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Cope vs. Kansas State Board of Education loses on appeal

Posted 22 April 2016 by Matt Young

NCSE informs us that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered a decision in the appeal of Cope vs. Kansas, which we reported on here. Specifically, the Court of Appeals upheld the District Court's earlier dismissal of the case, largely on the basis of standing. Additionally, NCSE notes, "Interestingly, though, the decision observes in a footnote that COPE's suggestion for 'teleological' explanations to be added to the standards would be unconstitutional." NCSE's report on the decision follows, printed with permission:

A DECISION IN THE COPE APPEAL The creationist lawsuit seeking to reverse Kansas's 2013 decision to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards on the grounds that the state thereby "establish[ed] and endorse[d] a non-theistic religious worldview" failed again on April 19, 2016, when the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's dismissal of the case, COPE et al. v. Kansas State Board of Education et al. The court's decision mainly addressed the question of standing, agreeing with the district court that the plaintiffs lacked standing to assert any of their claims. Interestingly, though, the decision observes in a footnote that COPE's suggestion for "teleological" explanations to be added to the standards would be unconstitutional. As NCSE previously reported, the lead plaintiff, COPE, Citizens for Objective Public Education, is a relatively new creationist organization, founded in 2012 but its leaders and attorneys include people familiar from previous attacks on evolution education across the country, such as John H. Calvert of the Intelligent Design Network. The NGSS have been adopted in eighteen states -- Arkansas (so far only for middle school), California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia -- plus the District of Columbia. The treatment of evolution and climate science in the standards occasionally provokes controversy, but COPE v. Kansas is the only lawsuit to have resulted.

You may find the court's decision (PDF) here, courtesy of NCSE. And you may find NCSE's collection of documents from COPE v. Kansas here ______
Thanks to Glenn Branch of NCSE for allowing us to reproduce their essay.

81 Comments

https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 · 22 April 2016

"non-theistic religious worldview" I am always stunned when a religiote (patent pending) issues such a statement. I can only infer that such folk CANNOT CONCEIVE of a worldview that does not involve deities, saints, commandments and such. I am appalled by the intensity of indoctrination that could yield such myopia.

Mike Elzinga · 22 April 2016

COPE has produced three documents, here, here, and here, that outline their basic "philosophical arguments" for declaring that the NGSS promote a "religious point of view." The typical buzz words of the religious wrong are all there; materialism, methodological naturalism, atheism, "historical vs. operational science," among the other familiar attempts at pseudo-philosophy. Furthermore, COPE wants to wallow in the usual quagmire of word-gaming when it claims the following:

Among the many words and phrases that should be defined are these: science, scientific knowledge, materialism, mechanism, naturalism, methodological naturalism, teleology, design, information, evolution, homology, adaptation, mutation, natural selection, climate change, global warming, ecosystem, and sustainability.

As we have seen repeatedly over the last 5 decades, ID/creationists simply cannot produce any science. They all have serious and egregious misconceptions about basic scientific concepts at even the middle and high school levels. They can't calculate properly at the high school level; and their "mathematics" is completely irrelevant to anything that actually occurs in the real universe. COPE is one of the most blatant manifestations of the socio/political nature of the ID/creationist movement. They don't want national standards because it involves the federal government. They don't want evolution because it conflicts with their religion. They don't want climate change because it implicates them for being a major part of the irresponsible behavior of humans in destroying planet Earth. After something like 50 years of this whiney crap, it appears that judges are beginning to recognize the shibboleths of ID/creationist pseudoscience.

Just Bob · 22 April 2016

I think partly they recognize the weakness of claiming 'religion' in a pluralistic society with constitutional separation of church and state. Recognizing the undeniability of their own religious motivations, they seek to weaken their opponents' stance by claiming, "Their stuff is just another religion! So either forbid theirs in school, like you do ours, or let us preach ours like they get to preach theirs! Since they're both religions, you can't favor theirs over ours!"

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 22 April 2016

non-theistic religious worldview
Versus the "non-empirical scientific worldview" of ID/creationism. When will their persecution by the evidence ever end? Glen Davidson

Michael Fugate · 22 April 2016

What is funny is that the "scientists" behind COPE are all chemists. I had an email exchange with Darwin dissenter and NAS member chemist Phil Skell after he testified in Kansas. Skell's schtick was that evolution is unnecessary for teaching biology because he knew a couple of "biologists" at Penn State who claimed they never referred to it in their work. He got really pissy when I asked if he taught or could teach chemistry without referring to atomic theory. The general ignorance of evolution even among the educated is widespread.

eric · 22 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: What is funny is that the "scientists" behind COPE are all chemists.
Damn! Now I have to reword all my "engineer walks into a bar" jokes.
I had an email exchange with Darwin dissenter and NAS member chemist Phil Skell after he testified in Kansas. Skell's schtick was that evolution is unnecessary for teaching biology because he knew a couple of "biologists" at Penn State who claimed they never referred to it in their work.
No need for the scare quotes, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that were true. However given the number of subfields within chemistry that rarely if ever use each other's knowledge, he should've known that (a) this was irrelevant, and (b) an anecdotal sample anyway. That sort of creationist reasoning is just so narcissistic. "I don't use it" /= "kids shouldn't learn it."

Mike Elzinga · 22 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: What is funny is that the "scientists" behind COPE are all chemists. I had an email exchange with Darwin dissenter and NAS member chemist Phil Skell after he testified in Kansas. Skell's schtick was that evolution is unnecessary for teaching biology because he knew a couple of "biologists" at Penn State who claimed they never referred to it in their work. He got really pissy when I asked if he taught or could teach chemistry without referring to atomic theory. The general ignorance of evolution even among the educated is widespread.
Looking at their board of directors, we see two chemists, one engineer, and several with degrees in education. If one looks at their list of recomended readings, one finds material from Right Wing think tanks. It seems to be the general rule that all "scientifically trained" advocates of ID/creationism have major deficiencies in their basic understanding of science; and that remains true no matter how much they waggle the degrees after their names. Certainly chemists should know better than to accept the "calculations" of the ID/creationist movement about the probabilities of molecular assemblies. Even high school students of physics and chemistry have enough reason to be suspicious of ID/creationist calculations that treat atoms and molecules like junkyard parts being blown about by a tornado or like ASCII characters being picked at ramdom to form a Shakespearean sonet. Even middle school students know about electric charge. ID/creationist chemists apparently haven't kept up with the science in their fields; otherwise they would know something about the work that lead to the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry. The fact that decades of such work by leading chemists means nothing to ID/creationist "scientists" is a pretty good indication that they lack any understanding of some pretty fundamental notions in chemistry and physics. And it always seems that the "scientists" in the Far Right Wing of such sectarian movements are not only poorly educated, but are also the most politically active. Apparently they don't know enough science to keep themselves busy, so they turn to politics and religion.

JimboK · 22 April 2016

eric said:
Michael Fugate said: What is funny is that the "scientists" behind COPE are all chemists.
Damn! Now I have to reword all my "engineer walks into a bar" jokes.
Won't you please share a few of them with us? Pleeeeeaazzzze....

Henry J · 22 April 2016

One (of whatever group) walks into a bar... and then says "ouch".

Robert Byers · 22 April 2016

They are getting closer to the winning argument in ending state censorship in America in public institutions.
I don't like the concept that a non-thesit world view was being established. Close but close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.
What they should say is not that what is taught is illegal but rather its illegal to only teach that.
The state censoring in subjects dedicated to truth and accuracy means the state is saying THE CENSORED is not true.
This is a state opinion. NEXT. Now this means the state is saying ideas THEY CLAIM as religious aRE NOT TRUE.
SO breaking the very concept they use to justify the censorship. The separation idea.
THIS CORE group is right to emphasize a view is being taught but wrong to say its illegal. Rather all ideas are legal.
To ban any is to assert state official conclusions.
They are making a accurate philosophical point however its still a miss.
ITS all wrong anyways to state the founders put in the constitution controls on education on conclusions ESPECIALLY banning God and Genesis.
Their white wigs would rotate thrice to see that squeezed out.
Try again boys. You are on the right track but hitting low branches.

Yardbird · 22 April 2016

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

phhht · 22 April 2016

Robert Byers said: ITS all wrong anyways to state the founders put in the constitution controls on education on conclusions ESPECIALLY banning God and Genesis.
Gods you're dumb, Byers. There are no gods. Genesis and the rest of your bible is fiction. You're a fool to believe otherwise.

Malcolm · 22 April 2016

Robert Byers burbled his usual crap:
Nothing is being censored, or banned. All that is happening is that everything is being held to the same standard; Science is the only thing that should taught in science class. As has been mentioned to you numerous times, you and your friends are free to spout your crazy ideas. no one is stopping you. You just can't claim that they are science, without backing that claim up with evidence.

