the message out there that I know about this, even though I really, really wish I didn't.) It is confusing if perceived as an attempted coherent ideology, but very easy to understand when perceived as a cynical effort to manipulate the biases and resentments of the white working and middle class, while secretly advancing the interests of the very rich. An extremely helpful aspect of American culture is that Americans are astounding, almost suspiciously ignorant of basic financial realities when this is tested in surveys http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/26/pf/financial_illiteracy/index.htm. Yet even more than is the case with biological evolution, Americans, especially American males, are convinced that they are magically financial geniuses. This undoubtedly makes the reception for simpleton slogans that appeal to personal greed much more positive than it would otherwise be. The last "liberal Republicans" may have been spotted in 2006 but the species was desperately endangered and found only in special preserves long before that. And they weren't reproducing, either.

This leaves them prone to political manipulation from those who do have a thought out political agenda such as corporate-sponsored think tanks. The fact you see interlocking boards and funding between DI and think tanks like this should not be surprising.

Of course, if the think tanks actually were "libertarian", rather than merely being bastions of corrupt spinners of propoganda to serve the short term financial interests of their funders, it would be astounding. But you're right, it isn't surprising.

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Steve Matheson: "Randomness. Shakespeare referred to it. The Bible talks about it. People love to bicker about what it really is, or whether it truly exists. And creationists, especially those of the ID subspecies, consider it a fighting word. A random process, many would say, is a process that doesn't involve God, or direction, or intention, or whatever it is that the culture warriors of the Discovery Institute are so foolishly fighting for. Ah, but it's not just the propagandists of design-think who can mistakenly assume that an ordered process is "directed." Consider this tale of a random process being put to surprising use during vertebrate embryonic development."

Question: IF randomness does not correspond to absence of Intelligent involvement, then what adjective or adjectives do?

Ray Martinez

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Every time I try to read the Ray troll, I feel like I'm listenting to the Bizarro Superman.

It's not habit-forming.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

Rich Blinne said: Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

John Kwok said: If the comments are credible and not replete with ad hominem attacks, such as the criticisms I have seen from harold and Rich, for example, I will read them. If they aren't....

John Kwok said: Independents who say they are Republican-leaning are not the same as Republicans. Moreover, the polling data I have cited are part of decades-long polling trends, even when most independents identified themselves as Democratic-leaning. Yet another instance where you are willing to bear false witness against Christ merely to "prove" that most evolution denialists are Republicans. Time to repent Rich:

Rich Blinne said: Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

John Kwok said: Okay Rich, assuming what you said is true, then explain this poll result: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html In which the USA is ranked almost dead last, just above Turkey in acceptance of evolution. Not to mention the polling data I cited yesterday from the National Center for Science Education's website: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 For yours - and I presume Gallup's contention to be true - then at least 65% of those responding to the survey should be self-identified as Republicans. But they are not. So if the percentage of Republicans in the voting population now may be close to one-third, then how does one conclude that of those who are evolution deniers, approximately two-thirds just happen to be Republicans? This isn't complex mathematics of the kind in which you need to calculate second order differential equations or perform a factor analysis on the data. Sorry, Rich, the numbers just don't add up. IMHO by repeating your canard that most American evolution deniers are Republicans - when two polls for which I provide actual links to (unlike you) demonstrate that they don't - you are bearing false witness against Christ and IMHO are no better than the New Atheist critics who heap scorn upon you and your fellow Evangelical Christians:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

Rich Blinne said:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

I didn't take into account the 10% of the population that were true independents and didn't lean either way. This gives us a breakdown of evolution denialists as follows: Republicans and Republican Leaners: 60% Democrats and Democratic Leaners: 35% Independents: 6% The demographics when the poll was taken was R/I/D 27/38/34 and R/D with leaners was 41/49. 69% of Republicans were denialists, 37% of Independents, and 40% of Democrats.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Okay Rich, assuming what you said is true, then explain this poll result: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html In which the USA is ranked almost dead last, just above Turkey in acceptance of evolution. Not to mention the polling data I cited yesterday from the National Center for Science Education's website: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 For yours - and I presume Gallup's contention to be true - then at least 65% of those responding to the survey should be self-identified as Republicans. But they are not. So if the percentage of Republicans in the voting population now may be close to one-third, then how does one conclude that of those who are evolution deniers, approximately two-thirds just happen to be Republicans? This isn't complex mathematics of the kind in which you need to calculate second order differential equations or perform a factor analysis on the data. Sorry, Rich, the numbers just don't add up. IMHO by repeating your canard that most American evolution deniers are Republicans - when two polls for which I provide actual links to (unlike you) demonstrate that they don't - you are bearing false witness against Christ and IMHO are no better than the New Atheist critics who heap scorn upon you and your fellow Evangelical Christians:

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Agreed, but only to a point. Both harold and Science Avenger have ignored my simple, but logically correct, math demonstrating that, contrary to expectations, Republicans do not comprise most of the evolution denialists in the country. As I noted earlier, if they were the most important block - proportionally speaking - relative to the entire American voting population, then we shoould have seen greater acceptance of biological evolution as valid science by Americans quite some time ago. Instead, polling data from the 1970s to the prssent still demonstrate that a clear majority of Americans do not accept as valid science, biological evolution. Since Republicans comprise a minority of the voting population, then it must be obvious that they, themselves, are not entirely responsible for this persistent trend in evolution denialism; the bulk of those who reject biological evolution are Democrats and Independents:

Dale Husband said: Thanks to you and Science Avenger for explaining things. I just found all the mocking of Kwok to be decending to a rediculous level, regardless of the cause. But your points are valid too.

Gallup not only keeps track of the Republican/Democratic/Indpendent statistics they also track leaners. In May 2007 when then did their survey of evolution and party affiliation they noted that 60% of independents leaned Republican. Taking this into account to get around John's dilution trick and you come up with 65% of evolution deniers are Republicans or Republican leaning Independents.

John, Rich's calculations are correct, and are consistent with the polling data reported by Gallup. Treating independents as a separate class (ignoring "leaning"), it's straightforward to calculate the following: Republicans who accept evolution: 8.1% of the population Independents who accept evolution: 23.2% of the population Democrats who accept evolution: 19.4 % of the population ** Total support for evolution: 51% of the population Republicans who deny evolution: 18.4% of the population Independents who deny evolution: 14.1% of the population Democrats who deny evolution: 13.6% of the population ** Total denial of evolution: 46% of the population ** No opinion/not sure (by difference): 3% of the population These back-calculated results are quite consistent with the overall result reported in the poll (49% accept evolution, 48% deny evolution, 2% not sure, 3% margin of error). If you assume the independents break 60% Republican, 10% independent, 30% Democrat but that their stance on evolution is independent of their leaning (an assumption more favorable to your position than to Rich's), you get Rich's result -- the majority of evolution deniers are Republican or Republican-leaning. Note also that the ratio of evolution acceptors to evolution deniers is about 1.1, very consistent with the chart you linked to -- the difference is in the "undecided" category in the poll conduction for the Science article.

Ray Martinez said: Question: IF randomness does not correspond to absence of Intelligent involvement, then what adjective or adjectives do?

John Kwok said: Can you provide me a link to the Gallup Poll results please? It would give me the opportunity to compare and to contrast their poll with the others I have cited. Thanks:

Mutation and genetic drift involve individual random events, but the net effect is to increase the amount of variety in any given population.

Selection effects reduce the amount of variety in a population, and contingent on conditions at the time - i.e., not random.

Another way to look at it is to note that an evolving gene pool has some of the attributes we associate with intelligence - it tries new things similar to what it has already, and it keeps a record of which of those things worked better than the others.

Henry J said: Another way to look at it is to note that an evolving gene pool has some of the attributes we associate with intelligence - it tries new things similar to what it has already, and it keeps a record of which of those things worked better than the others.

Sure, but that's a rather grim way of putting it! ;)

SWT said: John, Rich's calculations are correct, and are consistent with the polling data reported by Gallup.

Henry J said: Sure, but that's a rather grim way of putting it! ;)

Global Warming: Here We Go Again Dave S. The Discovery Institute is backing public school related legislation in Ohio calling for teaching the controversy in evolution and global warming. By naming global warming evolution isn’t getting “singled out” so this weakens the argument that teaching criticisms of consensus science is religiously inspired. Of course the usual suspects at the Panda’s Thumb still claim the global warming anti-alarmists are religiously inspired. Give me a break. The global warming issue is about economics not religion.

Rich, I'd appreciate it if you'd clarify something for me: do you make a distinction between evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists? (If you've already done this, I apologize for the redundant question.)

SWT said: Rich, I'd appreciate it if you'd clarify something for me: do you make a distinction between evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists? (If you've already done this, I apologize for the redundant question.)

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Can you provide me a link to the Gallup Poll results please? It would give me the opportunity to compare and to contrast their poll with the others I have cited. Thanks:

Link for party affiliation Link for evolution and party affiliation. I addressed the 2006 data explicitly in my previous post on this thread. It is consistent with the 2007 Rich and I have been working with.

Rich Blinne said: If you don't think that this is not about the libertarian think tanks note this from 2006: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/global-warming-here-we-go-again/

Global Warming: Here We Go Again Dave S. The Discovery Institute is backing public school related legislation in Ohio calling for teaching the controversy in evolution and global warming. By naming global warming evolution isn’t getting “singled out” so this weakens the argument that teaching criticisms of consensus science is religiously inspired. Of course the usual suspects at the Panda’s Thumb still claim the global warming anti-alarmists are religiously inspired. Give me a break. The global warming issue is about economics not religion.

Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, sometimes DI tells the truth.

Rich Blinne said: If you contrast evangelicals with other more longstanding Christian traditions you get the sense -- and you would be right -- that we aren't quite sure what we are going to be when we grow up.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Can you provide me a link to the Gallup Poll results please? It would give me the opportunity to compare and to contrast their poll with the others I have cited. Thanks:

Link for party affiliation Link for evolution and party affiliation. I addressed the 2006 data explicitly in my previous post on this thread. It is consistent with the 2007 Rich and I have been working with.

Rich Blinne said: There are three undeniable things I want to stipulate that may help John out here: 1. Evolution denialism has been static for decades.

Rich Blinne said: 2. When asked why people are evolution deniers they give reasons that are predominately religious and not political.

Rich Blinne said: 3. With respect to evolution denialism the reason it tracks Republicans is because in the early 21st Century evangelicals have been uniformly Republican and heavily recruited by the Republicans. (More on this later.) Thus, evangelicals and Republicans are degenerate co-factors here.

Rich, thanks for the clarification. In general, you're using the terms pretty much as I do, although I tend to think of Christian fundamentalists in terms of the "five fundamentals." I wasn't familiar with the term "neo-evangelical," so thanks for educating me.

