Bruce over at the Thinker’s Podium tagged me with this one, so let’s see how it goes…
The instructions as I can gather go; repeat instructions so the next clod in-line can repeat them when you tell them to repeat them (you didn’t tell me to repeat them did you Mikey!); turn to page 123 of the nearest book to you (I’m assuming with 123 pages in it) and write out the 5th sentence.

The book in question happens to be the manual for my new Nokia N95 8gb. No, not exciting or interesting in the least but them be the breaks: “All warranty information, product features and specifications are subject to change without notice.”

Yes, yes … been busy.  However, this particular story really could not be passed up.  For those not in the know, Sydney is hosting Catholic World Youth Day (being helped along by an inordinate amount of government funding). As a part of this little shindig, New South Wales Police have been granted some rather … bizarre new powers as the story below highlights.

Youth Day laws ‘undermine basic rights’

The New South Wales Bar Association says new regulations for World Youth Day undermine basic rights and are an affront to freedom of speech.

Under the new regulations, people who refuse to stop engaging in conduct that causes annoyance or inconvenience to pilgrims can be arrested and fined up to $5,500.

The same provision did not apply during last year’s APEC Summit in Sydney.

The association says the terms are too vague and the penalties are excessive.

It says if existing laws are considered sufficient to regulate conduct at events like the Mardi Gras or the Rugby World Cup, they should be good enough to cover World Youth Day.

The Bar Association has also accused the Government of avoiding public scrutiny by creating a criminal offence by regulation, rather than making it an Act of Parliament.

It says the NSW Government is trying to restrict freedom of speech.

Association president Anna Katzmann SC says the laws are ridiculous because any person displaying opposition to the event could be affected.

“If I were to wear a t-shirt proclaiming that World Youth Day is a waste of public money in a World Youth Day-declared area, and I refuse to remove it when an officer, an authorised officer of the Rural Fire Service asks me to do so, then I’m potentially committing a criminal offence,” she said.

The Greens say the powers aim to shut down protests and provide a sanitised view of Sydney.

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says the definition of causing annoyance is open to interpretation and the subsequent penalties are excessive.

“If somebody exposes themself to a World Youth Day participant they face a fine of $1,100, but if they wear an anti-Catholic t-shirt, the fine could be $5,500,” she said.

But Deputy Police Commissioner Dave Owens says officers will act reasonably in determining what is offensive.

“Police officers do it every day of the week,” he said.

“As I’ve said, they have a discretion. We’re not the fashion police, we’re not kill-joys.”

World Youth Day spokesman Father Mark Podesta rejected suggestions the Catholic Church requested the special powers.

That’s right.  If you try to hand out condoms, wear a t-shirt that happens to have a message not in line with Catholicism or play music too loud … you can be partially strip searched and/or fined up to $5,500.  So … anyone care to try to defend this particular exercise in craziness?

Been busy with real life matters, hence the lack of posts.   However, I came across this story from ABC Science about … well, it touches on several different topics.  It seems well worth a quick read.

Dinosaurs ‘roamed freely’ across Gondwana

Wednesday, 11 June 2008 Anna Salleh
ABC

Fossilised remains of a dinosaur with a big elbow could rewrite our understanding of how Australian dinosaurs evolved.

Palaeontologist Dr Steve Salisbury from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, and colleagues, say a forearm bone from a meat-eating dinosaur first found in 1989 is likely to be related to a Megaraptor from Argentina.

This is the first evidence linking Australian dinosaurs to those in other Gondwanan continents, rather than from the northern hemisphere, say the researchers in today’s issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“We really need to take a closer look at what we’ve previously identified our dinosaurs as,” says Salisbury, whose study centred on a forearm found at Dinosaur Cove, Cape Otway, south-west of Melbourne.

Odd breed?

Salisbury says Australian dinosaurs have generally been considered an odd breed of their own, descended from northern hemisphere ancestors and evolved in isolation.

Not only were they cut off from the north when Pangea broke up, but they were also cut off from the rest of Gondwana by some means - perhaps the harsh climate of Antarctica or a mountain range.