TomS · 23 April 2016

Malcolm said: Nothing is being censored, or banned. All that is happening is that everything is being held to the same standard; Science is the only thing that should taught in science class. As has been mentioned to you numerous times, you and your friends are free to spout your crazy ideas. no one is stopping you. You just can't claim that they are science, without backing that claim up with evidence.
Let us observe that no one has an alternative account for what happens so that life on Earth takes the form that it has. The question of evidence is premature when there is nothing being proposed: evidence for what? If there is "censorship", it is self-censorship, as the evolution-deniers insist that they keep silent about offering any account. ID, in particular, was generated from the various conflicting forms of creationism by refusing to speak of the time scale or the agency of design, removing that little possibility of substance. "Classical creationisms" never did address the question of what happens so that things turn out as they do. "Anything is possible" is no attempt at talking about the reality of life.

Oldnsenile · 23 April 2016

Only "unchristian Christians" could conjure up the expression "non-theistic religious worldview".

Dave Luckett · 23 April 2016

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

Just Bob · 23 April 2016

Malcolm said: You just can't claim that they are science, without backing that claim up with evidence.
Well, yes, he can even do that, as he does here regularly. But that doesn't make it science, or make us, or the courts, agree with him.

harold · 23 April 2016

COPE uses the nihilistic, post-modern, and illogical "everything is religion so you have to teach my religion as science or teach nothing" methodology, I see. That's a common creationist trope. From their web site
COPE’s mission is to promote objectivity in public school curricula that address religious questions and issues so that the educational effect of the teaching is religiously neutral.
So far so good. Too bad they're lying about this part.
In this context religion is defined inclusively as an organized set of beliefs about ultimate questions, such as the cause, nature and purpose or meaning of life. It includes traditional theistic religions as well as pantheistic and materialistic religions, including Atheism and Religious ("Secular") Humanism.
So basically it's just a silly word game. Use a "definition of religion" that goes beyond even a reasonable very broad definition of religion. However, so far evolutionary biology is still okay, as it has nothing to do with atheism, let alone secular humanism. (As an aside, the key word in secular humanism is "humanism"; it's essentially a view that refers to antecedents in the humanism of the fifteenth century.) Atheism is an opinion about some but not all religious claims. Secular humanism is essentially a statement that humane religious people and humane non-religious people can have values in common. However, again, biological evolution has nothing to do with either.
COPE is particularly concerned with curricula that systematically exclude theistic views while teaching only atheistic perspectives.
But of course science isn't an atheistic perspective, any more than using the brakes instead of praying for your car to stop is an atheistic perspective. The typical creationist nonsense of trying to mix up "an activity which does not involve religion" with "a direct statement about religion".
COPE promotes the religious rights of parents, children, and taxpayers. We support the right of parents to direct the religious education of their children. Once in the classroom, children have the right to be objectively informed about issues that touch on religion.
Too bad they're lying when they say that this is what they support. Now we get to the real crap.
Religious subjects include those that seek to explain the origin and nature of life
Putting aside the fact that high school biology does not attempt to explain the origin of life, and might at best touch on some basic aspects of the intriguing but still very incomplete field of abiogenesis, this is just a cheap, flippant effort to use weasel words to define all of biomedical science as a religious subject.
and those which tend to profoundly relate the life of man to the world in which he lives. [McGowan v. Maryland (1961)]
A weaselly attempt to define almost any subject as a "religious" subject.
Public school courses that open these subjects for discussion include origins science, health, psychological and social sciences, religion in history, and other courses that deal with questions of ethics and morality, human sexuality, marriage, family, human behavior, and the sanctity of life. In addition, COPE seeks to enhance public awareness of the need for objectivity in public education regarding subjects that touch on religion.
I'm so tired of playing defense against this kind of crap. Courtroom time that the taxpayers pay for has been wasted again. If only there was some way to pro-actively sue these assholes. I realize there probably isn't. It's their first amendment right to say "we made up a lying definition of 'religion' that includes basic high school science and we might launch a frivolous lawsuit near you some day". Most likely all we can do is wait for their frivolous suits and wish that judges would be more proactive in penalizing frivolous nonsense.

harold · 23 April 2016

I forgot to include something above -

The logical extension of accepting COPE definitions would be that nothing could ever be taught at all.

COPE argues that "everything is always religion, therefore you have to teach my religion or teach nothing".

However, that fair paraphrase is a non-sequitur. The problem is with the word "my".

Even if we adopt their Alice-in-Wonderland definition of "religion", the real conclusion would be -

"Everything is always religion and we can't favor one religion, therefore we can't teach just science in science class because that would be favoring 'the religion of science', but therefore we can't just teach creationism, or 'equal time science and creationism', either, because that would still be favoring one or two religions.

Therefore we have to either teach all religions all the time, which is impossible, or teach nothing, so we have to teach nothing."

Just Bob · 23 April 2016

harold said: Therefore we have to either teach all religions all the time, which is impossible, or teach nothing, so we have to teach nothing."
Nope, they never do think through the logical outcomes of their pronouncements. I would say that "They hope you don't, either," but since they don't think of them in the first place, they don't realize what taking them literally -- at their word -- would mean. That, and there's the wink wink, nudge nudge: "Of course there's only one real religion, so we all understand that 'religion' only means ours."

TomS · 23 April 2016

There are some fundamentalists who say that they are Christians, and that they have no religion.

Mike Elzinga · 23 April 2016

COPE uses the technique of stringing together philosophical-sounding phrases in order to appear intellectual, erudite, and intimidating. They actually look silly; but they know how to waste other people's time and money in endless labyrinths of word games. This characteristic is one of the major identifying features of politically aggressive sectarian culture warfare.

If you listen to the "logic" raining down from the pulpits of many fundamentalist churches, you can recognise the orgins of this kind of "argumentation." It comes from the minds of sectarian apologists who play these word games to justify interpretations of their holy book no matter how strained, irrational, and unjustifiable those interpretations are.

One can see entire hour-long sermons attempting to justify any sort of preconceived notion of what others are supposed to be doing with their lives; and all of it base on just a single bible verse lifted out of context or juxtaposed with other verses elsewhere in their bible. They then gussy up their "argumentation" with big-word labels such as hermeneutics, exegesis, and etymology. They often invent their own etymology in giving meaning to a word. This is a favorite tactic of fundamentalist preachers attempting to appear scholarly.

And so we see the same tactic when it comes to their attempts to use secular law to impose their wants and beliefs on others. These characters aren't very bright; but they can sure be a public nuisance.

W. H. Heydt · 23 April 2016

Robert Byers said: They are getting closer to the winning argument in ending state censorship in America in public institutions.
Not only are they (you!) not getting "closer to winning the argument", they're getting farther away. You can't get much farther away than having a case dismissed for lack of standing with a footnote that you'd lose if the court ever even glanced at the merits of the case.

TomS · 23 April 2016

W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: They are getting closer to the winning argument in ending state censorship in America in public institutions.
Not only are they (you!) not getting "closer to winning the argument", they're getting farther away. You can't get much farther away than having a case dismissed for lack of standing with a footnote that you'd lose if the court ever even glanced at the merits of the case.
They are contributing to a record of legal precedents! And they are getting farther away as they are moving the goal posts. At one time, they wanted to teach Bible texts. Then they tried, step by step, to hide the explicit sectarianism. Like "scientific creationism", and so on. Now they're trying to claim that they don't want to offer anything, but just teach the weaknesses in science. They moved the goal posts off the field of play, and now they're outside the stadium, and they're apt to be off the continental shelf.

Matt Young · 23 April 2016

phhht said: Gods you're dumb, Byers. There are no gods. Genesis and the rest of your bible is fiction. You're a fool to believe otherwise.
I will probably regret writing this, but it is possible to believe that there are no gods, yet some of the Bible is historically accurate, even if the supernaturalism is false. The most fascinating question is to ask what is historically accurate and what not? There is no more reason to assume that it is all false than to assume it is all true.

phhht · 23 April 2016

Matt Young said:
phhht said: Gods you're dumb, Byers. There are no gods. Genesis and the rest of your bible is fiction. You're a fool to believe otherwise.
I will probably regret writing this, but it is possible to believe that there are no gods, yet some of the Bible is historically accurate, even if the supernaturalism is false. The most fascinating question is to ask what is historically accurate and what not? There is no more reason to assume that it is all false than to assume it is all true.
In my experience, most fiction contains large amounts of historically accurate information.

Just Bob · 23 April 2016

We've been here before, so one comment only: Fiction is written primarily to entertain the reader, or maybe teach a lesson (like Jesus' parables). But the fiction writer doesn't claim it's true, and readers are expected to understand that it's not true, even if that's not stated explicitly on the cover.