John Kwok said: Gallup's polling methodology is flawed. You need proportional representation of the entire voting population before you can assert that more Republicans than Democrats and Independents are Evolution Denialists. As I noted in my hypothetical example from yesterday - which Rich accused me as an example of a "creationist trick" - you could still have 90% of Republicans reject Evolution, but their numbers would still be outweighed by more Democrats and Independents combined who are Evolution Denialists. Under a true, unbiased, sample of proportional representation, it is doubtful that one could say that most Evolution Denialists are Republicans. Even the Gallup Polling data, as flawed as it is, implies that, when it notes that slightly more than 50% of Americans recognize evolution as valid science. Why? No more than one third of the electorate is Republican. Assuming that 90% of that one third rejects Evolution, you have a sample size which indicates that approximately 27% of the 49% who are Evolution Denialists are Republicans (If you want to treat the sample only as if it was of Evolution Denialists only, then the adjusted percentage would be closer to 60%. It still does not demonstrate that an overwhelming number of Evolution Denialists are Republicans.). The rest of the population must, therefore, come from Democrats and Independents. The more accurate data is from the poll reported by NCSE last month comparing public acceptance of evolution in USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. There at least they did a better job in accounting for demographic biases:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Gallup's polling methodology is flawed. You need proportional representation of the entire voting population before you can assert that more Republicans than Democrats and Independents are Evolution Denialists. As I noted in my hypothetical example from yesterday - which Rich accused me as an example of a "creationist trick" - you could still have 90% of Republicans reject Evolution, but their numbers would still be outweighed by more Democrats and Independents combined who are Evolution Denialists. Under a true, unbiased, sample of proportional representation, it is doubtful that one could say that most Evolution Denialists are Republicans. Even the Gallup Polling data, as flawed as it is, implies that, when it notes that slightly more than 50% of Americans recognize evolution as valid science. Why? No more than one third of the electorate is Republican. Assuming that 90% of that one third rejects Evolution, you have a sample size which indicates that approximately 27% of the 49% who are Evolution Denialists are Republicans (If you want to treat the sample only as if it was of Evolution Denialists only, then the adjusted percentage would be closer to 60%. It still does not demonstrate that an overwhelming number of Evolution Denialists are Republicans.). The rest of the population must, therefore, come from Democrats and Independents. The more accurate data is from the poll reported by NCSE last month comparing public acceptance of evolution in USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. There at least they did a better job in accounting for demographic biases:

John, I'm not sure why you're having trouble understanding or accepting this, or why you need to present a hypothetical when there's actual data available. Gallup polled, at random, 1007 people. Unless you have some evidence of systematic bias, this will be representative of the population at large. These people self-identified as Republicans (about 272), independents (about 383), Democrats (about 342), or preferred not to say (about 10). (I estimated the numbers based on the results of the poll completed a few weeks earlier.) Of the (estimated) 272 Republicans, 82 accepted evolution, 185 denied evolution, and 5 didn't indicate a preference. Of the (estimated) 383 independents, 233 accepted evolution, 142 denied evolution, and 8 didn't indicate a preference. Of the (estimated) 343 Democrates, 195 accepted evolution, 140 denied evolution, and 7 didn't indicate a preference. It's also clear that Republicans form a plurality (but not a majority) of evolution deniers despite being the smallest identifiable group in the sample. Rich made an additional point that merits consideration. Our system effectively forces the majority of independents to go with either the Republicans or the Democrats. If he's correct in asserting that indpendents split 60% Republican-leaning, 10% truly indeependent, and 30% democratic. This means that of the estimated 487 evolution deniers in the sample, about 270 were Republican or Republican-leaning ... that's about 55%.

If Rich thinks he can bear false witness against Christ by asserting that Republicans are more responsible for the decades-long trend in American evolution denialism (when even the latest Gallup Poll rejects this) and engaging in New Atheist attacks on his critics, I strongly doubt whether such conduct would be well received by his fellow ASA members. Maybe a prominent Liberal Evangelical like Jim Wallis might endorse Rich's recent behavior, but I strongly suspect that such an endorsement would be, quite literally, a voice in the wilderness.

I would appreciate an apology from Rich and a retraction of his "creationist trick" remark by tomorrow. Otherwise, I will regard him as someone who is morally and ethically no better than the New Atheists he has condemned here.

SWT said: It's also clear that Republicans form a plurality (but not a majority) of evolution deniers despite being the smallest identifiable group in the sample.

John Kwok said: SWT - You can't even claim this:

SWT said: It's also clear that Republicans form a plurality (but not a majority) of evolution deniers despite being the smallest identifiable group in the sample.

Based on this definition of plurality that I obtained here, the definitions which would be most applicable do not support your usage of the word: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/plurality 4. a. In a contest of more than two choices, the number of votes cast for the winning choice if this number is not more than one half of the total votes cast. b. The number by which the vote of the winning choice in such a contest exceeds that of the closest opponent. 5. The larger or greater part. Under each of these definitions of plurality then, you can't claim that Republican rejectionism of evolution denialism represents a plurality...

...if you are going to contend that American evolution denialism is primarily the fault of my fellow Republicans and conservatives, then you better have the numbers and percentages which support that.

Cubist said:

John Kwok said: SWT - You can't even claim this:

SWT said: It's also clear that Republicans form a plurality (but not a majority) of evolution deniers despite being the smallest identifiable group in the sample.

Based on this definition of plurality that I obtained here, the definitions which would be most applicable do not support your usage of the word: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/plurality 4. a. In a contest of more than two choices, the number of votes cast for the winning choice if this number is not more than one half of the total votes cast. b. The number by which the vote of the winning choice in such a contest exceeds that of the closest opponent. 5. The larger or greater part. Under each of these definitions of plurality then, you can't claim that Republican rejectionism of evolution denialism represents a plurality...

"do not support your usage"? Give me a fucking break, Kwok. According to SWT's figures, the single largest group of evolution-deniers damn well are Republicans, hence the "number of votes cast for the winning choice if this number is not more than one half of the total votes cast" definition of plurality damn well does apply.

...if you are going to contend that American evolution denialism is primarily the fault of my fellow Republicans and conservatives, then you better have the numbers and percentages which support that.

Well, SWT does have the numbers to back up such a claim. Your intransigent refusal to acknowledge the validity of said figures, does not in any way constitute a refutation of said figures' validity. It's really quite simple, Kwok: Evolution-denial is primarily driven by a specific flavor of Christian belief, and the Republican party is the primary political 'home base' of those religiously-driven evolution-deniers. Therefore, as a matter of practical fact, the Republican party bloody well is more to blame than any other for whatever political successes evolution-denial has managed to achieve in recent decades. You don't like hearing that? How sad. What are you doing to take the Republican party back from the Christianist wackoes who've hijacked the GOP and made it the Party Of Shoving Jesus Down EVERYBODY'S Throat?

You can go fuck yourself Cubist. I wrote a post in which I reminded readers that I will continue condemning fellow Republicans and Conservatives who reject evolution as the sound, highly corrobated, scientific fact that it is (I even suggested that there is substantially more proof for biological evolution than there is for string theory in physics.) and you still insisted on writing your fucking bullshit.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Rich, please don't be so pompously self-serving. When can I get you to admit that: 1) Evangelical Christians have been poltically active for substantial portions of American history. The recent "alliance" with the so-called Religious Right isn't the first instance. 2) You realize that the problems confronting you and your fellow Evangelicals are not just political but also religious too. 3) That Evangelical Christians did accept evolution as valid, mainstream science in the United States from the 1860s until World War I.

I've already done that. Google is your friend. Use it.

SWT said: John, I'm not sure why ... you need to present a hypothetical when there's actual data available.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Rich, please don't be so pompously self-serving. When can I get you to admit that: 1) Evangelical Christians have been poltically active for substantial portions of American history. The recent "alliance" with the so-called Religious Right isn't the first instance. 2) You realize that the problems confronting you and your fellow Evangelicals are not just political but also religious too. 3) That Evangelical Christians did accept evolution as valid, mainstream science in the United States from the 1860s until World War I.

I've already done that. Google is your friend. Use it.

Scienceavenger said:

SWT said: John, I'm not sure why ... you need to present a hypothetical when there's actual data available.

Obviously because the actual data (for which his skills in interpreting are right up there with Sal Cordova's) doesn't give him the answer he wants. Partisanship is an ugly thing.

John Kwok said: SWT - Do me a favor and just provied me with the links please to the Gallup results. I would still contend that the Gallup results are flawed in the sense that the Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll sampled a larger, more geographically, diverse population than did Gallup. Suggest you and Rich take a look at the results here: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708

Incidentally the Angus Reid results are more consistent with polling data I have seen for decades here in the United States than what I have seen in the recent Gallup Poll. Ideally both should have sampled from a more larger population, but I like Angus since it opted to look at both Canada and the United States by different geographic regions.

As for Gallup, given the numbers you have provided, it did not in any sense do a proportional poll in which the number of Evolution Denialists was broken down by party affiliation. Had it done so, based on these very numbers, there would have been more Democrats and Independents than Republicans who are evolution denialists. Based on these numbers alone, you can't assert that Evolution Denialism here in the United States is due primarily to Republicans. According to the data provided from the Gallup result: Of those who deny evolution, the total is broken down as follows: 185 Republicans 140 Democrats 142 Independents So where does it say in these numbers that Rich can conclude that American evolution denialism is the fault of Republicans and other conservatives, including libertarians? It doesn't. instead, it does support my observation that most Evolution Denialists here in the United States are not Republicans.

And your defense of Rich does not give him the right to use a New Atheist cheap trick on me by claiming that my hypothetical example for evolution denialism was a "creationist trick". He owes me both a retraction and an apology, and I expect both immediately. Otherwise, I will inform his ASA colleagues of his absurd behavior here at Panda's Thumb and explain that such conduct strongly indicates he is not qualified to persuade other ASA members who are sympathetic to the DI that their sympathies are greatly mistaken. Rich may be an Evangelical, but he is one more sympathetic to liberals than to conservatives, while claiming to be politically neutral and objective.

John Kwok said: SWT - Do me a favor and just provied me with the links please to the Gallup results.

I would still contend that the Gallup results are flawed in the sense that the Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll sampled a larger, more geographically, diverse population than did Gallup. Suggest you and Rich take a look at the results here: http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/polling-evolution-three-countries-005708 Incidentally the Angus Reid results are more consistent with polling data I have seen for decades here in the United States than what I have seen in the recent Gallup Poll. Ideally both should have sampled from a more larger population, but I like Angus since it opted to look at both Canada and the United States by different geographic regions.

As for Gallup, given the numbers you have provided, it did not in any sense do a proportional poll in which the number of Evolution Denialists was broken down by party affiliation.

Had it done so, based on these very numbers, there would have been more Democrats and Independents than Republicans who are evolution denialists.

Based on these numbers alone, you can't assert that Evolution Denialism here in the United States is due primarily to Republicans. According to the data provided from the Gallup result: Of those who deny evolution, the total is broken down as follows: 185 Republicans 140 Democrats 142 Independents So where does it say in these numbers that Rich can conclude that American evolution denialism is the fault of Republicans and other conservatives, including libertarians? It doesn't. instead, it does support my observation that most Evolution Denialists here in the United States are not Republicans.

Rich Blinne said: Pro science activists should take note of this political dimension of the problem. Outreach to evangelical churches is possible but if they are heavily tied into right-wing politics you might as well as Jesus said "shake the dust off your sandals and let your peace return to you". For pro-science evangelicals it's important for us to note that this love affair with right-wing politics hurts our churches. Our children are leaving in droves because of it. We need to be the ones who do it because our brothers and sisters are naturally suspicious of outsiders due to the poisoning of the well done by the right. Note Casey Luskin's latest strategy of demonizing theistic evolutionists as another "denomination". I mean how dare they promote theism and atheistic materialism (simultaneously!) in the classroom. The highest loyalty is not to God or even Scripture but to anti-science political ideology. Once evangelicals of good will realize that ID and pro-corporate libertarianism is making an idol some may come around. But, it will take patience and persistence on our part.

John Kwok said: I suspect that neither Rich nor I think that anti-evolution is central to traditional conservative thought. I know I don't, and I remain puzzled as to why you seem to think that he has asserted anything like that.

No, SWT you did not post me the link(s) to the Gallup Poll. I quoted the figures you cited, but not the actual link itself:

"I already did this, you even quoted the post where I did so."

But, unlike, the Gallup Poll, the Angus Poll did look at the data demographically from regions in both the United States and Canada.:

"The Angus Reid poll surveyed 1002 Americans, the Gallup poll surveyed 1007 Americans. However, the Gallup poll used a randomly selected national sample while Angus Reid used people who opted in to the survey through 'Springboard America'. Since Angus Reid used people who self selected to participate in surveys, their sample is potentially less random than Gallup sample. The Gallup methodology is, IMO, better for producing a representative random sample of the population."

If as you contend - and I am in agreement here - that this is a trivial exercise, then how can you contend that most Evolution Denialists are Republicans (or that they represent a plurality) when the data from the Gallup Poll points otherwise:

"It is a trivial exercise to estimate the number of people in the sample of each party affiliation once you know the sample size and proportions, although you do need to correct for the fact that the number of people should be an integer. Once you've estimated the number of people of each affiliated, it is again a trivial exercise to estimate the number of people who are evolution deniers. Once you have estimated the number of evolution deniers of each affiliation, it is again trivial to estimate the relative contribution of each group. Do the arithmetic."

I did the arithmetic, and I even invoked the hypothetical example just to demonstrate how simple the arithmetic is.
But apparently Rich hasn't been convinced, since he has been all but accusing Republicans and Conservatives, especially Libertarians, of being responsible for rampant evolution denial in the United States:

"That is not in dispute. That is, in fact, clear from the numbers I presented."