Salisbury says this conclusion was based only on comparing Australian fossils with those in the northern hemisphere, since there were few fossils available from other parts of Gondwana itself.

In recent years, there has been a “surge of discoveries” in Africa and South America, which have shed new light on the matter.

Salisbury says he and colleagues in Argentina and the US saw a close similarity between the Australian fossil and the remains of a dinosaur from Argentina called Megaraptor.

“The [Australian] fossil is almost indistinguishable from fossils of Megaraptor known from Argentina so much so that we’re tentatively referring to it as the same genus,” he says.

He says the finding that dinosaurs moved freely across Gondwana, including into Australia, is supported by other observations.

“For a few years now we’ve known that the same types of dinosaurs that you see in South America also occur in India and Madagascar,” says Salisbury.

“To have that happen they’ve got to be moving through Antarctica. And if they’re moving through Antarctica they’re essentially moving past the entrance to Australia.”

‘Unjustified conclusions’

Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich of Monash University in Melbourne disagrees that the findings dispel the current theory.

“Unfortunately, this single bone, which our team collected long ago, is damaged and the conclusions being drawn from it are beyond what we feel are justified,” she says.

“More, and less fragmentary, material is needed before assertions such as are made in this paper can be taken scientifically seriously,” she says.

Tell-tale elbow

Salisbury agrees working with a forearm bone alone is tricky, but he is pretty sure the Australian dinosaur is related to Megaraptor, if only through a common ancestor that wandered across Gondwana.

He says the dead give-away was the unusually large elbow on the forearm found in Australia.

“No other dinosaurs have got a forearm that looks like Megaraptor’s so when we find a forearm bone in Australia that matches Megaraptor the simplest explanation is that it is Megaraptor,” Salisbury says.

The team also checked the Australian fossil against all comparable fossils from around the world.

“To be certain we’ve pretty much compared it to every single forearm of a meat-eating dinosaur that we can find,” he says.

He says palaeontologists should now focus on comparing Australian dinosaurs with other fossils from Gondwana rather than examining material from North America or China.

Salisbury also says the findings have implications for the origin of Australian mammals.

Sometimes I simply like to post science related news stories which are interesting.  This brief story is simply about how, universally speaking, unremarkable the Sun is.  It also has an interesting link to the Theory of Evolution in that the Sun is the major source of the energy for Earth and since the Sun has various properties, those properties influence how life develops.

Our Sun a bit ho-hum: researchers

New research has found the sun is not unique, as scientists once thought, and life may exist in other parts of the galaxy.

The study conducted by the Australian National University shows the Earth’s sun houses the same properties as any other star.

Researcher Jose Robles told ABC Radio’s The World Today the research proves there may be other stars similar to our Sun in other galaxies.

“In our research we find that the sun seems to be a random star, seems to be a normal star, seems to be selected at random out of all of the stars,” he said.

“So life doesn’t seem to need anything special about the sun.

“The sun just seems to be a normal star and therefore life might be a common feature in the galaxy.”

Mr Robles says researchers compared the Sun to other stars on the basis of 11 properties that could influence evolution.

“For example, we need about five billion years for a planet like the Earth to form and to have life, so very young stars would not be able to support life because of that. They wouldn’t have enough time,” he said.

“So we performed this comparison to a number of properties, exactly 11 properties, and once we had this comparison for each property, we performed a statistical analysis to see if, taking all of the properties together, the Sun is very special or very normal and that is what we found.”

He said it strengthens the case that life could be prevalent in the universe.

“Because we didn’t find that the Sun is a very, very special, unique star,” he said.

“If that was the case then we would be worried about life needing such a rare star to be around, but we didn’t find that, so therefore life might be able to evolve around a normal, ‘average Joe’ star.”

But Mr Robles says just because life may have evolved on other planets, that does not make it any easier to find.

“We don’t have the technological capability of finding them,” he said.

“Even if they are common, then we cannot see them because they are really little. They are not big enough or bright enough for our methods to be able to detect them yet.”

He says it could be up to 20 years before astronomers have telescopes strong enough to determine whether or not life exists on other Earth-like planets.