If the writer knows it's not true, but presents it as true, that's not fiction: it's a lie.

If the writer believes it's true, but it isn't, that's not fiction either: it's just wrong--a mistake, but still nonfiction.

The Bible? At the very least Jesus' parables are fiction, and probably the Book of Job (regardless of FL's thinking it's history). Most of the rest: nonfiction of various sorts even though a great proportion of that is WRONG. The writers probably thought it was true, or as close to truth as they could get, and expected the reader to accept it as true. And it's so far in the past, and concerns such an otherwise unimportant and poorly documented part of the world, that it's impossible to sort out historically true bits from legend, mythology, exaggeration, simple mistakes, and maybe a few intentional lies.

phhht · 23 April 2016

Just Bob said: We've been here before, so one comment only: Fiction is written primarily to entertain the reader, or maybe teach a lesson (like Jesus' parables). But the fiction writer doesn't claim it's true, and readers are expected to understand that it's not true, even if that's not stated explicitly on the cover. If the writer knows it's not true, but presents it as true, that's not fiction: it's a lie. If the writer believes it's true, but it isn't, that's not fiction either: it's just wrong--a mistake, but still nonfiction. The Bible? At the very least Jesus' parables are fiction, and probably the Book of Job (regardless of FL's thinking it's history). Most of the rest: nonfiction of various sorts even though a great proportion of that is WRONG. The writers probably thought it was true, or as close to truth as they could get, and expected the reader to accept it as true. And it's so far in the past, and concerns such an otherwise unimportant and poorly documented part of the world, that it's impossible to sort out historically true bits from legend, mythology, exaggeration, simple mistakes, and maybe a few intentional lies.
The difficulty with your classification scheme is that we cannot know the intent, motivation, knowledge, or beliefs of the authors of the bible. We can only speculate.

TomS · 23 April 2016

One way to get into understanding what the authors could expect is to see what the near-contemporaries made of it. For that, I recommend this book:

James L. Kugel

The Bible As It Was

Belknap Press, Harvard U. Press, 1997

"This book is essentially an attempt to reconstruct this traditional [Hebrew] Bible, the Bible as it was understood in the closing centuries BCE and at the very start of the common era." p. cv

Mal Adapted · 23 April 2016

https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 said: "non-theistic religious worldview" I am always stunned when a religiote (patent pending) issues such a statement. I can only infer that such folk CANNOT CONCEIVE of a worldview that does not involve deities, saints, commandments and such. I am appalled by the intensity of indoctrination that could yield such myopia.
You infer correctly. That inability to conceive of a non-theistic, non-religious worldview is known as presuppositionalism. It boils down to "God must exist or nothing makes sense." A presuppositionalist would automatically reject LaPlace's reply to Napolean, "I had no need of that hypothesis". For such people, God is the most parsimonious hypothesis.

TomS · 23 April 2016

Mal Adapted said:
https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 said: "non-theistic religious worldview" I am always stunned when a religiote (patent pending) issues such a statement. I can only infer that such folk CANNOT CONCEIVE of a worldview that does not involve deities, saints, commandments and such. I am appalled by the intensity of indoctrination that could yield such myopia.
You infer correctly. That inability to conceive of a non-theistic, non-religious worldview is known as presuppositionalism. It boils down to "God must exist or nothing makes sense." A presuppositionalist would automatically reject LaPlace's reply to Napolean, "I had no need of that hypothesis". For such people, God is the most parsimonious hypothesis.
The difficulty that I have is that even if one accepts that presupposition, it does not thereby follow that "If God exists then things make sense." Perhaps one's demand that things make sense (for some meaning of "make sense") is mistaken. How does the existence of God "make sense" of a contingent fact of nature?

phhht · 23 April 2016

Mal Adapted said:
https://me.yahoo.com/a/yCTZpzcvy5VbV7c0LbBGC2F26tKI#9a762 said: "non-theistic religious worldview" I am always stunned when a religiote (patent pending) issues such a statement. I can only infer that such folk CANNOT CONCEIVE of a worldview that does not involve deities, saints, commandments and such. I am appalled by the intensity of indoctrination that could yield such myopia.
You infer correctly. That inability to conceive of a non-theistic, non-religious worldview is known as presuppositionalism. It boils down to "God must exist or nothing makes sense." A presuppositionalist would automatically reject LaPlace's reply to Napolean, "I had no need of that hypothesis". For such people, God is the most parsimonious hypothesis.
That particular disability - the inability to conceive of a universe without gods - is one our frequent troll Floyd Lee has confessed to.

Just Bob · 23 April 2016

Mal Adapted said: For such people, God is the most parsimonious hypothesis.
Well, it does provide an easy answer for everything, so it's parsimonious in the sense that you don't have to spend any mental effort on it.

Robert Byers · 23 April 2016

TomS said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: They are getting closer to the winning argument in ending state censorship in America in public institutions.
Not only are they (you!) not getting "closer to winning the argument", they're getting farther away. You can't get much farther away than having a case dismissed for lack of standing with a footnote that you'd lose if the court ever even glanced at the merits of the case.
They are contributing to a record of legal precedents! And they are getting farther away as they are moving the goal posts. At one time, they wanted to teach Bible texts. Then they tried, step by step, to hide the explicit sectarianism. Like "scientific creationism", and so on. Now they're trying to claim that they don't want to offer anything, but just teach the weaknesses in science. They moved the goal posts off the field of play, and now they're outside the stadium, and they're apt to be off the continental shelf.
The precedent being made is the publics resistance to the state censorship. These little cases show how the issue is becoming more known. by kicking at it everyone is taught there is a problem. The principal behind precedent is establishing a common consent to legal conclusions. in these matters the consent to state censorship is shown to be not there. As i said this is good to stir things up. yet a greater movement could quickly be done in taking on the whole state censorship problem. Not working within censorship rules, like this group tried in saying evolutionism etc was a religion TOO, but knocking out the whole beast. Time has come today. its small circles that could organize these things but it could be a judicial adventure for America once again. especially since the state censorship once again in history aims at Christianity . Why only in origin issues and a few more? (possibly other subjects i'm unaware of) its suspicious its truly just attacking religious conclusions and thats the whole reason for the separation concept IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE STATE IS NOT TO PICK SIDES. the censorship means they are in subjects about truth in origins. Sure they are? This Canadian knows it! All

phhht · 23 April 2016

Robert Byers said:
TomS said:
W. H. Heydt said:
Robert Byers said: They are getting closer to the winning argument in ending state censorship in America in public institutions.
Not only are they (you!) not getting "closer to winning the argument", they're getting farther away. You can't get much farther away than having a case dismissed for lack of standing with a footnote that you'd lose if the court ever even glanced at the merits of the case.
They are contributing to a record of legal precedents! And they are getting farther away as they are moving the goal posts. At one time, they wanted to teach Bible texts. Then they tried, step by step, to hide the explicit sectarianism. Like "scientific creationism", and so on. Now they're trying to claim that they don't want to offer anything, but just teach the weaknesses in science. They moved the goal posts off the field of play, and now they're outside the stadium, and they're apt to be off the continental shelf.
The precedent being made is the publics resistance to the state censorship. These little cases show how the issue is becoming more known. by kicking at it everyone is taught there is a problem. The principal behind precedent is establishing a common consent to legal conclusions. in these matters the consent to state censorship is shown to be not there. As i said this is good to stir things up. yet a greater movement could quickly be done in taking on the whole state censorship problem. Not working within censorship rules, like this group tried in saying evolutionism etc was a religion TOO, but knocking out the whole beast. Time has come today. its small circles that could organize these things but it could be a judicial adventure for America once again. especially since the state censorship once again in history aims at Christianity . Why only in origin issues and a few more? (possibly other subjects i'm unaware of) its suspicious its truly just attacking religious conclusions and thats the whole reason for the separation concept IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE STATE IS NOT TO PICK SIDES. the censorship means they are in subjects about truth in origins. Sure they are? This Canadian knows it!
The precedent here is resistance to christian privilege. Christianity does not deserve, and does not get to have, a privileged position beyond that of any other religion. This principle is well-established in law and practice. Of course the theory of evolution is not a religion. It has no gods. It proposes no supernatural effects. It is entirely material, and people of normal intelligence can understand how it works and why it is true. Why do you suppose christianity should be privileged above other religions, Robert Byers? Why do you think the doctrines of christian creationism deserve special protection beyond those of, say, Hindu creation myths? Why do you think the reality of evolution, scientific and factual and non-supernatural as it is, should not be taught? You know very well you cannot destroy the theory of evolution. That's as silly as thinking you can destroy the theory of electromagnetism. Your position makes you appear to be a mentally impaired person. Why do you want that?