My style of reasoning is similar to what Eugenie Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education, said in a letter that was written more than a decade ago as noted here:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/scottreply.htm

I am going to quote what I think is the relevant paragraph (Genie, my apologies if you see this and believe I am deliberately quote mining. I can assure you that I am not.):

"NCSE began receiving reports of letters to the editor and op-ed pieces chastising NABT for putting 'antireligious' wording into its statement. I believe many of these sprang from the popularity of works by antievolutionist lawyer Phillip Johnson, which are read by large numbers of people. But I think it is important to realize that the negative reaction to the NABT’s statement was not limited to members of the 'religious right', or 'fundamentalists.' The percentage of Americans who are evangelical, 'born again' or conservative Christians is approximately 25% - 30%, according to a number of polls considered reliable. The percentage of Americans rejecting evolution has hovered consistently in the high 40's (47% in Gallup’s 1996 poll.) Clearly, it’s not just conservative Christians who reject evolution: Johnson and other antievolutionists can find much support from 'mainline' or 'moderate' Christians as well."

If one were to substitute "Republican" for "evangelical", or
born again", you would get a similar result, and indeed, you do, even in the latest Gallup Poll. Under no circumstances can one blame exclusively Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians for a persistent long-term trend in evolution denialism, which, BTW, was still high in a Democratic administration (the second Clinton administration). You can't claim therefore that there are "swings" in science denialism dependent on whom is in power in Washington, DC.

This is mere wish fulfillment on your part with regards to Nixon and other Republican's "Southern Strategy". But if you want to continue in this vein, then I would like to know which parts of Intelligent Design did you regard as especially strong, which you asserted in this Uncommonly Dense discussion thread back in 2007:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/ted-davis-the-theistic-evolutionists-theistic-evolutionist-rising-above-the-fray/

If my quotation is correct, you said in a comment posted on 4/23/07 at 7:28 PM:

"Note carefully what I am saying. Some of ID’s arguments are much stronger than others. The anti-evolutionary ones are its weakest. Focus on the stronger arguments you already have."

Since when did ID ever have any strong arguments? You were reading and posting too here and at Pharyngula and yet somehow you thought ID had any "strong arguments"? You need to retract your "creationist tactic" smear against me and to apologize for it here, publicly, at Panda's Thumb.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: I suspect that neither Rich nor I think that anti-evolution is central to traditional conservative thought. I know I don't, and I remain puzzled as to why you seem to think that he has asserted anything like that.

What I am asserting is that generic anti-science denialism is central to modern (not traditional) conservative thought. I'm a traditional conservative and modern conservatism would be better labeled as radical right-wing. Anti-science, pro-corporate, libertarians use the anti-science aspect of ID/creationism to recruit religious conservatives to also deny science that would cause corporations to be more regulated and/or sued. DI spans both kinds of denialism and uses that fact to deflect criticism because climate denialism is not religiously motivated. If only the religious aspects of science denialism are considered we fall into that trap. What both kinds of denialism have in common is conservative/libertarian politics, while one is religious and the other isn't.

Rich Blinne said: Well, using a hypothetical example against real data is a creationist trick. As for being more sympathetic to liberals it's only because I was pushed hard. For those who are lurking I prove it is possible for an evangelical who is politically conservative to be persuaded. However, John's behavior vis-a-vis politics with the threats and bullying is extraordinarily common in the evangelical community. As it was put above, it makes people like myself an endangered species.

Steve Matheson said:

Ray Martinez said: Question: IF randomness does not correspond to absence of Intelligent involvement, then what adjective or adjectives do?

I'm not in need of such words, so I guess you'll have to work on that one yourself. Why it is that "lacking intelligent involvement" won't do, I sure don't know.

John Kwok said: No, SWT you did not post me the link(s) to the Gallup Poll. I quoted the figures you cited, but not the actual link itself: "I already did this, you even quoted the post where I did so."

my experience is that the convinceable people are far more receptive to learning about the science from and discussing its faith implications with someone from their own faith community.

In fact, published reviews of the relevant studies suggest that the source of the information is ALL that matters to many raised in religious communities.

here's the one I like to cite often, as it's a very short review with a nice table of cited references in support:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~deenasw/Assets/bloom&weisberg%20science.pdf

It's why often we hear that converted creationists started their abandonment of creationism when it was shown that their peers were literally lying to them, and it was that, rather than any positive evidence for evolution itself, that got them to re-think their beliefs.

When may I expect your apology?

oh, I think you deserve a camera, don't you?

thanks for that link, btw, I had been looking for that gallup article for a while.

http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr070611ii.gif

just to rub Kwok's nose in it...

John Kwok said: But, unlike, the Gallup Poll, the Angus Poll did look at the data demographically from regions in both the United States and Canada.: "The Angus Reid poll surveyed 1002 Americans, the Gallup poll surveyed 1007 Americans. However, the Gallup poll used a randomly selected national sample while Angus Reid used people who opted in to the survey through 'Springboard America'. Since Angus Reid used people who self selected to participate in surveys, their sample is potentially less random than Gallup sample. The Gallup methodology is, IMO, better for producing a representative random sample of the population." If as you contend - and I am in agreement here - that this is a trivial exercise, then how can you contend that most Evolution Denialists are Republicans (or that they represent a plurality) when the data from the Gallup Poll points otherwise: "It is a trivial exercise to estimate the number of people in the sample of each party affiliation once you know the sample size and proportions, although you do need to correct for the fact that the number of people should be an integer. Once you've estimated the number of people of each affiliated, it is again a trivial exercise to estimate the number of people who are evolution deniers. Once you have estimated the number of evolution deniers of each affiliation, it is again trivial to estimate the relative contribution of each group. Do the arithmetic."

4. a. In a contest of more than two choices, the number of votes cast for the winning choice if this number is not more than one half of the total votes cast. b. The number by which the vote of the winning choice in such a contest exceeds that of the closest opponent. 5. The larger or greater part.

I did the arithmetic, and I even invoked the hypothetical example just to demonstrate how simple the arithmetic is.

But apparently Rich hasn't been convinced,

since he has been all but accusing Republicans and Conservatives, especially Libertarians, of being responsible for rampant evolution denial in the United States:

... Under no circumstances can one blame exclusively Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians for a persistent long-term trend in evolution denialism,

SWT said: Why are you expending so much energy arguing against something nobody here is asserting?

MrG said:

SWT said: Why are you expending so much energy arguing against something nobody here is asserting?

As a modest proposal, I suggest that it is because he likes to argue?

SWT said:

John Kwok said: No, SWT you did not post me the link(s) to the Gallup Poll. I quoted the figures you cited, but not the actual link itself: "I already did this, you even quoted the post where I did so."

Actually, I did, here: http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/08/randomly-growin.html#comment-228358 The underlined text in the post of mine that you quoted link directly to the Gallup site and the publicly available information. Click on them any you'll see exactly the data I've been working with. When may I expect your apology?

Ray said:

Steve Matheson said:

Ray Martinez said: Question: IF randomness does not correspond to absence of Intelligent involvement, then what adjective or adjectives do?

I'm not in need of such words, so I guess you'll have to work on that one yourself. Why it is that "lacking intelligent involvement" won't do, I sure don't know.

The issue is not complex or complicated. Here we have a well-educated and informed person refusing to take a stand. Why? Evolutionists do not want Christian-Evolutionists to feel stupid for supporting a theory that says their God is absent from biological production. "Random" means "invisible Director" is absent. Ray Martinez

Actually Rich did a few posts back in blaming Libertarian think tanks for providing some kind of "intellectual cover" for promoting evolution denialism. The only "Libertarian" think tank I can think of which qualifies is the Dishonesty Institute, and as I showed earlier, the Dishonesty Institute is actually more under the sway of Dominionist Xian "conservatives", not Libertarians.

MrG said:

SWT said: Why are you expending so much energy arguing against something nobody here is asserting?

As a modest proposal, I suggest that it is because he likes to argue?

Ichthyic said: When may I expect your apology? oh, I think you deserve a camera, don't you? thanks for that link, btw, I had been looking for that gallup article for a while.

I didn't criticize your calculations SWT, only your misinterpretation of the data. Again, I posted that excerpt from Genie Scott's letter merely to illustrate that there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable. The same analogy can and should be used to show that Republicans are still in the minority when it comes to Evolution Denialism; combined there are still far more Democrats and Independents, and even the latest Gallup Poll - assuming that the information you gave is correct - demonstrates this.

Steve Matheson said: Thanks for the contribution, Ray. It was so brilliant that I'm not even going to try to refute it. Tell your friends!

Mike Elzinga said: Ray is just another creationist pusher of that “information/élan vital” shtick.

MrG said:

Mike Elzinga said: Ray is just another creationist pusher of that “information/élan vital” shtick.

"Just another"? You're saying there's another one like Ray Troll? Even Bobby Byers doesn't match up.

Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years

this is not relevant to your accusation HE DID NOT PROVIDE THE LINK. he did, and repeatedly demonstrated it. You do owe him an apology, but, frankly, I can't see he should be overly concerned getting one from you.

there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable.

this does not invalidate what the conclusions of the gallup report were, nor is it even directly relevant to it.

If SWT "misinterpreted" the data, so did Gallup... AND DATA IS THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS.

so, gee, who do we think might be mistaken here? An organization whose very livelihood has depended on interpreting poll data correctly for decades... or you.

boy, tough call there...

SWT said:

... Under no circumstances can one blame exclusively Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians for a persistent long-term trend in evolution denialism,

John, Rich is not saying this. I am not saying this. I'm not aware of anyone saying this. Why are you expending so much energy arguing against something nobody here is asserting?

Another session in Kwokoduck hunting.

Rich Blinne said:

SWT said:

... Under no circumstances can one blame exclusively Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians for a persistent long-term trend in evolution denialism,

John, Rich is not saying this. I am not saying this. I'm not aware of anyone saying this. Why are you expending so much energy arguing against something nobody here is asserting?

This is yet another creationist characteristic John's argument arguing against non-existent points and the sine qua non of creationist argumentation, the inability to follow a subtle argument that's fully qualified. You had no trouble understanding my point and vice versa. I foolishly thought if I stipulated where John and I agreed that he would just drop this nonsense. Another creationist aspect is the desire to win over the desire to understand. Understanding to what extent partisan and ideological effects occur is important. Is it a long term problem or a short term problem? Is there or is there not false equivalency? Are there confounding factors such as religion? Who's the horse and who's the rider, politics or religion? I was approaching it from that angle. So, I posted polling data that addressed an interesting question that John raised without comment. John's reaction to that was to accuse me of an ad hominem. Then you will note his quote of me from Uncommon Descent where I acknowledged that some ID arguments are better than others and the better ones were the ones that weren't anti-evolution. That kind of subtle argumentation is apparently beyond his ken. Finally, he accused me that I was acting like the New Atheists. I took it as a compliment because it's the New Atheists more than anyone else who battle the poor thinking that epitomizes creationist argumentation. John wants me to go against my religious "own" full tilt and to be quite frankly more obnoxious than the worst of the New Atheists. Yet, when I do the same against my political "own" he cries fowl. I guess consistency is not one of his long suits.

Rich Blinne said: Finally, he accused me that I was acting like the New Atheists. I took it as a compliment because it's the New Atheists more than anyone else who battle the poor thinking that epitomizes creationist argumentation.

Until I brought it to your attention I don't think you realized that:

1) Evangelical Protestant Christians were politically active in the 19th Century, especially during the abolitionist movement

2) Evangelical Protestant Christians recognized evolution as valid science from approximately the 1860s until World War I (I wasn't fully aware of this until I read vertebrate paleobiologist Donald Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters".)

3) Evangelical Protestant Christians rejected evolution in reaction to German Imperial aggression and the claims made by German intellectuals that they and their empire had every right to conquer and to rule over "lesser peoples" based on Darwinian thought (which was actually rabid Social Darwinism as expressed by Herbert Spencer).

4) You claimed to have written about this and told me to look it up in GOOGLE. Only reference I came across with that even remotely resembles anything I have just stated was a statement of yours claiming that 19th Century Evangelicals were Old Earth Creationists. But I did come across your comments telling Dembski and others that there were strong arguments in ID that can and should be used against Dawkins and his condemnation of Christianity.

But what more can I expect from a sanctimonious hypocrite who reminds me all too much of the delusional Evangelical Christians I knew at Brown University and whom I have encountered on many occasions since then.

Science Avenger said:

Rich Blinne said: Finally, he accused me that I was acting like the New Atheists. I took it as a compliment because it's the New Atheists more than anyone else who battle the poor thinking that epitomizes creationist argumentation.

The New Atheists also don't say or believe the absurd absolutist things people like Kwok and Dale Husband accuse them of. But then that's in the pseudo-creationist character mode too: ignore the subtleties in actual arguments and attacking simpler fictional versions instead.

