Casey Luskin has one off the wrist

Creationists generally are an embarrassment but Casey Luskin is notably embarrassing because he's also a lawyer. Luskin works for the Discovery Institute, a "think tank" in Seattle devoted to propagating a species of creationism called "intelligent design." In fact the DI represents the best and brightest of "intelligent design theorists."

Several years ago, scientists discovered Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil fish whose physical characteristics are especially important to evolutionary biology because many of them are the same as tetrapods, or four-legged animals.

Tiktaalik is just the sort of so-called transitional creature that creationists are constantly demanding. Neil Shubin, one of the University of Chicago researchers who discovered the fossil in Canada, calls it a "fish with a wrist."

Behold Counselor Luskin, attempting to critique Prof. Shubin's description of some features of Tiktaalik's skeleton:

Shubin et al.: “The intermedium and ulnare of Tiktaalik have homologues to eponymous wrist bones of tetrapods with which they share similar positions and articular relations.” (Note: I have labeled the intermedium and ulnare of Tiktaalik in the diagram below.)

Translation: OK, then exactly which “wrist bones of tetrapods” are Tiktaalik’s bones homologous to? Shubin doesn’t say. This is a technical scientific paper, so a few corresponding “wrist bone”-names from tetrapods would seem appropriate. But Shubin never gives any.

Yes indeed, those wrist bone names would seem appropriate, wouldn't they, Counselor? To be technical and scientific.

Wild guess here but that's probably why Prof. Shubin used the word "eponymous," which means "having the same name as." So Shubin already told Casey Luskin the names of the tetrapod bones before Luskin even asked: the intermedium and the ulnare. And the eponymous Tiktaalik bones are ... the intermedium and the ulnare.

Welcome to the world of "intelligent design theory" scholarship.

No wonder they call them IDiots.

h/t Carl Zimmer.

Skepticism has been expressed

Andy Schlafly, spawn of Phyllis and founder of the hilarious homeschoolers' website Conservapedia, is demanding data from Richard Lenski, a professor of microbial ecology at Michigan State University who studies evolution in E. coli bacteria.

PZ Myers has Lenski's reply to Schlafly here. As is typical of creationist numbskulls, Schlafly is asking for information that is already contained in the research paper in question, and is demanding an explanation for a claim that Lenski never made.

Presumably Schlafly, in classic creationist fashion, is after something he can misinterpret and garble for his credulous audience of conservative Republicans and other assorted homeschooled dupes.

Here is an excerpt from the Conservapedia entry on kangaroos:

According to the origins theory model used by young earth creation scientists [sic], modern kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined by baraminologists whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.

After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia.

Nobody cares enough to demand from Schlafly the data underlying these claims, or else they already have it.

"Darwinism cannot explain gravity"

This is a placeholder for an interview between two of the most insipid morons on the planet, Glenn Beck and Ben Stein. It aired last night, but I think what's turning up at the link at the moment are older broadcasts, but the latest will be there soon enough, I'm sure.

Stein alleges that Richard Dawkins, whom Stein interviewed for his cinematic creationist propaganda piece, Expelled, claimed to have "dumbed down" his discussion with Stein because Stein is too stupid to comprehend the bigger picture. That seems about right.

At one point in the most recent interview, Stein mocks a non-god believer for his skepticism that life continues after death yet moments later, in claiming that German doctors prescribe massive doses of barbiturates for those wishing to take their own lives (exactly what this has to do with evolutionary biology is anybody's guess), Stein says, 'What if the pill taker is just having a bad day and regrets his decision? Because by then, he's dead and it's all over.'

Don't watch any of it unless you can stand forfeiting a few dozen IQ points (which is to say, viewers who would take this pair of complete and utter ignoramuses seriously, can't).

And yes, Ben Stein actually does criticize "Darwinism" for not being able to explain gravity. Nor can it — or a fish — ride a bicycle.

Monday Night Mailbag

An anonymous reader writes: "You should get caught up in your knowledge of human origin. May I suggest that you visit the New Creation Science Museum in Ohio? One of their directors was a top evolution scientist that finally openly admitted the flaws of the theory. Perhaps, you could also be open minded."