TomS · 23 April 2016

Just Bob said:
Mal Adapted said: For such people, God is the most parsimonious hypothesis.
Well, it does provide an easy answer for everything, so it's parsimonious in the sense that you don't have to spend any mental effort on it.
I don't see how "anything is possible" is an answer to any question. "Why is the sky blue?" "God made it." "Why, then, isn't the sky green, or a purple and violet paisley?" "Why is the Earth a ball, rather than a disk or a Klein bottle?" "Why is the human body most similar to those of chimps and other apes, rather than more like marsupials, or trees, or made up of radon, pionium and neutronium?"

harold · 24 April 2016

Just Bob said: We've been here before, so one comment only: Fiction is written primarily to entertain the reader, or maybe teach a lesson (like Jesus' parables). But the fiction writer doesn't claim it's true, and readers are expected to understand that it's not true, even if that's not stated explicitly on the cover. If the writer knows it's not true, but presents it as true, that's not fiction: it's a lie. If the writer believes it's true, but it isn't, that's not fiction either: it's just wrong--a mistake, but still nonfiction. The Bible? At the very least Jesus' parables are fiction, and probably the Book of Job (regardless of FL's thinking it's history). Most of the rest: nonfiction of various sorts even though a great proportion of that is WRONG. The writers probably thought it was true, or as close to truth as they could get, and expected the reader to accept it as true. And it's so far in the past, and concerns such an otherwise unimportant and poorly documented part of the world, that it's impossible to sort out historically true bits from legend, mythology, exaggeration, simple mistakes, and maybe a few intentional lies.
This is by far the most intuitively credible hypothesis about the intentions of the original recorders of the material that became the Bible. Sort of. Ancient and medieval writers had a much, much different attitude about the overlap between truth and fiction. If something wasn't known, making shit up was considered acceptable. If shit had been made up and you were repeating it, altering it to your own preferences was considered acceptable. The scientific barrier is, crudely put "it isn't true until you have evidence that it is true". The traditional attitude is "it isn't not true until you have evidence that it is not true". Of course there were some ancient and medieval writers who took a more modern-like, skeptical attitude, and disproportionately among trained clergy, but it's just that the more liberal interpretation of what truth means was also widely accepted. (Both methods of determining truth are superior to the creationist attitude, which is the most extreme possible biased presuppostionalism, "the interpretation of a particular translation of the Bible which seems to be most convenient for me is true, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is not true". Note also that other rigid authoritarian ideologies use presuppositionalist like arguments.) But this is all irrelevant to the thread. Byers was on topic but comments about his intelligence or existence or non-existence of his gods are not on topic (in this particular context). The topic is the COPE legal strategy of trying to remove science from the public school classroom by claiming that science is a form of religion. Byers' comments should be judged according to their relevance on that topic. I judged them and found them to be fairly pointless here, although Byers does sometimes make comments that are worth replying to. Here he's defending COPE by arguing that it's "censorship" not to teach latter day religious right creationism in public school science class. He is on topic; he has correctly inferred that this is what COPE really wants, as have we all. He just isn't making a good argument. I notice that members of the board of directors of COPE "home educate" their children. If they ever got to court, the materials they use for that would shed light on the true motivation underlying their silly word games.

TomS · 24 April 2016

The traditional attitude is “it isn’t not true until you have evidence that it is not true”.
I'd think that the more traditional attitude is not so interested in evidence. Rather, it might be more interested in how "meaningful", or just entertaining, something is. The sort of thing that one would find in a bestiary, where one would find about "the lion" (where today we would be interested in "lions") information which we consider factual mixed up with the lion being a noble beast, courageous, and some miscellaneous tall tales that might be entertaining.

harold · 24 April 2016

TomS said:
The traditional attitude is “it isn’t not true until you have evidence that it is not true”.
I'd think that the more traditional attitude is not so interested in evidence. Rather, it might be more interested in how "meaningful", or just entertaining, something is. The sort of thing that one would find in a bestiary, where one would find about "the lion" (where today we would be interested in "lions") information which we consider factual mixed up with the lion being a noble beast, courageous, and some miscellaneous tall tales that might be entertaining.
I don't think we disagree. The traditional attitude tends to consider moral example, symbolic, or even entertainment value like humor as equivalent to fact. BUT unlike creationists, only where strong contfadiction by actual known fact is not present. The rabbit is not presented as a moral object exhibiting courage. They felt fine filling in gaps with exaggerated extrapolation.

TomS · 24 April 2016

I don't think we disagree.

W. H. Heydt · 24 April 2016

harold said: I notice that members of the board of directors of COPE "home educate" their children. If they ever got to court, the materials they use for that would shed light on the true motivation underlying their silly word games.
That alone should cut the legs out from under any claim to have standing to object to what is taught in public schools.

Mike Elzinga · 24 April 2016

W. H. Heydt said:
harold said: I notice that members of the board of directors of COPE "home educate" their children. If they ever got to court, the materials they use for that would shed light on the true motivation underlying their silly word games.
That alone should cut the legs out from under any claim to have standing to object to what is taught in public schools.
From the Wedge Document:

Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature. ... Governing Goals •To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. •To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

From COPE's own statement about itself:

COPE is particularly concerned with curricula that systematically exclude theistic views while teaching only atheistic perspectives.

It has been obvious over the years that the ID/creationists have been trying to court-proof their dogma after every defeat in the courts. However, in order to keep their following and bring in money, they have to state somewhere in their "mission statements" just exactly what it is they are trying to do; and what they are trying to do is blantantly unconstitutional. What ID/creationists do with their own children and how they talk among themselves are pretty clear clues about what their real motives are.

Dave Luckett · 25 April 2016

I've told this story before, so ignore me if you've seen it once already:

Evidence. It really was a very radical departure in human thought when we started insisting on evidence from observation that anyone could confirm by going and looking for themselves. Things very rapidly took a turn for the better. Knowledge started accumulating at a rate unheard of when we went by assertion and reasoning from assertion. "What everyone knew" was sufficient.

The good monks who wrote the Winchester manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were pious Christian men. They didn't believe in pagan gods. Yet they wrote that the ancestor of their patron, King Alfred, was Wotan. Why? Because everyone knew that. And the fact that it conflicted with their own religious beliefs did not detain them.

This is the level of intellectual understanding at which COPE is operating. Yes, it is - for COPE is making assertions contrary to its own religious belief. Genesis must be read literally, because God could not have meant Genesis to be read as fable, myth, or allegory.

Wait, what?

God could not?

If you go deep enough into the fundamentalist mode of thought, you discover an important fact: They're not really interested in the scripture. Weird, but true. They don't really care to dig into what it says, and what it meant to its originators. They know what it means to them, and that's what it must mean. Like the monks, they don't check a cultural and folkloric belief against either what else they believe, or against actual observation. That habit of critical examination has simply eluded them. They don't do it. They don't know what it is. They distrust it anyway. It's "worldly", it's "skeptical", it's "man's wisdom". And the fact that it has produced practically everything they use or see or do in the cities or the farmed landscapes they actually live in, makes no impression on their minds. They believe what they believe, because they believe it. That's it. That's all of it.

That should be enough to dumbfound a scientist, and so it does. But me, I'm not one. What gets me, what has always gotten me, is how prideful these people are. God must do as they say, no matter what violence is thereby done to the tenets of their own religion. And more, what they say God must have done, must be taught to others also; and so to their overweening pride we must add tyranny.