John Kwok said: Alright, I mean it. I am going to report you to the ASA leadership.

Ichthyic said: Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years this is not relevant to your accusation HE DID NOT PROVIDE THE LINK. he did, and repeatedly demonstrated it. You do owe him an apology, but, frankly, I can't see he should be overly concerned getting one from you. there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable. this does not invalidate what the conclusions of the gallup report were, nor is it even directly relevant to it. If SWT "misinterpreted" the data, so did Gallup... AND DATA IS THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. so, gee, who do we think might be mistaken here? An organization whose very livelihood has depended on interpreting poll data correctly for decades... or you. boy, tough call there...

Science Avenger said:

John Kwok said: Alright, I mean it. I am going to report you to the ASA leadership.

I'll bet Kwok was a great hall monitor. Seriously, I'm a former Republican who was driven from the party precisely because of the behavior that is being argued about here. The GOP has become the dumbass, anti-science party, and I say that with no joy, for I have no love for the spineless mess known as the Democratic party either. But it is what it is, and parroting Fox News talking points won't change that. America is fucked, whatever small victories we might win for the sake of science, until we get a political party with some respect for science and some backbone.

Science Avenger said: Seriously, I'm a former Republican who was driven from the party precisely because of the behavior that is being argued about here. The GOP has become the dumbass, anti-science party, and I say that with no joy, for I have no love for the spineless mess known as the Democratic party either. But it is what it is, and parroting Fox News talking points won't change that.

Science Avenger said: America is fucked, whatever small victories we might win for the sake of science, until we get a political party with some respect for science and some backbone.

Science Avenger said:

Rich Blinne said: Finally, he accused me that I was acting like the New Atheists. I took it as a compliment because it's the New Atheists more than anyone else who battle the poor thinking that epitomizes creationist argumentation.

The New Atheists also don't say or believe the absurd absolutist things people like Kwok and Dale Husband accuse them of. But then that's in the pseudo-creationist character mode too: ignore the subtleties in actual arguments and attacking simpler fictional versions instead.

Ichthyic said: Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years this is not relevant to your accusation HE DID NOT PROVIDE THE LINK. he did, and repeatedly demonstrated it. You do owe him an apology, but, frankly, I can't see he should be overly concerned getting one from you. there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable. this does not invalidate what the conclusions of the gallup report were, nor is it even directly relevant to it. If SWT "misinterpreted" the data, so did Gallup... AND DATA IS THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. so, gee, who do we think might be mistaken here? An organization whose very livelihood has depended on interpreting poll data correctly for decades... or you. boy, tough call there...

Dale Husband said:

Science Avenger said: The New Atheists also don't say or believe the absurd absolutist things people like Kwok and Dale Husband accuse them of. But then that's in the pseudo-creationist character mode too: ignore the subtleties in actual arguments and attacking simpler fictional versions instead.

I've seen enough statements on blogs produced by New Atheists (including P Z Myers, who has made enough missteps with regards to religion to disqualify himself as a credible critic of it; he should stick to science issues) to conclude that many of them DO engage in absolutist thinking, but when they get called out on it by those who don't share their narrow-minded thinking, they go ballistic and either engage in the kind of damage control style rhetoric that religious fundamentalists are already notorious for, or they just use grade school style insults. They love bashing religion in public, even when it is not necessary or appropriate to do so, but seem to think they should be above criticism themselves. No, not as long as people like me are around, they won't!

What happened Rich? Did your cat caught your tongue?

Even if I don't report you to ASA senior leadership, I am sure they'll get a whiff regarding how you treat someone - myself - who has a well-established track record in dealing with delusional Xians like Michael Behe and Bill Dembski. They will certainly wonder how you can claim to be a credible advocate in urging others sympathetic to the DI, when they will see you merely as a liberal Evangelical who may be a stealth New Atheist in disguise, given your recent behavior here at Panda's Thumb (Or even someone still sympathetic to the Dishonesty Institute based on your "advice" on how ID can be used against Dawkins's condemnation of Christianity which you posted at Dembski's website back in April 2007.).

If you wish to be seen as a credible advocate, then you can start by retracting your "creationist trick" comments and apologizing for them. Tomorrow is the Christian Sabbath. I think that would be a most appropriate time for your retractions and apologies.

Flint said:

Dale Husband said:

Science Avenger said: The New Atheists also don't say or believe the absurd absolutist things people like Kwok and Dale Husband accuse them of. But then that's in the pseudo-creationist character mode too: ignore the subtleties in actual arguments and attacking simpler fictional versions instead.

I've seen enough statements on blogs produced by New Atheists (including P Z Myers, who has made enough missteps with regards to religion to disqualify himself as a credible critic of it; he should stick to science issues) to conclude that many of them DO engage in absolutist thinking, but when they get called out on it by those who don't share their narrow-minded thinking, they go ballistic and either engage in the kind of damage control style rhetoric that religious fundamentalists are already notorious for, or they just use grade school style insults. They love bashing religion in public, even when it is not necessary or appropriate to do so, but seem to think they should be above criticism themselves. No, not as long as people like me are around, they won't!

I would have to say Science Avenger nailed it, especially given the free home demonstration of exactly what he means. Those whose posture toward the gods is the null hypothesis (assume the nonexistence of what is not evidenced, but be willing to accept valid evidence if it should ever be produced) is, with clockwork predictability, attacked as "absolutist" and not credible, and damage control, and insulting, and bashing, and narrow minded, and ballistic! My goodness, all this in one paragraph. And this is considered "criticism" of a legitimate position, at least by the "critic". If I had to find a more appropriate description, I needn't look far. I'd call it "ignoring the subtleties while attacking a fictional version instead." I know I've seen that somewhere before...

I warned you before Rich that you were in danger of acting like the very New Atheists whom you condemn and today you've fulfilled that "prophecy". How will your fellow Evangelical Christians see you as someone who has cast his lot with the New Atheists posting here? How can you claim to be a credible advocate to those sympathetic to the DI who can issue clear-cut, quite persusasive, warnings about the Dishonesty Institute's un-"Christian" behavior, when you behave instead like the very New Atheists who are condemned and viewed with ample suspicion by your fellow co-religionists.

Flint said: Those whose posture toward the gods is the null hypothesis (assume the nonexistence of what is not evidenced, but be willing to accept valid evidence if it should ever be produced) is, with clockwork predictability, attacked as "absolutist" and not credible, and damage control, and insulting, and bashing, and narrow minded, and ballistic! My goodness, all this in one paragraph. And this is considered "criticism" of a legitimate position, at least by the "critic". If I had to find a more appropriate description, I needn't look far. I'd call it "ignoring the subtleties while attacking a fictional version instead." I know I've seen that somewhere before...

John Kwok said: Until I brought it to your attention I don't think you realized that: 1) Evangelical Protestant Christians were politically active in the 19th Century, especially during the abolitionist movement

Speaking of which, the last known letter of John Wesley was to Wilberforce and his message to him should be our message to the next generation of evangelicals: "Do not weary in well-doing." I was fact-checking my memory and found the full quote. It was so eloquent it bears repeating: My dear Sir, Unless the Divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing the execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it. That He that has guided you from your youth up may continue to strengthen in this and all things, is the prayer of, Your affectionate servant, John Wesley -- As quoted by Chuck Colson in Kingdoms in Conflict, p. 105

2) Evangelical Protestant Christians recognized evolution as valid science from approximately the 1860s until World War I (I wasn't fully aware of this until I read vertebrate paleobiologist Donald Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters".)

I got my copy of the Reason for God in today. The quotes from the blogs are accurate. But before I start I would like to put what Keller has to say in its proper context. Keller is answering the question of doesn't science contradict Scripture and Christianity. Above all else, Keller is a pastor and notes conversations he has had with enquirers who are scientists who believe that science and Christianity contradict. Since they hold to evolution they don't even give Christianity any consideration. The section gives Keller response. First of all Keller approves of McGrath's rejection of the warfare model. In his footnotes, Keller quotes R.A. Torrey (editor of the Fundamentals where we got the word fundamentalist) and B.B. Warfield (the father of modern inerrancy theory) who stated that some kinds of evolution are compatible with Scripture. Keller mentions with approval of Francis Collins in the main text. He also responds to Dawkins' citation of a survey where 7% of the NAS are believers with the survey published in Nature showing a much greater number of scientists who are believers. Keller then turns his focus directly on evolution. I'll start with a couple paragraphs that precedes the ones Steve quoted off the blogosphere: "[Finding the original meaning of a Bible text] has always meant interpreting a text according to its literary genre. For example, when Christians read the Psalms they read it as poetry. When they read Luke, which claimes to be an an eyewitness account (see Luke 1;1-4), they take it as history. Any reader can see that the historical narrative should be read as history and the the poetic imagery is to be read as metaphorical. The difficulty comes in the few places in the Bible where the genre is not easily identifiable, and we aren't completely sure how the author expects to be read. Genesis 1 is a passage whose interpretation is up for debate among Christians, even those with a "high" view of inspired Scripture. I personally take the view that Genesis 1 and 2 relate to each other the way Judges 4 and 5 and Exodus 14 and 15 do. In each couplet one chapter describes a historical event and the other is a song or poem about the theological meaning of the event. When reading Judges 4 it is obvious that it is a sober recouting of what happened in the battle, but when we read Judges 5, Deborah's Song about the battle, the language is poetic and metaphorical. ... [ellipsis mine] I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a "song" about the wonder and meaning of God's creation. Genesis 2 is an account of how it happened including Genesis 1. But it is false logic to argue that if one part of Scripture can't be taken literally then none of it can be. That isn't true of any human communication. What can we conclude? Since Christian believers occupy different positions on both the meaning of Genesis 1 and on the nature of evolution, those who are considering Christianity as a whole should not allow themselves to be distracted by this intramural debate. The skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one these positions in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenets of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution. Representatives of these different views often imply that their approach is the One True Christian Position on Evolution. Indeed, I'm sure that many reading this will be irritated that I don't take time here to adjudicate between the competing views. For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject the concept of evolution as All-Encompassing Theory. [Keller shows he means this in a later chapter by taking apart so-called evolutionary psychology much like Francis Collins did.] One commentator [David Atkinson] captures this balance well: If "evolution" is ... [ellipsis in the original] elevated to the status of a world-view of the way things are, then there is direct conflict with biblical faith. But if "evolution" remains at the level of scientific biological hypothesis, it would seem that there is little reason for conflict between the implications of Christian belief in the Creator and the scientific explorations of the way which -- at the level of biology -- God has gone about his creating process."

3) Evangelical Protestant Christians rejected evolution in reaction to German Imperial aggression and the claims made by German intellectuals that they and their empire had every right to conquer and to rule over "lesser peoples" based on Darwinian thought (which was actually rabid Social Darwinism as expressed by Herbert Spencer).

Darwin added the following quote of Charles Kingsley to his second edition: A celebrated author and divine has written to me that “he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.” On the other hand, fellow evolutionist Alfred R. Wallace advocated to Darwin to use Spencer’s term “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for natural selection. Darwin did do this starting in his fifth edition. From the use of this term, many Christians inferred social darwinism. (Whether social darwinism really is implied is historically dubious.) It is the social darwinism of laissez faire economics more than anything else that motivated William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes trial. He said the following on the age of the earth question: “It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages than to know the ages of rock.”

4) You claimed to have written about this and told me to look it up in GOOGLE. Only reference I came across with that even remotely resembles anything I have just stated was a statement of yours claiming that 19th Century Evangelicals were Old Earth Creationists. But I did come across your comments telling Dembski and others that there were strong arguments in ID that can and should be used against Dawkins and his condemnation of Christianity. But what more can I expect from a sanctimonious hypocrite who reminds me all too much of the delusional Evangelical Christians I knew at Brown University and whom I have encountered on many occasions since then.

Rich Blinne said: One of the things that broke me from my conservatism is I cannot stay angry very long. But it appears to be a prerequisite as every time I debate political conservatives they are all very very angry people. I just couldn't do that. Life's too short.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Until I brought it to your attention I don't think you realized that: 1) Evangelical Protestant Christians were politically active in the 19th Century, especially during the abolitionist movement

I said this on the ASA list January 24, 2008:

Speaking of which, the last known letter of John Wesley was to Wilberforce and his message to him should be our message to the next generation of evangelicals: "Do not weary in well-doing." I was fact-checking my memory and found the full quote. It was so eloquent it bears repeating: My dear Sir, Unless the Divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing the execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of His might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it. That He that has guided you from your youth up may continue to strengthen in this and all things, is the prayer of, Your affectionate servant, John Wesley -- As quoted by Chuck Colson in Kingdoms in Conflict, p. 105

Next accusation of something that I didn't know.