Dear Anonymous, Petersburg, KY isn't anywhere near the top of my list of places to visit before I die and I doubt I could be persuaded to patronize the said "museum." Not without the assistance of organic hallucinogens, at any rate. Besides, I've already seen everything they've got a hundred times or more. But thanks just the same.

The Creation Museum is the stillborn brainchild of a supercilious nincompoop from Australia called Ken Ham, who, amongst a miscellany of other slapsticks, insists the universe is 6,000 years old. Ken Ham makes you long for the days when they used to send the criminals to Australia.

But Ken Ham is at least consistent. He thinks every word in the Bible is literally true, and that if even one word of the Bible isn't literally true, then not one other word of the Bible is literally true either. It's a compelling logic for millions of Americans, it is said. It's also an extravagantly risible fallacy, but never mind.

Apparently it would also crush Ken Ham's otherwise indomitable Faith to learn that the sun didn't "stand still" in the sky, pi is greater than three, or the mustard plant does not bear the smallest of seeds.

Ken Ham claims that if you add up the generations of the Old Testament (which include a number of mythic heroes and longsuffering heroines alleged to have lived for several hundred years) then you arrive at the Biblically correct age of the universe.

W3 is a star formation region in the constellation Perseus (a mere) 7,500 light years from Earth. A light year is the distance it takes light to travel in one year at about 59 million feet per minute. If the universe is only 6,000 years old, then the light from W3 wouldn't have reached us yet, and we couldn't see it. Yet, there it is.

So much for Ken Ham. But still, hundreds of thousands of dupes flock to his Kentucky carnival. That would be two feet every minute, in P.T. Barnumese, albeit slower than the speed of light, or even the short bus in third gear on its way to the Creation Museum.

Here's the manner of rigorously scientific installation you'll encounter at "the creationist Disneyland":

A male teenager is shown sitting at a computer looking at internet pornography and a female teenager speaks with Planned Parenthood about having an abortion; both acts are blamed on their belief that the Earth is "millions of years" old. The climax of the tour is the life of Jesus Christ, with a three-dimensional depiction of the crucifixion.

Let's hope they got that much right. By the way, why is it that they never seem to tire of killing him? We get it; enough already.

While the godless may — and not a few do — point and laugh, professional theologians are genuinely concerned:

The Rev. Mendle Adams, pastor of St. Peter's United Church of Christ in Cincinnati, said, "My brothers and sisters in the faith who embrace [the creationist] understanding call into question the whole Christian concept" and "make us a laughingstock." Roman Catholic theologian John Haught [said] it will cause an "impoverishment" of religion." Michael Patrick Leahy, editor of the magazine Christian Faith and Reason, says that by replacing the scientific method with biblical literalism, the museum undermines the credibility of all Christians and makes it easy to represent Christians as irrational.

I wouldn't go that far, but a subset for certain includes at least Ken Ham and his nitwit apostles. Anyway, they present their own selves as irrational. There are a few comical tours of the Creation Museum online. These two are pretty funny, as well as lavishly illustrated:

Incest, child abuse feature at Creation Museum — BlueGrassRoots
Not just your average load of horseshit — John Scalzi / Whatever

Creationist sentenced to Turkish prison

Today Harun Yahya, tomorrow William A. Dembski.

Already got Kent Hovind.

Ken Miller rips some Expelled

Despite these [numerous other] falsehoods, by far the film's most outlandish misrepresentation is its linkage of Darwin with the Holocaust. A concentration camp tour guide tells [Ben] Stein that the Nazis were practicing "Darwinism," and that's that. Never mind those belt buckles proclaiming Gott mit uns (God is with us), the toxic anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, the ghettoes and murderous pogroms in Christian Europe centuries before Darwin's birth. No matter. It's all the fault of evolution.

Stein, Mathis are fatuous, lying idiots

Creationist Thread of the Week

"Hey, Sal, it isn't 1859 anymore."

Long (350+ comments), but hella worth it.

ACLU sides with creationists 60% of the time

Scientific American's editor-in-chief interviews Mark Mathis, the jackanapes in charge of judger of top models Ben Stein's latest rickety "intelligent design" (translation: creationism in a cheap tuxedo) vehicle, Expelled.

I'm not in the mood to wallow in creationist idiocy at the moment, especially with the Schubert string quintet occupying the sound system; maybe later. In the meantime, the footnote at the SCIAM webpage is good for a laugh.