They're more than an anachronism. They're throwbacks to a culture, to a way of seeing the world, that should now be a quaint curiosity. And yet, they still threaten, they still mass, they still waste court time, they still vote in their millions. Well, I suppose we must live with cockroaches, too. It's the price of civilisation. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stamp on them when they scuttle into sight.

harold · 25 April 2016

Dave Luckett said: I've told this story before, so ignore me if you've seen it once already: Evidence. It really was a very radical departure in human thought when we started insisting on evidence from observation that anyone could confirm by going and looking for themselves. Things very rapidly took a turn for the better. Knowledge started accumulating at a rate unheard of when we went by assertion and reasoning from assertion. "What everyone knew" was sufficient. The good monks who wrote the Winchester manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were pious Christian men. They didn't believe in pagan gods. Yet they wrote that the ancestor of their patron, King Alfred, was Wotan. Why? Because everyone knew that. And the fact that it conflicted with their own religious beliefs did not detain them. This is the level of intellectual understanding at which COPE is operating. Yes, it is - for COPE is making assertions contrary to its own religious belief. Genesis must be read literally, because God could not have meant Genesis to be read as fable, myth, or allegory. Wait, what? God could not? If you go deep enough into the fundamentalist mode of thought, you discover an important fact: They're not really interested in the scripture. Weird, but true. They don't really care to dig into what it says, and what it meant to its originators. They know what it means to them, and that's what it must mean. Like the monks, they don't check a cultural and folkloric belief against either what else they believe, or against actual observation. That habit of critical examination has simply eluded them. They don't do it. They don't know what it is. They distrust it anyway. It's "worldly", it's "skeptical", it's "man's wisdom". And the fact that it has produced practically everything they use or see or do in the cities or the farmed landscapes they actually live in, makes no impression on their minds. They believe what they believe, because they believe it. That's it. That's all of it. That should be enough to dumbfound a scientist, and so it does. But me, I'm not one. What gets me, what has always gotten me, is how prideful these people are. God must do as they say, no matter what violence is thereby done to the tenets of their own religion. And more, what they say God must have done, must be taught to others also; and so to their overweening pride we must add tyranny. They're more than an anachronism. They're throwbacks to a culture, to a way of seeing the world, that should now be a quaint curiosity. And yet, they still threaten, they still mass, they still waste court time, they still vote in their millions. Well, I suppose we must live with cockroaches, too. It's the price of civilisation. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stamp on them when they scuttle into sight.
In my opinion you're giving creationists way, way, way too much credit. It's almost impossible not to. It takes concentration to remind ourselves how ridiculous they are. I'm the one who initiated this comparison to medieval writers, and my point was not that creationists are worse. It's perfectly possible to believe that Wotan was an ancestor of Alfred while being Christian. It simply implies that Wotan was some kind of legendary great man or supernatural figure, even though not God, who had human descendants. Medieval Anglo-Saxon monks pointedly did not ideologically deny the evidence they could not avoid seeing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede#Works_on_historical_and_astronomical_chronology They were massively credible and biased, and felt perfectly comfortable filling in gaps with made up shit that served any purpose from propaganda to moral lessons to crude humor. But, with undoubtedly many exceptions, they filled in gaps that actually were, for them, gaps. For a person with a contemporary PhD in a science field to stand in bald-faced denial of absolutely basic scientific theory and fact, and try to play word games to delete science from high school curricula by having it declared "a form of religion" is far, far, far more deluded and dishonest than for a medieval monk to think that his king had a legendary ancestor drawn from his people's traditional folklore.

TomS · 25 April 2016

It takes concentration to remind ourselves how ridiculous they are.
We should take time out to remind ourselves how ridiculous they are. As we are going through analysis of their position, examining the evidence and the logic and the history and the theology as if there were something of some substance ... Let us remember that it is really a close kin to pointing out the scientific flaws of the Roadrunner cartoons. Except that it has a political and social base of support in the USA, and I guess that we have to restrain ourselves from just laughing out loud.

Just Bob · 25 April 2016

TomS said: Except that it has a political and social base of support in the USA, and I guess that we have to restrain ourselves from just laughing out loud.
Why? I do it frequently. Feels great.

Matt Young · 25 April 2016

They were massively credible...

Did you mean credulous? Credible sort of works, but I am not sure it is what you intended.

Matt Young · 25 April 2016

Slightly off task, but this discussion reminds me of the position of certain Orthodox Jews -- The creation story in Genesis is literally true, but the Song of Songs (an erotic love poem) is an allegory for God's love for Israel. With the exception of the Song of Songs, however, God does not know how to write allegory.

harold · 25 April 2016

Matt Young said:

They were massively credible...

Did you mean credulous? Credible sort of works, but I am not sure it is what you intended.
Credulous, yes, that was a typo. Some were also very credible. Another typo -
I’m the one who initiated this comparison to medieval writers, and my point was not that creationists are worse.
Actually my point was that creationists are indeed much worse than medieval chroniclers (in the sense of their honesty and accuracy, that is, of course medieval chroniclers may have approved of horrific violence and injustice that creationists would be shocked by in the contemporary setting and so on). It's one thing to fill in gaps with untestable (at the time of writing) confabulation, designed to entertain and/or serve propaganda or moral lesson purposes. We no longer accept that as "non-fiction" but a looser standard once held sway. It's another thing altogether to deny what is plainly known, where there are no gaps.
Matt Young said: Slightly off task, but this discussion reminds me of the position of certain Orthodox Jews -- The creation story in Genesis is literally true, but the Song of Songs (an erotic love poem) is an allegory for God's love for Israel. With the exception of the Song of Songs, however, God does not know how to write allegory.
There is obvious strong overlap between home-schooling evangelical creationists and some Orthodox communities. They both claim that approximately the same ancient writings must be taken "literally", they both make exceptions to that where it suits them, they both shield their children from mainstream education to prevent exposure to science, in both cases public records show that despite the claims of extreme piety vulnerability to temptation is not much different than among the rest of us, etc. I feel that there is considerably more sincerity among the Orthodox overall. After all, there are sacrifices involved in being an Orthodox Jew, whereas anyone can declare that he has been "born again" as a science denying creationist evangelical, won't have to restrict much ordinary behavior, and indeed can always do anything whatsoever and then flip out a shallow "repentance" and go right back to square one with no actual consequence. So the comparison is not entirely fair to the Orthodox, but there are overlaps.

harold · 25 April 2016

Some were also very credible
Not to exaggerate but some few medieval writers are considered to have been reasonably skeptical and unbiased historians, and so on.

Robert Byers · 25 April 2016

Matt Young said: Slightly off task, but this discussion reminds me of the position of certain Orthodox Jews -- The creation story in Genesis is literally true, but the Song of Songs (an erotic love poem) is an allegory for God's love for Israel. With the exception of the Song of Songs, however, God does not know how to write allegory.
Why doesn't this work? In evangelical Christianity the Song of songs is said to represent christ's love for his church. Yet the song is just a song. Its not presented as accurate history like Genesis. The song does seem more then a love song and it wouldn't be in the bible unless it had a religious agenda and not mere love song. The allegory in this case is only in saying its not between two lovers but means more.

Dave Luckett · 25 April 2016

Byers thinks that any allegory has to be obvious to him, and it isn't obvious to him that talking animals, magical fruit, numinous objects, Gods who walk in the cool of the evening, and omnipresent omniscient beings who have to ask questions to find out what has happened, all this has to be the stuff of allegory.

That's because Byers doesn't have the faintest clue what allegory is, or fictive narrative either.

harold · 26 April 2016

Dave Luckett said: Byers thinks that any allegory has to be obvious to him, and it isn't obvious to him that talking animals, magical fruit, numinous objects, Gods who walk in the cool of the evening, and omnipresent omniscient beings who have to ask questions to find out what has happened, all this has to be the stuff of allegory. That's because Byers doesn't have the faintest clue what allegory is, or fictive narrative either.
You're very kind to creationists. That "innocent silly people who can't understand allegory" might work if Robert Byers or others like him were the only people to make the standard "Genesis is literal but Song of Songs and flat Earth passages are symbolic" claim. But they aren't. The board of directors of COPE, the organization that this thread is about, all have high level degrees. Two of them are successful doctoral level chemists. They understand metaphor as well as we do and use metaphors all the time. What makes them different is that they judge reality based on whether or not it supports their self-serving ideology. Their ideology is indeed presupposed, not in the sense that they necessarily grew up with it (some did and some didn't), nor that it is a cultural tradition (contemporary religious right claims are mainly modern and mainly an obvious backlash against the social changes of the post-war era), but in the sense that they will deny anything that calls it into question, and that evidence is irrelevant to that.

Dave Luckett · 26 April 2016

COPE wasn't the subject of my post, harold. Byers' and his understanding was.

But what makes you think that the directors of COPE, high level degrees and all, are capable of recognizing metaphor? What is there in the training or practice of a chemist that requires such knowledge? Certainly they use metaphor. But my experience of fundamentalists has been that though they often use it, they are sublimely unconscious of what they are doing.

Remember Biggy? He insisted that the use of the word "Kingdom" to describe an inward experience was not metaphorical, no, not at all. He couldn't understand that he was engaged in a substitution simile, an analogy. The idea was simply alien. How about the repeated certainty of FL that if the words (that is, their equivalent in Hebrew or Greek) "like" or "as" were not used in a passage then the passage can only be read literally. So the conversation in Heaven between God and Satan that opens the Book of Job was a literal historical event. And so on.

Now, maybe the COPE directors are a bit more advanced than that pair. Maybe. But I wouldn't put serious money on it.