2) Evangelical Protestant Christians recognized evolution as valid science from approximately the 1860s until World War I (I wasn't fully aware of this until I read vertebrate paleobiologist Donald Prothero's "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters".)

ASA list 2/21/2008

I got my copy of the Reason for God in today. The quotes from the blogs are accurate. But before I start I would like to put what Keller has to say in its proper context. Keller is answering the question of doesn't science contradict Scripture and Christianity. Above all else, Keller is a pastor and notes conversations he has had with enquirers who are scientists who believe that science and Christianity contradict. Since they hold to evolution they don't even give Christianity any consideration. The section gives Keller response. First of all Keller approves of McGrath's rejection of the warfare model. In his footnotes, Keller quotes R.A. Torrey (editor of the Fundamentals where we got the word fundamentalist) and B.B. Warfield (the father of modern inerrancy theory) who stated that some kinds of evolution are compatible with Scripture. Keller mentions with approval of Francis Collins in the main text. He also responds to Dawkins' citation of a survey where 7% of the NAS are believers with the survey published in Nature showing a much greater number of scientists who are believers. Keller then turns his focus directly on evolution. I'll start with a couple paragraphs that precedes the ones Steve quoted off the blogosphere: "[Finding the original meaning of a Bible text] has always meant interpreting a text according to its literary genre. For example, when Christians read the Psalms they read it as poetry. When they read Luke, which claimes to be an an eyewitness account (see Luke 1;1-4), they take it as history. Any reader can see that the historical narrative should be read as history and the the poetic imagery is to be read as metaphorical. The difficulty comes in the few places in the Bible where the genre is not easily identifiable, and we aren't completely sure how the author expects to be read. Genesis 1 is a passage whose interpretation is up for debate among Christians, even those with a "high" view of inspired Scripture. I personally take the view that Genesis 1 and 2 relate to each other the way Judges 4 and 5 and Exodus 14 and 15 do. In each couplet one chapter describes a historical event and the other is a song or poem about the theological meaning of the event. When reading Judges 4 it is obvious that it is a sober recouting of what happened in the battle, but when we read Judges 5, Deborah's Song about the battle, the language is poetic and metaphorical. ... [ellipsis mine] I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a "song" about the wonder and meaning of God's creation. Genesis 2 is an account of how it happened including Genesis 1. But it is false logic to argue that if one part of Scripture can't be taken literally then none of it can be. That isn't true of any human communication. What can we conclude? Since Christian believers occupy different positions on both the meaning of Genesis 1 and on the nature of evolution, those who are considering Christianity as a whole should not allow themselves to be distracted by this intramural debate. The skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one these positions in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenets of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution. Representatives of these different views often imply that their approach is the One True Christian Position on Evolution. Indeed, I'm sure that many reading this will be irritated that I don't take time here to adjudicate between the competing views. For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject the concept of evolution as All-Encompassing Theory. [Keller shows he means this in a later chapter by taking apart so-called evolutionary psychology much like Francis Collins did.] One commentator [David Atkinson] captures this balance well: If "evolution" is ... [ellipsis in the original] elevated to the status of a world-view of the way things are, then there is direct conflict with biblical faith. But if "evolution" remains at the level of scientific biological hypothesis, it would seem that there is little reason for conflict between the implications of Christian belief in the Creator and the scientific explorations of the way which -- at the level of biology -- God has gone about his creating process."

Next thing I didn't know until informed by your superior wisdom

3) Evangelical Protestant Christians rejected evolution in reaction to German Imperial aggression and the claims made by German intellectuals that they and their empire had every right to conquer and to rule over "lesser peoples" based on Darwinian thought (which was actually rabid Social Darwinism as expressed by Herbert Spencer).

On my post in the ASA voices blog: http://www.asa3online.org/Voices/2010/07/08/hamiltons-rule/

Darwin added the following quote of Charles Kingsley to his second edition: A celebrated author and divine has written to me that “he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.” On the other hand, fellow evolutionist Alfred R. Wallace advocated to Darwin to use Spencer’s term “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for natural selection. Darwin did do this starting in his fifth edition. From the use of this term, many Christians inferred social darwinism. (Whether social darwinism really is implied is historically dubious.) It is the social darwinism of laissez faire economics more than anything else that motivated William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes trial. He said the following on the age of the earth question: “It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages than to know the ages of rock.”

Final accusation.

4) You claimed to have written about this and told me to look it up in GOOGLE. Only reference I came across with that even remotely resembles anything I have just stated was a statement of yours claiming that 19th Century Evangelicals were Old Earth Creationists. But I did come across your comments telling Dembski and others that there were strong arguments in ID that can and should be used against Dawkins and his condemnation of Christianity. But what more can I expect from a sanctimonious hypocrite who reminds me all too much of the delusional Evangelical Christians I knew at Brown University and whom I have encountered on many occasions since then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a hypocrite because of your poor research skills. One of the things that broke me from my conservatism is I cannot stay angry very long. But it appears to be a prerequisite as every time I debate political conservatives they are all very very angry people. I just couldn't do that. Life's too short.

Rich Blinne said: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a hypocrite because of your poor research skills. One of the things that broke me from my conservatism is I cannot stay angry very long. But it appears to be a prerequisite as every time I debate political conservatives they are all very very angry people. I just couldn't do that. Life's too short.

Ichthyic said: Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years this is not relevant to your accusation HE DID NOT PROVIDE THE LINK. he did, and repeatedly demonstrated it. You do owe him an apology, but, frankly, I can't see he should be overly concerned getting one from you. there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable. this does not invalidate what the conclusions of the gallup report were, nor is it even directly relevant to it. If SWT "misinterpreted" the data, so did Gallup... AND DATA IS THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. so, gee, who do we think might be mistaken here? An organization whose very livelihood has depended on interpreting poll data correctly for decades... or you. boy, tough call there...

“Random” means “invisible Director” is absent.

Henry J said:

“Random” means “invisible Director” is absent.

That's only if everything in the described process is random. In evolution theory the only random components are mutation and drift, and those are merely random variation in what's already there. Selection effects are decidedly non-random, and are contingent on the conditions existing at the time. Besides, if having random components meant a theory was against religion, then mere basic particle physics would be a major problem, since it says that subatomic particles move randomly all the time, yet solids are made of them, and the shapes of solids do not change randomly all the time. (only when the solid is melting, perhaps.)

John Kwok said: Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years which are merely measure the slight peaks and troughs of public opinion (And I saw them when you had first pointed them out.). They DO NOT MEASURE long-term trends that I have alluded to. I asked for the link to the data from the actual Gallup Poll itself, not the tracking information. So in your case, an apology isn't warranted:

John Kwok said: I didn't criticize your calculations SWT, only your misinterpretation of the data.

Again, I posted that excerpt from Genie Scott's letter merely to illustrate that there are far more American Christians - aside from Evangelicals - who find evolution objectionable.

John Kwok said: The kind of variation which SWT is claiming for science denialism (that it varies according which political party is in power) is the same kind of argument you hear from the likes of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the ilk who claim that if a winter is too warm or a summer is too cool, then we can't possibly be looking at any statistically-significant trend pointing to anthropogenic global warming. Like Hannity and Limbaugh, SWT has focused on the "background noise", looking at specific oscillations as though they prove his point, while ignoring what long-term trends in data seem to be telling (which is one of the reasons why I cited Genie Scott's letter, which ironically - given the people I am dealing with here - is posted at an ASA website):

Dale Husband said:

Rich Blinne said: One of the things that broke me from my conservatism is I cannot stay angry very long. But it appears to be a prerequisite as every time I debate political conservatives they are all very very angry people. I just couldn't do that. Life's too short.

What broke ME from conservatism, or at least the extremist neo-conservatism Republicans are known for now, was the fact that I could not tolerate lying, double standards, and facist style hyper-nationalism. I became angry at my government for lying to me (whether by omission or commission) about very serious matters and have been angry ever since as a liberal. So there is anger on both sides of the political aisle. Maybe you should avoid political debates, period.

Rich Blinne said:

Dale Husband said:

Rich Blinne said: One of the things that broke me from my conservatism is I cannot stay angry very long. But it appears to be a prerequisite as every time I debate political conservatives they are all very very angry people. I just couldn't do that. Life's too short.

What broke ME from conservatism, or at least the extremist neo-conservatism Republicans are known for now, was the fact that I could not tolerate lying, double standards, and facist style hyper-nationalism. I became angry at my government for lying to me (whether by omission or commission) about very serious matters and have been angry ever since as a liberal. So there is anger on both sides of the political aisle. Maybe you should avoid political debates, period.

That sounds like a good idea. But as you can see here some people just can't let go. I try and respond I agree, just Google it. But they simply cannot accept silence. Even if I made a fool out of myself, this is a public forum and my foolishness will be for all to see. So if in the battle of wits I'm clearly bested why not just let it go? As for what you are talking about, the anger I'm referring to is not the anger at injustice but the free-floating kind that strikes at anything that disagrees and constantly seeks offense. Your anger I can understand but the other kind I simply don't. Even when I was more conservative I never did understand what the anger was directed at. It seemed so pointless.

Funniest line from the Kwokster today:

I am cautiously optimistic that genuine change can come from sane Republicans such as myself.

ROFLMAO

you're the very epitome of the term "denial", kwokster!

Alright, I mean it. I am going to report you to the ASA leadership.

...and after that, he'll DEFRIEND YOU ON FACEBOOK!

*the horror*

And not only Dale Husband and myself, shithead. David Sloan Wilson, Philip Kitcher, Ian Tattersall, and many other prominent biologists and philosophers have condemned New Atheist criticism of religion

argumentum ad populum.

Unfortunately Ichthyic you’ve missed the important point made by NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott that evolution denialism has hovered in the high forty percentile for years (In a letter that she wrote back in the mid 1990s.).

...that was based on the same gallup poll data that the single year we are citing (2007) comes from.

In fact, that very trend is discussed in the report originally linked to by SWT, and refused to be read by yourself.

you're one pathetic puppy.

Another session in Kwokoduck hunting.

I have my own shotgun especially made for these things now.

It had to be durable, with a good shock-absorbing shoulder pad to deal with the frequent firing.

Knock off the machine gun approach, fish guy. One long post is better.

...oh, and just how many times were you planning to repeat a not-response to my post about SWT's link?

I count three distinct responses to the same exact post from you so far, kwokkie.

none of which address what the report actually states, or apologize to SWT for your error in saying he never linked to it.

seriously, Kwokkie, you are mentally ill, and need to seek treatment.

that is NOT an insult, it is a fact!

Knock off the machine gun approach, fish guy. One long post is better.

wait... you're telling ME that? fuck off Dale.

Ichthyic said: Knock off the machine gun approach, fish guy. One long post is better. wait... you're telling ME that? f___ off Dale.

Dale Husband said:

Ichthyic said: Knock off the machine gun approach, fish guy. One long post is better. wait... you're telling ME that? f___ off Dale.

Yes, I am. What were you hoping to accomplish with five or six tiny posts you couldn't have with one longer post?

You were doing it to fill up the Recent Comments section of this Panda’s Thumb blog and make the comments by others less noticeable, weren’t you?

yes, it's all part of my evil plan to make the rest of you unnoticeable!

damn, but you're an idiot, Dale.

Ichthyic said: You were doing it to fill up the Recent Comments section of this Panda’s Thumb blog and make the comments by others less noticeable, weren’t you? yes, it's all part of my evil plan to make the rest of you unnoticeable! damn, but you're an idiot, Dale.

I’m just pointing out the obvious

the obvious would be that I was responding to posts as I saw them, and most of the responses were to different posts.

that I posted them all at the same time only means that's when I read them.

You taking offense at that, and implying I'm involved in a nefarious plot to somehow make your inaninity less noticeable is...

idiotic.

Moreover, Kwok put up multiple responses to the SAME post over a short period, yet you entirely ignored that.

lessee, using your logic, you must be in cahoots with John to take control of this forum!!!!