The intellectual dishonesty of many (if not most) Intelligent Design Proponents seems to be massive indeed.  Thanks to this blog entry, it seems I have come across yet another one; James Perloff.  So who is James Perloff? Good question since I’ve never run into his writings before.  It seems that he is most famous for writing Tornado In a Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism, the title of which should set alarm bells off in anyone’s head.  But if his book is anything like the following article, I do not think any scientist has much to worry about.

For the sake of space and such, I’ll be going through the following article by James Perloff piece by piece to show how utterly silly it is.  I may remove any text that is simply a waste of time, but the original article can be found here.

Traditionally minded Americans don’t often cheer Hollywood products. We gladly report an exception: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (rated PG).

By ‘traditionally minded’, I’ll assume Perloff means ‘right wing’ in this particular case.  Anyhow, so if you don’t agree with a movies point of view then you can’t cheer or applaud it?  I find that interesting.  I do not like the movie Titanic (I found the plot advancement dull, acting subpar and characters about as likable as a kick to the family jewels) but I can still cheer for it based on the artistic merits of the movie.  The special effects were remarkable for when it was made while the filmography was excellent.

As many NEW AMERICAN readers know, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution transformed Western culture.

I would not go that far by any means.  The Industrial Revolution transformed Western Culture while the work of biologists (such as Darwin and many, many others) has merely transformed our understanding of how living organisms work, adapt and so on.  Providing, of course, a massive boost to the fields of medicine and even engineering … but all of Western culture? No, that is far too big a claim to say without backing it up.

The Bible taught that life forms are creations of God, with man the centerpiece, made in God’s image. Darwin introduced a new doctrine: random interactions of chemicals had created life,

I do not recall Darwin ever introducing anything that can be honestly labelled ‘doctrine’, all his did was bring forth a scientific theory which he backed up with evidence.  He also did not theorise that life had started in such a way and the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of first life on Earth (that’s called the Theory of Abiogenesis).  Perloff seems to be already demonstrated a fundamental ignorance of the Theory of Evolution.

and man was just an animal, evolved from lower life forms through survival of the fittest. Sold to the public as scientific fact, “Social Darwinism,” with its view of man as beast, helped spawn unprecedented cruelties under communism and Naziism.

Play spot the mistake in that paragraph.  Let’s see if you list matches mine.  Survival of the fittest?  That is but one component in the Theory of Evolution and certainly not represented correctly in the above claim;  the main mechanism could be much better described as ‘evironmental adaptation’ be that in regards to habitat or predators.

Then we get onto the always silly ‘Social Darwinism’ and Hitler arguments.  Social Darwinism (and eugenics) existed long before Charles Darwin was even born.  The Spartans (and a few other ancient civilisations), for example, actively practiced keep the weak and deformed (the ‘inferior’) from their society/gene pool.  Zooming back to more modern times, one of the biggest proponents of the concept was a man called Thomas Malthus.  So I guess the Theory of Evolution had nothing to do with either Communism or Naziism afterall.

Now, however, science has evolution on the retreat. For example:
A single cell, which Darwin thought “simple,” is encoded with information that would fill thousands of books, and is far too complex to have formed by chance.

Says who, exactly? This is a rather silly argument which is not backed up by any sort of research or evidence.  It is also one which has also been refuted plenty of times before and really is nothing more than an argument from incredulity.

In his book Darwin’s Black Box, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe demonstrates that certain biochemical systems, such as blood clotting and the immune system, are “irreducibly complex” — that is, they consist of interdependent parts that cannot function in lesser stages, and thus cannot have evolved step-by-step.

Behe was rather badly discredited at the Dover trial, where he was shown to be rather ignorant of the very fields he claims expertise in.  At said trial, when Behe claimed that the Theory of Evolution could not explain blood clotting and the immune system … well, at that moment dozens of research papers, research findings and similar publications were produced which conclusively proved him wrong.  Not one case of Irreducible Complexity has ever been verified or stood up the even the slightest bit of critical analysis.