TomS · 26 April 2016

harold said:
Dave Luckett said: Byers thinks that any allegory has to be obvious to him, and it isn't obvious to him that talking animals, magical fruit, numinous objects, Gods who walk in the cool of the evening, and omnipresent omniscient beings who have to ask questions to find out what has happened, all this has to be the stuff of allegory. That's because Byers doesn't have the faintest clue what allegory is, or fictive narrative either.
You're very kind to creationists. That "innocent silly people who can't understand allegory" might work if Robert Byers or others like him were the only people to make the standard "Genesis is literal but Song of Songs and flat Earth passages are symbolic" claim. But they aren't. The board of directors of COPE, the organization that this thread is about, all have high level degrees. Two of them are successful doctoral level chemists. They understand metaphor as well as we do and use metaphors all the time. What makes them different is that they judge reality based on whether or not it supports their self-serving ideology. Their ideology is indeed presupposed, not in the sense that they necessarily grew up with it (some did and some didn't), nor that it is a cultural tradition (contemporary religious right claims are mainly modern and mainly an obvious backlash against the social changes of the post-war era), but in the sense that they will deny anything that calls it into question, and that evidence is irrelevant to that.
And they judge the Bible based on whether it supports their self-serving ideology. When the "plain sense" of the Bible is incompatible with their acceptance of modern science, they have no problem with searching around for some reason to count what the Bible has always (for its first thousand or so years) been understood as saying as "really meaning". OK, so people as far back as the first centuries CE knew that there was good evidence that the Earth was really like a ball, so we can let the flat Earth passages pass. But nobody said that the geocentric passages might be figurative, before the rise of modern science. These passages cannot be claimed to be "obviously meant figuratively" if nobody ever mentioned that for a couple thousand years. On the other hand, how about the proof-texts for the fixity of species - or "kinds"? That seems to be a product of modern imagination, rather than a close reading of the Bible. But give that a pass: I would take the creationists more seriously, the ones who say, "I have to accept creationism in spite of the evidence because I must follow the Bible", if they were also geocentrists.

harold · 26 April 2016

Dave Luckett said: COPE wasn't the subject of my post, harold. Byers' and his understanding was. But what makes you think that the directors of COPE, high level degrees and all, are capable of recognizing metaphor? What is there in the training or practice of a chemist that requires such knowledge? Certainly they use metaphor. But my experience of fundamentalists has been that though they often use it, they are sublimely unconscious of what they are doing. Remember Biggy? He insisted that the use of the word "Kingdom" to describe an inward experience was not metaphorical, no, not at all. He couldn't understand that he was engaged in a substitution simile, an analogy. The idea was simply alien. How about the repeated certainty of FL that if the words (that is, their equivalent in Hebrew or Greek) "like" or "as" were not used in a passage then the passage can only be read literally. So the conversation in Heaven between God and Satan that opens the Book of Job was a literal historical event. And so on. Now, maybe the COPE directors are a bit more advanced than that pair. Maybe. But I wouldn't put serious money on it.
Our disagreement, if indeed there could even be said to be any, is very trivial. Whether or not authoritarian ideologues should be modeled as suffering some kind of cognitive defect is not necessarily a meaningful question. They certainly think differently, when subjects that are related in some way to their ideology are in play. Being stupid may make it easier to be an authoritarian, but there are many smart authoritarians. I model them as having unconscious but overwhelming self-serving biases, and adhering to a rigid ideology which they will not abandon. On one hand, I don't think most of them consciously lie. On the other hand their ideology and machinations are always as self-serving as if they were conscious con men. The goals of COPE are at least self-serving in terms of power. They blatantly want society to change the teaching of science, so that their science-denying religious dogma can enjoy a government-favored position over other religions. In the case of COPE, I would be interested to know whether the board of directors are volunteers, or if they give themselves some kind of stipend out of donor money. In either case the self-serving quest for power is present.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

Many conservative Christians are now jumping on the climate-denial bandwagon under the mantra "God controls climate". Somehow if God is in charge then opposition is futile and we should do nothing. The Genesis flood is a pretty good parallel - the only family saved was the family that prepared and fought back against the flood by building an ark. Those who did nothing, who went on living their lives as if nothing were wrong, perished. Why are people willing to believe a preacher telling them the world is ending next week based on pseudo-mathematics, but not heed the warnings of climate scientists?

Just Bob · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Why are people willing to believe a preacher telling them the world is ending next week based on pseudo-mathematics, but not heed the warnings of climate scientists?
One's a Christian preacher; the other's an atheist scientist. Easy choice (and I'm goin' to hell if I pick the atheist). Gotta learn to think like a fundie. And keep Poe's Law in mind.

harold · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Many conservative Christians are now jumping on the climate-denial bandwagon under the mantra "God controls climate". Somehow if God is in charge then opposition is futile and we should do nothing. The Genesis flood is a pretty good parallel - the only family saved was the family that prepared and fought back against the flood by building an ark. Those who did nothing, who went on living their lives as if nothing were wrong, perished. Why are people willing to believe a preacher telling them the world is ending next week based on pseudo-mathematics, but not heed the warnings of climate scientists?
The key word here is "conservative". The key word in "religious right" is "right (wing)". They didn't adopt an ideology because of their religion. I grew up around rural evangelicals who were born between 1889 and 1906. They were less right wing than the current Republican party, to put it mildly. It was the people who weren't religious who were more likely to be bigoted and callous toward the less fortunate. The right wing constructed a religion to rationalize their ideology. The term "conservative Christian" is code for "Fox/Limbaugh/Tea Party koolaid-drinking right wing ideologue". There's not even an obvious right wing authoritarian rationale for deliberately being wasteful and polluting with fossil fuels purchased to a large degree from the people you claim to hate most. But that movement fetishizes the oil industry, and also, Texas and Louisiana are both key red states that have shown occasional tendencies, not recently but not that long ago either, to sometimes not support the most right wing politician.
Just Bob said:
Michael Fugate said: Why are people willing to believe a preacher telling them the world is ending next week based on pseudo-mathematics, but not heed the warnings of climate scientists?
One's a Christian preacher; the other's an atheist scientist. Easy choice (and I'm goin' to hell if I pick the atheist). Gotta learn to think like a fundie. And keep Poe's Law in mind.
Plenty of Christian preachers advocate taking care of the environment. The point is that these people choose among Christian preachers, and they choose the ones that conform to Fox/Limbaugh/Tea Party ideological positions. It's not deliberate deception of others; it's mainly intense self-deception. But they belong to an ideology first, and religion must justify and rationalize that ideology. If they go to church and a Christian preacher starts talking "liberal" they won't worry about Hell for disagreeing. They'll walk right out and find a church that endorses Limbaugh style policies and uses the right coded language.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

No there are plenty of conservatives who are not climate-deniers. Plenty who aren't creationists. It is an authoritarianism, an inability to think inductively, and a unwillingness to adopt anything new. I don't have much use for Chesterton, but I think this in some ways sums up the silliness of conservatives (even if he meant it to be a pox on both), “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” Once something becomes tradition - no matter how insane - it is to be worshipped. The past was always better, even when it wasn't.

TomS · 26 April 2016

We make a mistake in thinking that they have a coherent methodology for reading Scripture, for example.

They may say that they are committed to a literal reading of the Bible, but really what they are using the Bible "as support rather than light". You can't disagree with them because they claim to have the Bible on their side. It makes no matter what the Bible actually says, for if the "plain reading" of the Bible is not what they like, they will find some way to work their way around it. But you dare not use half the rationalizations that they do, on some other proof-text.

It is hard to understand how they can claim that some of the wild improvisations that they come up with, like baraminology, have any relationship to what's in the Bible. Or, rather, not how they can claim, but how they can get away with claiming. When I see that "Ark" that's being built, an Ark which is designed not to float on water and not to house great numbers of animals - that is something of s symbol of the lack of thought in the movement.