Ichthyic said: I’m just pointing out the obvious the obvious would be that I was responding to posts as I saw them, and most of the responses were to different posts. that I posted them all at the same time only means that's when I read them. You taking offense at that, and implying I'm involved in a nefarious plot to somehow make your inaninity less noticeable is... idiotic. Moreover, Kwok put up multiple responses to the SAME post over a short period, yet you entirely ignored that. lessee, using your logic, you must be in cahoots with John to take control of this forum!!!!

Ichthyic said: Funniest line from the Kwokster today: I am cautiously optimistic that genuine change can come from sane Republicans such as myself. ROFLMAO you're the very epitome of the term "denial", kwokster!

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Sorry SWT, you are merely providing monthly tracking polls of recent years which are merely measure the slight peaks and troughs of public opinion (And I saw them when you had first pointed them out.). They DO NOT MEASURE long-term trends that I have alluded to. I asked for the link to the data from the actual Gallup Poll itself, not the tracking information. So in your case, an apology isn't warranted:

John, I provided you with two links. One of these was in fact a link to monthly tracking polls of party affiliation, the other presented polling results from May and June 2007 regarding correlation of evolution acceptance with party affiliation in the context of previous polls regarding evolution. It was a one-time poll, not a tracking poll. If you read the entire article, you'll find the polling results for evolution acceptance by party affiliation in the the section arcanely entitled Republicans Most Likely to Reject Evolution. So, when may expect your apology?

Ichthyic said: Unfortunately Ichthyic you’ve missed the important point made by NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott that evolution denialism has hovered in the high forty percentile for years (In a letter that she wrote back in the mid 1990s.). ...that was based on the same gallup poll data that the single year we are citing (2007) comes from. In fact, that very trend is discussed in the report originally linked to by SWT, and refused to be read by yourself. you're one pathetic puppy.

Ichthyic said: Unfortunately Ichthyic you’ve missed the important point made by NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott that evolution denialism has hovered in the high forty percentile for years (In a letter that she wrote back in the mid 1990s.). ...that was based on the same gallup poll data that the single year we are citing (2007) comes from. In fact, that very trend is discussed in the report originally linked to by SWT, and refused to be read by yourself. you're one pathetic puppy.

Speaking of "creationist characteristic" Rich, you've demonstrated yet another trait by just driving by and disappearing when it got too hot in the kitchen.

Let's see, just to keep score:

John Kwok =

Accused of a creationist trick by Rich Blinne when Kwok uses a hypothetical example in part to show how easy it is to do the arithmetic and to point out how that hypothetical example is consistent with decades-long trends in American evolution denailism (A point which RIch Blinne finally concedes when Blinne observes that there hasn't been any meaningful change in the numbers of American evolution denialists for decades.).

Rich Blinne -

Shifts the goal posts (common creationist tactic) by offering up the great English anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce as "proof" that he knew that American Evangelical Christians were actively involved - and leaders (e. g. John Brown) - in the American abolitionist movement (Unfortunately for Blinne, there is no direct connection between Wilberforce's work and those of his American co-religionists.). Nor does he answer Kwok's contentiont hat he didn't know that American Evangelical Christians had accepted evolution as valid science from the 1860s until World War I.

Runs away (another common creationist tactic) when confronted by John Kwok, who asks Rich Blinne why he thought back on April 23, 2007 at Uncommon Descent - the well known infamous Intelligent Design creationist-advocating website founded by one William Dembski - that Intelligent Design had strong arguments to make against Richard Dawkins's then latest condemnation of Christianity (though Kwok does give Blinne credit for recognizing back then that the anti-evolutionary arguments were ID's weakest)? Blinne refuses to answer which strong arguments he thought then that ID had. Or to address Kwok's assertion that Blinne had no right to offer Dembski any comfort, especially after Dembski had stolen $20,000 from the Dover Area School District Board for services rendered as its disappearing "lead" witness to the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial and had, in 2006, falsely accused eminent University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka of being a potential bioterrorist to the Federal Department of Homeland Security (Pianka was investigated unfortunately.).

Seems as though of the two people in question, Kwok and Blinne, Blinne has demonstrated here far more convincing behavior that suggests that Blinne may be a crypto-creationiost of some kind. Of course one can only hope that being the "good" Christian Blinne claims to be, that he will retract and apologize to Kwok for falsely accusing Kwok of employing a "creationist trick".

Ichthyic said: Alright, I mean it. I am going to report you to the ASA leadership. ...and after that, he'll DEFRIEND YOU ON FACEBOOK! *the horror*

John Kwok said: John Kwok = Accused of a creationist trick by Rich Blinne when Kwok uses a hypothetical example in part to show how easy it is to do the arithmetic and to point out how that hypothetical example is consistent with decades-long trends in American evolution denailism (A point which RIch Blinne finally concedes when Blinne observes that there hasn't been any meaningful change in the numbers of American evolution denialists for decades.).

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: John Kwok = Accused of a creationist trick by Rich Blinne when Kwok uses a hypothetical example in part to show how easy it is to do the arithmetic and to point out how that hypothetical example is consistent with decades-long trends in American evolution denailism (A point which RIch Blinne finally concedes when Blinne observes that there hasn't been any meaningful change in the numbers of American evolution denialists for decades.).

Two things have remained static and one not. Creationism has remained in the low to mid 40s since 1982 when Gallup polling started. The percentage of scientists who are theists has remained at roughly 40% for the entirety of the 20th Century. What has changed a lot is global warming denialism. Thus, the focus shouldn't even be on evolution denialism but global warming denialism because that's where the change is. And there is a clear correlation between conservative politics and the global warming denialism. Again, all the evolution polling showed was evangelicals are political conservatives and Republicans.

Ichthyic said: Funniest line from the Kwokster today ...

With apologies to EJ and BT. I did warn you MrG:

I was justified when I was five
Raising Cain, I spit in your eye
Times are changing, now the poor get fat
But the fever's gonna catch you when the bitch gets back

Eat meat on Friday that's alright
Even like steak on a Saturday night
I can bitch the best at your social do's
I get high in the evening sniffing pots of glue

I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch
Oh the bitch is back
Stone cold sober as a matter of fact
I can bitch, I can bitch
`Cause I'm better than you
It's the way that I move
The things that I do

I entertain by picking brains
Sell my soul by dropping names
I don't like those, my God, what's that
Oh it's full of nasty habits when the bitch gets back

Ichthyic said: I’m just pointing out the obvious the obvious would be that I was responding to posts as I saw them, and most of the responses were to different posts. that I posted them all at the same time only means that's when I read them. You taking offense at that, and implying I'm involved in a nefarious plot to somehow make your inaninity less noticeable is... idiotic. Moreover, Kwok put up multiple responses to the SAME post over a short period, yet you entirely ignored that. lessee, using your logic, you must be in cahoots with John to take control of this forum!!!!

So Rich, what were the "strong arguments" that ID had to refute Dawkins's harsh condemnation of Christianity when you made that inane assertion at Uncommon Descent on April 23, 2007? If you were going to assert the existence of Design in Nature, even a prominent Christian scientist like Ken Miller recognizes that that in of itself isn't a strong argument for Intelligent Design.

IMHO you're as clueless as my cousin Jim, who has said that his initial reaction to the Fort Hood massacre was to wonder what this might do to the state of Muslim-American/Muslim relations with the United States. Had Jim been more sensible, his immediate concern would have been for one of his brothers, who was stationed at Fort Hood, on the verge of leaving for a deployment to Baghdad, Iraq.

There are three undeniable things I want to stipulate that may help John out here: 1. Evolution denialism has been static for decades. 2. When asked why people are evolution deniers they give reasons that are predominately religious and not political. 3. With respect to evolution denialism the reason it tracks Republicans is because in the early 21st Century evangelicals have been uniformly Republican and heavily recruited by the Republicans. (More on this later.) Thus, evangelicals and Republicans are degenerate co-factors here. On the other hand global warming denialism is not static and tracks political persuasion. One of the key accomplishments of George W. Bush and Karl Rove was to capture the evangelical vote and fiscal conservatives simultanously. Libertarian think tanks have used evangelicals’ natural suspicion of evolutionary science and used it to seed doubt to science in general. This is to escape regulation and evade lawsuits. This effort went all the way back to the late 60s starting with the tobacco companies. Energy companies came next sewing doubt even though global warming is now 35 years old.

Dale Husband -

Your decency in defending the underdog is appreciated, but I do wish to point out a certain reality. I'm going to use blunt language which some could perceive as critical to the Republican party as an institution. I apologize for that, but I think direct language is best here.

John Kwok has political views which, whether or not by coincidence, somewhat resemble what is depicted as the state of affairs in the fictional Klingon Empire.

While there is a high probability that he will contradict me, the easily demonstrable facts are that he supports right wing economics, while simultaneously engaging in imperialistic military adventures. But from a non-religious point of view, and without any mention of ethnic bigotry or homophobia.

Sound like the current Republican party? Not really. Not without that religious posturing, ethnic bigotry, and homophobia.

And here's why. All rich countries, including the US, have social programs and stabilizers, and the major ones are very popular except among a few eccentrics and nihilistic multi-millionaires/billionaires.

You simply can't easily get people to vote away Medicare and public fire departments, if that type of policy is presented in isolation. You have to appeal to ethnic bigotry and/or homophobia, and you have to disguise your goals with self-righteous religious posturing. Otherwise, you can't get enough votes.

harold said: Dale Husband - Your decency in defending the underdog is appreciated, but I do wish to point out a certain reality. I'm going to use blunt language which some could perceive as critical to the Republican party as an institution. I apologize for that, but I think direct language is best here. John Kwok has political views which, whether or not by coincidence, somewhat resemble what is depicted as the state of affairs in the fictional Klingon Empire. While there is a high probability that he will contradict me, the easily demonstrable facts are that he supports right wing economics, while simultaneously engaging in imperialistic military adventures. But from a non-religious point of view, and without any mention of ethnic bigotry or homophobia. Sound like the current Republican party? Not really. Not without that religious posturing, ethnic bigotry, and homophobia. And here's why. All rich countries, including the US, have social programs and stabilizers, and the major ones are very popular except among a few eccentrics and nihilistic multi-millionaires/billionaires. You simply can't easily get people to vote away Medicare and public fire departments, if that type of policy is presented in isolation. You have to appeal to ethnic bigotry and/or homophobia, and you have to disguise your goals with self-righteous religious posturing. Otherwise, you can't get enough votes.

harold said: Richard Blinne - Once again, I strongly agree, but there is one thing I wish to add.

There are three undeniable things I want to stipulate that may help John out here: 1. Evolution denialism has been static for decades. 2. When asked why people are evolution deniers they give reasons that are predominately religious and not political. 3. With respect to evolution denialism the reason it tracks Republicans is because in the early 21st Century evangelicals have been uniformly Republican and heavily recruited by the Republicans. (More on this later.) Thus, evangelicals and Republicans are degenerate co-factors here. On the other hand global warming denialism is not static and tracks political persuasion. One of the key accomplishments of George W. Bush and Karl Rove was to capture the evangelical vote and fiscal conservatives simultanously. Libertarian think tanks have used evangelicals’ natural suspicion of evolutionary science and used it to seed doubt to science in general. This is to escape regulation and evade lawsuits. This effort went all the way back to the late 60s starting with the tobacco companies. Energy companies came next sewing doubt even though global warming is now 35 years old.

The only element you are lacking is the following - Some of the more nihilistic elements on the right have ostensibly adopted creationism, in a transparent hypocritical gesture to keep sincere evangelicals loyal. An extremely obvious example is Ann Coulter, who wrote a book full of evolution denial, the evolution parts of which were actually openly more or less ghost-written by DI fellows. But Ann Coulter will also apparently be the host of "Homocon", an upcoming meeting of gay Republicans in New York. It's not that people like Coulter don't believe in evolution, it's that they don't give a damn, and if they get the idea that denying it will further their goals, they'll do so. Also, it fits with an overall strategy of demeaning and rejecting mainstream science and scholarship in general. While global warming denial is clearly about short term profits for corporations, and evolution denial is clearly about keeping religious fanatics (and some racists) happy, there has been some apparent movement, exemplified by Coulter, to make evolution denial the default conservative position. You correctly point out that this has met with limited success. Nevertheless, it is a trend which exists, or existed in the very recent past.

It's Sunday, Rich, and I expect you, as the good Christian you claim to be, to own up to your error by retracting your "creationist trick" remark and to apologize to me here at Panda's Thumb.