Demonstrating yet again how creationists never weary of regurgitating the same old viscous and thoroughly debunked drivel, Mathis mumbles that Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist., the currently definitive Establishment of Religion Clause manhandling* of intelligent design "theory," is comprised of 92% ACLU memoranda, briefs, and "findings of facts," as we say.

Even if it were true — which it isn't — it's not much of a criticism but rather a tribute to the ACLU's stellar efforts. What in the hell does Mathis think plaintiffs file facts and arguments with the court for? So the judge can paper his archaeopteryxcage with them?

Mathis. Just admit it, you're peddling religion. Which is fine. Peddle and lie away. It's a free country. But we would like to keep at least one area of human enquiry and endeavor free from your hobgoblins and leprechauns, and that is science. You can have everything else.

Now go ye and get a real job.

* The fine product of a conservative Republican, Dubya-installed judge named John E. Jones, III, which memorably added "breathtaking inanity" to the lexicon of perfect descriptions both for creationists and their -ism, and contains the strong suggestion that several Bible-fearing creationist witnesses at trial, er, bore false witness under oath.

New penis in Journal-Sentinel controversy

Recently, we endured the unseemly spectacle of a cadre of self-righteous conservatives, trolling the internets looking for ways to be religiously offended and finding one in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's banner advertisements touting an antipodean variety show called "Puppetry of the Penis."

The penis, according to reliable sources, is a popular and versatile body part with a mind of its own, found on slightly less than half of all humans (and occasionally in the other half, or so I've been told).

Notorious Milwaukee Marxist-Leninist Jay Bullock provides more details in the course of his strenuous defense of the free market rights of the venerable Miramar Theatre in this here blog post. (Sixty-two comments and counting, some of which are [unintentionally] hilarious.)

Then, this morning, as I conducted my daily consultation with the J-S's weather page — because it's easier than unbolting the opaque, bulletproof shutters behind which I ply my grisly trade — I found not just an advert for a theater production but an actual penis: the walking, talking, top model-judging prepuce Ben Stein, who's reportedly lent his considerable gravitas and scientific expertise to the forthcoming documentary exposé, Expelled.

You might have to refresh the page a few times to view the penis but if it takes more than three hours to produce the penis, consult a population geneticist.

Coincidentally, my good friend Michael Mathias of Pundit Nation fame sent me this link, according to which even the reviewers at Faux News pronounce Expelled an unmitigated piece of crap.*

For much, much more on Expelled, please visit Prof. PZ Myers's wildly successful blog, Pharyngula. Myers, along with his friend and Oxford don Richard Dawkins, are in the "film" but Myers was physically barred from attending its premiere. Just as comically, Prof. Dawkins, the militant atheist's militant atheist, was granted entry unscathed.

* "[Ben Stein] is either completely nuts or so avaricious that he’s abandoned all good sense to make a buck." — Roger Friedman.

"Teach the (penis) controversy."

See also Expelled Exposed.

Creationism's "powerful new weapon"

And soon to be dramatically revealed as comedian and judge of top fashion models* Ben Stein. It's hard to tell whether the quoted description is serious or not, let alone obtain a confirmable measurement of monogenic resistance betwixt cheek and tongue.

* In one segment, the dumbest model proved smarter than Ben Stein.

PZ Myers expelled from Expelled

Unbelievable.

"A bad film in every possible way ... A spectacular own goal."
— Richard Dawkins

Creationist post of the week

Jonathan Wells is seriously one of the leading proponents of "intelligent design theory" (ID), which is just a fancy term for creationism. In other words, he's about as good as they've got (with all due respect to noted population geneticist Ann Coulter).

Wells, who is a veritable fountain of disingenuous inanity and nonsense, wrote something especially ridiculous about his great Moonie bugaboo, evolution, the other day. And Larry Moran, a professor at the University of Toronto, has all the details, complete with all the relevant links, right here.

I'm not particularly fond of the epithet "IDiots," but if there was ever an instance that truly merited its justified and suitable application, this is unquestionably that instance.

While the ID lexicon contains a number of other fancy-sounding expressions such as "specified complexity," "explanatory filter," and so forth, evidently it doesn't allow for "irreducible embarrassment."