Commentary on the so-called Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Debate and Right-Wing nuttery in general - and please ignore the typos (I make lots!)

Friday, September 28, 2007

Why does Rush Limbaugh hate the military?

I mean, besides the fact that he is a draft doging sissy?

It seems that Limbaugh has been a hater of the mi,itary for some time. Or at least a hater of those in the military that do not share his personal opinions and right-wing ideology (shades of mAnn Coulter...).

See, Limbaugh referred to a Gulf War veteran who became an outspoken opponant of the war a 'staff puke', and said he joined the military to 'pad his resume' (isn't that what Quayle and W did?).

And recently, he claimed that those in the military that donot support Bush's oil war are "phony soldiers" - this, remember, from the chickenhawk that got out of Viet Nam for having a cyst on his ass... Or not - it all depends on which phony story you want to believe.

But that is not enough - Limbaugh now actually refers to Jack Murtha - yes, combat wounded veteran Jack Murtha - as one of the 'phony soldiers.'

These right wing chickenhawks have no sense of decency at all...

Conservative 'think tank' - classic oxymoron

Thanks to Sandwalk.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Another Conservative lets slip how they really feel about the troops

Boehner declares American deaths in the Iraq quagmire a "small price" to pay....

But he supports the troops, oh yes he does...

Apparently, in the Right-Wing lexicon, "support" means "see as an expendable pawn to further a ideologically-driven conservative foreign policy."

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Who is the most arrogant of them all?

Consider the following claims:

There are many specific items in this wide world that none of us know off hand however, being intelligent and a biologist allows me to solve such problems. An intelligent biologist can research the required specifics and understand how to use it. Thus mechanical engineering and its concepts are only a bit of research for a biologist....

Apparently you are not aware of the same things I am since you are arguing biology with a biologist. You are not taught biology as part of engineering, nor have you persued instruction past your field as is evident by your failure to understand biological principles.






If you are an engineer, what feeling do you get when you read the above statement? Do you agree with it? If not, why not? Do you disagree with it perhaps because you understand the amount of hard work it took to become an engineer, and how much work it takes to be a successful one? Because you realize that not everybody - intelligent or not - can be an engineer and understand engineering concepts and principles?

Now consider your impresssion if the above statement had been made by a biologist attempting to dismiss criticisms of the fact that something he had just claimed regarding mechanical engineering was shown to be in error? And that the biologist continued to declare that his erroneous mechanical engineering claims were really true, and he knows this because he is a biologist and you, being a mechanical engineer, are just too blinded by your indoctrination to understand your own errors?

Did reading the above statement bug you a little? Maybe make you a bit angry to see those in your profession belittled in such a way?




Well, now you know how I feel. The original quote:


There are many specific items in this wide world that none of us know off hand however, being intelligent and a mechanical engineer allows me to solve such problems. An intelligent mechanical engineer can research the required specifics and understand how to use it. Thus biology and its concepts are only a bit of research for an engineer....

Apparently you are not aware of the same things I am since you are arguing mechanics with a mechanical engineer. You are not taught engineering as part of biology, nor have you persued instruction past your field as is evident by your failure to understand mechanical principles.



The answer the title question, Who is the most arrognat of them all?, then, becomes pretty obvious. Creationists with engineering backgrounds.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Amazing peer-reviewed "Intelligent Design" journal jam-packed with credible science scares evolutionists!

Just kidding.

Creationists often complain that due to the 'anti-creationist' bias in mainstream scientific journals, they can never get a fair shake and their amazing creation-supporting scientific research will not get published.

So, they start up their own journals - many of which are peer reviewed, even*.

Perusing a few samples from the creationist peer-reviewed scientific literature should be plenty of evidence for the explanation as to why such 'research does not make it into legitimate scientific outlets.

Then, along came the Intelligent Design movement. It was invented to make creation 'science' seem more palatable, scientifically and first amendment-wise, by not explicitly referring to God and cloaking itself ina veneer of legitimate sounding science.

The Intelligent Design advocates wanted to avoid all together the oppression of the Darwinian orthodoxy, and so started up their own peer-revierwed journal. It came out regularly when it first started up, filled primarily with pre-exisiting essays and articles or gussied-up versions of the same. This was 'proof' that ID was not just creationism with a new coat of paint, but alegitimate scientific movement and research paradigm.

Then, they ran out of pre-fabricated essays, and the new, original 'research' that they had promised was forthcoming never came.

This is the output of the Intelligent Design movement's scientific research wing.

Nothing worthy of publication - much less filling the electronic opages of a journal - since November, 2005.

And they want to have their 'science' pushed in public schools and universities?




*It appears that to a creation 'scientist', a peer is but another creationist, regardless of their actual areas of expertise

Weird - why do some folks refer to themselves in the third person?

Some may recall the Seinfeld episode in which the gang encounters 'Jimmy' at the gym, who refers to himself as 'Jimmy' when talking about himself. Jerry and the gang are rightly confused and find it all a bit odd.

So, consider this:

Excuse me? ReMine's paper was peer-reviewed by evolutionary geneticists (including James Crow and Warren Ewens) who acknowledge it is correct. You have
no reason to brush that aside. 4.158.231.1 07:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC) WalterR


WalterR is Walter ReMine, the ReMine that ReMine refers to as ReMine.

I have read that doing this is a sign of megalomania, which, considering the source of the above quote, makes perfect sense.

As an aside - ReMine and his cronies are conflating issues, as usual - yes, his submitted manuscript was reviewed by the people he refers to and at least one other person. His manuscript was rejected for a couple of reasons, and none of them were what ReMine and his cheerleaders want us to think they were. Among the reasons were the unoriginality of the conclusion - ReMine comes to the same conclusion that Haldane did (re: cost of substitution), he just derived it in a different manner, another was the non-academic, non-scientific style of the paper. His original submitted version (which, I understand, has been 'cleaned up' for "publication" in a creationist venu) contained a number of dismissive statements and some self-aggrandizing, which is frowned on in scientific publications. ReMine did not attempt to re-submit nor did he attempt to submit his manuscript anywhere else. Anyone who has had a scientific paper published knows that a huge proportion of manuscripts are turned down initially. Typically, an author will make corrections, take advice from the reviewers, etc., and resubmit or will try to have the paper published elsewhere. ReMine did not do this - his original manuscript was rejected and he decided to engage in a multi-year martydom-fest.

Anyway, the conflation is this - even if ReMine's reformulation of Haldane's model is 100% absolutely correct, it is not in any way support for his application of Haldane's model to human evolution, which is ReMine's bread-and-butter argument.

But this simple fact will never deter the militant anti-evolution faction of the creationist crowd. Being honest and factual comes in a distant second when it comes to spreading rhetorically attractive yet irrelevant claims.