John Kwok said: SWT - You obviously don't understand what I have been saying about net statistically-significant change and looking at long-term polling trends from the standpoint of YEARS NOT MONTHS. If what you said is indeed true, then we would have seen substantially changes in the percentages of those who deny evoloution depending on which political party(ies) was (were) in power in Washington, DC. We don't.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: SWT - You obviously don't understand what I have been saying about net statistically-significant change and looking at long-term polling trends from the standpoint of YEARS NOT MONTHS. If what you said is indeed true, then we would have seen substantially changes in the percentages of those who deny evoloution depending on which political party(ies) was (were) in power in Washington, DC. We don't.

OK John, you've completely lost me here. I've said a number of things in this thread, so I have to ask: when you write "If what you said is indeed true," what specific assertion or assertions are you referring to? Links would be great for removing ambiguity. Please read completely the post at this link before you respond.

John Kwok said: You still don't get it SWT. I saw this when you posted this for the first time, and this only tracks those who are Republican and Republican-leaning from 2004 to 2010. This isn't the decades-long trend I am referring to: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/b8scyp6bruqgez4snjxqdg.gif I also looked at this poll on public denial of global warming which you had posted: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/9iihl_bikk2wturivhb5jq.gif It is irrelevant to what I was discussing - and which Rich later admitted was true - that evolution denialism in the American voting public has remained constant for decades, regardless of whether the Federal Government was dominated by Democrats or Republicans. Nor can you claim that the result in the first graph would support your contention that Republicans were responsible for the result in the second graph. I am stating this not to exonerate my fellow Republicans, but to make this important statistical point. You need to show a statistically significant trend for your assertion to be true (Even a liberally-biased person trained in statistics would concede that mine is a valid point, statistically speaking.):

SWT said:

John Kwok said: SWT - You obviously don't understand what I have been saying about net statistically-significant change and looking at long-term polling trends from the standpoint of YEARS NOT MONTHS. If what you said is indeed true, then we would have seen substantially changes in the percentages of those who deny evoloution depending on which political party(ies) was (were) in power in Washington, DC. We don't.

OK John, you've completely lost me here. I've said a number of things in this thread, so I have to ask: when you write "If what you said is indeed true," what specific assertion or assertions are you referring to? Links would be great for removing ambiguity. Please read completely the post at this link before you respond.

I am basing my arguments on what would be relatively simple linear and multiple regression analyses of the data in question. You would need to do some kind of multiple regression analysis which would yield a statistically significant result in order to demonstate that your contention is statistically valid: that global warming denialism has increased due to the public's greater identification with Republicans during the years 2004 to 2010. I'm not saying that such analyses haven't been done or published. But you haven't demonstrated this in your links.

SWT said: What specific assertion of mine are you challenging? One or two sentences at most, please.

I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government. Maybe it has for global warming, but you haven't demonstrated that with the kind of statistical analyses needed to show just that. As I noted earlier by citing Genie Scott's 1998 letter, the relative percentage of American evolution denialists was essentially the same back in 1996 as it is today. Even Rich Blinne has recognized this and has said so, pointing out that the results have been similar ever since the Gallup Poll began polling on this very issue since 1982.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: The kind of variation which SWT is claiming for science denialism (that it varies according which political party is in power) ...

John, you have asserted multiple times that I claim science denialism varies according to which party is in power. I must insist that you stop doing so. I have not said that. If you believe otherwise, provide a link. I have not been discussing trends. I have focused on a single data set collected in May 2007, its interpretation, and its possible implications.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: SWT - You obviously don't understand what I have been saying about net statistically-significant change and looking at long-term polling trends from the standpoint of YEARS NOT MONTHS. If what you said is indeed true, then we would have seen substantially changes in the percentages of those who deny evoloution depending on which political party(ies) was (were) in power in Washington, DC. We don't.

OK John, you've completely lost me here. I've said a number of things in this thread, so I have to ask: when you write "If what you said is indeed true," what specific assertion or assertions are you referring to? Links would be great for removing ambiguity. Please read completely the post at this link before you respond.

John Kwok said: at August 15, 2010 11:53 AM You still don't get it SWT. I saw this when you posted this for the first time, and this only tracks those who are Republican and Republican-leaning from 2004 to 2010. This isn't the decades-long trend I am referring to: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/b8scyp6bruqgez4snjxqdg.gif I also looked at this poll on public denial of global warming which you had posted: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/9iihl_bikk2wturivhb5jq.gif It is irrelevant to what I was discussing - and which Rich later admitted was true - that evolution denialism in the American voting public has remained constant for decades, regardless of whether the Federal Government was dominated by Democrats or Republicans. Nor can you claim that the result in the first graph would support your contention that Republicans were responsible for the result in the second graph. I am stating this not to exonerate my fellow Republicans, but to make this important statistical point. You need to show a statistically significant trend for your assertion to be true (Even a liberally-biased person trained in statistics would concede that mine is a valid point, statistically speaking.): [Quoted messages omitted for brevity]

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: You still don't get it SWT. I saw this when you posted this for the first time, and this only tracks those who are Republican and Republican-leaning from 2004 to 2010. This isn't the decades-long trend I am referring to: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/b8scyp6bruqgez4snjxqdg.gif I also looked at this poll on public denial of global warming which you had posted: http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/9iihl_bikk2wturivhb5jq.gif It is irrelevant to what I was discussing - and which Rich later admitted was true - that evolution denialism in the American voting public has remained constant for decades, regardless of whether the Federal Government was dominated by Democrats or Republicans. Nor can you claim that the result in the first graph would support your contention that Republicans were responsible for the result in the second graph. I am stating this not to exonerate my fellow Republicans, but to make this important statistical point. You need to show a statistically significant trend for your assertion to be true (Even a liberally-biased person trained in statistics would concede that mine is a valid point, statistically speaking.):

SWT said:

John Kwok said: SWT - You obviously don't understand what I have been saying about net statistically-significant change and looking at long-term polling trends from the standpoint of YEARS NOT MONTHS. If what you said is indeed true, then we would have seen substantially changes in the percentages of those who deny evoloution depending on which political party(ies) was (were) in power in Washington, DC. We don't.

OK John, you've completely lost me here. I've said a number of things in this thread, so I have to ask: when you write "If what you said is indeed true," what specific assertion or assertions are you referring to? Links would be great for removing ambiguity. Please read completely the post at this link before you respond.

What specific assertion of mine are you challenging? One or two sentences at most, please.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

This isn't about statistics -- it's about proper attribution. You have stated that I made some very specific assertions about the available data and its interpretation, assertions that I did not make. Either provide links to where I actually made the statements you attribute to me or admit that you've made a mistake in attributing these statements to me.

I support the same type of economics which inspired Darwin to think of the “economy of nature”.

I noted about 300 comments ago that the US political party overwhelmingly most associated with public record efforts to put the teaching of creationism into public schools was the Republican party. I noted that these blatant attempts to violate the constitution cannot be conflated with mere personal claims of creationist beliefs in polls.

I also predicted denial.

I'm traveling on business and had no internet yesterday.

I see it was a busy day. A couple of hundred comments revolving around attempts by John Kwok to infer from polls that the absolute number of non-conservative creationists is similar to the absolute number of creationist conservatives.

What does that have to do with anything, even if true? Non-conservative creationists aren't voting for the science denying politicians who generate science denying legislation. Non-creationist conservatives are voting for those politicians. All the denial in the world won't change that.

John Kwok said: It is, and you are just too dense to realize this SWT. Learn something about statistics first and I'll reply to any serious questions you might have. Otherwise, have a good day. I have other work to do, as well as seeing an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on its closing day, which is today:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

This isn't about statistics -- it's about proper attribution. You have stated that I made some very specific assertions about the available data and its interpretation, assertions that I did not make. Either provide links to where I actually made the statements you attribute to me or admit that you've made a mistake in attributing these statements to me.

Steve Matheson said:

Ray said:

Steve Matheson said:

Ray Martinez said: Question: IF randomness does not correspond to absence of Intelligent involvement, then what adjective or adjectives do?

I'm not in need of such words, so I guess you'll have to work on that one yourself. Why it is that "lacking intelligent involvement" won't do, I sure don't know.

The issue is not complex or complicated. Here we have a well-educated and informed person refusing to take a stand. Why? Evolutionists do not want Christian-Evolutionists to feel stupid for supporting a theory that says their God is absent from biological production. "Random" means "invisible Director" is absent. Ray Martinez

Thanks for the contribution, Ray. It was so brilliant that I'm not even going to try to refute it. Tell your friends!

John, Have you always had trouble admitting when you are wrong?

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

"How about "chance," "unguided," "undirected," "unintelligent" and "unsupervised," Steve?

All of these adjectives appear abundantly in the literature describing evolution and natural selection.

Ray Martinez (species immutabilist)"

Funny, those term can also be applied to gravity, lightning, diffusion, etc. as well. Do you reject those concepts because they do not require lip service to your imaginary intelligence either?

Must be rather tiring having an immutable opinion. Kind of like being immune to evidence, what?

Aw, the Ray Troll just wants attention.

Rich Blinne said:

John Kwok said: Why is it do I get the impression that I, as someone who was trained in biostatistics, am arguing with two people, Rich and SWT, who have no knowledge, understanding or appreciation of statistics:

SWT said:

John Kwok said: I am also challenging your assertion that science denialism has increased under Republican control of the Federal Government.

Please show where I have asserted this.

I didn't assert this either, so it must be the voices in his head. Science denialism (at least by tracking acceptance of creationism) did not increase over the last thirty years (marking a huge FAIL for ID). It's not necessary to explain a non-existent cause to a non-existent effect. Science denialism in global warming is a different story. This has been increasing greatly in the last five years. Of the various co-factors party, ideology, religion, the biggest predictor of this is conservative self-identification.

DS said: "How about "chance," "unguided," "undirected," "unintelligent" and "unsupervised," Steve? All of these adjectives appear abundantly in the literature describing evolution and natural selection. Ray Martinez (species immutabilist)" Funny, those term can also be applied to gravity, lightning, diffusion, etc. as well. Do you reject those concepts because they do not require lip service to your imaginary intelligence either? Must be rather tiring having an immutable opinion. Kind of like being immune to evidence, what?

John Kwok said: This doesn't leave you off the hook for explaining why you thought ID had "strong arguments" to refute Dawkins's latest condemnation of Christianity back on April 23, 2007 at Uncommon Descent. You had no business period in making such a suggestion, especially when you should have known by then of Dembski's successful grand larceny with respect to the Dover (PA) Area School District Board and his false accusation to the Federal Department of Homeland Security in which he claimed that eminent University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka was a potential bioterrorist. Nor does it absolve you of your obligation to retract your "creationist trick" accusation - which you repeated twice - against me and to apologize for it:

I am an ASA member and I would like to explain the context of the quotes of the commissioned ASA review. The section quoted above is actually being critical of my and Ken Miller's position. Namely, Expelled is crap because it promotes the "warfare model" and that it is truly possible to be true to science and faith simultaneously -- ID is true to neither, BTW. What Schloss is countering with is that our position may be a fallacy of the "golden mean". It may be that there is an intractable difference. What he doesn't consider is that he makes his own fallacy of the golden mean by not considering in enough detail that science and ID have intractable differences. I will give him credit he does consider the question what if ID is just a steaming pile of dog dung but in attempt to be "fair" he suspends judgement and that was a mistake in my opinion. This blog takes that position in that faith -- no matter how moderate - is untenable. I happen to disagree. But, what Schloss, Miller you and I all can agree is Expelled is crap. We just differ on how much it stinks. I would also like to add I have never been "bounced" from your blog but I have been from Uncommon Descent. This exposes their hypocrisy. As much as they say they want academic freedom and free and open debate, it's not true. The latter means that you are free to call me a blithering idiot. ID has simply no clue what real scientific debate looks like because of this sheltered cocoon they have created for themselves. O! the humanity they told me to "Shut up". Get a life. People like Ken Miller and many within the ASA like myself are ID's inconvenient truth. Not only atheists like yourself oppose ID but many people of faith do too because it is both bad science AND bad theology. I would add even more so with the ASA than Ken Miller because many of us are evangelicals. Expelled has pitched this to the evangelical community as how you all are trying to persecute us poor, little, defenseless Christians. This is utter nonsense and many of us Christians like Ken Miller (along with much of the ASA) have had enough and are speaking out.

harold said: John Kwok -

I support the same type of economics which inspired Darwin to think of the “economy of nature”.