TomS · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Once something becomes tradition - no matter how insane - it is to be worshipped. The past was always better, even when it wasn't.
And it takes only a very short time for an innovation to become a "tradition". The "past" is always better, even when it wasn't the past. That is what happened with Young Earth Creationism in the 1960s. And with Fundamentalism in the 1900s.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

And isn't Ham using it as a metaphor for a refuge from what he believes to be an immoral, godless, modern society? He means it as a symbol - as Noah's ark saved his family from the flood, Jesus will save your family from the evils of non-Hamlike beliefs. Genesis stories as a metaphors make much more sense than they do as history.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

TomS said:
Michael Fugate said: Once something becomes tradition - no matter how insane - it is to be worshipped. The past was always better, even when it wasn't.
And it takes only a very short time for an innovation to become a "tradition". The "past" is always better, even when it wasn't the past. That is what happened with Young Earth Creationism in the 1960s. And with Fundamentalism in the 1900s.
They do like to manufacture a past that only exists in their imagination.

harold · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said -
No there are plenty of conservatives who are not climate-deniers.
I see that the ambivalent term "conservative" is causing confusion. I use the term "conservative" in a positive way all the time (making a "conservative" estimate, making a "conservative" investment, etc). Here I am talking about the official ideology which is called "conservative" or the "conservative movement" in the US, which is represented by Fox News, the current Republican party, Rush Limbaugh, etc. And no there damn well are not plenty of people who adhere to that ideology who are not climate deniers. It is a litmus test issue. If you are not a climate change denier you are not a member of that ideology. To the best of my knowledge every single candidate who has been in the 2016 Republican primary is a climate change denier. Some have made a show of radical, in your face climate change denial and some have made claims that climate scientists are in a conspiracy. If there is a Republican congressman, senator, governor, or state representative who is not, he or she is doing a damn good job of hiding something the media would love to report. Anyone who says "I'm not a climate change denier but I vote for climate change deniers" is incorrect, too. If they think it's trivial enough to vote for a denier because they want to eliminate food stamps or bomb Iran or whatever in Jesus name would make someone do that, they're a denier, too, because trivializing is denying.
Plenty who aren’t creationists.
Also incorrect if we use "conservative" correctly in the context of current US politics. To the best of my knowledge, every single Republican primary candidate in 2016 has been either a creationist, a panderer who won't deny creationist, or at best has no record of public statements. If you vote for people who pander to creationists and appoint supreme court justices who write dissents in favor of creationism, you're voting for the possible insertion of creationism into public school curricula. I don't care how much you may hate dirty hippie minorities on food stamps, if you vote for the party that panders to science denial you are voting for science denial.
It is an authoritarianism,
The Fox/Limbaugh/Cruz/Trump/Kasich ideology is authoritarian. When you vote for them you are voting for an authoritarian ideology. I strongly agree that creationists are authoritarian.
an inability to think inductively, and a unwillingness to adopt anything new.
I strongly agree that this accurately describes creationists.
I don’t have much use for Chesterton, but I think this in some ways sums up the silliness of conservatives (even if he meant it to be a pox on both), “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes.
Which progressive mistake do you condemn the most? Representational democracy? Abolition of slavery? Votes for women? Regulations to ensure safe food and pharmaceuticals? Clean drinking water? Basic social programs to reduce malnutrition? Medical access for all elderly Americans (and the whole population everywhere else)? Eliminating the apartheid/segregation system? Legal access to contraception? Equal rights for people who happen to be gay? William F. Buckley proudly described himself as a "man standing astride history, yelling 'stop'". He proudly described himself as such in 1964. Gee, I wonder what historical events were going on in 1964, causing him to yell "Stop"
The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”
Actually, Chesterton has it backwards as far as US politics are concerned. That's the business of current Democrats. Do nothing and don't correct any mistakes. The business of current conservatives is to make as many mistakes in as short a time as possible.
Once something becomes tradition - no matter how insane - it is to be worshipped. The past was always better, even when it wasn’t.
I agree that this is a common feature of American conservatives.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

Ass

John Harshman · 26 April 2016

Is it odd that chemists and engineers very seldom complain about the teaching of atheistic theories of chemistry or atheistic engineering practices?

harold · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Ass
No, you're an ass. Political creationism and global climate change denial are part of the well-defined US conservative movement. To say otherwise is rank bullshit. What a fucking joke. Ask a random person on a random street corner in Dubuque Iowa what kind of people deny global warming. It's not as American adults of all ages can't identify the conservative position on a dozen or more current issues. Some people may like some parts of the conservative movement ideology without denying science, but that doesn't change a thing I said. There is no "Libertarian" party of any relevance whatsoever, and libertarians, plenty of whom do also deny global warming, don't usually call themselves "conservative". In the US, conservative means what it means, and that meaning has come to include denying climate change. There are very few exceptions. It's like saying "some liberals favor open discrimination against gay people". You can probably find some "exception that proves the rule", but that's as relevant as finding some guy who was considered liberal in 1972 who's now an active homophobe. It isn't what's understood by the term in this context. Someone who votes for Ted Cruz and then goes on the internet snickering about "ignorant creationist hillbillies" is being the real ass. ID/creationism is 100% political in intent. It is already perfectly legal to deny any science you want. No movement is needed for that. The goal of ID/creationism is to get political favoritism for one religious sect. Trying to push one religion into taxpayer funded public school science class is a 100% political goal. Anyone can already build all the private schools they want.

harold · 26 April 2016

harold said:
Michael Fugate said: Ass
No, you're an ass. Political creationism and global climate change denial are part of the well-defined US conservative movement. To say otherwise is rank bullshit. What a fucking joke. Ask a random person on a random street corner in Dubuque Iowa what kind of people deny global warming. It's not as American adults of all ages can't identify the conservative position on a dozen or more current issues. Some people may like some parts of the conservative movement ideology without denying science, but that doesn't change a thing I said. There is no "Libertarian" party of any relevance whatsoever, and libertarians, plenty of whom do also deny global warming, don't usually call themselves "conservative". In the US, conservative means what it means, and that meaning has come to include denying climate change. There are very few exceptions. It's like saying "some liberals favor open discrimination against gay people". You can probably find some "exception that proves the rule", but that's as relevant as finding some guy who was considered liberal in 1972 who's now an active homophobe. It isn't what's understood by the term in this context. Someone who votes for Ted Cruz and then goes on the internet snickering about "ignorant creationist hillbillies" is being the real ass. ID/creationism is 100% political in intent. It is already perfectly legal to deny any science you want. No movement is needed for that. The goal of ID/creationism is to get political favoritism for one religious sect. Trying to push one religion into taxpayer funded public school science class is a 100% political goal. Anyone can already build all the private schools they want.
I'm not suggesting that you're conservative (or not), a Ted Cruz supporter (or not), or anything of the sort, of course. You may or may not be for all I know. I'm not, as my comment made obvious, saying that being a conservative, defined in different ways, is a bad thing. Hell, I'm not even saying that being a Ted Cruz supporter is a bad thing (in this venue). What I am saying is that it isn't accurate to say that the conservative movement doesn't own climate change denial and political evolution denial. Because they do.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

Whatever. I am sure they will soon drag you away from the computer, force feed you your meds and we can go back to sane discussions.

harold · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Whatever. I am sure they will soon drag you away from the computer, force feed you your meds and we can go back to sane discussions.
This will be my final comment addressing you. I request that instead of juvenile name calling and inappropriate ridicule of people living with mental illness, you provide a reasoned rebuttal to my point that ID/creationism and climate change denial are associated with the Republican party.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

Get over yourself.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

harold said:
Michael Fugate said: Whatever. I am sure they will soon drag you away from the computer, force feed you your meds and we can go back to sane discussions.
This will be my final comment addressing you. I request that instead of juvenile name calling and inappropriate ridicule of people living with mental illness, you provide a reasoned rebuttal to my point that ID/creationism and climate change denial are associated with the Republican party.
Reasoned? Snort! There was nothing reasoned about anything you said - it was a rant - calling everyone and everything you don't agree with "conservative". and juvenile name calling - do you read anything you write? You know nothing about me, but you lay on shit upon shit as if you were omniscient. Hell I am no where near conservative, but to claim that conservatism is the root of all evil is plain nuts.

harold · 26 April 2016

If my comments aren't reasoned it should be easy to drop the juvenile insults, stop mis-representing what I said, and make show some actual evidence that I am wrong.

My claim is that climate change denial and political evolution denial are associated with conservative politics, as represented by the Republican party and Fox News. And not with other US political movements.

Even if I were wrong, I think it is incredibly rude and immature to put up no substance comments that consist of nothing but insults.

Michael Fugate · 26 April 2016

Look - I know you are having a difficult time, but not all conservatives are climate-deniers, they just aren't. All conservatives aren't evolution-deniers, either. You got all bent out of shape about this not being a religious issue, but a political one. Well it is a bit of both. If you aren't a Christian or even an evangelical Christian, then you are unlikely to give a rat's ass about evolution.

Who's immature and rude here - you who are saying you can't be a Republican and be anything but a dick? or me calling you out for over the top characterizations that you can't justify?