In Not by Chance, Dr. Lee Spetner, who taught information theory at Johns Hopkins University, documents that random mutations — evolution’s alleged building blocks — cause losses of genetic information, not gains.

Spetner was proven wrong when his book was published and he still has not been able to change that verdict.  It is also a very silly argument to make and one which is certainly not backed up by any sort of scientific research, it is certainly one which has long since been refuted.

In Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, molecular biologist Michael Denton shows that, on a cellular level, there is no evidence for the proclaimed evolutionary sequence “fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal.”

Denton is usually regarded as something of a joke when it comes to his attacks on evolution, with his ideas often relying on comparing completely unrelated concepts; such as word games and genetic information.  A full critique (which really does show Denton as not having a clue) can be found here.

Of course, such evidence does exist.  As a very quick example; the way humans hiccup? A holdover from our genetic past.

As the new data has emerged, evolutionists have fought to prevent classrooms from openly discussing the weaknesses in Darwin’s theory.

Is the Theory of Evolution without proper controversy? No.  There is not one scientist worth his salt who would say otherwise.  However, it is far from the raging battle about fundamentals that some would have you believe.  So what is being debated within the Theory of Evolution? A pretty good rundown of the all the points can be found here.  As you can see, the main mechanisms are all pretty much accepted as scientific fact (as much as anything can be) and it is only the details that scientists quibble about at all.

Freedom of speech has been suppressed in academia, and educators persecuted for daring to address intelligent design (ID). It was this trend that prompted the documentary Expelled.

There is no freedom of speech within academia, despite the attempts to confuse the two concepts by Intelligent Design proponents.  Instead, people are expected to meet academic standards before they’re allowed to go off and waste limited research time, space and money.  It has always been this way and always should be, otherwise you get whackos trying to do research into geocentric theories which is just plain silly.   The guidelines aren’t even strict by any measure and can be boiled down to ‘if you want to research science, you have to have science to research and do that research following the scientific method’.

Also not one case of discrimination against ID proponents has stood up to any sort of scrutiny.

According to the film’s website, the project “began with an observation made by [co-producer Walt] Ruloff, a successful computer software entrepreneur who comes from a high-tech world in which innovation is constant and eagerly sought. In stark contrast, he noticed, the scientific and academic communities were deeply resistant to innovation, in this case innovation that might revise Darwin’s theory that random mutation and natural selection drive all variation in life forms.”

Of course, the film has since been found to be horribly short of such silly things as evidence or intellectual honesty.  A good thing that one man’s opinion, in this case Ruloff’s, does not count as evidence of any sort.

The film’s host and narrator is Ben Stein, economist, law professor, speech writer for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and author of over 20 books, but probably best known as a comedy actor, with his trademark monotone voice. He is also a pro-life creationist, making him a maverick in Hollywood.

Ah, good old Ben Stein … certainly an authority on what is and is not science.  This is the same man who is somehow bewildered that the Theory of Evolution fails to explain how the orbit of planets works and that science leads directly to murder.  Yes, you read both of those claims correctly.

“Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are,” says Stein. “Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-science, it’s anti-American.” The film underscores America’s tradition of personal freedom with visits to landmarks such as the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument, and contrasts these with images of the Berlin Wall, symbol of tyranny. That wall is gone, but another, we learn, has been erected in American universities.

All of these have been addressed above.  Simply put, Expelled (and Stein by extension) fail to back up their claims with any sort of credible evidence.

Stein interviews double Ph.D. biologist Richard Sternberg (snip)

Evidence not only shows that he was not fired from the Smithsonian or lost any privleges there but also that to print that article, he broke quite a few editorial guidelines at the journal in question.  He was not even removed from the Journal, instead he had retired some time before.