A fascinating statement on many levels. Ironically, Malthus was factually wrong about human societies. His observations work pretty well as a crude descriptive, not proscriptive, model of non-human animal population trends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus However, he overlooked the human capacity for contraception. In fact, affluent human societies with low childhood mortality rates experience the lowest population growth rates. The United States is an example, and population growth is coming mainly from immigration. It's worth noting that Malthus argued from the perspective of an Anglican clergyman. Yet his proscriptive for society ideas are completely inconsistent with current Anglican theology, at least in the UK. Furthermore, Darwin repeatedly pointed out the obvious logical fact, that the theory of evolution is explanatory and descriptive, NOT proscriptive. It most certainly does not tell us how we "should" manage economic policy. It does not even remotely address economic policy in a direct way. Please note that I do think that models based on biological evolution can sometimes be of value in very specific economic questions. But the fact that life evolves does not in any way, shape, or form compel any particular economic policy.

Rob said: John, Have you always had trouble admitting when you are wrong?

Rich Blinne said: I googled "strong arguments" and came up with nothing. Then I tried "stronger arguments" and found it. It seems you cannot even get a two word direct quote right. The stronger arguments are things like the Anthropic Principle without making a probabilistic argument. Furthermore, you can make the argument without denying science. I admit that it's pretty lame but when compared against say specified complexity it is a stronger argument.

John Kwok said: Rob, I was trying to educate SWT as to how one could analyze certain predictions based on the graphical information he gave me. Unfortunately that information couldn't really say much, at least from a statistical perspective, for anyone to claim that the increasing trend of global warming denialism in the United States from 2004 to 2010 is due to the public's political agreement with the views espoused by Republicans. As I noted earlier, that could be true, but you need the appropriate data and statistical analysis to support it. I am certain that any liberal who was trained in statistics and understood the rationale for collecting the right type of data for multivariate regression analysis would concur with my assessment:

Rob said: John, Have you always had trouble admitting when you are wrong?

John Kwok said: Rob, I was trying to educate SWT as to how one could analyze certain predictions based on the graphical information he gave me. Unfortunately that information couldn't really say much, at least from a statistical perspective, for anyone to claim that the increasing trend of global warming denialism in the United States from 2004 to 2010 is due to the public's political agreement with the views espoused by Republicans. As I noted earlier, that could be true, but you need the appropriate data and statistical analysis to support it. I am certain that any liberal who was trained in statistics and understood the rationale for collecting the right type of data for multivariate regression analysis would concur with my assessment:

Rob said: John, Have you always had trouble admitting when you are wrong?

In an exception to the pessimism about the environment, the poll found a ten-point drop in the percentage of respondents who say the earth will get warmer: from 76 percent in 1999 to 66 percent in 2010.

That trend “is very consistent with data we’ve gathered on the issue of global warming more generally,” Keeter said. “There are many possible explanations, but one thing is quite clear: there is a strong partisan and ideological pattern to the decline in belief in global warming.” The vast majority of the change since 1999, he said, has occurred among Republicans and independents who lean Republican.

Rich -

This is what I am referring to:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/ted-davis-the-theistic-evolutionists-theistic-evolutionist-rising-above-the-fray/

In comment number 20 (4/3/07 7:28 PM) you assert:

"No, that’s not what I am saying. I am saying address Dawkins with the best arguments available. Dawkins believes just because he slices through your weak arguments that he has conquered Christianity."

"Note carefully what I am saying. Some of ID’s arguments are much stronger than others. The anti-evolutionary ones are its weakest. Focus on the stronger arguments you already have."

You wrote this back in April 2007 when I presume you had read Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" (Or at least had heard of it.). They showed conclusively that Intelligent Design had no "strong arguments" to make, period. I am also reasonably certain that you may have heard Keith Miller declare this too. So I am utterly perplexed and stunned that you would even concede that Intelligent Design had "strong arguments" to contend with Dawkins's condemnation of Christianity.

SWT said: John, one of the points that you seem determined not to understand ...

John Kwok said: Rich - This is what I am referring to: http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/ted-davis-the-theistic-evolutionists-theistic-evolutionist-rising-above-the-fray/ In comment number 20 (4/3/07 7:28 PM) you assert: "No, that’s not what I am saying. I am saying address Dawkins with the best arguments available. Dawkins believes just because he slices through your weak arguments that he has conquered Christianity." "Note carefully what I am saying. Some of ID’s arguments are much stronger than others. The anti-evolutionary ones are its weakest. Focus on the stronger arguments you already have." You wrote this back in April 2007 when I presume you had read Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" (Or at least had heard of it.). They showed conclusively that Intelligent Design had no "strong arguments" to make, period. I am also reasonably certain that you may have heard Keith Miller declare this too. So I am utterly perplexed and stunned that you would even concede that Intelligent Design had "strong arguments" to contend with Dawkins's condemnation of Christianity.

John Kwok said: Rich - This is what I am referring to: http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/ted-davis-the-theistic-evolutionists-theistic-evolutionist-rising-above-the-fray/ In comment number 20 (4/3/07 7:28 PM) you assert: "No, that’s not what I am saying. I am saying address Dawkins with the best arguments available. Dawkins believes just because he slices through your weak arguments that he has conquered Christianity." "Note carefully what I am saying. Some of ID’s arguments are much stronger than others. The anti-evolutionary ones are its weakest. Focus on the stronger arguments you already have." You wrote this back in April 2007 when I presume you had read Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross's "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" (Or at least had heard of it.). They showed conclusively that Intelligent Design had no "strong arguments" to make, period. I am also reasonably certain that you may have heard Keith Miller declare this too. So I am utterly perplexed and stunned that you would even concede that Intelligent Design had "strong arguments" to contend with Dawkins's condemnation of Christianity.

MrG said:

SWT said: John, one of the points that you seem determined not to understand ...

Alas, any one of them can only seem hopelessly insignificant in comparison to the sum of the rest.

John Kwok said: Obviously you are either ignorant of statistical methodology and using it to make statistically valid predictions with respect to polling data or you're just interested in trying to make me look foolish (or both). Think you and SWT need to look at some stat books:

MrG said:

SWT said: John, one of the points that you seem determined not to understand ...

Alas, any one of them can only seem hopelessly insignificant in comparison to the sum of the rest.

Are you guys seriously that bored? John and Rich, you each get one response then I'll move any further bickering to the bathroom wall.

If you were a decent person, you would admit that you goofed in confusing Genie Scott’s citation of a 1996 Gallup Poll with one from Gallup for 2007. But you’re not decent.

GRRRR.

John, it's the SAME DATA SET. Genie accessed it earlier is all.

Gallup has been collecting that same data for decades.

sweet JESUS, you're dense.

It's why I told you to actually read the Gallup report from 2007, where they reference that same, continuing, data set.

*sigh*

I don't know why ANYONE bothers with you.

Mr Kwok is well on his way to become PT's very own Mr Gordon E. Mullings (aka Kairosfocus on UcD), diluting the average information density of PT threads to dangerously low levels, making my fingers hurt from scrolling over his self-serving crap.

Start your own blog or STFU, Kwok.

Steve Matheson said: Are you guys seriously that bored? John and Rich, you each get one response then I'll move any further bickering to the bathroom wall.

Steve Matheson said: Are you guys seriously that bored? John and Rich, you each get one response then I'll move any further bickering to the bathroom wall.

Steve,

Consider this my final response too. I have no interest or desire to comment further on comments made by delusional New Atheist fanatics here or by one of your co-religionists who believes that a hypothetical example I offwed here in this thread is a "creationist trick", especially when he had the nerve to suggest to none other than William Dembski that Dembski - and Dembski's Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg Collective drones - had some "strong arguments" in ID to counter yet another condemnation of Christianity from Richard Dawkins. At the very least he shouldn't have offered such a statement especially when it was well known back then that Dembski had stolen $20,000 from the Dover (PA) Area School District Board when he promised - then reneged - to appear on its behalf as a leading defense witness in the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial (And I am also certain he should heard of Dembski's false accusation of eminent University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka as a potential bioterrorist to the Federal Department of Homeland Security in 2006.).

MrG said:

Steve Matheson said: Are you guys seriously that bored? John and Rich, you each get one response then I'll move any further bickering to the bathroom wall.

You might consider shutting down a thread after about 300 postings or so. By that time, it's usually just exchanges of fire between bickerers anyway.

fnxtr said: Oh, shut up, loser, it is not! :-)

I wasn't going to comment further, but since Rich Blinne has yet to explain why he opted to give some encouraging words to Bill Dembski and Dembski's delusional Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg Collective drones at Uncommonly Dense back in April 2007 and has opted to comment extensively elsewhere here at Panda's Thumb, I thought I'd leave one last closing comment. Rich Blinne may think he knows what constitutes creationism and how to deal with his fellow Evangelical Christians with regards to this. But he has never successfully confronted delusion Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographers Stephen Meyer, William Dembski and Michael Behe. His fellow Evangelicals Steve Matheson and David Heddle have (And so have I, though admittedly, not in the same spectacular fashion that Steve Matheson demonstrated recently in his open letter to Stephen Meyer.).

Some typos so I am reposting this:

I wasn't going to comment further, but since Rich Blinne has yet to explain why he opted to give some encouraging words to Bill Dembski and Dembski's delusional Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg Collective drones at Uncommonly Dense back in April 2007 and has opted to comment extensively elsewhere here at Panda's Thumb, I thought I'd leave one last closing comment. Rich Blinne may think he knows what constitutes creationism and how to deal most effectively with fellow Evangelical Christians sympathetic to (or fervently believing in) Intelligent Design creationism and other forms of "scientific creationism". But he has never successfully confronted delusional Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographers Stephen Meyer, William Dembski and Michael Behe. His fellow Evangelicals Keith Miller, Steve Matheson and David Heddle have (And so have I, though admittedly, not in the same spectacular fashion that Steve Matheson demonstrated recently in his open letter to Stephen Meyer.).

There is much stochasticity in biology, most notably in gene expression. This Creationist Scientist acknowledges stochasticity in gene expression, signal transduction, and cell death numbers during architectural developmental processes. And yet determinism reigns with specification of some 250 unique cell types that make up (the majority of time) our unique body plan. There is no incompatibility with the aforementioned stochastic biological processes and existence of God just as there is no problem with intrinsic imperfections of the genome and a perfect God. Afterall, we are all living proof of non-perfection, especially as it relates to moral codes.

Anthony Joseph said: There is no incompatibility with the aforementioned stochastic biological processes and existence of God just as there is no problem with intrinsic imperfections of the genome and a perfect God.

John Kwok said: What happened Rich? Did your cat caught your tongue? Even if I don't report you to ASA senior leadership, I am sure they'll get a whiff regarding how you treat someone - myself - who has a well-established track record in dealing with delusional Xians like Michael Behe and Bill Dembski. They will certainly wonder how you can claim to be a credible advocate in urging others sympathetic to the DI, when they will see you merely as a liberal Evangelical who may be a stealth New Atheist in disguise, given your recent behavior here at Panda's Thumb (Or even someone still sympathetic to the Dishonesty Institute based on your "advice" on how ID can be used against Dawkins's condemnation of Christianity which you posted at Dembski's website back in April 2007.). If you wish to be seen as a credible advocate, then you can start by retracting your "creationist trick" comments and apologizing for them. Tomorrow is the Christian Sabbath. I think that would be a most appropriate time for your retractions and apologies.

Anthony Joseph said: There is much stochasticity in biology, most notably in gene expression. This Creationist Scientist acknowledges stochasticity in gene expression, signal transduction, and cell death numbers during architectural developmental processes. And yet determinism reigns with specification of some 250 unique cell types that make up (the majority of time) our unique body plan. There is no incompatibility with the aforementioned stochastic biological processes and existence of God just as there is no problem with intrinsic imperfections of the genome and a perfect God. Afterall, we are all living proof of non-perfection, especially as it relates to moral codes.

Malchus said: no creationist can be an honest scientist.

eric said:

Malchus said: no creationist can be an honest scientist.

Todd Wood appears to be both. The guy admits evolution is the only scientific theory for the origin of species, and that the physical evidence overwhelmingly supports it (he says he doesn't believe it for faith reasons). RBH even wrote a PT post on him being an honest creationist (April '09). However, Wood is probably more 'exception that proves the rule' than counter-argument. For every Wood, there's probably countless creationists who go to school, earn a Ph.D. just to get the letters, then start spouting nonsense about the 2LOT or what have you.