Disco 'Tute has a new apologi... erm...contributor

Posted 16 September 2010 by Richard B. Hoppe

Josh Rosenau notes that the Disco 'Tute's house organ, Evolution News and Views, has a new contributor, Heather ~~Sieger~~ Zieger, currently a research associate at Probe Ministries, a fundamentalist ministry, one of whose co-founders is Jon Buell, publisher of "Of Pandas and People" of "cdesign proponentsists" fame. And there's a nice wrinkle: The Disco 'Tute's description of her completely neglects her four years of apologetics work at Probe Ministries. But it's all about the science, right? See Josh's post for more.

30 Comments

Midnight Rambler · 17 September 2010

Am I the only one who saw "Probe Ministries" and immediately thought of this? I expect the experience of the latter is similar to being forced to listen to a member of the former.

Ichthyic · 17 September 2010

"Probe Ministries"

wasn't that Ted Haggard's pet project?

hello · 17 September 2010

gre

Duncan Buell · 17 September 2010

If my guesswork based on the family books are correct, Jon Buell is a fourth cousin of mine.

Sorry about that. Some things are out of my control.

D. P. Robin · 17 September 2010

Richard, her last name is Zieger. From the Probe Ministries site:

Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults...

I'll bet! dpr

Keelyn · 17 September 2010

"As an overcomer in pornography and masturbation ..." and "...Mike is well-equipped to answer the question of why masturbation is wrong."

Um, ok. Well, that sure did make the oj go down hard this morning.

Keelyn · 17 September 2010

Actually, that wasn't meant to be a reply to
Ichthyic's post. Sorry about that.

Karen S. · 17 September 2010

“As an overcomer in pornography and masturbation …” and “…Mike is well-equipped to answer the question of why masturbation is wrong.”

Lesson Learned: Masturbation makes you go blind, so you should just do it until you need glasses

fnxtr · 17 September 2010

Actually, "Probe Ministries" made me think of Burgess Meredith.

stevaroni · 17 September 2010

Keelyn said: "As an overcomer in pornography and masturbation ..."

A little too much personal information for someone associated with “Probe Ministries”.

MememicBottleneck · 17 September 2010

I thought "Probe Ministry" was part of a Catholic priest's training.

Doc Bill · 17 September 2010

As an overcomer in pornography and masturbation...

Is "overcomer" a real word? I guess there could be a "comer," "undercomer" and "overcomer." What would be the degree of difficulty for a two-and-a-half comer pike position? With a twist?

Wheels · 17 September 2010

Doc Bill said:
As an overcomer in pornography and masturbation...
Is "overcomer" a real word? I guess there could be a "comer," "undercomer" and "overcomer."

And to think, all of those achievements in masturbation and pornography!

RBH · 17 September 2010

D. P. Robin said: Richard, her last name is Zieger.

Rats. Thanks. Fixed.

John · 17 September 2010

Dear Mr. Hoppe:
This comment is 100% off-topic, but I didn't know how to contact you otherwise. I'm a Mount Vernon resident who reads your blog regularly for accurate details about the Freshwater debacle. Last Christmas, if I'm not mistaken, the nativity scene on our public square was, I think, taken down and then put back up again in a quiet, perhaps not fully resolved dispute. I just heard about this new movie coming out (maybe you already know of it?): "Christmas with a Capital C" -- set in a small-town, where the guy who opposes public display of the nativity scene is the villain. I want every reader on your site to be aware of this movie, which I understand will come out near the holidays this year? The trailer -- NSFthinkingpeople -- is here:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2858747673/
Regards,
John

p.s. I

Frank J · 17 September 2010

But it’s all about the science, right?
— Richard B. Hoppe

From my perspective, the minute they contributed to "Expelled," the DI essentially said "read our lips, we were only kidding when we said it's about the science." That all but sealed the oft-cited admissions by Johnson and Nelson that ID has no theory. If they do still backpedal (when did the DI ever miss an opportunity to have it both ways), it's only to see if they can fool a few more of the more hopeless rubes. Anyway, I see that Zieger has a B.S, in chemistry. Every field has a small % of sellouts to pseudoscience, especially if it supports an extremist political agenda. So I have learned not to be too disappointed when someone in my field sells out. The obvious questions, though, are whether, like Behe (a biochemist), she admitted that young-earth and young-life arguments ("scientific" ones, not "Omphalos" ones) are absurd. And whether she conceded that the "biological continuum" of common descent is more reasonable than the alternatives (independent origin of "kinds") promoted by YECs and OECs.

Frank J · 17 September 2010

Correction. She has a M.S. in chemistry. The bio mentioned that she conducted organic synthesis. As with engineers (Salem) I can personally vouch that the design argument was misleadingly seductive when I was "designing" and conducting multistep syntheses.

harold · 17 September 2010

Frank J -

She has an MS in Chemistry, and an undergraduate minor in something to do with "government".

That smells an awfully lot like the path of a tormented and brainwashed "smartest kid in Jesus camp", sent out to "disprove evolution" by getting a science degree, with the typical authoritarian fundamentalist obsession with law, government, and command also represented. (A secret life of decadent indulgence in pornography, with grotesquely public confessions and repentences when caught, would also be typical of members of such a subculture, although that may tend to be - at risk of stereotyping - more commonly a male problem.)

Flint · 17 September 2010

So I have learned not to be too disappointed when someone in my field sells out.