Among others, Stein also visits:

astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez, who, despite publishing over 60 articles in peer-reviewed science journals and being credited with helping discover new planets, was refused tenure at Iowa State University after he advocated teaching intelligent design;

Again, evidence shows that Gonzalez was denied tenure because his academic record (including publication levels, grant money attracted, etc) were so dismally poor compared with expected academic levels.  In short, he was denied tenure because he was incompetent when compared to expectations.  Yes, the same expectations that are placed on every single other member of the faculty.

molecular biologist Caroline Crocker, compelled to leave George Mason University after including several slides about intelligent design in one of her lectures;

Examples of Crocker’s Work made their way onto the Internet where is soon became readily apparent why Crocker’s contract was not renewed.  That combined with complaints from students and deviation from the course she was hired to teach … well, I think everyone could agree that anyone would have been fired with that sort of performance.  Again, the evidence does not lie.

NASA-honored engineering professor Robert J. Marks II, forced by Baylor to remove an ID-friendly website from the university’s servers.

The University was concerned that the website contents could be linked to the University and thus gain credibility from association or that the contents were sponsored by the education institution.  This is standard practice for a lot of Universities, including all the ones I have encountered in my native country.    The University even tried to negotiate with Marks, offering to keep hosting the site as long as Marks placed up a disclaimer that said there was no official link between the website contents and the University.  It seems Marks could not live with that and chucked what could be coined as a hissy fit.  The fully story can be found here.

But Stein doesn’t just meet intelligent design’s defenders, he also takes on some of its most adamant critics, including Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education; Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society; Cornell professor William Provine; and atheist blogger P.Z. Myers. Ultimately he travels to England to confront Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and probably the most vocal critic of ID and creation.

Yes and most of us are aware of the intellectual dishonesty which was necessary to get approval for those interviews, aren’t we?

Logically questioned by Stein, Dawkins admits that life could have come from “a higher intelligence” that “seeded” it on this planet — i.e., he could accept aliens as our creator, but not God. But this begs for an answer to the question: how did life get started on the aliens’ planet?

Which, of course, is false.  What Dawkins was actually asked was that if Intelligent Design was true then which would be more likely; God/Supernatural Creator or Aliens.  Of course, Dawkins said aliens which is what logic and rational thought demands.

Creation-evolution is a vital issue. It is far more than a science discussion. Most Americans believe, as Thomas Jefferson said, that “men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” If, as Darwinism says, there was no Creator, then there is no basis for rights, no moral absolutes, nor any God to whom we are accountable for our actions.

Appeal to mass belief, whcih is silly and not worth a dime in regards to this argument.  Then it goes on to try to argue that all morality comes from a creator being of some kind, which is silly and disregards all the wonderful research done in fields such as psychology and social sciences.

I am going to snip a section of the article because it is simply rehashing to rather idiotic Theory of Evolution = Social Darwinism = Hitler silliness which has already been dealt with above.

Expelled strikes a blow for free speech, and is drawing much-needed attention to the creation-evolution battle.

A blow for free speech?  People are free to say what ever they like but they are still expected to meet the same academic standards as everyone else.  No one gets a free ride and everyone is expected to pull their own weight of intellectual honest when it comes to academia.

Expelled has done one thing which is beyond doubt, however.  It has served wonderfully to showcase the ignorance and intellectual dishonesty that Intelligent Design depends on.

It has been effectively marketed by Motive Entertainment, which also took on The Passion of The Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia. Motive’s appealing website for the film, www.expelledthemovie.com, along with grass-roots promotion from advocates of creation and intelligent design, has spurred a groundswell of demand.

A groundswell of demand? I guess that is why the film has pulled in rather disapointing ticket sales (despite giving away tickets en masse) and is being dropped by theatres faster than a nuclear heated potato?

Atheists have been bitterly denouncing the film. Atheist P.Z. Myers declared: “It’s going to appeal strongly to the religious, the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, and the ignorant — which means they’re going to draw in about 90% of the American market.” Such attacks have unintentionally served as further promotion. On April 18, Expelled opened in 1,052 theaters, breaking the record for documentaries (Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in 868).

It is actually quite easy to get documentaries/movies and other works of films to be shown in theatres, especially at this time of year.  The big trick, of course, is to keep those showings going through sustainable ticket sales.   In this regard, as shown, Expelled has failed rather badly.

Expelled is not your grandfather’s documentary. A fast pace, rocking soundtrack, and Stein’s deadpan humor all defy that word’s connotations. The interviews never drag — they are interspersed with clips from old films to underscore points being made.