TomS · 26 April 2016

John Harshman said: Is it odd that chemists and engineers very seldom complain about the teaching of atheistic theories of chemistry or atheistic engineering practices?
For a long time, atomism, as expounded by Lucretius in De rerum natura, or Epicureanism, was synonymous with atheism. Some of the arguments against evolution are carry-overs from the theistic arguments against atomism.

harold · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Look - I know you are having a difficult time, but not all conservatives are climate-deniers, they just aren't. All conservatives aren't evolution-deniers, either. You got all bent out of shape about this not being a religious issue, but a political one. Well it is a bit of both. If you aren't a Christian or even an evangelical Christian, then you are unlikely to give a rat's ass about evolution. Who's immature and rude here - you who are saying you can't be a Republican and be anything but a dick? or me calling you out for over the top characterizations that you can't justify?
If you make a point, and someone offers a civil intellectual challenge to that point, there are several things you can do, and these are the same whether the second person is right or wrong - 1. You can defend your original point with facts and logic, remaining civil. 2. You can concede that the other person has made a valid point and change your position, remaining civil. 3. You can do either of the above, while being ill-tempered and insulting, and that's still a valid response, although there isn't much point in adding insults. 4. You can ignore what the other person has said, and hurl insults at them. I call the fourth one rude and immature. I say you were rude and immature. I say you're still being a bit rude and immature.
Look - I know you are having a difficult time,
No, I'm not having a difficult time. This type of condescension is rude, and an immature effort to create a false impression of superiority.
but not all conservatives are climate-deniers, they just aren't.
This is annoying on two levels. The first is the attempt to reduce the discussion to a simple pedantic level. If your claim is that somewhere in the world there exists someone who could be called a conservative in some way who doesn't deny climate change, that point is obviously, in a rather meaningless way, true. The second annoying thing your failure to provide any evidence to support your assertion. Of course, if your assertion is reduced to a non-refutable but irrelevant truism, if you insult everyone's intelligence by falsely claiming that I said "absolutely 100% of conservatives are climate change deniers", then I guess you don't need any evidence for that point. I'll do your work for you below, just bear with me. First I'll defend my point, that climate change denial - which can take a number of forms, from outright denial to claims that the climate is warming but humans have no impact, to fatalistic claims that humans have impact but we can't possibly moderate our fossil fuel use or we'll suffer economic disaster (which is both false and an implied claim that climate change is less bad than economic downturn), to claims that climate change is beneficial - is still the default position of major conservative American politicians. I'll do it by pointing out that, as I said before, literally every Republican candidate for president is in some way or other, often the most blatant way, on record denying climate change. http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/266716-climate-change-where-the-gop-field-stands Congressmen feel the same way. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/08/3608427/climate-denier-caucus-114th-congress/ I'll also point out that virtually no-one who isn't a political conservative denies climate change. http://www.gallup.com/poll/182807/conservative-republicans-alone-global-warming-timing.aspx Now I'll do your job and point out that members of the general public who self-identify as Republicans do, as a group, show less denial than Republican leaders. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/us/politics/survey-of-republican-voters-shows-a-majority-believe-in-climate-change.html That is heartening, but unfortunately, they haven't, at this point, got a single Republican presidential candidate, and unless they're lucky, a single low office Republican candidate either, to vote for, who isn't a climate change denier, either. So if they choose to vote Republican, their actions outweigh their words. They have voted for inaction on climate change in most cases.
All conservatives aren't evolution-deniers, either.
No-one ever said they were. However, again, the movement and party as a whole panders to creationists. http://www.salon.com/2015/02/11/evolution_and_the_gops_2016_candidates_a_complet_guide/
You got all bent out of shape
No, you got bent out of shape. You're the one who instantly resorted to insults, condescension, and misrepresenting the point that I was making.
about this not being a religious issue, but a political one. Well it is a bit of both. If you aren't a Christian or even an evangelical Christian, then you are unlikely to give a rat's ass about evolution.
If you pander to it so that those who believe it will support you or your chosen politicians, that is giving a rat's ass.
Who's immature and rude here - you who are saying you can't be a Republican and be anything but a dick?
Since I didn't say that and don't believe that, you, for falsely putting those words in my mouth.
or me calling you out for over the top characterizations that you can't justify?
I have not only justified my points but, in your failure to justify your own, courteously provided you with a link that is somewhat favorable to your point. Unfortunately, climate change is a pressing problem, and conservatives are going to have to change parties and stop supporting the Republicans if they don't want to be responsible for implementation of bad policy. Maybe the Republicans will change on this but they certainly haven't yet. Evolution denial in public schools is, currently, fortunately, less of an acute issue, but it is also an issue on which the Republican party is wrong. While it's true that some individuals who consider themselves conservative may claim not to support these views privately, if they vote for politicians who do pander to these science denial positions.

quentin-long · 26 April 2016

Michael Fugate said: Look - I know you are having a difficult time, but not all conservatives are climate-deniers, they just aren't.
Look—I know you're having a difficult time, but howard didn't say that all conservatives are climate-deniers, he just didn't. He did say that climate-denial is associated with the conservative movement, but that's hardly the same thing at all, you know? Some climate-denialsts deny climate change outright; others actively minimize the potential impact of climate change; others support not doing anything about climate change. How many conservative politicians can you name who don't do any of that? How many conservative politicians can you name who acknowledge that climate change is a thing, that it's a thing we really ought to do something about, and support at least one proposal for doing something about it? Yeah, climate-denial is associated with the conservative movement. Those conservative-movement members who aren't on board with the climate-denial agenda—and I accept that the number of such is greater than zero—really have to ask themselves whether their support for the rest of the conservative agenda as a whole, is worth the catastrophic consequences that will come down as a result of our failure to do anything about climate change.
All conservatives aren't evolution-deniers, either.
Yes, and all dogs aren't chihuahuas. But every chihuahua is a dog, isn't it? Evolution-denial, like climate-denial, clearly isn't the entirety of the conservative agenda… but I don't see how anybody who takes an objective look at the facts can say that evolution-denial and climate denial aren't part of the conservative agenda. There may well be conservatives who aren't on board for evolution- and climate- -denial, but their existence does not alter the fact that a whole bloody lot of their fellow conservatives absolutely are on board for those denials. Likewise, the existence of non-denialist conservatives does not alter the fact that there just aren't very many liberal politicians, or liberal voters, who deny evolution or climate change.

Flint · 28 April 2016

If someone were to take the results of a questionnaire that included perhaps 20-30 current political issues, and performed a factor analysis of the results, I think you would see a certain amount of very high correlation clustering. Perhaps only a small minority of the surveyed population would be found entirely within any particular cluster (that is, on every issue), but nonetheless the overall clustering would be quite tight.

It would probably make a lot of sense to label these clusters as social issues, fiscal issues, scientific issues, religious issues. And (if the questions addressed this more or less directly), you'd see meta-clustering on the authoritarian scale.

harold · 29 April 2016

Flint said: If someone were to take the results of a questionnaire that included perhaps 20-30 current political issues, and performed a factor analysis of the results, I think you would see a certain amount of very high correlation clustering. Perhaps only a small minority of the surveyed population would be found entirely within any particular cluster (that is, on every issue), but nonetheless the overall clustering would be quite tight. It would probably make a lot of sense to label these clusters as social issues, fiscal issues, scientific issues, religious issues. And (if the questions addressed this more or less directly), you'd see meta-clustering on the authoritarian scale.
People are individuals. But at the same time, the word "conservative" refers to a social group and political ideology, and has for the last several decades. It may refer to other things in other contexts, but it you say it in the context of discussing climate change, that's certainly what it refers to. There is no Republican politician, Fox News host, or right wing talk radio host who does not explicitly or implicitly deny human contribution to climate change. According to my link, "only" 56% of Republican representatives deny it, but that's when denial is defined as the most outright possible denial - denial that there is any harmful climate change going on and overt statements that climate scientists are either incompetent and/or engaged in a conspiracy. Yet denial takes other forms, including claims that humans cannot climate, claims that climate change is beneficial, or claims that the cost less wasteful use of fossil fuel is greater than the potential costs of climate change. There is literally not a single prominent "otherwise conservative environmentalist" active in national politics at this time. That actually used to be a stance that existed. Most telling, I think, is my link that shows that more or less ONLY conservatives deny climate change. Now, I might have patience for someone who says "I am in an agonizing position. I strongly support the right wing position on social programs, gay rights, reproductive rights, private prisons, minimum wage, and so on, but I recognize the seriousness of climate change, and the only politicians who support me on other issues deny climate change. Woe is me." However, a glib statement that "some conservatives don't deny climate change" is unacceptable. This isn't Godwin, it's an analogy - it's like saying "I'm not anti-Semitic but I support Herr Hitler because he's in favor of a strong Germany". If you support an active political movement that strongly includes blocking all action to mitigate climate change, you implicitly deny climate change. Going to a cocktail party and saying "I 'don't deny' climate change but I'm voting for a candidate who is on record as denying climate change and aggressively blocking even minimal efforts to mitigate it" is simply hypocrisy.

harold · 29 April 2016

In short, yes, some people who self-identify as conservatives say in polls that they don't deny climate change, but until they put some pressure on the politicians they elect and the media venues their dollars support to move away from denial as the ideological default, that's not worth anything.