After a drunken argument over evolution, a creationist clodpoll stabbed a biomedical scientist to death. He was just given a 5-year sentence for manslaughter in Australia, where the crime took place.
Someone lost his life here, so it seems inappropriate to make a sweeping editorial statements. But I will anyway: all creationists are murderous villains. And if we don't oppose their movement with brutal force, they will kill again.
More fun science from Conservapedia.
Big Bang Theory
You don't usually see something cite Max Tegmark and Answers in Genesis at the same time.The Big Bang Theory has had many dissenters including the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, the Nobel Prize winner Hannes Alfven, and astronomers Geoffrey Burbidge and Halton Arp. It was Hoyle who coined the term, although he used it disparagingly.
Well, Hoyle was a 'reasonable' dissenter when the Big Bang was still controversial, but since the evidence soundly defeated the steady-state model he's just been a crank. Burbidge and Arp are at least honest cranks, but they are not what you would consider 'relevant.' It also says something that all of these people are a bit past their prime. Hannes Alfven is actually so far past his prime as to be dead. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in Plasma Physics, not astrophysics, and his model is a joke which is conclusively ruled out by the existence of the Cosmic Microwave Background's blackbody spectrum. He thought that establishing a starting point for the universe was sneaky creationism. Which is interesting in light of the next passage:Most Atheists believe in the Big Bang theory. There is active research and speculation into what caused the Big Bang, but atheists agree it was not a deity.
Do I need to comment on this stuff? Scientists 'believe' in evolution because they are scientists, and the phrase 'Young earth creationist scientists' is an oxymoron.
Many scientists who believe in the Big Bang Theory are Evolutionists, though not all are. One can believe that God both created the Universe AND laid out the plan for all life in the Big Bang, as opposed to the idea that life evolved randomly after the Big Bang.
Young earth creationist scientists contest the Big Bang Theory stating that it is scientifically unsound, though few creationist criticisms are found in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
I also enjoy this sneaky little phrase, which is backed up by nothing at all.Professional cosmologists are actively creating models (some of which contradict the Bing Bang scenario) and collecting data that probe the specific nature of the earliest observable aspects of the Universe.
Actually, no professional cosmologists are creating models that contradict the big bang. Anywhere.
Isn't is sad that in this day in age blah blah blah...
Cosmic Variance digs up what is surely one of the finest examples of creationist thought yet enunciated:One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.
Checkmate.
Just like those other people living in darkness in the allegory of the cave, the last thing these folks see when dragged out into the light is the sun. Zing.
[credit, via]
as a casual to semi-casual observer of the country over the last few years i couldn't help but notice that a lot of stuff is being dressed up with orwellian epithets that have nothing to do with the qualities of the program or movement being named. i don't want to get into a whole big political thing here, but you know what i'm talking about: the "clean skies" act, tax "relief," the "patriot" act, the "no child left behind" act, "iraq," and so on. i think the biggest mistake opponents of these things make is actually using these handles--they were designed in a totally superficial way so that people who never paid attention to what was going on in the world would just hear the pseudonym and be in favor of whatever it was. and when people who oppose them actually refer to what they're opposing by its given name they hurt their argument by both disseminating the name and sounding like they're against the thing it describes (kittens or warm milk or whatever).
all the titles i just mentioned were invented by the same group of people, but the whole strategy of naming your idea the thing which it is not has clearly been catching on in other places. particularly in the ironically-named "intelligent design" movement--a creationism in sheep's clothing. these people just whipped out a thesaurus, substituted "design" for "create," and then added the word "intelligent" to offset the fact that they're crackpots.* what i don't get though, is why so many scientists, smart people who should know better, call it by its contrived moniker. don't call it that folks, you're helping them. that's what they want you to do. it doesn't need to be repeated, but the movement is not a theory distinct from creationism. the name and pseudoscience aspects are a facade. and propagating that facade by using their title and being all semantic about it only acts to their advantage. keeping in mind especially that the "controversy" is being disputed entirely on the rhetorical front (by reporters who don't realize it's ok to look things up) and among no real scientists.
that being said, i think this guy is onto something.
*general rule: any time someone feels the need to add a word like "intellectual," "principled," or a phrase like "rigorous criticism" to something you can prettymuch take for granted that they are totally full of crap. conversely, that goes for people who treat the word "intellectual" as a sneer too. those people are sneering because they're idiots.