Yes, that practice has been noted as being the mark of an amateur film maker.  What is it called again? Oh yes, Lord Privy Seal.  Of course, all of these claims by Perloff are highly subjective and also do nothing towards to support the credibility of the film.

There are two superb animation sequences, one demonstrating the cell’s complexity, the other a satirical “casino of life” in which hundreds of slot machines must simultaneously hit jackpots in order for life to commence by chance. This movie will leave you entertained and informed (we know plenty these days that do neither).

Yes, those animation sequences.  One of which, it so appears, is a rather blatant rip off of a sequence made by XVIVO (on behalf of Harvard University) on which legal action seems to be pending.  Of course, having flashy lights and CGI is not a mark of any sort of credibility.  Keeping with the Hollywood theme, Independence Day was full of great special effects … but it was still a horrible movie.

Near the film’s end, shots of the Berlin Wall coming down remind us that the walls of academic censorship must fall also. Stein’s final words exhort audience members to get involved.

And Perloff or ID proponents have any evidence of this supposed censorship? Or is it, as previously stated, a case of academia simply having some standards which everyone has to follow?

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a model of communication that all can learn something from.

Yes, there are facets and things we can learn from Expelled.  How to present falsehoods, ignore evidence, distort testimonies, be intellectually dishonest and generally not understand even the fundamentals of the Theory of Evolution.   Of course, these are things no rational person would wish to learn or take on board.

I guess that indicates the sort of person James Perloff might be.

Some people have been put on record on saying such things as even moderate religious beliefs are dangerous.  Not only because they provide a foundation and support for more radical (and insane) beliefs but also that they provide a mechanism so the gullible and uneducated can be so easily led astray from simple common sense.  This story really does have to be read to be believed simply because it contains so much stupidity.

Kids, mom lived with 90-year-old’s corpse for weeks in Wis.

Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home’s only bathroom, on the advice of a religious “superior” who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.

The children — a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy — cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body.

The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and self-described “bishop” Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child.

“It’s a sad case, and we’ll continue to investigate it and try to ascertain just what occurred up there,” Juneau County Sheriff Brent Oleson said. He said he had no further information on Bushey’s religious affiliation.

According to the criminal complaint, Middlesworth’s sister called sheriff’s officials Wednesday and asked them to go to the home about 80 miles north of Madison to check on the woman, who had not been heard from for some time.

When Deputy Leigh Neville-Neil arrived at the house, she encountered Lewis, also known as Sister Mary Bernadett, the complaint said. Lewis, 35, initially refused to allow the deputy to check on Middlesworth, telling her that Middlesworth was on vacation and saying she had to check with her “superior” first.

But she eventually let the deputy in. The house smelled of incense and burned wood, and had religious materials everywhere and hymns playing on the stereo, according to the complaint.

When the deputy opened the last closed door, she smelled “decaying matter” and noticed something piled on what appeared to be a toilet. Lewis told her it was Middlesworth’s body, the complaint said.

Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier, but that God told her Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough.

She said she couldn’t say anything more until she spoke with her “superior” — Bushey, 57, also known as Bishop John Peter Bushey.

When Bushey (pronounced “boo-SHAY”) arrived, Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had appeared to pass out as Lewis helped her into her underwear.

She said she propped Middlesworth on the toilet and left the room to call Bushey, who told her to leave the woman alone and pray for her, the complaint said. He said he had received signs that God would raise her from the dead with a miracle.

Lewis went on to say she thought Middlesworth was still breathing when she put her on the toilet and called Bushey, instead of an ambulance. She later told a detective she put the woman on the toilet on March 4.

An autopsy has been performed, but results won’t be available for some time, Oleson said.

“At this time we don’t know what the cause of death was,” he said. “Quite frankly, it might have been natural causes.”

He described the one-story home in the town of Necedah as in decent repair, although the residents had been using “makeshift” toilet facilities because of the situation in the one bathroom.