I don't understand this. From what I have read, basically these people have been creationists from the time they learned to talk. I read that nearly every creationist (over 80%) who enters an undergraduate biology program and graduates, graduates as a creationist. There is a long and solid track record here: creationist starts in infancy, and by the Age of Reason, has become incurable. Certainly education is no cure. So they didn't "sell out" at all. We're still looking at the intellectual equivalent of foot-binding and neck-stretching. Only possible at a very early age, and once done is utterly irremedial. Just as it was done to her parents by their parents, and to her grandparents by their parents.

harold · 17 September 2010

Frank J -

Oops, forgot to add - there's always the "master's without doctoral" question.

If someone has a highly applied master's degree like physical therapy (I have an MBA myself, and defend much of it as having been useful, by the way), there's no question.

Also, if they jump out of a field in high demand in industry into a high paying job, right after a Master's.

But I'm going to go ahead and wonder why Ms. Magna Cum Laude Zeiger decided to stop graduate school with an MS. It may suggest that the whole science enterprise was for show.

harold · 17 September 2010

Flint -

Indeed. And as we've seen with the much-celebrated Morton, even those who come to their senses with regard to the theory of evolution are prone to suffer from denialism and cognitive troubles in other areas.

On the other hand, if 20% get out in every generation, then that's a good thing.

Chris Lawson · 17 September 2010

Flint --

How people graduate is not the only measure of educational success. I would bet that a fair proportion of those who graduate as creationists end up changing their minds after the information they have received in university gets a chance to percolate and they find themselves correcting the same serious misrepresentations from their friends and priests over and over and then get to wondering if they're so wrong about some things, why not others...

I guess I'm more hopeful than you that time can make a difference.

Frank J · 17 September 2010

That smells an awfully lot like the path of a tormented and brainwashed “smartest kid in Jesus camp”, sent out to “disprove evolution” by getting a science degree, with the typical authoritarian fundamentalist obsession with law, government, and command also represented.
— harold

IOW like Jonathan Wells, but not foolish enough to admit it, especially in the Internet age.

So they didn’t “sell out” at all.
— Flint

Sure they do. You say they're "creationists," which they may be in the sense that they don't like evolution, and will do whatever they can to promote doubt to the "masses." But they know that the "science," of YEC, OEC, ID, is all bogus. So they don't dare to try to support claims of a young earth, independent origin of "kinds," etc. with their own original research. Instead they knowingly cherry pick from evidence that others have worked hard to obtain, to deliberately pretend that evolution is "weak." They know that they are using every pseudoscience trick in the book, including peddling the absurd insinuation that 99+% of biologists - the ones with the most to gain by falsifying evolution, no less - are either mistaken or lying. That's what I mean by "selling out." You might still find some like Glenn Morton in the hard-line YEC and OEC organizations - which don't like the ID strategy anyway. But when they start out with the DI, they almost certainly know that they're misleading others about the science. The most charitable thing I can say about them is that they might honestly think that misleading the "masses" is necessary to save the world.

Frank J · 17 September 2010

I guess I’m more hopeful than you that time can make a difference.
— Chris Lawson

I agree, though I doubt that there's much hard data to either verify or refute that. There's a direct correlation with science education and acceptance of evolution and rejection of creationism/ID. But there are other possible explanations for that correlation. E.g. those committed to favoring creationism (answering poll questions as such) are unlikely to pursue higher education in science. Further confusing the results is the fact that many who start out favoring creationism (though knowing little about it, including being unaware of the difference between "scientific" YEC and Omphalos creationism) might continue to choose creationism-friendly answers to poll questions even after learning that it is bogus. E.g. they might start high school actually thinking that evidence supports a young Earth, but by the time they graduate college will either believe it in spite of conradictory evidence (Omphalos), or become OECs, or sell out to the "don't ask, don't tell" ID scam. Even if they cross the line to theistic evolution, they might still answer the standard poll question with "God created humans in their present form in the last 10,000 years" because they are focusing on souls, not cells. Note also that the activists who join anti-evolution organizations are committed to peddling anti-science nonsense regardless of what they might believe in private. But they are just a tiny fraction of the evolution-denying public.

Registered User · 20 September 2010

Whatever happened to the supergenius Hannah Maxson who was supposed to save the world for the creotards? Is the brainwashing children in Korea?

Ron Okimoto · 21 September 2010

What do these guys like Luskin do at the Discovery Institute? It has to be a pretty boring job, and how do they interact with the guys that are supposed to be in the legitimate departments of the Discovery Institute?

John Kwok · 22 September 2010

harold, You're forgetting of course that now she can claim that as a former science graduate student, she was able to embrace her scientific background with her love for Jehovah and his son:

harold said: Frank J - Oops, forgot to add - there's always the "master's without doctoral" question. If someone has a highly applied master's degree like physical therapy (I have an MBA myself, and defend much of it as having been useful, by the way), there's no question. Also, if they jump out of a field in high demand in industry into a high paying job, right after a Master's. But I'm going to go ahead and wonder why Ms. Magna Cum Laude Zeiger decided to stop graduate school with an MS. It may suggest that the whole science enterprise was for show.

Her appointment brings a new meaning to my favorite term "mendacious intellectual pornographer" in that she, as the DI's latest, is willing to sidestep her YEC allegiances in favor of the DI "Big Tent", in the hope she can advance the causes of Christ and Science (from a Christian perspective of course).

Miles · 22 September 2010

You realize Zierger wrote a review of Stephen Meyer's Signature Cell book on "Salvo"?

http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo11/11zeiger.php

robert van bakel · 23 September 2010

Her, the DI , and all the other groups are just wankers, tossers,and palm pleasurers.

gregwrld · 3 October 2010

Personally, I'd rather pleasure my penis than my palm...but that's just me...