The boy at the house told a detective he had considered running away because he was uncomfortable with the situation. He said Bushey told him that demons were trying to make it look as if Middlesworth wouldn’t come back to life, and that if she were to be discovered he and the girl would have to go to public school and get jobs because Middlesworth paid the bills.

The boy referred to Middlesworth as “grandmother,” the complaint said.

Oleson said Middlesworth was unrelated to Bushey.

“She believed in the same faith as self-proclaimed Bishop Bushey, and that was the connection there,” he said.

Oleson said that Middlesworth and Lewis lived at the residence with the children since fall of 2004, and that Bushey lived elsewhere.

Bushey and Lewis are scheduled to make an initial court appearance May 19. Aside from the felony counts, Lewis also was charged with obstructing an officer, a misdemeanor.

The sheriff said cash bond was set Friday at $50,000 each, but Lewis was allowed to post 10 percent for her release.

Computerized state court records had no attorney listed for either suspect on Friday.

Seriously … what the feck?

It seems pretty clear that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and those behind it have been a rather dishonest lot for various reasons.  These reasons have been gone over in this blog and many others and the evidence for this claim seems pretty conclusive.  Now one more person has thrown his hat into the proverbial ring, this time Ken Millar (christian and biology professor) has come out with guns blazing against Ben Stein’s particular brand of idiocy.

Trouble ahead for science

AMERICAN science is in trouble, and if you wonder why, just go to the movies. Popular culture is gradually turning against science, and Ben Stein’s new movie, “Expelled,” is helping to push it along.

“Intelligent Design,” the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can’t seem to produce any evidence. To scientists, the reasons for this are obvious. To conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, Intelligent Design is nothing more than a “phony theory.” No data, no science, no experiments, just an attempt to sneak a narrow set of religious views into US classrooms.

Advocates of Intelligent Design needed a story to explain why the idea has been a nonstarter within the scientific community, and Ben Stein has given it to them. The story line is that Intelligent Design advocates are persecuted and suppressed. “Expelled” tells of this terrible campaign against free expression, and mocks the pretensions of the closed-minded scientific elite supposedly behind it.

There are many things wrong with this movie. One example: Viewers are told that Dr. Richard Sternberg lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution because he edited a paper favorable to Intelligent Design. Wrong.

Sternberg wasn’t even employed by the Smithsonian (he had no job to lose), and had resigned as journal editor six months before the paper was published. In fact, the irony is that neither Steinberg nor any of the other people featured as martyrs in “Expelled” lost jobs as a result of their advocacy of Intelligent Design, while many others who supported evolution have. In 2007, Chris Comer, the director of science education for Texas schools, was fired for having done nothing more than forwarding an e-mail announcing a pro-evolution seminar.

The movie also uses interviews with avowed atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion,” to argue that scientific establishment is vehemently anti-God. Never mind that 40 percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science profess belief in a personal God. Stein, avoiding these 50,000 people, tells viewers that “Darwinists” don’t allow scientists to even think of God.

Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film’s co-producer, why he and Stein didn’t interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying “Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily.” In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line.

Despite these falsehoods, by far the film’s most outlandish misrepresentation is its linkage of Darwin with the Holocaust. A concentration camp tour guide tells 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.

Why is all this nonsense a threat to science? The reason is Stein’s libelous conclusion that science is simply evil. In an April 21 interview on the Trinity Broadcast Network, Stein called the Nazi murder of children “horrifying beyond words.” Indeed. But what led to such horrors? Stein explained: “that’s where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion, that’s where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people.”

According to Stein, science leads you to “killing people.” Not to cures and vaccines, not to a deeper understanding of nature, not to wonders like computers and cellphones, and certainly not to a better life. Nope. Science is murder.

“Expelled” is a shoddy piece of propaganda that props up the failures of Intelligent Design by playing the victim card. It deceives its audiences, slanders the scientific community, and contributes mightily to a climate of hostility to science itself. Stein is doing nothing less than helping turn a generation of American youth away from science. If we actually come to believe that science leads to murder, then we deserve to lose world leadership in science. In that sense, the word “expelled” may have a different and more tragic connotation for our country than Stein intended.